Do I suddenly have a jazz fixation? Since restarting this blog in August of last year, I've written a few times about local jazz bands. This includes noworriesLMK at Zebulon and Wayne Redfern at Club Tee Gee.
It was off to a WFNM night at Hotel Ziggy on a Tuesday night. Now I went to this specific night to catch a singer (non-jazz) that I've followed since 2016. I'm very happy I made that decision, because I also ended up seeing Dirtydom & The Vibe.
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| Dirtydom & The Vibe at Hotel Ziggy |
A tendency of mine when I head out to Hotel Ziggy is to leave after catching a couple songs of the last band. Why? Okay, so the night usually ends by 10:30 p.m., but Hotel Ziggy is on the Sunset Strip (east side, not what one normally considers the core part of the Sunset Strip which to me is where The Roxy, The Viper Room and Whisky a Go Go are located). That means I have to drive from the Sunset Strip to Glendale, which is kind of a long drive in terms of time length. Someone in their 20s might laugh at me, but . . . I'm not in my 20s, I go out multiple times a week, have to head to the office in the morning, blah blah blah.
On this night; however, I stayed for the full set of the last band, Dirtydom & The Vibe. Of course the reason was that the band blew me away. The Dirtydom of the band is Dominique Jessie. Per her bio on Spotify, she was born and raised in Long Beach and plays saxophone, drums, bass, and piano. On this particular night, she was focused on the saxophone.
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| Dirtydom & The Vibe at Hotel Ziggy |
She arrived on the scene with six bandmates in tow. It was rather hard not to miss the musical instruments (saxophones, guitar, bass, trumpet) being held by the musicians as they were in the hallway of the hotel, waiting for the prior band to teardown their equipment. At that point, I made a mental note that I was likely sticking around for a full set. Why that mental note? I honestly hadn't done any research on any of the singers / bands playing this particular night. I was only focused on catching the singer I've followed for years. But seeing the band waiting in the wings to get onto the stage, I knew they were a jazz band.
Jessie started off the night by telling the audience, "Feel free to vibe with us." The band kicked off the set by playing a couple new songs that will be on an upcoming album: "Birds" and "Steps." There was some John Coltrane influence in those tunes. Also, throughout the set, I just could not get it out of my head that I was listening to the soundtracks of some classic 1950s / 1960s movies. Now that should be considered a compliment on my part. I'm an ardent watcher of TCM (Turner Classic Movies) and in my head I was thinking that this was a perfect fit for classic movies such as Anatomy Of A Murder, Blow-Up, Sweet Smell of Success, The Man With The Golden Arm, and The Pawnbroker. (I did need a little help via Google to find movies that had a jazz soundtrack, but I assure you I've seen all those movies, a couple of them recently.)
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| Dirtydom & The Vibe at Hotel Ziggy |
It was fascinating watching Jessie both play the saxophone and at the same time act as conductor to her bandmates. She'd generally hit the saxophone keys with her right hand, but at times she'd continue to play while using her right hand to give short hand signals to her bandmates who obviously knew exactly how to interpret those signals.
When it came to the final song, she asked the audience to participate by clapping along, but she told us all, "Clap on the two and four, please." She was even making sure she was conducting us in the audience. As with any awesome jazz band, they ended the set jamming to the driving beats of the drummer.
Jessie's comment of the set while the drummer was going off: hey, yo, we get it, you're good.
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