The trio of Hamid Drake, Kent Kessler, and Ken Vandermark played in the basement of the Unitarian Church on Chestnut Street on Friday, 10 July.

It wasn't quite the night of all blues that Alan Saul described the next night's show as being, but it did feature "Complete Communion" as the last segment of the first set which was about 45 minutes long and had Vandermark on tenor all the way through. Hamid Drake took one solo that was outrageously good, with a lot of nice rhythmic shifts in a straight jazzy mode. He also started the second set on a handdrum, and sang along, then Kessler started bowing his bass, then Vandermark joined in on bass clarinet. Vandermark also played clarinet during the second set, and tenor. I thought he was using circular breathing at one point, and since Alan mentioned that Ken did so the next night, maybe I did hear what I thought I heard. (He seemed to be taking in air at the sides of his mouth, and the phrases he played seemed continuous.) It was a good show overall. (And Vandermark looked an unlikely out-there jazzbo: with his buzz-cut hair, short-sleeve shirt, brown shorts, and high-top black Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers, he seemed a large Boy Scout.)

The Okka Disk man was in Philly, as well, and sold me the CDs "DKV Trio Live" (#501 of 600, after I thought I missed my chance to buy it when Sound of Market sold its only copy), "Steam" (Vandermark in a quartet with piano), and a Live Vandermark 5, cut on a recordable cd.

The Brotzman 3CD set was tempting, with all of the great sidemen on it, but I only know Brotzman from Last Exit, and he did not impress me in that context. It was selling for $30, and I already had spent $36, so I passed it up.