Our Santa Barbara Jazz Society just turned 25! And what a great way to celebrate our birthday! We were so pleased to present John Proulx and his amazing trio and they definitely came to celebrate with us! They had never performed all together before, but are such terrific musicians that it was certainly not apparent. We, the audience, had a great time listening to their wonderful jazz, but I think they had even more fun being able to play with and off each other. Most of the tunes were jazz standards, many of them on John’s CD’s, but there were also a few originals sprinkled in like the lovely Lost in a Dream by Proulx.
John has been influenced by many jazz musicians…trumpeter, Chet Baker for one. He has a CD dedicated to Chet called Baker’s Dozen with 13 tunes made famous by Chet. Let’s Get Lost is one of my favorites and it’s obvious that John has a similar voice and style to Chet’s. He also played homage to Nat King Cole who’s such an influence to all jazz musicians notably, Diana Krall. John romped through Straighten Up and Fly Right, Frim Fram Sauce, and a lovely bossa version of Nature Boy… all tunes linked to Nat. Proulx’s Blues, Nothin’s Gonna Be All Right, and Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me rounded out the blues section. Young bassist, Santino Tarafella, who lives in Goleta was right in there on every tune playing wonderfully lyrical solos. Another fabulous local musician, drummer Kevin Winard really kept it all together. They both were given a lot of room to solo on all the tunes. On the last song of the day, Sunny Side of the Street, Kevin used a catchy New Orlean’s style beat called 2nd line and the band went out with a bang. Again, what lucky folks we are to have such marvelous talent available to us!
Photos by Mark McDonald