Mike Phillips? You Rock!

updated September 26 with related post at the end

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BVI Music Festival 2007

Sunday, May 27 

updated on June 13 with more photo galleries (1, 2; Mike Phillips at Cayman Islands Jazz Festival 2006: 1, 2, 3)

Percy Sledge wowed the fans at the BVI Music Festival 2007 with a repertoire packed to the brim with the soul ditties that had everyone singing back in the day.  I was a big fan of Soul Music in those days.  However, there were too few or no opportunities at all to see the pop icons of that time, live in concert.  Artist promotion was almost non-existent in the Caribbean for all intents and purposes. 

The one drawback I found in Percy Sledge’s otherwise flawless performance was his pandering to his wife who not only made a physical appearance on the show, but dared to open her mouth to sing.  The result was a torrent of awful singing that would have attracted the wrath of the timid Paula Abdul, let alone the caustic Simon Cowell of American Idol. 

Stephanie Mills made no such mistakes.  She hugged the stage to herself and dished out the goods to great effect.  Her voice was still strong after all these years.  That reminds me of Percy Sledge whose pipes are decaying, but only a tad. Similarities with Sledge widened still as Mills went through her set.  I knew practically all of the soul singers’ hits, some better than others obviously. 

With Mills, it was different.  There were quite a few songs that I did not recognise.  Then it struck me that by the eighties, I had begun to drift away from popular music into the realm of Jazz; so it is entirely possible that I could have missed the full extent of Stephanie’s success in the disco age. 

Stephanie Mills’ microphone stand was decorated with a huge, sparkling “S.”  I would not hesitate to morph that “S” into a “thumbs up” twice as big.  I enjoyed the gal, plain and simple. I am not sure that Freddie Jackson worked well as a festival headliner – as great a singer as he is.  He just does not have the personality for that.  Then again, it is all about programming.  He would have been better placed earlier in the night’s line-up.

This reminds me of St. Lucia Jazz in 2006 when Seal closed the festival on the final (Sunday) night.  He all but emptied Pigeon Point, which was sad.  Seal did not work as a headliner in that context just like Jackson failed at the BVI Music Festival. 

However, the highlight of the night was Mike Phillips.  Had I not been scheduled to work, I would have gone to the BVI Musicfest, happy for the opportunity to see Percy Sledge and Stephanie Mills, but thrilled out of my shirt over the prospect of enjoying the Smooth Jazz of the young New York saxophonist.

    

Mike Phillips 

I knew it would be trouble from the time Mike Phillips’ band struck up and the leader emerged from backstage.  For a Smooth Jazz artist, it was heartening to know that he was grounded in the traditions of Jazz Music.  Several times during the almost ninety-minute set, Phillips called on the muses of Jazz icons, John Coltrane and Miles Davis.   However, Phillips did not only talk the talk; he quoted the unmistakable bass line of Miles Davis’ “So What” (from the seminal Kind of Blue recording) in his second song.  The Miles quote was enveloped in what I would call heavy orchestration sans strings. 

That song was started in an unremarkable Smooth fashion.  Then out of the blue (pun intended, the change to “Modal” came on the back end of Lee Hogan’s trumpet and Saunders’ trombone solos.  Yet, the stylized metamorphosis was not over.  Mike Phillips fused hip hop rapping over several choruses of the song.  And he was quite good at it too! 

I am sorry, but I am one of those persons who is stuck in the poetic rap of the Sugar Hill Gang, Grand Master Melle Mel and The Furious Five!, Ice T and their ilk.  Gangsta Rap left me behind in the old school a long time ago, pretty much in the same way that “Jump and Wine” music has had me going back to classic calypso, early soca and well, David Rudder, whose compositional flair evades the energy of the youthful Caribbean dance machines. 

But, I digress.  My point is that Mike Phillips harkened back to the roots of rap – just as he did with Jazz from the mid-twentieth century – to find inspiration for his own vocal interpretations. 

Phillips segued to a ballad that saw him go off to the side of the main stage in an attempt to reach the audience down below.  There, he made an impassioned plea on the alto sax, complete with extended circular breathing, the kind of thing that causes the most sedate audience to whoop and holler. Save for this one guy standing next to me who could not wait for Phillips to leave the stage (you know them, the Jazz haters), the Cane Garden Bay crowd was anything but sedate tonight. 

Next, Phillips brought out what I think might be the Digitech Talker, a vocoder stomp box designed to synthesize the voice and incorporate the distorted vocals into that of another instrument.  (I am subject to correction here.)  At any rate, Phillips thanked his audience using the vocoder effect to a funky backdrop. 

He added another level of difficulty in sampling Lil’ Bow Wow/Snoop Dogg’s, Bow Wow (That’s My Name) aka Yippee Yo, Yippee Yea, The SOS Band’s “Take Your Time Do It Right), Zapp Band’s “More Bounce to the Once” and War’s “The World is a Ghetto.”    Mike Phillips is proud of the fact that he played for Prince and Stevie Wonder and said as much in his introduction to an upcoming release, MP3, which he previewed tonight. 

As if to emphasize his growing legacy, Phillips announced that he was instrumental in getting his trumpeter, Lee Hogan, a gig with Prince’s band, NPG (New Power Generation).  Hogan then rendered the next song of the set on muted trumpet as though he were in a cutting contest.  He won me over that time. 

Still in the sultry vein, Phillips took over the stage again on “Many,” a wailing ballad that sampled yet another diamond from decades gone by, Minnie Ripperton’s signature tune, “Loving You.”  I loved all of these old school conversations, believe you me; the audience too for they sang along in refrain every time the leader urged them to. 

Surprisingly, Phillips threw in a vamp at his point to feature Daniel, the keyboardist.  The music bounced and bubbled with a restrained energy that drained the emotions to a dribble.

Lightening up the mood a bit, the saxophonist turned to Outkast’s version of “I love The Way You Move.”  This was the piece that turned the heat right back on again.  Phillips must have blown the longest note in history on that one.  It is really a thing of beauty to see a saxist master the circular breathing technique, live on stage. 

Needless to say, an encore was inevitable.  For that, Phillips dug deep into the musical mine and pulled up Frankie Beverley and Maze.  It was ninety-minutes of sheer pleasure watching an energetic performer as Mike Phillips strut his stuff on the BVI Musicfest stage.  I was thrilled to the brim. 

But my anonymous neighbour would have none of it.  He waved Mike Phillips goodbye with a contemptuous, though drunken face.  I would guess that he was the only one waving Phillips away; the rest of us would readily wave him back to the BVI anytime.

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