Steve Gardner

Club Cay February 9, 2009

Steve Gardner – guitars, harmonica, washboard
Bill Steber – ukelele, banjo ukelele

Macoto Takahashi -guitar
Hisa Nakase - bass
Shinjiro Mori – electric guitar
Yu Ojima – drums
Bill Benfield - mandolin
Koyo Murakami – trombone

On a Monday night in February, the chill weather and trendy fashions of the Aoyama streets outside were left far behind as Club Cay transformed itself into the warmth and earthiness of a Mississippi juke joint. Steve Gardner and friends brought the full-on down-home blues (that Tokyo so very badly needs!) to a packed house of hard-drinking, happy-dancing blues fans. Kicking off the show with “Walkin’ the Dog,” the standing room only audience got right into the music, clapping, stomping, shouting and doing their best to set aside the black-fashion cool and just let the blues ripple and flow right through them.

With eight musicians on stage, seven more than what blues ever needs, the result was more than eight times great. The music came alive with nuance, clarity and the depth of a big band. The songs were drawn from classics like “Jesus on the Mainline,” “Sitting on Top of the World” and “Darktown Strutters’ Ball,” but also Gardner’s originals. The two-step beat of older trad blues like “Diggin’ My Potatoes” fit right in to the nimble rhythms of “Mean Old Frisco” and slow deep blues of “Help Me.” Each tune went not for any special show-offy licks or bluesier-than-thou archiving, but rather a pure blues connection.

On evenings like this, the stage seems less like a stage than just another part of the hard grooving atmosphere. The cavernous interior might have seemed like it was for a sit-down concert, but the steady upbeat blues turned the club into something special, like all your favorite corner bars rolled into one. The acoustic instruments kept the energy level intimate and close, even with more and more people arriving in the club all through both sets. When anyone wanted to dance, people just moved their chairs or stepped aside a bit to let them shake.

Of course, if you want to hear the licks up close and mull over the blues history, you can get a hold of the CD (see the CD review). But, live, what you want is to move and feel good. Gardner and friends pushed the mountain of Tokyo worries aside and let people come together and feel right. That’s what Gardner’s blues is all about.