Chad Wackerman and the L.A. All Stars performed at the Paradox jazz club in Tilburg, NL, yesterday.
Reason enough to cross the border.
Chad Wackerman on drums. Alex Machcek on guitar, Jimmy Haslip on bass, and Steve Hunt on keyboards.
Here's a recap from Jan:
It was a phenomenal concert. Amazing musicians. And Chad's drums sound so good. No electronics can compete with that.
They played a number of songs from the new album ("Quube") and some older work by Chad (including ‘All Sevens’ and ‘Between the Dog and the Wolf’).
The encore was ‘Fred’ by Allan Holdsworth (originally found on "Believe It" by the New Tony Williams Lifetime and, of course, on "Blues for Tony", with Chad and Jimmy Haslip).
I can only agree with Jan.
Jeff Aug opened solo with some energetic pieces the acoustic guitar.
Chad and his buddies performed an incredible first set. Technically astounding. Fusion jazz, without any sharp edges. It ended with Chad's 'New York City", which sounded almost as a suite with a drum solo opening and various movements. Nice.
Their second set was a bit more powerful. Louder as well. I thought about mentioning it to the person that took care of the sound but I imagined he'd probably be nearly deaf, so that would be a useless effort...
Second set: short and sweet, plus an Allan Holdsworth piece as a bonus.
No Zappa piece, which in my humble opinion was a missed opportunity, but an excellent second set.
Bought "Quube" and will be enjoying that a lot the next couple of days.
- Wackerman, Machacek, Hunt, Haslip: Quube
(2026, cd, USA, private release)
