9/11/17:</br>Victor North | Farid Barron

Charlie Parker. Sonny Rollins. John Coltrane. Their recordings alone testify to their greatness. But that greatness didn't happen overnight. Check their bios and you are struck by how single-minded (obsessive even) each was in honing his craft, his sound, his mastery. Day after day, year after year. Never-good-enough is a standard for these greatest of artists.

Spike Wilner sometimes refers to the musicians who play his NYC clubs Smalls and Mezzrow as monks, reifying that single-minded work ethic that continually plumbs the depths and breadth of this music and one's instrument of choice.

Victor North and Farid Barron are musicians who exemplify the ethic. Their goals do not appear to be fame and fortune. Rather, they seem bent on perfecting a connection between inspiration and expression that yields something pure and real. To present them alone together @exuberance is a real privilege. 

Farid hit the big time early with Wynton Marsalis. Studied with Barry Harris, served with the US Air Force Band of the West, another stint with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, then succeeded Sun Ra in the keyboard chair of the Sun Ra Arkestra. Tomas Peña writes “Barron’s exceptional sense of timing, phrasing and timbre puts him on the same level as piano players such as Art Tatum.” Watch out.

Victor has played with a who’s who of Philadelphia musicians including Mickey Roker, Charles Fambrough,Terell Stafford, and Elio Villafranca. For twelve years, Victor has led the Three Blind Mice group with organist Lucas Brown and drummer Wayne Smith, Jr. Victor is also a founding member of Orrin Evans’ Captain Black Big Band and appears on their first two CD’s. In his hands, the saxophone is an angel singing or a blowtorch. And everything in between.

Note the date. 9/11 left a depression at ground zero and in our psyches. On this day Farid and Victor plan instead an aural monument to inspiration and hope. 12 days hence will be the birthday of John Coltrane. The monks convene here to offer blessings to us all.

@exuberance parties at Matt’s are by invitation only to provide a dignified, comfortable and acoustically ideal setting for worthwhile art and ideas. Cellphones and other devices are to be holstered during the performances. Between sets, conviviality rules.