Still Life is what live music should be: exciting, engaging and inspiring.
Still Life, the most recent group to come out of the Fairfield music scene, is an extremely talented group of musicians blending together jazz with funk, rock and hip-hop. I had a chance to catch the group perform at the local music hotspot Acoustic Café, which was just the beginning of their tour of shows in the area continuing with a performance this Friday at the Blackrock Arts Center.
The band is truly a conglomeration of the best of what Fairfield’s schools have to offer. Made up of Kurt Leon ’07, Fairfield Prep student Billy Ruegger, Chris McClanahan, Fairfield Ward School students Dennis Caravakis and Jarryd Torff. Fairfield University’s Music Program Director Brian Torff, brought Still Life together. Taken into account the ages of the players, Caravakis as the youngest at 17, their musicianship is uncanny.
“I wasn’t playing at this high a level at their age. It’s really something,” Brian Torff.
The crowd at Acoustic Café agreed as cheers followed solo after solo from front men McClanahan (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Torff (tenor saxophone). Ruegger pulled out solos on both acoustic and electric guitar starting with the first song of the night, a cover of John Scofield’s “Offspring”.
Still Life kicked the show off with a cover song, though they spent the majority of their show impressing the audience with their original songs. The show displayed the band’s diversity. As Leon said, “One minute we’ll be driving a rock sound when the song right after could fall into the category of contemporary jazz.”
Immediately following an “Offspring” cover was “Where It All Began,” which was the first song the band wrote together. Leon said, “‘Where It All Began’ is a song about our beginning as a new band that represents our five distinct sounds coming together as one.”
With its back and forth lead, swing transition, and furious ending, this song may have gone right over the heads of some audience members.
Ruegger then proceeded to wow the audience with “Just An Afterthought,” a song which begins with an extensive finger-picked acoustic guitar intro. The song also saw the first appearance of McClanahan on flugelhorn and featured an impressive drum ending from Leon.
The highlight of the night for many there was the band’s closing number, a cover of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” After a couple choruses, the band made the song their own by really jazzing it up and adding original instrumentation.
The crowd finally had the chance to see something they had been waiting for all night, a bass solo from Caravakis. The song shows the band’s age in the best of ways, proving that they can reach out to their peers and have fun while channeling the jazz greats they idolize.
Leave a Reply