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New Groove of the Month: The Living Daylights
by Tim "da Flower Punk" Lynch and Dean Budnick
This is a fine time to check out the Living Daylights. The band is building momemtum both in terms of its live shows and their critical acclaim (see them now so you can say you saw them now). The Seattle trio continues to elicit plaudits and comparisons to a range of groups from Medeksi Martin & Wood to Bela Fleck & The Flecktones to any number of jazz combos. Of course all of these comparisons are a bit off. How many other bands out there are comprised of a frontwoman blowing brash, dexterous sax, a versatile narcoleptic bass player and a resourceful, clairvoyant drummer. What is clear is that this instrumetal trio can glide through a range of styles with confidence and flair.
The Daylights have some high profile gigs coming up, with festival gigs on both coasts (including the Berkshire Mountain Music Festival & one notable show to be named later) and of course three appearances on the JamBands.com Tour.
In order to give you a strong sense of the band, this month we've turned to sources from both the west and the east. We offer you some thoughts from Tim "da Flower Punk" Lynch and Dean Budnick. First here is Tim's recent commentary on the band...
LIVING DAYLIGHTS - I have brought this Seattle groove and jazz unit to your attention before, but with the band soon to be in the midst of an East Coast swing, I want to bring them to your attention again. Living Daylights is Jessica Lurie on saxophones, Arne Livingstone on bass, and Dale Fanning on drums. Lurie is as comfortable with the squeals and squonks of a John Zorn or a Pharoah Sanders as she is with a melodious thing ala Sonny Rollins. What the former member of the Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet (a group of women who honored Tipton, a woman who disguised herself as a man to tour in a jazz band for many, many years) also brings to the plate is a love of Balkanized, Gypsy and other Eastern European rhythms, which are often quite complicated in their ever shifting time signatures. Livingston is perhaps the main reason this band sounds more like a quartet than a trio. He employs lots of digital loops and other effects to he can lay down a bottom on the bass, then freely play bass leads over that. Livingstone has created a synthesis of styles from the innovations of Stanley Jordan, Jaco Pastorious and Michael Hedges, applying them to his bass work here in ways that often cross-pollinates jazz and prog rock sounds. Fanning is the perfect foil for all this on the drums, as he can go from pin-drop quiet to all out free jazz abandon and back again at whim. Put the three together and it is impossible to stop dancing for hours. I highly recommend their most recent CD, "500 Pound Cat."
Here is an excerpt from Dean Budnick's Jam Bands book for some additional commentary...
Seattle's Living Daylights has been performing a hybrid of styles since forming in 1993. Bassist Arne Livingstone affirms "We're funky but we're not a funk band. We're jazzy but I'm not a jazz player. We're younger musicians who draw on both of these realms but we really grew up on rock." While high school students in the early 1980's, saxophonist Jessica Laurie and Livingstone formed r&b group called Musicology. Lurie eventually traveled east to attend college and later spent time in New York performance circles. However, she returned to her hometown in 1992 and the band came together soon afterwards. The two long-time friends drew in versatile drummer Dale Fanning to complete their sound.
Living Daylights performs instrumental compositions, most of which are crafted by Lurie and Livingstone; these compositions provide room for each of the group's three players. Lurie's playful, powerful saxophone often blares in a strident manner similar to John Zorn but also emits some more harmonious phrases. Livingstone draws on a range of techniques and effects that incorporate both technical gadgetry and physical ingenuity. Finally, Fanning contributes a complementary open style. The results bridge many realms but as Livingstone notes "I think that nowadays people are very receptive to different sound styles. Many of them grew up listening to Indian tabla music on Sesame Street. My ultimate goal is to invent a style of music. I've played reggae, Afro-Cuban, jazz, funk, rock and r&b, and I don't want to play any of those styles. I think that with the Living Daylights we may be on the path towards something else...The band's strengths are communication, interaction and chemistry. On some level I think that's bigger than the actual songs. 'Kind of Blue' was brilliant because of the elements contributed by its original performers. People can't just play 'Kind of Blue' and suddenly become brilliant."
As you can see this is a band well worth checking out. For updated info please visit the Daylights' home page at http://www.speakeasy.net/nwjazz/bios/livingdaylights/
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