Over the Rainbow with Fred Johnson and Michael Ross
Trying to discuss who is the best musician or band, or which one is better than anyone else, is a futile endeavor. Beyond different personal preferences, what might strike you one day might be less impressive another. Recent memory is always a factor, of course.
I prefer thoughts similar to: never heard better. My particular version of that is: AS GOOD AS IT GETS. For me. And that evaluation has spread across many genres, thinking back. Duke Ellington and Snarky Puppy. The Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers. David Grisman and Del McCoury. Particle and The Disco Biscuits. Guarnari String Quartet and Canadian Brass. Modern Jazz Quartet and Miles Davis. Turkuaz and Kamasi Washington. k.d. lang and Diana Krall. Frank Zappa and the Mothers. Fred Johnson and Michael Ross.
About that last pair. We had the opportunity to see Johnson in March with the Michael Ross Quartet (read review here), which was simply magical, and I referred to it thusly: “as good as it gets.” I have known Ross for 40 years and am forever blown away by his prowess on the double bass and by his songwriting, amply displayed on numerous Michael Ross Quartet albums. And I had seen Johnson sing in the late ’70s and early ’80s before we lost touch… until March at the Tampa Jazz Club show.
I needed all that to set the scene for the pairing of Johnson and Ross in a tiny room at Burns Court Cafe in Sarasota. The room seats 20 with another half-dozen seats at the bar. On the face of it, it looks like two instruments: Johnson’s astounding vocal capabilities and Ross with bass. But this was distinctly a “trio” event, because Johnson spent the entire two hours sitting and playing the cajón, a box-shaped percussion instrument played with the hands. At that, Johnson is a master.
I have never enjoyed a night of music more than this. Period. The end.
The duo began with a jazz classic and a standard, opening with “All Blues.” Johnson’s phrasing, facial expressions, and hand gestures all help to accentuate his remarkable range and vocal virtuosity. There’s really no other way to describe it. And he and Ross are in perfect sync on everything they do (well, almost — more on that later). After the Miles Davis standard, they dug into Johnny Mercer’s “Autumn Leaves,” again just amazing. And, to the credit of the room’s acoustics, you could hear every note, every nuance, everything. It was pure magic.
As many times as I had heard Bill Withers’ song “Lovely Day” on the radio, I confess I never really heard it until that March concert with Johnson and Ross. They beat me to the punch this night by playing it before I could request it — simply lovely. Makes me cry every time. Next Johnson told us they would play one of their favorite tunes by Sting, the gorgeous “Fragile.”
Then it was time to make stuff up, as this duo like to do. Johnson may have asked about a title — or not — but somehow “Life of Riley” emerged, with a discussion about its meaning and the old William Bendix television show. It was a playful romp. That yielded to a quick discussion, as Johnson and Ross often conferred about what to play next, and then to, perhaps, the evening’s climax, the most amazing reading of “Summertime” I’ve ever experienced. This was uptempo similar to the Lambert, Hendricks and Ross recording. Johnson’s voice soared as his percussion on cajón was in perfect lockstep with Ross’s bass.
Every song the duo played gave Johnson the opportunity to interpret, translate, and reinvent lyrics at will and gave Ross tons of solo space, which he used to brilliant advantage. “For All We Know” was another example of the timelessness of this music. Don’t try to label any of it; you’ll trip all over yourself. OK, the last song WAS a blues. It was a medley. I wrote down “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” but maybe “Every Day I Have the Blues” was first. “Sent for You Yesterday (And Here You Come Today)” was in there, and more I cannot remember (I swore, once again, I wasn’t going to review this, but “Summertime” simply threw me with a full nelson).
Returning from a quick set break, they gave “Almost Like Being in Love” and “Nature Boy” the most loving treatments. Then Johnson began singing an intro (which he loves to do with his amazing improv skills) about the music “we” of a certain age grew up listening to on the radio, in Johnson’s case in New Jersey listening to WABC (77), where they played almost all styles of music in the pop vein, as it was then known. That led into “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me),” the Temptations hit.
Johnson had finished with the first stanza or two and threw it to Ross, who just looked back with a brief shake of the head. Johnson cracked up but jumped back into the song with scat vocal, then some improv before encouraging us to sing along if we knew the lyrics. Most of us did. Afterward, Johnson said, “He never mutinied before!”
Next came a wonderful intro before a magnificent uptempo “Over the Rainbow,” and it was here that the stunning unison virtuosity of Johnson on cajón and Ross on bass stood out more prominently even than before. We were in awe.
Johnson likes to do a piece he refers to as “Sound Sculptures.” He solicits words from the audience to use in a song he would invent on the spot. The first word offered was “tears,” then “manatee,” and “purple.” And someone sitting next to me said “sex,” which brought peals of laughter from everyone, especially Johnson. Ross offered a powerful intro, over which Johnson noted, “This must be pretty dramatic” (close to that, anyway).
And Johnson did it. He worked every one of those words into a magical narrative several times, including a couplet with something about “a manatee, and sex on the beach at Longboat Key” — laughs all around. It was wonderful.
For their closing song, they chose the healing power of “Witchi-Tai-To,” a beautiful composition Johnson reminded us was given to us by the great Native American saxophone player Jim Pepper. And healing it was.
As it was during set break, Johnson and Ross circulated the room one more time to thank everyone who came, but I can assure you we were the ones offering praise and thanks for a spectacular evening.
I have heard hundreds of brilliant musical performances in the past, and I will hear many more. But nothing will be BETTER than this night. This was truly AS GOOD AS IT GETS.
[ONE: All Blues, Autumn Leaves, Lovely Day, Fragile, The Life of Riley, Summertime, For All We Know, You Don’t Miss Your Water medley; TWO: Almost Like Being in Love, Nature Boy, Just My Imagination, Over the Rainbow, Improv tune, Witchi-Tai-To]
FRED JOHNSON & MICHAEL ROSS
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08/24 Blue Bamboo | Winter Park
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MICHAEL ROSS
07/25 Burns Court Cafe | Sarasota
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07/26 Giorgio’s on Hillview | Sarasota
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