boycats

To be blunt, she’s a lightweight. She has a pretty voice and a very pretty face, and she puts on a cute show. Complete with facial expressions, hair tossing, gesticulations, and coy posturing, her act is designed to make her come across as the sexy-but-wholesome girl-next-door. She giggled after almost every song, and delivered a well-rehearsed and totally contrived patter. Sure, it’s tired, but of course you can always get men to watch a pretty girl strut her stuff.

Without the act, though, her set would have been completely uninteresting. Samba and songbook tunes dominated her set, as did material from her most recent album (I know this only because she said so, plug plug). She doesn’t reach for anything challenging or new; she’s not aiming high. The arrangements failed to show much originality, and the band—while certainly competent—also failed along similar lines. Your generic, standard-issue instrumentation: piano, guitar, bass, drums. Short, uninteresting solos, bland comping. I could have played in this band and done as well, and the thing is, with a little practice I really could have. The crowd seemed to share my ambivalence with scattered and unenthusiastic applause.

The RH Factor, on the other hand, offered an almost completely opposite experience. It’s a large band, complete with bass, guitar, two (2) drummers, two (2) keyboardists, baritone sax, alto sax, and of course Mr. Hargrove on trumpet. These guys are definitely reaching for something (for clarity’s sake: one of the keyboardists is a woman, but I’m using guys in the gender-neutral sense), although I’m not sure they got there. They seemed to be attempting to resurrect the ’80s era Miles Davis band with it’s funk/soul/r&b/jazz hybrid, and they aped it pretty well (according to Jon. I’m not really familiar with late Miles), including such touches as wah-wah on the trumpet. Overall, they established a solid, interesting groove that would have done really well behind an MC, and occasionally the solos managed to touch something intense. The crowd responded well and enthusiastically.

I ran into Laura there, or more accurately she found me. She was working at the show and together with another waitress (a beautiful asian woman named Kelly who’s waited on me at the Bistro several times) and Jazz Bob, they took a break and wandered over to the VIP area. She’s such a sweetheart; apparently she stopped by my place earlier to see if I was going to the Fest. I had a great time hanging out and chatting, shooting the breeze.

Much fun. Thanks to Jon for inviting me along.