The Fifth Course

Last Saturday, March 7, 2009, I took a couple of friends to see Eric Skye perform at a house concert in san Francisco. Skye is unique among Jazz guitarists in that he employs flat top guitars rather than archtops or amplified instruments. In fact he endorses Santa Cruz Guitar Company instruments, and plays absolutely amazing Rosewood 00 with East Indian back and sides and a slotted headstock. But I digress.

I met Skye online on another forum, purchased his CDs, and have been following his progress for about a year when the opportunity finally came to see him perform in person. I marked the calendar months in advance and pestered my two friends into accompanying me the 90 mile distance from Modesto to San Francisco.

Somewhere in our correspondences, Skye suggested we bring instruments. We took him up on it.

Upon arrival at the home of the Bates family, we stashed our instruments with the host's permission, and settled in. I brought my Vessel F5 mandolin and my friend Ken brought his Weber Octave Mandolin, affectionately known as the "OcTar!" It's a guitar bodied octave mando with giant tone. We knew guitars would be redundant and didn't really feel like trying to play guitar around a Jazzman on his own turf.

Just before he took "the stage" (a corner in the living room), we got a change to shake hands for the first time and meet in person. We're the same age, though my gray is apparent if not pronounced and his is non-existent.

Eric's performance was excellent. His choice of instrument lends a sustain and warmth to his playing that is at least unusual for Jazz guitarists. His rhythmic sense is impeccable, and he goes on the fretboard where angels fear to tread. Watching him sprint on a high-wire is exhilarating. Sometimes he slipped, but he never fell. His performance is so open that you know what he's trying to do as he's doing it, and the musical vulnerability draws you in. You're routing for the guy to pull off that impossible passage which includes pulling off the thumb pick, storing it between his teeth, whipping off 8 bars of Wes Montgomery style octave runs covering at least 4 strings, and getting back the head without dropping a beat or missing a note.

After an hour and a half Eric told us he was "cooked" and brought the show to a close. People stayed, chatted, ate pot luck, drank organic beer from Portland, and had a good time following the show. Ken and I investigated and enjoyed Eric's SCGCs (the 00 and a dread). By about 9pm, I thought we were done, and let my friends know we could leave any time.

A few minutes later, Eric returned and grabbed a guitar. Ken and I pulled out our instruments and we started tuning up. Eric called fiddle tune after fiddle tune, so Ken and I happily obliged him. We were prepared to leap into he heady heights of m7b5s and walking bass lines, but we got "Salt Creek," "Old Joe Clark," and "Angeline the Baker" (Eric had quoted "Angeline the Baker" in one of the tunes he played --might have been Miles Davis's "Freddie the Freeloader"). I pulled out "Little Wing," wishing for a moment that I was playing my mandocaster!

Ken and I were often out of our depth. Playing fiddle tunes with a Jazzman allows you to think much farther outside the tune than Bluegrassers will consider appropriate. But it was exhilarating. I climbed up on the high wire myself a few times and got lost only once that I remember. [It's been a week now, so my memory may be rose colored!] Playing with Eric certainly encouraged a new sense of musical daring that I would not have had otherwise.

I think Eric was a little out of his depth too. Lots of the tunes he called he had passing knowledge of, but not practice with. And even for a Jazzman, an unpracticed tune is full of pitfalls. Point is both parties got tot stretch and meet in the middle somewhere between folk music and Jazz. And both parties loved it.

We went on like that for two and a half hours, because it was nearly midnight when I decided I was cooked too. I do remember saying, "OK, one more" at about 11pm.

So around midnight we piled into my Prius and rolled east through the Bay Area and into the central valley, happy, tired, and musically fulfilled.