Report on Jef Lee Johnson, Sonny T and Michael B gig in Paris

Last Friday, another chance, after the Michel Portal show in January, to see live the former NPG rhythm section here in France.
First of all: the venue. It was at the “new morning” the most famous jazz club here in France. This month, they celebrate their 20th anniversary with very exciting gigs every night including of course this one. This club is located in a very small and dark street in Paris, but make no mistake Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie … played there. Even a guy called Prince played on its very small stage 2 late night after shows: in 86, with the Revolution plus his father on the piano, and in 87 (It was a terribly rainy night, it took hours to Prince crew to set the huge equipment in this very small place and people had to wait till 2 AM to get in. At the time people including pseudoVIP’s, journalists and fans literally fought outside to get in)

Back to last Friday: when the trio hit the stage, it was obvious that Jef Lee Johnson (Erykah Badu, D’angelo …) was sick, probably a cold, and Sonny told the audience that he couldn’t sing. In fact Sonny sang all the songs and Jef Lee Johnson just played his guitar parts at the back of the stage. He seemed tired and shy, and from time to time Michael and Sonny just told the audience to encourage him. They also kinda friendly laugh at him asking “This is your show Jef, so what do we play?”. But in fact, he was not in a good day to really make the show (even if he played very well and is obviously a terrific guitar player). Definitely the boss (es) of this show were Sonny and Michael. He gave them the keys and it was just as usual with this fantastic 2 musicians … incredible!!! What can I say: pure music! Some highlights: they played a loud version of Jimi Hendrix “Manic Depression” (I personally give all the “Invincible” tracks just for this moment), they played a very strange version of Miles Davis “So what” with a beautiful guitar solo from Jef Lee Johnson, they played Burt Bacharach “This guy’s in love with you” with Sonny singing just like an old jazz crooner (perfect!) and guess what … They played a 10 minutes version of Sly Stone “thank you (for lettin me be mice elf again)”! First Sonny began to play his bass with his thumb just like Larry and then he just stopped saying “No it’s Larry’s style, it’s unfair!” they all laughed and then they went into an incredible bluesy version. Not as powerful as Prince and Larry but really, really cool.
Another interesting thing for Prince fans, they asked the audience what they wanted to hear and a lot of people screamed for “Get wild”, “Days of wild” or even “Cream”. Someone screamed very loud “Peach”. Michael and Sonny looked at each other and really laughed about that one: “Michael, someone said “Peach”, can you believe!” and Mike B just answered looking at Jef Lee “Thanx god you don’t know that song!”. Well … I must say that I like “Peach”, I like the guitar riff, the words, the video, the idea of Prince with just Michael B and Sonny T … and I was quite surprised that they really seemed to think it’s an awful song.
Well that report was long, and there is so much more to say, but what a good show! Hope they’ll tour in your country, don’t miss them!

By the way, the trio has an album coming out on Universal Jazz France called “what’s new in the jungle”. It’s not officially released but it was on sale at the show. Really good stuff : 15 tracks including 5 covers of … Duke Ellington !! I’ll send another (shorter) news about it.

Peace (what we need)