Rob Dixon's Triology expands to throw a farewell-to-July party

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The '"musical mayor" of Indianapolis, Rob Dixon, reached out to his constituents Friday night

Rob Dixon holds forth at the Kitchen.

at the Jazz Kitchen, and his position was sustained by acclamation  over a long set that climaxed with his stroll around the venue playing a long solo that, by virtue of a microphone attached to his tenor sax, got heard by everyone and was reinforced in sync with the band. Like a deft politician, he managed to reach out to shake hands as he passed by one table after another. 

The non-peripatetic personnel of Dixon's enlarged Triology included Reggie Bishop and Gary Mielke, keys; Brandon Meeks, bass, and Richard "Sleepy" Floyd, drums,with a special guest appearance by Vick Luna, trombone. They all stayed on the bandstand, but lifted the mood all along the way wherever Dixon wandered.

The band opened with a  unified, powerful  pair of statements that included Dixon's "Ten Thousand Ships," the title alluding the centuries-long slave trade between Africa and the Americas.

Dixon's muse doesn't often suggest commentary on matters of social and historical import, but it rises to the occasion when called upon. He is more inclined as a composer to reach out into his extensive familiarity with pop culture, as he and the band did in "Dragonslayer," which featured Meeks' great bass-guitar idiom, and "Eighties," referencing a favorite decade of  the leader's for pop music. Bishop's solo was  evocative of the era, sort of a "morning in America" episode without Reagan,  and Dixon contributed a solo on alto saxophone that took advantage of the leaping melody line.

On "We Be," another original, bandstand guest Luna contributed a preaching solo, which got from the amen corner represented by Mielke one of his most exploratory statements. There was little doubt that the drive that was consistent throughout came from Floyd's mastery of the drum kit, with its explosive interplay of cymbals and percussive outbursts. 

It was clear as the set wrapped up that whatever the woes connected with the other mayor of Indianapolis, this one has his situation well in hand.


[Photo: Shawna Frazer-Klopfer]


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