Caught this interesting show at the Opera House last Sunday. The fairly novel premise was to screen the 1970 documentary film "Jack Johnson" with a jazz band playing a live soundtrack in the spirit of the original soundtrack by Miles Davis (which was released as the album "A Tribute To Jack Johnson"). Sort of a tribute to both Jack and Miles.
The band featured a line-up of top-notch jazz musicians, led by veteran jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette -- who played with Davis back in the day. On guitar duties was jazz/funk/fusion monster David "The Fuze" Fiuczynski playing his signature "Fuzeblaster" 12/7-string double neck guitar.
It was an energetic, enjoyable show: the band grooved and every musician seemed totally on top of his game. The documentary, in black & white and heavily dated in every sense of the word, may otherwise have been fairly tedious, but it was given a new lease of life by the live music. After the documentary ended, the band came out for an encore consisting of a lengthy jazz-fusion workout which ended proceedings with a flourish.
There was little in the way of dialog from the musicians, and thankfully we were spared any of the tedious self-indulgent MCing that has accompanied previous shows I've attended at the SHO. Slightly surprisiingly, the only explicit reference to Miles was when his face was projected from the screen during the encore.
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