Quick visit to Smith's on a Sunday afternoon. The hot locals were playing. This was the Wayne Kelly trio with James Luke and Mark Sutton and they were ripping it and they should have had a bigger audience. I had to leave, too, but I heard several of Wayne's - Mr Hank Jones, King of Kings, Empathy (?) - one by James - Q2 Bass - dedicated to one of his basses, presumably the new one and presumably the one he was playing, and one standard, I'm old fashioned. They were all cutting it although Mark had a smirk, obviously noticing errors that I didn't pick up. I took note of Wayne's blues-solid touch (not classical, this) and readiness to do the simplest melodic expositions amongst some rich harmonies, chromatics and sequences and easy inventiveness. James was a force, too, woody toned and lyrically fluent, playing across the strings and right up into the thumb positions; but primarily, so lyrical. Mark was all polyrhythms and angular fills and sharp articulation, even sitting back with the snare leaning between his legs. Never seen such laid-back sharpness before. A pleasure, as always. Not for nothing that these guys are busy. Wayne Kelly (piano) played with James Luke (bass) and Mark Sutton (drums).
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