Observation of a Bachjazz Performance at Zebulon's Jazz Club on Feb. 25, 2005

 It was a Thursday night.  I'd seen the poster in the window of Zebulon's for a jazz combo to come in and play the Bach Suites for cello solo.  I was a little excited because I love the suites, and I've heard them played by Pablo Casals, Rostropovich, and other greats.  My expectation was that the combo would wreck them, but I wanted to hear it anyway.

  I came in to Zebulon's early and fooled around on the Yamaha piano there, playing my goof on Satie's Gymnopedie #1, the Bach C Major prelude from Book I of the Well-Tempered Klavier, and other things.

  Jeff and his drummer were setting up their equipment for the gig, and periodically he made appreciative comments in toward me on my playing.  Little did I know who was addressing me.  I was about to find out.

  When it came time for him to play, I was at the bar schmoozing with some of the usual people who come in.  Jeff and Alan began the performance with a fog of sound, a wash of sea-foam, whales calling out in the ocean deeps.  This went on for awhile, and I began to be irritated, thinking "Oh no.  This is going to be just absurd!".  And then, out of the deeps, suddenly soared up the opening strains of the G Major Praeludium.  I was rivited to the spot, stunned and amazed, for the playing was magnificent and deeply moving.  Every note was invested with meaning, and I realized at once that Jeff McFarland-Johnson is a world-class cellist, and he played the in most, how-shall-we-say, spiritual, deep, profound,  down to Davy Jone's locker, bottomless, fathomless, complete, all-rounded, ultimately probing and pervading, rapturous, deeply thought-out way!

  He would play into a movement of a Bach Suite (he played nos. 3 and 1in that order)  and then, as I heard him express it to his magnificent drummer who never played out of balance, they'd "take it out" and into other realms, a trip through the cosmos, an improvosational voyage together to Galaxy PDQ-69-Zippy-Chippy in a sonorous rocket, baby!

  After observing the celestial sights, and throbbing and sawing through a state of extreme rapture, suspending us in the company of cosmic fireworks, he'd lead the drummer back to the original Bach movement, and then come to a magnificent and really romantic conclusion, and back to an audience stunned and disoriented.   The concert was amazing, and for days afterward all of us who were there talked excitedly about it!

  After it was over, I wanted to play with him, and he agreed. I laid a big Pedalpoint (on C) which he spun around on, and then we launched into the  (born Paris in 1818, died St. Cloud 1893)Charles Gounod "Ave Maria" line over the Bach Prelude in C I mentioned.     I then went home and practiced, entirely inspired to do so by what I'd just heard.  Keith, the guitar-player I know, also said he was headed home to put in a few hours because he too was entirely inspired by the performance! 

Richard Stark

Observation of a Bachjazz Performance at Zebulon's Jazz Club on May 12, 2005

Ha!  I just heard Rostropovich play the Prelude from Suite #1.  Ferggetaboutit!  Your interpretation of it is vastly better, and I do not say that lightly!  After hearing you do it, I would go even so far as to say he ruins it.  He chops through it while at the same time reading the soccer results in Pravda.  I heard him yawn through bar 6 --18, and then erupt with an expletive when he read his team had lost to the lads from Ankara, Turkey!!

This is opposed to your focus and honoring of every single note, your milking the max possible from the composition, digging and probing,  turning every gem over and surveying it before lovingly polishing it before placing it back just where you found it.
Richard Stark

Observation of a Bachjazz Performance at Zebulon's Jazz Club on May 12, 2005

 The boy is right on!  The audience was (for the most part) a musintelligent crowd, Those who were just there to drink were captured anyway whether they knew it  or not.

I sat in the back at the bar to get the shape of the sound and to be able to watch the wretched rabble stumble thru the door of ingorance into the sound of enlightenment. quite a look on some faces as they walked in while Jeffrey was playing...a double take at the cellecktra and then a confused-bemusement at the sound.

The difference in ear perks from classic to rock were no doubt due to that ol massive agism but there is no mistaking the genuine applause.

It was a small club, to be sure, but the tone of the cellectra was as warm as any of her wooden sisters; robust when needed and delicate when desired. . .sort of a Boudicca instead of a Diedre.

The music presented on the demo CD is representative of what takes place when J puts bow to string.  It, however, pales to the au naturale experience as the aural system takes the sounds fresh from the air...ya gotta be there!

So, brethren, how do we get this cat broader exposure?  Be sure to vote for Jeff for the NORBAY Music Awards too... Ron Dodson