Buster Williams All Star Quartet
Oasis Room @ Garde Arts Center
New London CT
February 21, 2011

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Source info:

Sennheiser ME-104's>Tascam DR-07 (16/44.1, 40hz bass rolloff)
>USB> PC> GoldWave v5.56> CDWaveEditor v1.96> TLH> Flac (6)


Taper: Ringfedder
Location: 6 rows from stage center
Sound Quality: Very Good

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Setlist:

01. Native Dancer
02. All of You
03. The Triumphant Dance Of The Butterfly
04. Concierto de Aranjuez>
05. Summertime
06. Epistrophy (CB drum solo)
07. Christina
08. I Didn't Know What Time It Was (more CB drums)
09. Buster talks, band intro, set list etc.


The Band:

Buster Williams - bass
Patrice Rushen - piano
Steve Wilson - saxophone
Cindy Blackman-Santa - drums


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What a wonderful evening! I didn't know about this performance until reading about it a couple nights prior in the local paper. I knew I had heard of Buster Williams but this was going to be special. His all star quartet featured Patrice Rushen on piano, Steve Wilson on saxophone and Cindy Blackman-Santana on drums. Admittedly, with Cindy in the band I really had to go. This is a great 90 minute performance with both Buster Williams originals and Jazz standards.

The Oasis Room at the Garde Arts Center in New London, CT is an intimate 100 seat room off of the main theatre. The first four or five rows are low seating with the remainder being higher bar style seats. I parked myself at the first row of high seats dead center. There's always a euphoric feeling prior to a performance that the recording will come out good based on the crowd around me. My euphoria turned to anxiety when at the last minute, the only “overly enthusiastic” patron in the place chooses to occupy the remaining empty seat to my left. Excited about knowing everything there is to know about BW and Cindy for that matter, he proceeds to chat with myself and the couple to his left. There are three instances during the recording, mostly at the beginning of a song, where he felt compelled to bestow upon me his minutia, not to mention is clapping was thunderous.

Post editing of the master recording consisted of hard limiting the clapping and boosting the volume of the songs individually. There really wasn't much I could do about editing out mister annoying but his presence is brief and isn't too distracting. Track 9 at the end of the show is Buster introducing the band and reviewing the pieces played. This is where you all get to experience how annoying me neighbor really was, “ya, ya, ya....”

I'd like to reiterate how wonderful it was to see a show here at the Oasis Room. If you're from the area, I urge you to check out a show here. I'd hate to see a place like this not be successful do to lack of patronage. The Garde Arts Center and the Oasis Room (and the kate for that matter) fill a cultural void here in S.E. Connecticut left behind by the pop centric casino scene. Please support the local arts. A big thanks to Kitchings Productions for their continued support of the arts in this area.

Footnote: I hope I got the track splits correct. Please advice is I missed something here.


Enjoy!



http://www.busterwilliams.com/
http://www.gardearts.org/
http://www.katharinehepburntheater.org/
http://www.kitchingsproductions.com/index.html