LIVE REVIEW: FluteDaddy brings Latin Soul jazz to lofty places

FluteDaddy, The Loft, 11/7/2010

PHOTOS AND REVIEW BY BUTCH LEITZ

Joseph Liberti – also known by the jazz-hip appellation of “Flute Daddy” – brought his band to Old
Colorado City’s The Loft again last night. The band has an established gig there the first Sunday of
every month for the time being, so if you missed this one, go pencil in the date now. Go ahead. I’ll
wait.

Back? Cool. With a group of fine musicians making up the core of the quintet, guest artist Brad
Eastin sat in last night and wailed on tenor sax, sometimes solo, sometimes in harmony with Liberti’s
own excellent flute playing. In many of the songs – in true jazz styling – each musician got a break or
solo in the song to augment their lines and riffs.

Keyboardist Bruce Pennington had some excellent breaks

throughout the night and provided some perfect little tasty fills with
understated dynamic qualities that fleshed out the solos being taken
by other members. Bassist Marc Niehof kept the action going with
drummer Dick Cunico, both hot names in jazz rhythm sections in the
Pikes Peak region. Niehof povided nice consistent underpinnings for
the band to stand on and had some great riffs and breaks where his
fingers did the talkin’ on his upright. Cunico played mostly below the
radar last night except on a few breaks where he either augmented
the beat of the song they were in or went out in exploration before
bringing it back home for the band to come back in on. He had
several little back-and forths with percussionist Dennis Bueno (which
sounds like an alias but I swear it’s his name). Bueno focused mostly on congas and bongos
throughout the night but had some fills and jams on cajon, cowbell, a little frame drum he went mental
on, guiro, cabasa and various shakers.

Not to take anything away from the sidemen who were all excellent, but it was Liberti and Eastin that
provided the main harmonic elements of the evening.

Starting with Duke Ellington’s classic “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing” followed by
whats considered to be the first Latin jazz standard “Caravan” the tone of the evening’s performance
titled “Latin Soul” was set. “Jive Samba” by Nat Adderly, Cannonball Adderly’s brother is called
“samba” but the music notes reference it as a blues number, and last night it was done with a latin
spin in keeping with the night’s direction. Wrap your head around that! Everybody was excellent, but a
pretty cool perc-jam by Bueno on mostly rims of his instruments was then mirrored by Cunico doing
mostly rims and rapid bursts of stick-on-metal rolls and runs which was quite fun.

Liberti then threw in a little of what he calls “Sherbert”, a sweet old-school or softer jazz number to
keep the audience from getting disinterested in the mostly latin approach. For this, he selected
Hoagie Carmichael’s “The Nearness of You”, truely sherbert to the ears with alot of sweet flute lines
by Liberti.

Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints” followed along with “Tequila Moon” featuring

Brad Eastin who pounded out some remarkably expressive riffs and phrasing
somewhat crossing the lines from latin to smooth jazz, but who cares? It was
very tight and beautifully done. The song “Evil Ways” ala Pancho Sanchez had
Liberti breaking out his monster sized C-flute (which I like to call a bass-flute
because it gives access to such a nice range of lower tones). Along with some
applied reverb from the sound system, this song was done ala Latin but with
haunting and sometimes plaintive application. This number was a standout for
me – everyone in the band had hand in the success of this presentation even
more-so than in other songs. The interplay between Liberti and Eastin, the foundation by Niehof, an
extended really nice break by Pennington and a great perc jam by Bueno with Cunico providing
perfect time under it all with some nice spicey attacks and fills really made the song pop, a perfect
number to break for intermission on.

A very funky “Senor Blues” opened up the second set with a stellar obscure
number by Herbie Hancock following: “And What if I Don’t”. When you think of
Herbie Hancock and the funky and sometimes twitchy stuff he’s written,
hearing this absolutely cool jazz swing number thats so different from his
“normal” vibe is rather hard to swallow, but Liberti told me he couldn’t believe it
when he found it and knew it had a perfect home with his band. This song was
cool in every sense of the word, what you think of when you think “jazz”. (Well,
me anyway!) Amusingly I could have sworn I heard a riff from “The Wizard of
Oz” during Eastin and then Niehof’s breaks. Maybe I was
imagining things!

Horace Silvers “Nikka’s Dream” which was a little bossa-

nova-esque with a little cut-time section that popped in a
few times showed off Pennington’s keyboard skills some
more, with Bueno doing a blazing congo break followed
by a nice solo by Cunico. Another “sherbert” song –
Michel Legrand’s “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your
Life” was followed by another Herbie Hancock piece “Watermelon Man” with the jazz-funk appeal you
normally associate with Hancock. “Cold Duck Time” opened with some nice lines by Niehof had some
fun syncopations going on by everybody and a cowbell jam by Bueno that was unusual but cool and
totally worked.

All in all, if you’re into jazz at all, you have to catch this show. It’s nice to see a resurgence of jazz in
the front range and these guys are a valuable asset to the community.

FluteDaddy will be performing in Salida at the Steamplant Event Center on November 21st and back
at The Loft December 5th.

For more information, updates and news about FluteDaddy and to get on their mailing list see
http://flutedaddy.com/.

The Loft is a nice trending-on-trendyish music and theater venue located at

the top of the stairs in the Templeton building in Old Colorado City. They seat
100 people and do standing shows of up to 200. They have two rooms, one of
which is basically a large exposed brick rectangularly shaped room that has a
real nice vibe to it, and one of which adjoins a cafe they’re setting up, and is
perfect for solo acts, readings, and smaller gatherings in a nice comfortable
setting in a more angular layout (and seems almost as large as the original
room). And yes, this was the same spot as those “legit” teen raves that used
to be held here last year before owner Uriah Werner took The Loft in a new (and improved) direction.