By: David Schultz
Photo by Greg Aiello

Near the end of Skerik’s first set at New York City’s Knitting Factory this past Wednesday night, I came up with what I thought would be a brilliant gimmick for this review. With a pressing need to be awake early the next morning, I hadn’t planned to stick around for the second set. Yet, I was planning to rave about the genius of that second set, admitting all the while that when it was performed, I was not there. Whenever a group of musicians get together to put on a primarily improvised show, they tend to take awhile to loosen up and get comfortable with each other; if the talent is there, the second set usually shines. Given the phenomenal first set, there was no doubt that the Skerik Quartet would blow the roof of The Knit with their next one. In good faith, I cannot go with my proposed literary device: not that the second set wasn’t a thing of beauty, rather, I couldn’t pull myself away and I stayed for it.

One of the most imaginative and resourceful saxophonists, Skerik often pops up on the same stage with other trailblazers like Marco Benevento, Bobby Previte, Stanton Moore and Les Claypool. Experimental and saxophonist aren’t always two words you like to hear together: for all of John Zorn’s estimable talent, he sometimes sounds like he’s torturing a small rodent. In Skerik’s case, the results are consistently melodic and extremely exciting. He’s as deserving of a one name appellation as Slash or Bono.

For Wednesday night’s show, Skerik assembled an immensely talented band that included bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, guitarist Mike Gamble and drummer Simon Lott. With saxophonists Daniel Carter and Jessica Lurie joining in for the second set, the Skerik Q concocted two hours worth of heady and daring music, resurrecting the free form acid jazz upon which the Knitting Factory built its reputation. Multiple times during the night, they created a swirling mélange of music that would spiral in different directions before ultimately resolving into a tight, powerful final surge, usually on the shoulders of a weighty Tacuma bass riff.

Jamaaladeen Tacuma was the true wonder of the evening: there were moments during the show when I gave serious deliberation as to whether I was witnessing the greatest bassist in the world. These thoughts were also accompanied by the stunning disbelief that up until tonight, I had hardly heard his name before much less hear him play. For those like me who are now catching up with the force of nature that is Jamaaladeen Tacuma, the bassist has played with Ornette Coleman, James “Blood” Ulmer and currently makes up 1/3 of the Free Form Funky Freqs with Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid and drummer Calvin Weston.

Tacuma provided the substantive heft of the performance which allowed Gamble to avoid anything resembling a standard guitar riff. The Brooklyn based guitarist experimented with different rhythms and sounds and Lott had the dexterity of mind of body to find the right beat for the wildness going on in front of him. Standing amidst Tacuma, Gamble and Lott, Skerik would close his eyes, he would listen, he would process, he would evaluate and then he would approach the mike and unify the song and the musicians together and lead the pack into final bursts of mindblowing jazz, funk and rock.

After the intermission, Skerik added Carter and eventually Lurie and the second half of the show focused on the three saxophones. The multitude of horns worked splendidly, never bleeding into each other or hitting flat stretches. Tacuma continued to work his magic. Rather than slow down his playing during a measured solo by Daniel Carter, Tacuma did the opposite, going headlong into a lighting quick bass line that he repeated throughout. He also paved the way for the one cover of the night, throwing out a familiar Motown riff and working it until everyone picked up on the “MMM . . . mmm-mmm mmm MMM.” Everyone’s eyes went wide and they all eased into a funky version of “Papa Was A Rolling Stone.”

As I mentioned earlier, I felt a pressing need to stay through the set break. A move that necessitated abandoning the gimmicky framework I wanted to use for this piece. Such was the inspiring nature of Skerik and Tacuma. After the show, I chatted with photographer Greg Aiello and mocked my own ignorance of Tacuma’s longstanding brilliance. No stranger to fantastic musicians, Aiello summed it up beautifully, “That’s what keeps us coming to shows. Just when you think you’ve seen everything, there is Jamaaladeen.”

Labels: Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Skerik