Over a year ago, Nicole and I were invited by BluJazz Records label owner Greg Pasenko to attend the 10th Annual Woody Fest (a continuing celebration of Jazz great Woody Hermann) and photograph and review the event in Milwaukee. The concert featured the Milwaukee Jazz Orchestra (MJO) under the direction of tenor saxophonist Curt Hanrahan.
   I had been writing reviews for BluJazz for five or six years and Nicole and I took Greg up on his offer. The concert was stellar (I wrote about it in the March 20, 2017 edition of the Sentinel & Rural News). 
   We also got to know Curt Hanrahan and his brother, drummer Warren Hanrahan. With them was Curt’s son, Tim Hanrahan, on bass. No chlorine in that gene pool! Along the way, we became pals with Warren’s wife, Maryann. Wonderful people, one and all.
   This year, Greg Pasenko and Curt Hanrahan invited us to the MJO concert with Michelle Coltrane as guest vocalist and Shea Welsh as Michelle’s musical director. The concert was held at the Racine Zoological Gardens, an excellent venue for Jazz.
   Nicole had discovered that the concert was an outdoor concert but what we didn’t know was that you needed to bring your own seating. All we had was a blanket in the trunk of the car.
   We spread out the blanket only to discover that we couldn’t see when people would put their chairs in front of us. We kept moving up until…oh, yeah…we were like Bob Uecker—“On the front row!”
   We met up with Maryann before the show and got an enthusiastic wave from Warren from behind his drum kit. But no Greg Pasenko yet.
The concert started almost right on time, a rare occurrence in the music world, with the mighty MJO starting off with Keith Jarrett’s The Raven Speaks. Guitarist Steve Lewandowski just cooked his solo and the orchestra was in powerful form.
   From there, they moved to a Curt Hanrahan original called Seattle. I thought it was a description of driving through the “Emerald City” but Curt came clean on the inspiration for the piece when I asked him about it last year.
   “It was when the Packers lost to Seattle and that ‘Fail, Mary’ pass,” Curt had confessed. It is featured on the MJO album, Welcome to Swingsville, and is one of Nicole’s favorite tunes on the CD. Eric Shore played tenor sax and wailed that piece.
   The final number before being joined by Michelle Coltrane was Juan Tizol’s Caravan, made famous by the Duke Ellington Orchestra. With a big band of four saxes, four trumpets, and four trombones, plus the drums, bass, guitar, and keyboards, the zoo was lit up. Tim Hanrahan got special attention for his bass work.
   Michelle joined the band, after the crowd settled down from Caravan, for All the Things You Are by Jerome Kern. The song was made famous by Tommy Dorsey and Dizzy Gillespie with Charlie Parker. Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra put their stamp on it but Michelle Coltrane just owned it.
An original by Michelle, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, followed. A beautiful piece that she performed with grace and beauty.
   That Old Black Magic set up a sweet surprise with Michelle singing lyrics that she wrote for her father, John Coltrane’s, song Moment’s Notice. A few years ago, I got to hear Ileana Santamaria perform her own lyrics for her father, Mongo Santamaria’s, tune Afro Blue. Something cool about hearing the lyrics that daughters write for their fathers’ songs. A nice way to end the first set.
   During the break, we got to say a few words to Curt. He was talking about the outdoor venue and the heat of the July afternoon. “You should’ve seen the rehearsal this afternoon,” he said. “We were burning.” I said, “All right, then!” “No” he corrected, “I mean burning like we were hot as can be in this sun!”
   The heat didn’t die down after the break. The MJO started off with Carole King’s Jazzman. It is a great song in its own right but the MJO makes it swing. Warren and Tim Hanrahan are just hounds for the groove—they can sniff it out from a mile away. They are an amazing rhythm section. Like Curt said, “Ah, it’s in the genes.”
   Michelle returned for Softly As in a Morning Sunrise by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II. It was also covered by John Coltrane in the 1962 album, Live! At the Village Vanguard. She followed with All of Me before Shea Welsh got his turn with his own composition Sancho T. Panza. It gave Michelle a breather but not the band. It was hotly heavy on the Latin rhythms and the band did everything Welsh could have asked.
S   tella by Starlight was also performed by John Coltrane with Miles Davis and Michelle turned it into one more tribute to her dad. But the sweetest tribute was her closing number, My Favorite Things. Of course, the piece is from The Sound of Music but John Coltrane took the Rodgers and Hammerstein song and made it into something truly spectacular. It was recorded when Coltrane left Miles Davis’ group so Coltrane could explore freer, more modal expressions. And it was played on soprano sax, an instrument not widely used in Jazz yet, to perfection. Curt Hanrahan boldly took the challenge and worked it beautifully. Michelle would have made Rodgers and Hammerstein and her father proud. Next to A Love Supreme, My Favorite Things is my favorite Coltrane number.
   Sunny by Bobby Hebb was the encore number. It was the finish to a concert I hoped would never end.
   But when the concert finished, we found Greg (who had only been siting about 10 feet away from us) who introduced Nicole and me to Michelle Coltrane. We got hugs and photos and I didn’t want to leave.
  Poor Nicole. I babbled about the concert and the song selections for the next couple of hours. Fortunately, Nicole enjoyed it as much as I did.


   ~Travis Rogers, Jr. is The Jazz Owl

   Addison Agen and her brother, Korrigan, spent so much time between their home in Ft. Wayne, IN, and their grandparents’ home in Gilman, WI, that they consider Gilman home too. When Addison stormed through the TV talent show called The Voice, her grandfather became one of her biggest cheerleaders. When the show ended, Addison was the first runner-up and one TV critic proclaimed that “the best singer did not win this season.” Clearly, Addison’s devotees were dedicated.
   After the season ended, Addison returned to Gilman and performed for her grandmother and her grandmother’s fellow-residents at Thorp’s Oakbrook Health & Rehabilitation Center. She also made a stop in at Romig’s Hardware in Gilman where her proud grandfather, John Agen, could crow about his girl.
   As a thank you to her extended family and second-home-city, the Gilman and Jump River Lions Club put together a concert in the Gilman High School gymnasium. Ken Klahn and the Lions got a splendid opening act, Wise Jennings—a husband and wife duo now living near Lake Geneva, WI.
   Melissa Weishaar was a 1994 graduate of Gilman High School and was thrilled to play before a crowd she knew so well. Addison’s mother was also a graduate of Gilman High from 1989.
​   Last Saturday night, July 7, it all came together.
   When Wise Jennings took the stage at 7 p.m., the place may not have been packed but it was extremely well-attended. Melissa played drums, tambourine, harmonica and vocals. Husband Jeff Weishaar played guitars and sang, as well.
   Here’s the thing: I’m not a huge fan of Americana/Country music. Okay, I’m not even a small fan. Wise Jennings refer to themselves as Americana/Roots Rock and, if there is a difference, then it is all the difference. Jeff was an extremely skilled and talented guitarist. Melissa sat the minimalist drum kit and played harmonica at the same time.
   [The harmonica was attached to the microphone. Think of Bob Dylan or Neil Young with their harmonicas on a neck-strap.]
   After the first or second number, I leaned over to Nicole and said, "Oh, my God. These guys are GOOD!"
   Melissa was propulsive in her drumming—not just keeping time, she moved things forward, neither rushing nor lagging even once. She was good.
   At one point, she kept time with the stick in her left hand and she played tambourine in her left, hitting the crash cymbal with the tambourine. And when she hit the crash cymbal, it CRASHED.
   All the while, poor neglected Jeff is simply playing perfect guitar. And when Jeff and Melissa sang, they were pitch perfect. So very complementary.
  Not only was Jeff working the guitar, he kept a bass line alive with bass pedals like those on an organ. Jeff describes it like this: "It is basically a 17-key organ pedal that controls a microkorg synthesizer. It rounds out the low end but, unless people really look, they don't realize what they are hearing."
   Nicole and I both liked the stage set-up of Wise Jennings. They sat facing each other—Melissa on the drum throne and Jeff on the guitar stool. Comfortable with each other, reassuring each other, and focusing entirely on the music.
   If it sounds like I’m gushing, it’s because I am.
   As I told Melissa, I’m a bit of a Jazz snob. Actually, I’m a terrible Jazz snob but they hooked me from the opening number and I never looked back. Were they Jazzy? No. They were straight-ahead, meaningful, fun music.
   Go to wisejennings.com and buy their new CD. Seriously. When they finished their set, the went to the front of the stage, turned the lights on, and got a photo of themselves with Melissa’s hometown crowd behind them. These are nice people.
   Addison Agen and her brother, Korrigan, followed after the intermission. I admit, I did not watch The Voice but I did see repeats of her performances on YouTube. She seemed like a nice young woman and there was no doubt that she was a gifted singer.
   She is 17 years old and Korrigan, who played bass, is a couple of years older. The two of them performed together for all but a couple of the songs.
   She opened by praising Wise Jennings saying, “There were only two of them but it sounded like six buhzillion people up here.” She said that she wanted them to move to Ft. Wayne, “so I can see them anytime I want.”
   She was a good guitarist but it was, after all, the voice that got so much attention. And rightfully so.
   Sometimes she sounded like Lisa Loeb and sometimes like Melissa Manchester, Addison had a sense of what intonations and vocalizations were appropriate to the mood and maybe even the audience. Even at age 17, one gets the feeling that this teenager knows how to respond to a room.
   She sang from her experience. That’s a big deal because nothing is worse than watching a would-be cowboy in $1,400 boots sing about sweating in the fields. Not buying it.
   No, Addison would introduce the songs and tell the situation of how it came to be written or chosen. Make no mistake, she composes very well. And she writes about what it meant to be singing before a television audience of 15 million people. She wrote and sang about the changes in the one-year season she was on The Voice. If you think that she focused too much on that experience…remember that she’s only 17 years old. As she experiences more, she will write about those new experiences, too. It’s a trip worth going along.
   Addison is unabashedly Christian. In fact, she concluded her concert on what can only be called a worship song. It was really quite something to hear a large portion of the audience singing in response. Yeah, she has that kind of charisma.
   Keep your eyes on Addison Agen. And go see Wise Jennings if they are ever anywhere within driving distance.


~Travis Rogers, Jr. is ​The Jazz Owl