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Revive Da Live: Live Music Advocates Reshaping the Northeast's Soundscape

Posted 11/20/2008 at 10:30 AM  |  Comment?  |  Category: Concert Reviews, Interviews

"I listen to a lot of music y'all, don't mind me," announced Large Professor two Thursdays ago from the stage of New York City's Le Poisson Rouge. The noted producer and rapper co-headlined Revive Da Live's inaugural flagship concert series and when not dropping a few bars of rare jazz and hip hop sample sources, repeated variations of this statement. "I be listening to a lot of music," he'd note, wipe his brow and segue into another record. Few in the crowd of mostly eighties babies could have heard Large Pro's hits in their heyday but even for those present who could recall first hearing "Criminal Minded" in seventh grade or outside of church doing the wop with some girl, the archaeological playlist demanded attention. Hustling back and forth between turntables and laptop, he commanded stares and digital camera flashes, but was only able to get one intrepid b-boy to get down, the lead-footedness, not a product of indifference, but a bit of wonder.

Learning is a linchpin of Revive Da Live, a two-year-old event promotions and live music advocacy company with a growing buzz in the northeast. Founder Meghan Stabile provided some context via phone in advance of the show, "The motto of Revive Da Live is dedicated to exposing live jazz music and hip hop in hopes of creating a larger awareness and appreciation for jazz live music and helping musicians that create it."

Stabile established the company as a senior studying voice and music business at Boston's Berklee College of Music and credits the school and job at local haunt Wally's Café for introducing her to a wider world of music. "I started singing when I was really little. One of my all time favorite bands that got me into playing was Silverchair. I was kind of into that whole grunge scene." But with Berklee came exposure and inspiration, which translated into throwing shows that attempted to wrest some of the music she came to appreciate, primarily contemporary jazz, out of the underground.

The reliquary too. Stabile and her Revive Da Live cohorts don't approach their work as erudite museum curators but grounded masters of ceremony by not only incorporating the vocabulary of hip hop but by omitting the exclusive vocabulary of jazz appreciation. There is no talking down just fresh enthusiasm. "I feel like I represent a lot of people," Stabile said. "I basically am that person that I am trying to get to as far as audience is concerned. I didn't grow up with it. It wasn't something that was on he radio. It wasn't something that was on TV all the time."

Revive Da Live is just twenty events into realizing a vision that hopes to reengage young music fans with inventive live music but has already made a notable impact and cultivated a faithful if musician-heavy following. "Hands down, nobody's doing what we're doing," Stabile said. "It was that way in Boston and its that way here in New York."

The first concert of their flagship series bore witness. Large Pro proceeded to "duet" with Slum Village drummer Daru Jones and then an impressive array of jazz instrumentalists shared the stage with rap vet and amateur comic Jeru da Damaja, bringing life to his undiminished classic The Sun Rises in the East. But Jeru, a relative newbie to the scene, didn't allow for the jazz musicians--bassist Esperanza Spalding, pianist Ray Angry, saxophonists Jaleel Shaw and Marcus Strickland, trombonist Corey King, trumpeter Igmar Thomas and the aforementioned Jones--to get theirs until the end on the late J Dilla production De La Soul's "Stakes is High." It's a song heavily favored by the many jazz musicians reared when hip hop became pop, many of whom call Dilla a chief influence. Ray Angry, bobbed vehemently as he elaborated on the melody and the familiar loop, extended and improvised, similarly charged the soles of the healthy crowd that remained.

Tomorrow evening, Friday November 21st, Revive Da Live presents drummer Chris Dave (of Erykah Badu, Mint Condition and Robert Glasper's bands) and Friends at the Hip Hop Cultural Center of Harlem as part of the JazzMix festival.

Photo Credits: Large Professor and Jaleel Shaw at Le Poisson Rouge photographed by the author on Thursday, November 6, 2008.

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