Now we can officially call it winter — sensuous silver shadows dance as the brilliant snow cascades through the moonlit air. Crystal reflections of soft sunlight dazzle the senses with untold beauty. Oh yeah, and iced-over windshields, salt-filled gray mounds of half-frozen slush, and the inconvenience of slippery traveling. Take the good with the bad; shake it up and life it is — by the handfuls. Kind of like a night on the town.
Friday is jampacked with exciting entertainment possibilities.
Don Smith swings his quartet into Robbie’s for the Uptown Friday Night early evening extravaganza. Smith surely gets the prize for longevity in the area band business. Back when he started gigging around town you could drop a dollar on the bar, get a beer and shot and still get change enough back to plug the jukebox and call home to say you were working late. Through the years he has stayed true to his roots in the swing, jazz, big band sound.
After your warm-up on the square, the choices are rich and plentiful. Big Al and the Heavyweights weigh in at the State Bar and Grill, in the Vinegar Hill Mall. The New Orleans crew manages about 240-plus dates a year (that’s a lot), traversing the country playing an original funk-blues-Zydeco mix best described as a Late Night Gumbo Party, which just happens to be the title of their latest CD. Josh at the State Bar and Grill will be cooking up his own gumbo to fit right into the flavor of the evening. The show starts at 8 p.m., a little early for folks in this town, so don’t be late — go get gumboed.
Out of Chicago comes 56 Hope Road, an acoustic-based pop-roots music group with Springfieldian Greg Fundis on the skins. The happy but not sappy band makes some sweet music and returns to Jazz Central Station, 30 stories up, high atop the mighty Hiltonian, after their successful gig a few months back. Michael Coleman and the Backbreakers work over the Underground City Tavern with some hot guitar blues. Coleman, a well-known and well-respected Chicago bluesman, has toured with Muddy Waters, Eddy Clearwater, and James Cotton and is now cutting his own path. The Dixieland Daredevils, one of my personal favorite bands I haven’t seen yet, displays their peculiar-talent for performing fabulous Dixieland style music at Lime Street Café. And yes Toomey, without a net. Is that enough for one night?
I’m not sure who’s playing in the Super Bowl (or care for that matter), but it would be worth a trip to the State Bar and Grill on Sunday to experience the Rolling Stones through the persona of Jack Flash. The group of Springfield veteran musicians will lay out a concert style show from 3 to 5 before the very large game begins.
Don’t forget Buckwheat Zydeco scoots his way into the State Bar and Grill on Wednesday Feb. 4, the same night Commander Cody boogie-woogies his way through the Underground City Tavern. They are both the real thing — big time and very wonderful.
Enjoy the weather, if you can — whether you like it or not.
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2004.
