Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Mark Stryker's avatar

Thanks for this.

I saw the quintet in October 1988 in Indianapolis at a club called The Place to Start, which is still operating today as The Jazz Kitchen. (I was in graduate school in Bloomington at the time.) The music was mostly from "Angel Street," which had either just been released or was about to be. I think it was Ira Coleman on bass, but it could have been Moffett. I enjoyed the music, but I will say that Tony played louder that night than any jazz drummer I have ever heard in a straight-ahead context, and there were times when Mulgrew was soloing that he would have been justified in waving a white flag of surrender. I also remember that Tony started the set with a drum solo to set up the first tune, and as he started, a older cat in the audience walked up to the bandstand near the drums, raised a camera and snapped a picture with a bright flash right in Tony's face -- it was startling how rude it was. Tony stopped and shook his head in bewilderment; you could tell he was shocked and angry he was. When he started up again, I felt like he was taking out his anger on the drums a little bit and I wonder, in retrospect, if his volume might have been even louder than usual because he was so pissed.

Expand full comment
Mark Stryker's avatar

One other note: Wallace Roney's strong 1987 record "Verses" on Muse is Tony's quintet with Gary Thomas in for Billy Pierce.

Expand full comment
20 more comments...

No posts