Steve Smith demonstrated to the enthusiastic crowd at Catalina’s and showed them why Modern Drummer magazine has voted him the “Best All Around Drummer” for the past five years. He and his band Vital Information delivered a 90 minute set that took drumming all around the world in terms of styles and colors, all perfectly propelled by the Master and Commander Smith at the helm.
The latest VI incarnation still has Vinny Valentino on guitar, but now included Manuel Valera on piano and keyboards as well as Benjamin Shepherd switching between electric and acoustic bass. The musical journey started with a tribute to the recently departed legend McCoy Tyner, with his “Inception” introduced by a snappy solo by the leader before the team tore into overdrive with some searing guitar work by Valentino, while the bebop classic “Rhythm-A-Ning” was given an electric goose by Shepherd’s bass and Smith floating like a butterfly but stinging like a bee on the hard hitting treatment. Smith went from a beat reminiscent of George of the Jungle before doing some cymbal sashaying as the team cantered through a Buddy Rich-indebted “Willowcrest” while the team shifted into a R&B groove as Valentino drifted into the coal mines and sang with ferver to the big beat of “Sixteen Tons”.
But it was the trip to the music of Southern India that Smith and company took that displayed his world-wide musical mastery. The three song medley of “Open Dialogue”, “Charukeshi Expess” and “Eight+Five” had Smith incorporate the vocal percussion of konnakol with tricky meters, whether clapping along on an opening fusion journey, doing intricate dialogue with Valentino with ricocheting caroms that were tighter than Kim Kardashian’s leggings or taking his high hat to shift like the desert sands on the hard hitting groove of a climactic finish. The journey had more spice than ghost peppers mixed with turmeric.
The evening continued with Smith jumping on to the Soul Train with a back beat “Bugalulu” that would have brought a smile from Don Cornelius, whereas his bopping of the blues on “The Brushoff” featured the leader with simply a snare drum, wire brushes and loads of imagination as he glided to the rhythmic support like Astaire in Flying to Rio. The closing bop classic “Mr. PC” sealed his allegiance to modern jazz while the entire evening justified his bust along the Mr Rushmore of today’s most important drummers. Vital Information, indeed!
Upcoming shows at Catalina’s include Barbara Morrison 03/12, Elliott Caine 03/17 and Ms Lisa Fischer with Taylor Eigsti 03/18-21