Unlimited Devotion with Roosevelt Collier in Jacksonville
Start with sacred steel wizard Roosevelt Collier, schooled in the holy Pentecostal gospel music that began in Florida churches in the 1930s and has now found its way into the secular Electric Church music found in tie-dyed festivals, halls, streets and clubs. Plug his custom Dugger Guitars steel into a big tweed Fender amplifier, so it can talk, sing, whisper, cry and Testify.
Pair Mr Collier with guitarist John Zias, whose ears first bloomed at epic Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers performances at Fillmore East in the late ’60s and who studied at the Berklee School of Music and was influenced by everyone from Terje Rypdal and Pat Metheny to Hendrix and Jeff Beck, until he sounded completely like himself. Run John’s PRS guitar through a Sarno Black Box and Zendrive into a Quilter head and Hard Trucker 2×12” cabinet. And give a John a chair, because he’s playing way hurt, sick as a dog. And never mind the beautiful buzz of the ghost of electricity that haunts his rig.
Set these two explorers of the Golden Road of Pure Melody and Ecstatic Harmony atop the precise rhythm section of the band known as Unlimited Devotion, with Al Zilinsky on guitar, TJ Glowacki on bass, Dan DeGregory on drums and vocals, and (filling in on keyboards for the ailing Darryl Quesenberry) Jay Camphire. Now add the faithful local cognoscenti who know about 1904 Music Hall, the best-sounding club in Jacksonville, booked by Jason Hunnicutt and engineered by Eric Kaufman, and who urge the band to take flight through this prime selection from the Grateful Dead songbook. Jazz musicians have long used pop standards as vehicles for Transportation, tethering familiar songs to sprawling flights of invention.
[The Music Never Stopped, They Love Each Other, Minglewood Blues, Sitting on Top of the World, Loose Lucy, Help On the Way > Slipknot > Mississippi Half Step, Big River (w/ Scott Russell, guitar (Ouija Brothers)), Sugaree, Lovelight (w/ Melody Trucks, vocals (Melody Trucks Band)), One Way Out (w/ Melody Trucks, vocals), Dark Star > Tomorrow Never Knows > The Other One > Dark Star, Viola Lee Blues, Shakedown Street]
Thursday, November 29, at 1904 Music Hall, Jacksonville, Florida
Review and photo by Hambone Sparklewell
