Derek Trucks Band tell the truth
House of Blues, Boston, April 2, 2009
Reviewed by Jeffrey B. Remz
At the end of the Derek Trucks Band's 115-minute show before a sold-out crowd bridging the ages, drummer Yonrico Scott told the crowd, "This is the first day of our tour and the best day." Well if that's the case, one can't imagine how these guys are going to sound and feel like after they really get road tested.
Trucks is a veteran at 29 with "Already Free" just out as his seventh disc. He has built a reputation as one helluva guitarist, having played with Eric Clapton on tour and being a member of the Allman Brothers Band for a decade.
Trucks and company did not waste any time, lighting up the stage super fast with the opening Get What You Deserve.
Now he may have learned a thing or two from Clapton and his connections with the Allmans (his uncle is Butch Trucks, drummer for the Allmans), and he certainly put it all to great use. Trucks proved to be an extremely fluid, supple guitarist, very long on skill and short on flash. Yes, he can play fast, but that was never a case of showing off. Trucks was utterly unassuming on stage. He cracked a smile a few times, but he really let his play do almost all of his talking (he talked once with the crowd). He played a slide guitar and stirred up the pot enough to maintain interest (although a few songs near the end went pretty long, perhaps a bit too long). It's easy to see why Clapton and the Allmans enlisted Trucks.
An added benefit was that Trucks brought his wife on stage, aka, blues singer Sue Tedeschi. A Boston-area native, she has a distinctive voice with a lot of timbre. She didn't always mix entirely well with lead singer Mike Mattison, but it worked well enough. And they sounded as good as they did all evening on the final song of the night Sweet Inspiration, where Tedeschi was more of a backing vocalist.
Mattison was a very bluesy, soulful sounding vocal stylist with a throaty feel to his voice. But he was the singer, not the front man of the band. There really was no front man per se as there wasn't a lot of talking going on. They mainly played the songs.
Rounding out the band were keyboardist Kofi Burbridge, who turned in a lot of good runs during the night, percussionist Count M'Butu, from the same town as Tedeschi, who was also very good, along with bassist Todd Smallie and Scott.
This was one fine night of blues-based music with an expert guitarist at the helm. In the closing song of the regular set, Mattison sang, "I will always see you smile." Playing as they did made it easy for the crowd to do so.
Jaimoe's Jaszz Band preceded Trucks with a very strong hour-long set of jazz and blues. Jaimoe, of course, is the Jaimoe of Allmans fame. He kept a steady beat, on the soft side, but in control. The focus was more at the front of the stage. Guitarist/singer Junior Mack was a very good, soulful singer, easily tackling Rainy Night in Georgia and Yesterday Is Gone.
This was horn-oriented (unlike Trucks) music with a sax, clarinet and trumpet part of the mix. Both Mack and Jaimoe later came out to play with Trucks, an indication of the respect they have for each other.
When all was said and done, somehow Scott's comment left you scratching your head. It just seemed very hard to believe he was telling the truth.
