Well what more could you ask for? Every event of this kind turns out to be a particularly strong one for at least one performer and there were plenty of sterling performances tonight, Ari's Drunken Barrel House Blues, West coast Blues & Rope Strechin' Blues for example, The East River's Natchez Mississippi Blues, and Stone pony, plus Eden's Kazoo solos, The Little Bros. fabulous renditions of Blood in my Eyes, Mama's angel Child, and Frank and Kim's magnificent and affecting eerily sung duet with archaic Banjo of "What Fault you Find With Me?" that was the high point of the night.
But overall the laurels had to go to Pat Conte's stark inward looking solo electric set which moved seamlessly through reconfigured standards like Howlin' Wolf's 44 Blues to Junior Kimbrough's Black Mattie with a kind of trancelike orchestral wholeness that successfully moved the private player into the public sphere in a way that hovered mysteriously between the two worlds. I felt that I was immersed in one long piece of music not dissimilar in a certain sense from a Wagner opera or a Mahler symphony. There was stinging slide playing and probably too much treble emphasis, but as a whole, and again the fact that it seemed such is in itself remarkable, and not a little due to an absence of introductions or patter between songs, it moved in a different and special way and offered a new perspective on familiar music. Again no small feat. It also attained a kind of extended cumulative beauty that maybe is the provenance of music of longer duration.
