Monday, January 4, 2010 – Aladdin Theater

Allan Holdsworth

The improvising rock/jazz fusion quartet of Allan Holdsworth on guitar, Terry Bozzio on drums and percussion, Tony Levin on Chapman Stick and upright bass, and Pat Mastelotto on drums and electronics played at the Aladdin Theater on Monday, January 4, 2010, and it was a great way to bring in the new year. It was an amazing display of musicianship and collaborative spontaneous composition.

Tony Levin, a member of the Stick Men among many other musical collectives, calls this ensemble HoBoLeMa. It is unclear whether this group will release any music on a conventional CD release, but we are hoping for one so it can be enjoyed by everyone. This is the second series of gigs for the super-group – they have already played a series of dates in Japan in the fall of 2009. Various combinations of these players have worked together in the same band, albeit some at different times; for example, Holdsworth and Bozzio were members of two different versions of UK, and Levin and Bozzio made a couple of records with the remarkable metal/flamenco guitarist Steve Stevens.

Mastelotto and Levin have worked together in King Crimson and with California Guitar Trio. Their experience and fiery interplay is reminiscent of their work in ProjeKCt Four and provides a foundation for Bozzio and Holdsworth to build on.

Pat’s double-drumming experience in King Crimson, where he has shared the percussion responsibilities with Bill Bruford and Gavin Harrison, really pays off in this setting. He is more responsible for timekeeping, leaving Bozzio free to play some amazing technical flourishes. Mastelotto’s electronics and sampling were an exciting color in the huge percussion array – his virtual kit was the size of Bozzio’s actual kit, and took up a lot less room! He has a way of inspiring Bozzio by playing parts that are very intricate while still motivating the entire band. At times he seemed very pleased with himself as he goaded Terry on, providing the groove or just the right rhythmic accent, and all the while sporting a huge grin. One sample of a trumpeting elephant, delivered by Pat just a split second after a Holdsworth whammy-groan, had the audience laughing out loud.

Holdsworth has possibly had the most experience as an improviser in these kinds of settings. He played slinky legato lines that swam upstream through the torrents of notes from Levin and the two drummers. But Allan displayed the most restraint, often holding back from playing the amazing single-line solos that he is known for, and instead providing a rich background for the others via his intricate and atmospheric chord movement. He held back and chose his spots, as they all did.

At times Holdsworth’s rich and singular harmonic conception was matched by Levin’s Stick, a stringed instrument invented by Emmett Chapman that is designed to be played by both hands on the fretboard. Tony limited himself to Stick and upright bass playing. Though he is also known as the bass guitarist for Peter Gabriel and has played countless sessions with John Lennon, Paul Simon, and many others, we didn’t see his bass guitar on this night. He provided a lot of melodies from the upper register of his Stick, and made good use of his looping pedal. He thrakked some exciting chords in response to Holdsworth’s swooping volume swells.

Terry is still playing the “S.S. Bozzio”, the mammoth drum kit he played on Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop tours. At times misconceived as drummer vanity, the entire “ship” is used by Terry as a huge musical instrument, larger than any orchestra’s entire percussion section. Shots across the bow came from Bozzio’s expressive flourishes, which took advantage of the rack-mounted gongs, cleverly concealed glockenspiel, vast array of cymbals, and six bass drums.

One section of Billy Cobham’s boogaloo beat reminded us of “The Noonward Race” by Mahavishnu Orchestra, which was appropriate on John McLaughlin’s 68th birthday. This piece drove first Holdsworth and then Bozzio to some amazing heights. The drum team was particularly effective during this section. They sounded like two players playing one colossal kit with one mind.

Bozzio seems to be the leader of this project, as evidenced by his stage announcements before intermission and at the end of the evening. He introduced “my favorite drummer Pat Mastelotto, my favorite bass player Tony Levin, and EVERYONE’S favorite guitarist, Allan Holdsworth!” Bozzio was compelled to announce that it was all improv “for anyone who isn’t getting what we’re doing up here tonight” – which brought a huge laugh from the crowd, then cheers from them, as an endorsement, as if the crowd was saying “We love it when you make it up as you go along!”. We were very proud of the audience – they really tracked what everyone was doing as they were doing it, with a minimum of the typical arena hero-worship. (A few Bozzio and Holdsworth fan boys couldn’t quite restrain themselves but hey, who can really blame them? Music like this is almost an athletic event at times – lots of musical dunking from the free-throw line, Julius Erving style.)

The energy of the drummers provided many of the sparks on this evening. Listeners might seek out their underrated and seldom-heard percussion based duet album, Bozzio/Mastelotto (2000), or the two Bozzio-Levin-Stevens recordings from 1997 and 2000.

All four players were clearly listening to each another with big ears – otherwise, this style of music dies on the vine. Not everything they played clicked immediately. There was searching and casting about for ideas and anchors, but their success ratio was extremely high, and the audience generously allowed them all the rope they needed. The key to the evening’s success was the real-time musical conversation – a meeting of four verbose players with large vocabularies, each taking a turn and saying his piece while trying not to interrupt. It was a fascinating spur-of-the-moment musical discussion.