NOLATET
LowDown jazz club
Sept. 16, 2023
Last Saturday night, I saw the New Orleans-based NOLATET play at LowDown, the Arts District’s basement jazz club. Made up of Brian Haas (a founding member of Tulsa’s Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey) on piano, James Singleton on bass, Mike Dillon on vibraphone, and Johnny Vidacovich on drums, the band delivered a stand-up-and-cheer set of nearly three hours of highly theoretical and virtuosically impressive improvisational jazz.
As I took my seat in the crowded basement, I met a young couple who were thinking about moving to Kansas City. “There’s just not that much to do here,” they lamented. “We usually go to Kansas City for jazz.” Had they ever been to LowDown? I asked. They had not.
I worked for an event listing company, I told them, and I assured them that there’s more going on in a single week here than anyone could possibly keep up with. More music, more art, more food. We literally have a team of people trying to keep up with how much goes on in Tulsa. I told them I loved Kansas City too, but there’s plenty happening here.
They diplomatically went back to their martinis.
“Welcome to the nation’s best storm shelter,” LowDown program manager Jeff Sloan joked in his opening remarks. If there’s a tornado, he told us, stay here; for a flash flood, get out. It was the kind of existential discombobulation appropriate to a show like this, and the crowd loved it. These were jazz-literate people who knew what they were in for: high-flying, dissonance-heavy stuff.
And geez, the quartet delivered. Haas — looking for all the world like the younger guy from LMFAO (that’s a compliment) — took the stage to lead the musical equivalent of a swarm of electric eels: slippery, smart, terrifying, impossible and inadvisable to get your hands around. NOLATET played a frenetic sort of jazz closer to free jazz than to any old bebop or smooth jazz. Though structured, the tonal progressions were obscure and complicated. The single time a Major 1 chord ended a song, it was notable.
Watching the musicians trade solos against each other was like watching two hawks fighting in midair; I’ve watched UFC bouts that had less urgency. Haas led the band admirably, his piano work ranging from tight and tonal to messy and carefree (again, that’s a compliment): truly a freak on the keys. Singleton’s work on the double bass was astounding to watch; it’s no wonder he’s been called the most sought-after bassist in New Orleans (though I found his work on the trumpet tangential). Johnny Vidacovich’s drumming felt, at first, too loud for the venue, but once he settled into the evening, the 74-year-old proved himself deeply capable at sustaining complicated and understated rhythm.
For me, the highlight of the show was the terrific vibraphonist Mike Dillon. I can’t pretend that I’ve seen a lot of jazz vibraphonists, but it was obvious that this dude could cook. The sheer number of notes he could squeeze into a phrase made every moment feel full of possibility. I especially enjoyed his off-the-cuff percussion work, which complemented Vidacovich’s drumming and added a lot of humor: slapping a vibraphone during a serious double bass solo is extremely funny.
Every time I thought they were getting too weird, too nasty, too “out there” for me to feel comfortable listening, one of the band members would break the tension with a modal run so beautiful and complicated and devastating that it shocked me out of my need to feel normal. This was cool music, delivered by cool people, in a cool place. I hope that young couple stays here. Isn’t there, after all, more in this world than we could ever keep up with? More notes, more possibility, more tonal combinations? Are we not all just a funny little vibraslap in the universe’s hands?
Next at LowDown: Chris Combs album release show, September 23
Next for Z. B. Reeves: Magic City Books’ Adult Book Fair
