Dave’s Photo Blog

As is often the case with the bands I review, it’s hard to place Brothers McCann in a specific genre. They have elements of soul, folk, indie and pop in them to be sure. But they lay down a pretty mean groove.

When Julien Kasper was seven years old, he saw a guitar store while lying in the back seat of his parents car. He sat up in his seat and said, “Mother I would like to play the guitar.” The rest, as they say, is history. A history that includes degrees in music from the University of Miami and the University of North Texas, countless performances and his current day job – teaching at Berklee College of Music. How can you not like a guy who teaches performance labs on Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck?

I confess I had not seen a performance ‘in the round’ before. Basically, all the performers take a seat on the stage and then one at a time they come up and play a song. There were six performers (but one duo, so five ‘acts’) and they each sang three songs.

And that’s the thing about the blues jam. The musicians are just there to play and you don’t know what is going to happen. Sometimes, things get pretty groovy. Sometimes, they can’t figure out how to end a song (although that only happened a couple of times when I was there). But if you are perceptive, especially if you are a musician, you can find these little moments where someone shines.