April 12, 1976 review: Laura Nyro at Kleinhans Music Hall

 


As a big fan, I was overjoyed to see this artist back on the stage after a long layoff.

April 12, 1976 

Laura Nyro Gives Reason to Smile 

          In a long dress as red as the cover of her “Smile” album, Laura Nyro has the air of someone who’s been asked to a concert at Kleinhans Music Hall because her friends don’t want her to spend Saturday night alone.

          Such friends she has. Among those nearly filling the hall is Buffalo Philharmonic maestro Michael Tilson Thomas. On stage, it’s the most polyglot band one could imagine. Women playing bongos and two of the three horns. On drums, gleefully bionic session ace Andy Newmark.

          Newmark rides herd as this happily swinging crew puts the kiss of affirmation on Nyro’s solitary, jazz-toned musings from “Smile,” plus selected early favorites.

          It’s said they’re recording this for a live album. Hope so. This hour ought to be relived, if only for the spellbinding conclusion to “I Am the Blues” and Nyro’s piano with just guitar for a playful “Sweet Blindness.”

          Now one understands why she wasn’t afraid to follow a toughie opening act like Ellen McIlwaine. Nyro is called back for twice for encores, closing solo with “When I Was a Freeport and You Were the Main Drag.”

          McIlwaine, aggressive under blond ringlets (“You won’t like this next song,” she announces), does things with a wired-up acoustic guitar and a wah-wah pedal that would’ve spun Jimi Hendrix’s head around, but nearly ruins it all with her cool and demanding demeanor. That’s no way to treat friends and Laura Nyro.

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: The red cover of Laura Nyro’s “Smile” album.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Laura Nyro had retired in 1971, but the breakup of her marriage and the death of her mother prompted her to come back with the “Smile” album, then with a four-month tour, her first with a full band. A live album, “Season of Lights,” followed in 1977.

          In addition to drummer Andy Newmark, who worked extensively with Carly Simon, the band included hot New York session guitarist John Tropea, jazz bassist Richard Davis, percussionist Carter “C. C.” Collins, conga player Nydia Mata, vibraphone innovator Mike Mainieri, saxophonists Jeff King and Jean Fineberg (also on flute), and trumpeter Ellen Seeling. Tropea, Mata and Collins had played on the “Smile” album.

          The set list from this night on setlist.fm is woefully incomplete. Here’s how it looks:

Sexy Mama

(unknown)

And When I Die

The Confession

I Am the Blues

The Cat Song

(unknown)

Encore

(unknown)

Midnite Blue 

A better reflection is the list of songs from her Carnegie Hall concert on March 31. It was broadcast live on WNEW-FM, was widely taped off the air by fans and is available on an import CD.

Stormy Love

Money

Sweet Lovin’ Baby

And When I Die

Band intro

Upstairs by a Chinese Lamp

The Confession

I Am the Blues

Sweet Blindness

Smile/Mars

Timer

The Cat Song

Emmie

When I Was a Freeport (And You Were the Main Drag)

Midnite Blue

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

July 6, 1974 Review: The first Summerfest concert at Rich Stadium -- Eric Clapton and The Band

Image
  This was the summer that rock ‘n roll came to the brand new Buffalo Bills stadium in Orchard Park . There was a lot of official nervousness about this kickoff event.   July 6, 1974   Hassle-Free Clapton Concert Scores a Pleasant Success             Rich Stadium got its baptism in rock ‘n roll Saturday evening and it all went off so well that the home of the Buffalo Bills football team should be bouncing to the big beat for many summer nights to come.           It was a star-studded event – stars above and stars on the stage. The Band, honed to near perfection as a live act, cranked out a happy, raucous set. And guitar idol Eric Clapton, who announced that he was drunk (indeed, he was very drunk), took a laid-back set that left many of his worshippers perplexed.           But the real heroes of this show – the first of four in the Summerfest ’74 series at the stadium – were promoter Jerry Nathan and his Festival East organization. * * * THEY TURNED the near-impossib
Read more

Feb. 2, 1974: The Blue Ox Band

Image
  One of the major local rock bands of the day and predecessor to some equally wonderful aggregations down the line.   Feb. 2, 1974 Blue Ox Wants Aggressive, Bitey Sound   AS BLUE OX themselves will tell you, a lot depends on the crowd.                    One night they’ll be sitting there in the Bona Vista on Hertel Avenue like good old boys and girls on the bayou, bobbing in their private dreams to the Grateful Dead’s “Truckin.’”           A few nights later, at an even more tender hour, the tiny dance floor is full of folks boogieing their heads off to the very same tune. * * * “IF YOU LISTEN for a whole night,” guitarist-organist Charlie O’Neill says, “we go through all kinds of styles. But sometimes the slower stuff is rough when you’ve got a bunch that wants to bounce around.”           Variety, for Blue Ox, has been a matter of trading and balancing between a club crowd’s boogie urge and the band’s own preference for subtler, more complex tunes, including a fe
Read more

August 9, 1976 review: Elton John at Rich Stadium, with Boz Scaggs and John Miles

Image
  Now that all the organizational issues for Rich Stadium concerts were ironed out, Mother Nature decided to throw a curve. August 9, 1976 Elton John Pours It On For Rain-Soaked Fans Elton John was amazed. “I thank you for standing out in the rain and sitting out in the rain,” he remarked as he strode out in a Stars & Stripes Uncle Sam outfit in Rich Stadium Saturday afternoon for the first of three encores. “You deserve a medal of honor.” Instead of medals, the drizzle-soaked, wind-chilled crowd of 52,560 got a whale of a concert from the supermost superstar of the ‘70s. In fact, such was the energy of that first encore – everybody shouting along to the chorus of “Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting” – that the rain faltered and it seemed like the sun would awaken for a guest appearance. But it didn’t. It was miraculous enough that Superfest 10 beat the deluge. The promoters rushed to fit it all in, forestalling an epidemic of rockin’ pneumonia and the boogie-w
Read more