The New York Times music section featured an informative article yesterday about The Capitol Theater titled, “Live Music to Return to a Storied Theater” by C.J. Hughes. (See Related articles link below).

The gist of the article is that Peter Shapiro who owns the Brooklyn Bowl plans to produce 100 performances a year there. The Capitol will undergo a two million dollar, four-month renovation project. This could translate into a late spring/early summer grand re-opening. Peter Shapiro is also the publisher of Relix magazine, which provides excellent coverage of the jam band scene.

I’ve never been to the Brooklyn Bowl but my son has and he really likes the venue. I am a long time reader of Relix. The magazine does a fine job of covering the alternative and rock music scene. Peter Shapiro is very well-connected in the music industry and this bodes well for us concert goers. The addition of The Capitol to the New York/Connecticut market sharpens the competition for the concert dollar. I think this may cause a couple of existing promoters to be more price competitive now.

The proximity of The Capitol Theater in Portchester, NY was beneficial for Fairfield County Connecticut residents. The lower drinking age of 18 just across the state line made it additionally attractive to go to shows there. Portchester was more adjacent than The Fillmore East in the East Village of New York City. I find it amazing that Howard Stein was able to book so many premium top rock acts at The Capitol in lieu of New York City and Bill Graham’s organization. Its going to get interesting with Connecticut having so many venues in 2011, such as the casinos, The Ridgefield Playhouse, The Klein and The Fairfield Theatre and Infinity Hall. My concert dance card will be full later on in the 2012 season.

The NY Times Capitol Theater article motivated me to finally write my reflective Capitol Theater music blog post. In order to do the topic justice I will write The Capitol Theater blog post in two parts. As as faithful progressive music listener I had heard The Capitol Theater radio advertisements on WNEW-FM 102.7. My second concert at The Capitol was Traffic, Silver Metre and Swallow on June 27, 1970. We attended the 8 p.m. early show. I was fortunate to be able to buy tickets in those days at a local head shop in Norwalk, Ct. The shop owner always offered us seventh row center seating.

The English Rock Groups at The Capitol Theater

Traffic and Jethro Tull were my favorite two bands in 1970. I recall that Steve Winwood wore a long sleeve white shirt that was covered in silver stars. It was a shirt I would later buy at that same head shop and wear the next time we saw Traffic, much to Steve Winwood’s chagrin. Traffic consisted of Steve Winwood on Hammond B3 organ, guitar and vocals, Chris Wood on saxophone and flute and Jim Capaldi drums and vocals.

Notice on the bootleg cover that Steve Winwood is wearing the shirt I mentioned in the picture from that night. The two songs I remember the most from Traffic’s set were “40,000 Headmen” with Chris Wood playing the flute and “Pearly Queen”, which featured Steve Winwood performing a riveting guitar solo.

Our third concert was Jethro Tull, McKendree Spring and Livingston Taylor which again was an early show. Jethro Tull featured their third album Benefit that night. It was my second time seeing Jethro Tull (the first time was at The Fillmore East in July of 1969). It was our first Livingston Taylor concert. Little did we realize we would see Liv nine more times in later years. We bought his first record on Capricorn Records the following day as we fell in love with his music and charming wit.

I am going to go out of chronological order here to collect the acts we saw at The Capitol Theater under the proper headings. We saw Traffic again on Halloween night, 10/31/70.  By then Traffic was increasing strongly in popularity due to FM airplay and the chart success of John Barleycorn Must Die. We noticed that the audience was more enthusiastic the second time we saw Traffic. It felt like a band I had treasured for my listening pleasure was beginning to move out of my reach. But isn’t that the way its supposed to work in music industry circles.

We experienced this again six months later with Jethro Tull on 4/27/71 at the late show. Aqualung was receiving lots of accolades from the music critics and was getting heavy airplay on FM stations like WNEW-FM and WPLJ-FM out of New York City. My request to interview Ian Anderson and the band for our local college radio station was turned down the day of the concert by their publicist. She felt we were too small a radio station and market for the fast rising Jethro Tull. The audience was ravenous for Tull that night and I could feel the band being swept along by the success of Aqualung. Having been a loyal fan of Jethro Tull for three years I should have been psyched for their greater acceptance instead of feeling like others were tearing them away from our midst.

It proved monumental that The Capitol Theater served as the launchpad for the fueling rocket success of Traffic and Jethro Tull in America.

Part II of my music blog about The Capitol Theater early concert years will be posted tomorrow. It will cover the San Francisco era with such bands as Santana, The Grateful Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna and Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Related articles

• Live Music to Return to Capitol Theater in Port Chester, N.Y. (nytimes.com)

Our buddy Pete Schreiner (Thousand Arrows, The Coke Dares, Magnolia Electric Company, Sam Lowry & The Circumstance) is adding a new gig to his resume as he plays sideman to Scout Niblett on her current tour.  Pete is keeping us in the loop of the ups and downs of the road with this tour diary.

All of the band tours I’ve done in the last seven years have been in the same van. You spend that much time in one thing and it feels like home; it’s familiar as part of a routine but to all of the senses too. Your hands know the cracks in the steering wheel & the right way to jimmy the side door; there’s that insidious windy howl at the driver’s left ear where the rubber seal is loose. Actually maybe taste isn’t involved but smell is—the van stinks like BO, old BBQ, and just generally like a dumpster. But it’s partly your stench so it’s best not to think about it. Everything has it’s place, as Henry Miller might say, the atlas has it’s spot, the tape adaptor has it’s spot, and there’s a special safe nook for tour-purchased LP’s. You know where most of the stickers and other inane detritus attached to the walls came from—and if you’re gonna sit in the back seat in January, you should leave your coat and hat on.

(City of Portland Archives)

Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis may have been both the exception and the rule. His protean nature defined a trajectory that, for the most part, prefigured the direction in which his genre was headed, as well as anticipating the cross-cultural and cross-genre music blending that we hear today. An evening with The Miles Davis Experience, which took the stage at Overture Center’s Capitol Theater Tuesday, helped a large and appreciative audience remember where it all began.

The Experience was not a tribute band in the traditional sense. The Ambrose Akinmusire Quintet played in the spirit, but not necessarily the notes of the group’s mentor, while large screens displayed historic photos of the East St. Louis, Ill.-born musician and recorded audio tracks shared Davis’ own thoughts, as well as those of other jazz luminaries. Announcer Donald Lacy added poetic, if not poignant narrative that contributed a spoken-word component to the two-hour performance.

The evening covered the period from 1949 (“The Birth of the Cool”) to 1959 (the seminal “Kind of Blue”), considered Davis’s most productive and creative period. If anything, the multi-generational audio-visual mash-up was itself a reinterpretation of Davis’ musical, intellectual and social influence, delivered in a way he would no doubt have considered “cool.”

Akinmusire’s trumpet scaled some impressive heights, channeling Davis through his own sensitivities and considerable capabilities on the horn. On tenor sax, Walter Scott III more often than not stood in as John Coltrane, a core element to the period’s “great quintet” and with Akinmusire delivered impressive solos and seamless ensemble performances.

Pianist Sam Harris, bassist Harish Raghaven and drummer Justin Brown stood in for a variety of historic players, each shining on his own solos. Brown’s late evening drum solo was delivered with aplomb and a frightful intensity that probably exceeded the capabilities of those he was emulating.

Miles Davis will arguably remain perhaps the most influencial jazz performer in the history of music. Whether the Ambrose Akinmusire Quintet comes anywhere close to that level remains to be the seen. But the young musicians have hitched their wagon to the right mentor’s star, and we all benefit from the wild ride. You dig?

Tomorrow being 10/6, I figured I would throw up a quick one from the first time Phish played the Capitol Theatre.  I’ll get more into the significance of the Capitol Theatre when I showcase a full, headlining show from this venue in the future.  I first went to the Capitol in 1982 or 1983 when I went to see the AC/DC Let There Be Rock concert film, which did indeed rock.  This was a somewhat “hometown” show for me as my parents lived right over the border in Connecticut.  My friend Jeannie worked at Utopia (local head shop) where they had a Ticketmaster outlet.  She got me the first ticket out of the computer (check it out above), front row center.  Stoked!  Unfortunately, this was not a headlining gig and Teh Phish was opening up for Blues Traveler.  It’s interesting to look back at the paths each band has taken, but at this time, BT was the hottest thing going on the jam band scene (to most people) with Phish and Spin Doctors battling it out for second.  Funny how things change…..Anyway, this was pretty hot for a one set show and they closed with the debut of the Popper/Anastasio tune “Don’t Get Me Wrong”.  A pretty straight-ahead rock tune, they only did this one three times…

Check it out:

A pretty cool rocker, but nothing insane….gets kind of funky halfway through and ends with a pretty slick vocal jam and a trombone squawk from Fish.  Not a bad start to a venue they would be headlining (and destroying) only 5 weeks later on 11/24.  The Blues Traveler set was pretty decent too as crowd energy was high and they hadn’t burned everyone out on their set yet….

MP3 of the whole set can be found here:  http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=e64969679d601a07ab1eab3e9fa335caa2023efe0b11bc67

Not sure if that is the soundboard or the AUD, both circulate….By the way, $16 for a ticket was insane for this time period but BT had to pay for their fancy bus….