Mixed Company.
The band Mixed Company was doing its take on Abbey Lincoln’s “Throw It Away,” and the sound snapped into focus in the first chorus: “Throw it away / Throw it away / Give your love, live your life / Each and every day / And keep your hand wide open / Let the sun shine through / ‘Cause you can never lose a thing / If it belongs to you.”
Michael Carabello on keys, Conway Campbell, Jr. on bass, and Jonathan Barber on drums set up a strong and sultry rhythm. Taylor McCoy’s voice floated over the top.
Those in Jazzy’s Cabaret on Friday night stopped talking, paused over their meals, to listen. It was as if a signal had been sent across the room to pay attention to what was going to be a great night of songs.
The Marley.
The music and meal were part of the package at Jazzy’s on Orange Street, as the restaurant served up signature platters while the Hartford-based band served up one smoking tune after another. The format of the jazz supper club is a century old, but the sounds and flavors were new; Jazzy’s combined the classiness of the past with the freshness of now.
Patrons could be seated as early as 6:30 p.m. if they wanted to eat before the music started. I arrived early and ordered the Marley, a platter of Jamaican jerk chicken, cabbage, and rice and peas. The waiter offered two heat levels, mild and regular; I went for the regular. If they’d offered a “hot” option, I would have taken it — I like spicy food — but I found the regular chicken to be an excellent balance of peppery heat, sweetness, and savoriness. The chicken itself was cooked just how I wanted it: the meat tender, supple, and smoky, the skin crispy and so full of flavor that I used some of it as a condiment for the rice and cabbage. The rice and peas had their own tanginess, and the cabbage was full-bodied and cooked just right. All in all, a delightful meal, especially when accompanied by the Billie Holiday, a cocktail involving vodka, ginger, and cucumber that was something of a revelation.
So was Mixed Company, a band that built its sound on opposed energies that worked seamlessly in concert. On one side were Carabello and Barber, who on keys and drums respectively brought a charging, propulsive energy to everything they played. Carabello found ways to vary up textures and timbres from song to song as well as within songs, and took solos full of searching urgency. Barber, meanwhile, laid down fierce grooves without ever seeming to repeat himself in the details, and he excelled at finding the rhythms inside the rhythms without ever detracting from the original feel. Together Carabello and Barber ricocheted musical ideas off one another, throwing sparks.
Bassist Campbell, meanwhile, drove straight through the middle of it all, holding down the bottom with a serene, rock-solid foundation of rhythm and tonality. That put McCoy at the center, a powerful, precise, and sometimes acrobatic voice that delivered the message of the music as strongly as the melody. She made every cover of a song her own, and truly shone on her originals, like “Small Change,” a “dis track” that she wrote “about a roommate I had a while ago,” she said. “I’m so glad I don’t live there anymore.” It was part of a fiery first set that kept everyone in the room.
The second set proved more introspective and deeper, a perfect shift in mood for the audience, some of whom were on their second shift, others of whom had just arrived. McCoy moved through a song about unrequited love; “I hope you shed a tear because you feel what I’m singing — not because you’re actually sad,” she said. She also used a Little Dragon cover to “call us out as a people,” for experiencing a pandemic and then going on as if nothing had happened. “After the rain we forget / People after the rain / Will your life / Will it ever be the same?” she sang.
The added depth didn’t bring people down. It made the music substantive, a little cathartic, even quietly exhilarating. Almost nobody talked during any of it. They sat, heads bobbing, arms around their partners, taking it in, until the last rhythm fluttered to a stop.
