Karl Denson's Tiny Universe 2001-12-31

Karl Denson's Tiny Universe
2001-12-31
Warfield Theater
San Francisco, CA
(Download)

My new years eve traditions have evolved over the years to throw aside anything frantic, and focus in on welcoming in the new year relaxed and reenergized. What I really like to do is gather with friends to take a hike during the day, and at night enjoy an old favorite, plus something new, and listen and play music. In that vein I started exploring new years eve shows on archive.org. This Karl Denson's Tiny Universe show caught my attention. While I want to sit around and hang out, I still want to listen to something that emanates energy. It is new years after-all.

"Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account." -Oscar Wilde

Sometimes Denson is refered to as neo-bop. In my mind nothing fits that label closer than this interpretation of "Auld Lang Syne." It is a little dissonant and busy (some might call it noisy), so if you don't like it skip ahead a track. Nobody will tell on you. A pretty ballsy opener. My two favorite tracks from the show are "All the Brothers and Sisters" and "The Answer." "Spanish Castle Magic" is about the slowest feeling track in mix. It's afrobeat rhythms take you down low. The set played out like this (note the differences in track listings hear vs. archive.org. This is the correct order and song names.):

Auld Lang Syne* > All the Brothers and Sisters*, Steamed Water#@, The Answer, How fine is that?, Elephants#, Spanish Castle Magic%, Because of Her Beauty, Crosswinds, Freedom, Jam > Fallin'

Karl Denson- saxes and flute, Chris Littlefield- trumpet, Brian Jordan- guitar, David Veith- keys, Ron Johnson- bass, Zak Najor- drums Mike Dillon- percussion, * with Skerik- sax, # with Chipito Ayeres- percussion, @ with Adrian Ayeres- percussion , % with Fareed Haque- guitar

On this particular night, KDTU opened up for Galactic. Hard to believe, considering their opening set clocks in at over two hours. Karl had a pretty busy night joining Galactic for "Baker's Dozen" and "Shucktime," before heading across town to joining String Cheese Incident on "Round the Wheel." Sound quality is B+, a little bass heavy. Show is encoded in shorten info on how to play shorten files can be found on etree.org. I recommend using xACT for the Mac.  Happy New Year!