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.
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