Music Magg

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2025 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved Later last night (Friday, October 17) my husband Charles and I watched an entertaining Live at the Belly Up episode featuring local musician Sue Palmer and her Motel Swing Orchestra: Sue Palmer on a Korg electric keyboard; Liz Ajuzie, lead vocals; April West, trombone and second vocals; Jonny Viau, tenor and baritone saxophones; Steve Wilcox, electric guitar; Pete Harrison, upright acoustic bass (he was previously a bass guitarist and he learned the stand-up bass specifically for this band); and Sharon Shufelt, drums, who also suggested the band’s name. They played 11 songs during the course of the one-hour set, and while I was a bit disappointed that only the opener, Lou Donaldson’s “Blues Walk,” was an instrumental, Ajuzie is an excellent blues shouter and a far subtler singer than Kim Wilson of The Fabulous Thunderbirds, who’d played the show two weeks ago. She’s also a Black woman who dyes her...

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2025 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved Yesterday (Saturday, October 4) I got two reviews done for Fanfare magazine, and in between I went to a nice concert at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral featuring the Rev. Penny Bridges, who in addition to pastoring the church is also a quite good amateur viola player (no viola jokes, please!). She led a concert featuring two chamber works by Beethoven, one little known and one well known. The little-known piece was a duet for viola and cello officially called “Duet mit zwei obligaten Augengläsern,” which means “Duet with two obligatory eyeglasses.” Apparently Beethoven gave that title because the violist and cellist for whom he wrote it were both nearsighted and needed glasses to read the music – which caused the audience at the church to chuckle when both Bridges and her cello partner, Janet White, put on glasses so they could read the music. The piece is usually believed to have been written in t...

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2025 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved On Friday, October 3 I took advantage of my husband Charles’s relatively late work call (1 to 10 p.m.) to watch the latest installment of Live at the Belly Up on KPBS featuring a blues band called The Fabulous Thunderbirds. They’ve existed since 1974 and came as close as they ever got to the brass ring of stardom in 1986 with a song called “Tuff Enuff” [sic] that was featured in a movie called Gung Ho . Their Wikipedia page tells a rather sad tale of record contracts signed and then canceled as the band’s personnel changed over the years. The original lineup included Jimmie Vaughan, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s older brother, on guitar, but last night’s lineup was a simple four-piece: vocal, guitar, electric bass, drums. I’ve often judged Live at the Belly Up episodes by the number of songs the band crowds into their one-hour (less intro, outro and the inevitable interstitial interview segments) time slo...