Nolatet
LowDown
September 19, 2026
You might think jazz is one thing. That one thing could be old bebop like Charlie Parker, swing like Gene Krupa, or electrostatic sludge noise like Bitches Brew. These versions of jazz might materialize in slow corporate elevators, lime green conversation pits tinged with weed smoke, or the background of a horror movie. It doesn’t really matter what you think; there are players, and bands, who will break what you think, pick up the pieces, glue them back together into the shape of an elephant with a pineapple for a head, and hand What You Think back to you with a smile.
That’s been my experience every time I see Nolatet, the four-piece jazz group from New Orleans featuring Tulsa’s Brian Haas on piano, James Singleton on bass, Mike Dillon on vibraphone, and Johnny Vidacovich on drums. Not being someone prone to do so, I often in fact forget to think during the quartet’s singular shows, which is as high of a compliment as I can give. There are moments in life that defy comprehension, and you’ll experience at least one of them during a Nolatet show.
On Saturday night, the band was celebrating the release of their latest album, Somethin’ To Relax With, a title that is occasionally true but mostly comically false. While the opening track “Switchback” did indeed start with a soft pitter-patter of easy-listening chords, a turn from Haas towards the minor heralded a descent from lofty, angelic ease into gritty, sometimes harmonically agnostic gravel. It was a switch so severe that the audience laughed—but soon they were hooting and hollering at the new Phrygian-adjacent rock jam, pushed along by Vidacovich on the drums and, confoundingly but enjoyably, Dillon on an Indian tabla drum.
Johnny Vidacovich (L) and James Singleton (R) | photos by Z.B. Reeves
That sort of defiance against jazz is what makes Nolatet such a strong jazz outfit. See “Lanky, Stanky, Maestro” (from the group’s 2018 release No Revenge Necessary), a dirge of a tune in celebration of the—indeed—lanky Vidacovich. On the recorded track, the tune is certainly drum-forward; the swaggering drums trade the spotlight with Haas’s 32nd notes, rupturing the groove over and over to make explosive moments inside of a tight structure. That would be more than enough for most bands. Live, Nolatet takes it further, taking every moment of space after the opening lick to scream the title: “LANKY STANKY MAESTRO!” You won’t find it in a jazz methods book; it’s pure humor and enjoyment.
This show, I was struck by the strength of Haas’s band-leading. At any given moment, the BA and TU grad would be shouting key changes to the group before cruising alongside it, switching from dense and unreadable atonalism into flowing stepwise harmony and back again. He was amiable on the mic as well, making jokes to the crowd like the well-seasoned pro he is. It’s always tempting to say Hometown Boy Makes Good during these shows, but this time it was actually more felt after the show, when the rush of hometown friends—and even, I believe, Haas’s parents—caught up to him.
Brian Haas (L) and Mike Dillon (R) | photos by Z.B. Reeves
My favorite improvement on the Nolatet sound this time was Singleton’s use of a looper pedal, which allowed him to cluster bass drones over his solos. He even used the pedal to loop his cornet, which made the often pitchy instrument far more likable. Mike Dillon’s vibraphone playing was obsessively intense; after the show, I heard someone suggest that Dillon came out of the womb playing sixteenths on his mother’s spine.
One of the most enjoyable experiences in a person’s life is, with the right mindset and sense of humor, seeing that your preconceptions of things are incorrect. I would challenge anyone who claims to dislike jazz to come away from a Nolatet show with that idea intact, or at least without a few battle scars. And for anyone who thinks that jazz is one thing (bebop, swing, etc.), I would argue that jazz is many things, and that the many things of jazz are well represented inside of Nolatet.
