KEVIN DORN and the SOCIAL DISTANCING JAZZ COLLECTIVE: "WOLVERINE BLUES" (March 19, 2020)

Years gone by: 2008.

I’ve known Kevin Dorn for nearly fifteen years now, and he beautifully balances the improvising musician and the improvising thinker.  Both his playing and his imagination have a rich orchestral beauty and solid originality; he also knows when to be richly silent, a rare gift.  Before the semi-quarantine (however you want to call it) changed our daily lives, I saw and heard Kevin at a session at Cafe Bohemia, where with his snare and wire brushes, he made us all levitate, without the need for oxygen masks to drop down from the ceiling.

and more recently . . . .

Yesterday, Kevin sent me an email with the subject line “Wolverine Blues,” and the text simply “Social Distancing version!”: which I can now share with you.  It’s a marvelous virtuoso excursion — Kevin dancing in and out of Condonia while being utterly himself:

Kevin modestly annotated this video as, “No one to play with, so it’s just the drum part.”  And that made me think of Larry Hart’s lyrics for THERE’S A SMALL HOTEL, “Not a sign of people. / Who needs people?” which speaks to Kevin’s beautiful orchestral conception, his sounds, his variety, his ebullient motion.  But another part of my brain says, “I can hear Wild Bill, Cutty, Ed, Gene, Eddie, Bob, very easily.”  You’ll have to see where your perceptions emerge.

What mastery.

Kevin, maybe you’ll consider IMPROMPTU ENSEMBLE into OLE MISS if we’re cooped up for months?  That is, if you’re taking requests.

May your happiness increase!