17th July 2009 – Malaga, Spain.
Now and again a chance to see a great concert comes up and this was such an occasion.
Each year Alhaurin de la Torre in Malaga, Spain holds El Porton Del Jazz Festival where jazz greats perform at a moderate cost to the public.
Included in this year’s billboard was bass great Victor Bailey of Weather Report fame.
We arrived at the venue with plenty of time for some light refreshment before the show started. Thankfully the organisers had scheduled the show to start at 22.30, as in Spain July can get very hot during the day.
The venue itself is a small open air amphitheatre tucked away in the quiet of Alhaurin de la Torre. I must say it was a comfortable venue with great acoustics and a well set stage.
Soon enough after a thunderous announcement over the PA, the band came onto the stage to great applause. Victor however came on holding a cane and was helped onto a stool by his band mates. We later learned he’d been in some sort of an accident and hurt his leg and one of his ten fingers. He joked the other nine where ok though.
This didn’t stop him from putting on a show stopping performance. Armed with his signature edition 4-string Fender Jazz bass, Victor went through a whole range of styles, encompassing Jazz, Funk R&B and more.
I especially enjoyed the smooth “Kid Logic”, an arrangement of George Clintons “Knee Deep” and “Slipping and Trippin” a new tune from his next album to be released soon (inspired by his accident perhaps?).
Victor’s influences are quite apparent in his songs, with his slow soulful numbers reminding us of his Weather Report era and his funkier numbers deriving influences from artists such as George Clinton.
The Victor Bailey band was composed of the following musicians.
After the show the band took the time to meet and great anyone who so wished and we were able to speak to the great man himself and obtain an exclusive signed CD.
We look forward to his new CD as long as his PC technician doesn’t wipe his hard drive again as he explained to the audience during the show.