Vanessa Collier unpacked the whole kit Wednesday at Caffe Lena: alto and tenor saxophones, guitar and dobro. Non-hardware items completed a most impressive package: soul-deep command of fire and funk in her soaring or simmering voice, from-the-heart songwriting skills, a discerning ear for cover tunes, and a compact band. Scorching at hot tempos, slow-cooking in R&B ballads and highly interactive, the quartet co-starred guitarist Mighty Mike Schermer, seen on the same stage previously with Maria Muldaur and Marcia Ball. Turning up the heat, spicing with soul sauce, they barbecued the place.
Vanessa Collier and band. from left: guitarist Mighty Mike Schermer, saxophonist Vanessa Collier, drummer Byron Cage and bassist Justice Guevara
When a late-coming couple threaded through to a front table, a fan called, “Now, it’s sold out!” The packed room had that happily jammed feeling of something shared and cool happening.
The vigorous blues shuffle “Whiskey and Women” set the pace, Collier singing first, then scrambling all over her alto sax, notes fluttering fast, before stepping back as Schermer took the lead; then they played in harmony, intuitive and tight.
Those two held eyes and ears with such confident easy, unified musical force that we could almost take for granted workmanlike drummer Byron Cage and bassist Justice Guevara, toiling solidly away on muscular beats. Almost.
Schermer’s guitar set a menacing mood in the slower “Take Me Back,” its groove pushed hard when Collier clapped double-time between vocal and alto fire; then Schermer wrapped things up with a serene echo of his agitated intro.
“Can’t Stand the Rain” flowed at a similar tempo, full emotional force at first, then simmering down as Guevara sang harmony with Collier. This Memphis soul classic felt conversational all the way as Collier’s alto chatted up Schermer’s guitar. She played a riff, he played back “Yeah, that’s right!” Then his new riff commented “What about this?” – and she answered.
Backstage afterward as he poured a beer, Schermer told me he still felt somewhat new to the gig, but his musical dialogs with Collier sparkled all night, altering his phrasing and tone to follow, to lead, to embellish or glide away when she soared alone.
Collier said she loved playing the Caffe, seeing it filled with fans “packed in like sardines,” and explained how she found the saxophone, as a precocious introvert at age nine, to express emotion as her second voice.
This set up “What Makes You Beautiful,” written for her younger sisters to teach the strength she found to overcome self-doubt. She shifted to tenor for this mid-slow shuffle, using bluesy jazz phrasing to show self-pride emerging from insecurity as it simmered, then built.
Similar tempo shifts pushed the buoyant “Bloodhound” as Collier played slinky slide guitar through fast runs while Schermer comped soul chords behind her. Her alto stuttered and fluttered through a syncopated solo and she closed by urging everyone to howl.
While “Sweatin’ Like a Pig, Singin’ Like an Angel” might serve as mission statement, Collier seemed unruffled and unsweaty throughout. If touring with blues hero Joe Louis Walker taught her outgoing, confident command, she was candid and confiding as a songwriter, going romantically wistful late in her seamless 90-minute set.
“When Love Comes to Town” had a fresh, episodic feel, a slow soul-funk groove with stop-and-go story-telling drama, a wordless vocal chorus and circular alto riffs generating compelling centrifugal force.
The torchy “Just One More” felt more direct and cozy, a candle-lit tango with Schermer supportive in clipped phrases among the seams of Collier’s alto runs until he claimed the spotlight with high squeals and cyclic repeats.
Collier shifted to dobro in “When It Don’t Come Easy,” a pandemic-inspired anthemic call to strength and resilience. It flowed on stop-and-go funk beats with harmony vocals by Cage and Guevara, Schermer’s racing strums, wordless vocals at the coda.
She revved big on “Do It My Own Way,” clapping fast and counting off “One, two, ELEVEN!” to launch a Southern-fried James Brown tribute. She cited Brown’s saxophonist Maceo Parker among her inspirations, but Schermer’s relentless Jimmy Nolen-style rhythm chops helped carry things. The simple phrasing of Guevara’s bass clearly emerged as propulsive riff power here, funky as Bootsy Collins or Larry Graham and locked with Cage’s drums.
They left the stage to general tumult, which Cage answered alone by taking the stage to erupt a happy drum solo clatter that drew the band back on. And, of course, Collier took everyone to New Orleans with “Bad News Bears,” a sizzling vamp under solos by everyone including Guevara, his only instrumental break all night.
When the riff storm slowed and everybody else laid out near the end of this “Bears” encore, Collier’s alto continued, alone and eloquent, fluttering around the melody and taking it home.
Caffe Lena shows this weekend: Lucy Wainwright Roche tonight (daughter of Loudon Wainwright III and Suzzy Roche of the Roches), old-style banjoist Carolyn Shapiro Friday, the New Orleans-style brass band Soggy Po’ Boys Saturday – sold out, sorry – and Rev. Robert Jones, a keeper of the acoustic blues flame on Sunday.
Hoke's Jukebox 