Lizzy & the Triggermen have always blended vintage swagger with contemporary stagecraft, and their new Live at Joe’s Pub set captures the band landing that balance with far more ease than most studio projects ever do. It’s a live show that sounds like an album: tight charts, impeccable audio, no ragged edges to forgive. Lizzy Shaps is on fire and the band hits every note, yet the overall sensation is calmer, more jazzy, more real than I anticipated. Their image, which is good marketing, is of a pyrotechnic young band, but the sound itself, with arrangements by Dan Barrett, is vintage jazz that connoisseurs can enjoy. We truly cannot know what a 1920s nightclub singer sounded like in the room, but I’m confident no one in ’20s Harlem or Paris would lodge a complaint about this performance.
Part of that polish comes from the story behind the tape. The band didn’t set out to make a live record; they simply asked Joe’s Pub to record the April show for potential promo and later realized they’d captured a full-length keeper. No rehearsals, and half the musicians met the other half at soundcheck, but the chemistry is there. House engineer Jon Shriver caught the band with unusual clarity, and Barrett’s arrangements do what they’ve done for them since the beginning: swing hard, frame the vocal personality, and leave air around strong soloists.
The Triggermen are an unusually large ten-piece group. Not everyone from the West Coast could join them for the New York City date, so they were joined by some top locals. The band for this set was John Allred (trombone), Gordon Au (trumpet), Nate Ketner (alto/clarinet), Ricky Alexander (baritone/tenor, clarinet), Chris Dawson (piano), Gary Wicks (bass), Anthony “Ty” Johnson (drums), Luca Pino (guitar), Bobby Hawk (violin), and Lizzy Shaps (vocals). This is a ten-piece that can sound like a small trad combo when it wants to, and a theater-ready big band when it needs to.
Allred and Au play impressive leads; I don’t listen to either enough. It was Allred’s performance on “La Vie en rose” that first caught Lizzy’s ear and sparked the idea that this set might be worthy of release. The program threads originals, standards, Broadway tunes, and even a Britney Spears hit. If you’re looking for a single moment that proves the band can just be a trad jazz band, “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue” is a straight-up jam that lets the crew fly. If you aren’t happy that this level of ensemble jamming is reaching roomfuls of young dancers, I don’t know what to tell you.
Lizzy sang opera before turning to jazz, and the most unique and thrilling parts of the album are where she shows off those skills; they also explain how exceptional she is as a singer, with a broader range and more technical control than nearly anyone in the scene. “I Love to Singa” is an amazing display of her talents. That it is the closer, after a long set, makes it all the more impressive. What a high note to go out on.
When “Outta Your League” turns up, it’s not a pop cover; this has been Lizzy’s own calling-card tune since Good Songs for Bad Times, a hip original with a 21st-century feel for the vintage. If anything, hearing it here underlines how the group has matured from what I called “radio-ready” in my review of the EP into a unit that trusts swing feel over gloss.
What surprised me most isn’t the energy, but the restraint. The tempos sit where bodies can move; the mic patter is trimmed to what the music needs; and the whole thing breathes like a set built for dancers and listeners. That editorial sense keeps their “joyously subversive jazz” from tipping into shtick.
Live at Joe’s Pub is the best argument yet for Lizzy & the Triggermen’s place in today’s classic jazz ecosystem. It documents a band that can thrill a modern crowd, a crowd that wants to dance and enjoy a jazz night out without necessarily reading a book about early jazz, while giving that crowd well-crafted arrangements performed by some of the best musicians going. Expect to find them in unexpected places in the years ahead. They do have a studio album of mostly originals in the pipeline; I’m crossing my fingers for a hit.
Live at Joe’s Pub
Lizzy & The Triggermen
lizzyandthetriggermen.com
Joe Bebco is the Associate Editor of The Syncopated Times and Webmaster of SyncopatedTimes.com
