Joe Marcinek and Side Hustle at Blue Jay Listening Room: The Usual Magic
Article and photograph courtesy of Hambone Sparklewell
Video courtesy of Matt Davis
Don’t let Joe Marcinek fool you.
He’s modest and gracious, but he is a dangerous man. And when a dangerous man like Joe comes to a perfect music box of a venue like Blue Jay Listening Room in Jacksonville Beach, like he did last night (Friday, October 4), wise listeners arrange to attend.
Chuck Berry was renowned for showing up at venues in his Cadillac, collecting his pay in cash, and then walking on stage to meet the local members of the musicians’ union who would accompany him for the night.
Joe Marcinek has upgraded this unique approach by scouting suitable local bands, linking them to his songbook to prepare for the gig in advance, and learning some of the local bands’ best songs to add some local flavor to the set list.
After years of this sort of barnstorming, before our eyes, Joe has become a formidable bandleader, reading each different room, picking a beautiful blend of originals and covers that suit the weather, and signaling chord changes and solos on the fly like a quarterback calling audibles.
If Grant Green is the father of Acid Jazz, Joe is the grandson who ran away from home to join the circus, stretching angular lines and lo-fi canopies of delay and reverb over funky New Orleans grooves and mixing the styles of the Meters’ Leo Nocentelli, John Scofield, Garcia, Betts, Benson, etc.
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Last night was Marcinek’s third night in a row playing with local powerhouse quartet Side Hustle, and their musical planets aligned so well, even in the quirky jazz universe of Joe’s originals, that no one would guess that these guys had not played together for years. Guest spots by vocalist Melody Trucks and guitarist John Parker Urban lived up to the high level of support lent by the Side Hustlers: Anton Laplume (guitar), Billy Begley (keyboards), Sean Thomas (bass), and Aaron Plotz (drums).
Some bands dish out mathematical trick shot music, stuntman barrages of formulaic pieces, but Joe trusts the aerodynamic shape of his mind and the slinky musical language shared by his select bandmates and his experienced audiences. Last night, his original standouts were “George Washington,” “Hyperbole,” “Soffa,” and two originals off his new album JMIII, “Funnily” and “Mojo,” but it was improvisational expeditions into two towering cover numbers, “Whipping Post” and “Franklin‘s Tower,” that blew the house down.
Joe’s van is leaking oil! His new CD is available here if you want to keep this dangerous guy on the road. Sparklewell just pawned his chainsaw to get the double live CD with Melvin Seals, George Porter Jr., and Eric Imbrosciano on drums (Terrence Houston on one track). Check this link for full details. You can check out details on this cdbaby.com link, but consider hitting his limited-edition fundraiser.