1, 2, 3, 4

The Mudhouse is closing down, and Greg and I are feeling a little ten o'clockish. At his suggestion, we walk a few doors down to Escafé to get a bite to eat. Each of us order soup, which proves to be just what we needed.

Greg loosens up a bit, now that he's got a beer in his hand and he's a little tired. At Mudhouse, he had been talking in very quotable phrases while I typed furiously on my PowerBook, my clicking keyboard filling the quiet café. Here, the laptop is put away, and Greg is more like the Greg that I know.

In 2000, Greg started a new project that has proved to be his most interesting yet: The Greg Howard Band. He teamed up with Dutch musicians Hubert Heeringa (saxophone and Electronic Wind Instrument), Jan van Olffen (bass) and Jan Wolkamp (drums and loops) to form a group that's pretty bloody good. In addition to original songs, they've been known to perform jazz standards (Charles Mingus' "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" and Miles Davis' "All Blues") and even the occasional Beatles song.

When I saw their first US performance, at the University of Virginia's Cabell Hall last fall, I was pretty amazed. I'd never seen an EWI played before, and Heeringa provided a pretty impressive intro to it. The night after I went to the show, I posted a review to the Nancies mailing list:

"[Heeringa's EWI would] have the sound of, say, a guitar. But he'd be playing the flute. Watching this felt very much like a dream. The kind where you're attempting to explain it, but you end up saying things like 'We were in my house...well, it was my house, but it was also the zoo. And you were there, only you weren't entirely you. Sometimes you were a goat.'

"OK, so on top of this there was [van Olffen's] bass. Mounted on his drum set he had various electronic pads that he'd cycle samples through and set up a loop that he could play over. So he would hit one of these pads, and you'd heard a ululating African woman coming from a speaker in the back of the auditorium. Very weird.

"Then there's Greg. For those of you who have never seen the Stick played, I've gotta tell you: it's pretty weird... He'll be playing a chord progression with his [left] hand while he noodles around with his right. What you're hearing sounds far more complex than what his hands appear to be doing.

"The combined effect of these three was definitely bizarre, and a lot of fun."

It might be a tough yardstick, but, at times, the Greg Howard Band is as enthralling as Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. I went to see the Flecktones a few years ago when they played Charlottesville's Performing Arts Center. It was the most engaging show that I've ever been to, and it was obvious that the entire audience felt the same way. Seeing Greg and his band evoke the same reaction was a great pleasure.

I don't claim to know where GHB is heading, or if they'll meet fame and fortune. But this sure appears to be the biggest and most promising Greg Howard project yet. If all goes well, GHB will break into the same jazz scene that groups like Lake Trout have helped to create. And maybe, just maybe, GHB will sell lots of albums to fund a US tour, and they'll turn into a successful and popular band. But if they don't, it certainly won't be for lack of talent.

Around 11:00pm, Greg and I parted ways. I stayed up until 3:00am, waiting to find out who won the presidency. When I talked to Greg a few days later, I considered bringing up the topic of the contested presidential win. But I thought better of it.

nancies.org | Janary 10, 2001