I’ve have seen Karl Denson live in concert for quite a few years now.  It started in the late nineties, prior to any knowledge of the Greyboy Allstars, with an opportunity to open up for the “Tiny Universe” at the Fox Theatre in Boulder.  Needless to say, after that show I was quite impressed and began looking into this incredible musician.

It would seem he had some early fortune hooking up with Lenny Kravitz, (which has ultimately led him to a standing gig with the Rolling Stones, believe it or not) prior to becoming a member of the Greyboy Allstars in the nineties.  Anyone who owns a copy of the live ’98 Greyboy show in San Francisco knows how adept Karl D. is as both a saxophonist/flutist and musician.  This is one of the early pinnacles in his playing, imo–he is spot on every note!

From there he broke off into the his own band, “Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe”, which I’m happy to say is still going strong almost twenty years later.  Although the players have changed around a bit, Karl still brings his solid brand of tight, funky compositions and just stellar musicianship to the stage every time he performs.  As a band leader and musician, it is awesome to see the consistency in his work.

I first started to see Karl D. in New Orleans in the mid-2000’s during Jazzfest, where he was the late, late show at 2am.  I had no idea these were some of his first gigs in town, and it was a marathon going to Jazzfest all day, evening shows at the regular time slots, and then staying up till 5am watching Karl.  Yet, these were some of my favorite memories.  As an example, imagine this line-up as a typical Jazzfest day/night–Galactic & Widespread Panic at the fest, then J-5 & Soulive evening shows (at now defunct Twiropa), and then Karl Denson at House of Blues.  Yeah, the sun was coming up when I left that one…

More recently I saw Karl at Howling Wolf in 2014, where he performed the “Dirty Mind” album as a Prince tribute.  I have to admit, I was ready to leave after waiting over 90 minutes past show time for them to start (Howling Wolf needs to get its shit together; House of Blues is a much tighter ship with regard to time slots, imo).  However, something in me made me stop for that one last beer, and I found myself comfortably placed right by the bar, with plenty of space to groove in a sold-out standing room only venue.  And then he took the stage and killed it!

Which brings me to House of Blues show during the first weekend of Jazzfest 2018.  This one had Robert Walter’s Congress (he’s ditched the 20th moniker) as the opener.  If you don’t know about Robert Walter, he was the original keyboardist in the Greyboy Allstars.  He is good, but I think his compositions are better and there are certainly better keyboardists to see if that is your gig.  That said, he did a great job opening up for Karl, and the material he played was very reminiscent of the Miles 70’s fusion albums.  In addition, his drummer (Simon something or other) was on fire, plus the outfit and lipstick reminded me of the Perry Farrell & Dave Navarro cross-dressing days.

As soon as Karl took the stage the entire crowd went nuts.  The line-up was a little different this year, in that he had a slide guitar player with him (who was pretty damn good) in addition to the newer, regular guitarist DJ Williams.  It also looked like both keyboardist and drummer were fresh to the group.  I know that this year he is doing a tribute to the Allman Brothers, dubbed “Eat a Bunch of Peaches”, so I expect that these players were hired with that in mind.  Either way, the show was off the hook and there was a lot of guitar.

Per usual, Karl inserted a cover tune that you would never expect–this year’s being Steely Dan’s “Showbiz Kids”.  You just knew that was the tune, but he did a little different arrangement on it that had me guessing for a while.  He also delved a bit into material from 2001’s, “Dance Lesson #2”, pulling out the flute almost as a special treat.  The highlight for me was “The Bridge”; it sounded like he re-arranged it a bit and it was easily the height of the performance–I was dancing around the lower crowd area like a goon for sure, but it was heaven!  They closed the show with the Gregg Allman classic, “Whipping Post” which I witnessed front row.  Karl D. was most certainly in his Zen space giving it his all, note for note, blowing the shit out of the tenor saxophone.  Great memories for sure.

All in all, this was classic Karl Denson at his best.  I’m happy to see him continue to kill it, and I would highly recommend going to see him whenever you can.  He is a testament to consistency and longevity in the music business.  He continues to show everyone how great of a musician/composer he really is with every show.

5 out of 5 stars!