Tampa Calling

I dropped into the I Love St. Pete Art Show this Saturday night, took a quick look-see at some pretty great St. Pete-inspired art – didn’t stay inside artPool too long as it was jam-packed and hotter than the dickens – and almost snagged a pair of retro sunglasses I spotted from across the room but actually talked myself out of buying by the time I could see myself in their reflective lenses. Had a chat with Bluelucy artists Chad Mize and Phillip Clark about their upcoming appearance in Manifest Hope: DC (a pre-Presidential Inauguration art show held January 17-19 in Washington D.C.), got a little dazzle from the graphics projected onto the flat top front of artPool’s facade, and was thoroughly impressed by a four-song set of live music by the Jim Morey Band performed in the gallery parking lot.

Jim Morey Band fuses vagabond jazz and muddy river Creole with that Tom Waits style of stumblin’, rootsy rock n’ roll, sly gypsy rhythms swaggering and swinging and stomping and grooving along.

Frontman Jim Morey (also a current member of Lounge Cat) sang in his warm drawl, played trumpet and plunked notes on his little keyboard, David Crisler (also of Lounge Cat) performed on electric banjo hooked up to a guitar synthesizer (which makes the notes sound like different instruments), another banjo player plucked and strummed an acoustic banjo that sounded like an acoustic banjo, and a drummer thumped fat basslines with his left hand while busting out rhythms on drums with his right hand and feet. Yes, that’s right – one man in charge of all the low end. I’ll admit I found the novelty appealing, not to mention amazing.

At some point, my friend Meghan whispered to me, “It’s like a one-man band with four members.” And she had it kinda right, though Jim Morey Band gave much more in a single sitting than a one-man band could offer ever.

Stay tuned for more about the Jim Morey Band, including a review of JMB’s debut self-released debut, Nuthin But Love.

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