Flamboyancy

It’s dim- very dim. Yet the sound coming from the four well-dressed musicians in the corner is anything but dim. The quartet in the corner, led by the international keyboardist Madoca (pronounced ma-du-kah), is cruising through another tune. The working title of the group is Madoca and Company, due to the fact Madoca performs with as few as one other artist and as many as five. It is Saturday, December the 1st, 2007, the location is Londzell’s Jazz and Blues Cafй, and I have been enjoying the show from 8:30 onwards. Tonight, a drummer, saxophonist and left-handed electric bass player are performing a few songs composed by the leader herself in a fairly standard theme, variation and improvisation manner.

The first lick began and revealed itself to be cool and relaxed. As with all the others which followed, exists in standard 4/4 time and begins a global statement of the theme. The real music begins as the individual artists venture off into their separate ideas in improvisational form. The man closest to me begins the night, and this song on Alto Saxophone. His improvised melodies are complex and lengthy, borrowing from the ideas of the highly influential John Coltrane. I was unable to catch his name, but he was young and very passionate about his music. His range and technique were both very impressive, not to mention evident on Alto, Tenor and Soprano saxophones, all of which he played throughout the night. The energy he put into his music was replaced by free drinks from the bar, and he constantly patted his forehead with his trusty blue hand towel. If I were to venture a guess, I would believe that he was of college age, and definitely a music student at one of the local Universities such as Georgia State.

The drummer was stationed in the back left corner or the group. He relaxed, put on his “cool drummer face,” and kept time with the bassist during the other’s times to solo. However, he proved to be the most interesting of the bunch when it came his time to shine. With so much as a nod from Madoca, he proceeds through his settled routine. Then, he begins to insert hiccups into his part. A hi-hat bash here, an extra bass drum tap there, all in time but also in a seemingly random manner. He then reels off on a wild tangent, incorporating all of his taps and slaps into an odd beat. As I try to figure out where he is going, a Bob Marley tune pops into my mind. The drummer has now transformed into a reggae-eqsue beat in the middle of a jazz tune. But, this is only for a few seconds. It as if he has touched the forbidden fruit, and he slides back into the standard beat. As an artist, he did a good job of implementing something interesting into his improvisation. Sadly, as with the saxophone player, I never learned his identity and haven’t been able to track him down.

The electric bassist, known as The Prince Project, also served as sound mixer for the night. Stationed net to the board, he’d constantly tweak various knobs and levels in an attempt to create a better sound for the group. Sadly, his own audio was coming through a bit muddily, and made it difficult for him to be heard clearly. He did manage to lay down chord progressions and improvise nicely. He, as Will Ferrell in Anchorman requested, “Took