Fareed Haque Trio at the Revue Stage

Guitarist Fareed Haque, bassist Peter Washington, and drummer Mike Clark played the Revue Stage last night. The trio's Infidels Jazz show will be followed by Seattle and Portland dates, tonight and tomorrow night respectively. (Infidels invited me there last night on the guest list.)

"Four on Six", a Wes Montgomery tune from his 1960 classic The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, happened to be the first jazz tune I ever jammed with friends in high school. It's a random one to have filled that role in my development, but it made sense as the opening piece for this random yet straight-ahead trio. Washington walked on David Caballero's bass in typically expert form, but I couldn't hear him well yet. The mix would improve after a couple numbers.

Haque attacked his mustard-yellow electric guitar with speed and vigour, not an effects pedal in sight. It somewhat recalled the style of the late guitarist whose face adorns the cover of Haque's latest album Return to the Joyous Lake: Pat Martino. That album has fusion, electric bass, and a spiritually-Chick-Corea energy. (As it happens, Haque mentioned Corea's name at this show, before his original tune "The Pilgrimage" which he said was "modeled after" Chick's "great waltzes".)

I dug funky fusion music during my earliest years. My first-ever show as a bandleader, held in 2013 at a place called The Kozmik Zoo on Broadway at Manitoba, was a Herbie Hancock tribute. It was a double bill, and you can find YouTube footage certainly of my band's set, but maybe also the other band's. The other band led off their set with "Actual Proof", a tune from Herbie Hancock's Thrust. The drummer last night, Clark, recorded that music with Hancock at age 29.

The trio served up funk to Clark in spades. They stretched out two minor-key standards that don't normally get groove arrangements: "Song For My Father" and "Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise". And their encore, which I couldn't recognize, was another funky piece. Witnessing Clark use such small, easygoing movements to play such engaged grooves was captivating. At almost 80 years old now, he can still throw down, and I don't foresee him stopping any time soon.

On stage was the same nylon-string guitar that Haque played Wednesday night in a Zameen Art House duo with local guitarist-pianist Itamar Erez. Haque didn't touch the nylon-string before the set break, but he opened the second set solo with it, playing "Rara" from his album CASSEUS!. That album features the music of Frantz Casseus, a Haitian composer who immigrated to the U.S. during the bebop era. Much later in his life, Casseus developed a relationship with guitarist Marc Ribot, some 40 years his junior.

Haque was less of a post-bop firecracker on the nylon-string, instead showing precise classical technique and sensitive dynamics. He talked from the stage about how he was introduced to Casseus' music by Ribot, who documented and played many of the composer's works.

"It's his birthday today," someone understatedly chimed in from the audience.

"No kidding," Haque said. I pulled out my phone, and sure enough, Ribot turned 71 yesterday.

The trio also did ballads: "Soul Eyes", best known from Coltrane's version, and "I Loves You Porgy", which Haque played on nylon. Washington's bass was most audible, and his playing was most lyrical, in his solos on these two ballads.

The whole concert was at an accessible, near-acoustic volume. I didn't bring the earplugs I brought the last time I was at the Revue Stage: May 9th for the 1970s and 1980s music of Miles Davis, as played by our local band Electric Miles and a Feven Kidane-led group billed as Star People. Those bigger, rocking bands strolled around the whole stage, including its small thrust element at the front, whereas the Haque trio were seated and stationary like they'd be at Frankie's or any small club.

The trio ended set one with a fast "Milestones" and set two with "My Favorite Things". They kept things loose when trading solos with the drums and lining up what was happening next, and it didn't always sound like they were all together all the time, yet the music never felt like it was going off the rails. I think what I'll remember this show for, other than hearing Clark live for the first time and meeting Haque as a personality, is the following rare trifecta: a heavy-hitter band from out of town, in a soft-seater marquee show, with the informality of a good jam session.