Cobalt Rhythm Kings kick off summer concert series
A soft summer sunset hit a crowd full of lawn chairs and to-go dinners nestled under rustling trees — as the wail of a harmonica harmonized with a bass guitar line and deep tenor vocals left a smooth blues echo down Lighthouse Road.
Crowd enjoys the show
That was the scene outside historic Pardee-Morris House Wenesday evening, as New Haven’s Cobalt Rhythm Kings kicked off the Pardee-Morris House Summer 2022 concert series. The house, along with the New Haven Museum, will be hosting twilight concerts out on the lawn through July. (Click here for the schedule.)
The four-man New Haven band settled their equipment in front of around 60 listeners for an evening of music that isn’t New Haven based. Since 1996, The Cobalt Rhythm Kings have been bringing the sounds of the south to the East Coast. The current line-up consists of Wendell Jones on bass, Tom Smith on drums, Greg Benn on guitar, and Mark Zaretsky on harmonic and vocals, all currently reside in Connecticut. Wednesday’s concert was the band’s first show since the beginning of March, when they played for a road race in New York.
The Cobalt Rhythm Kings
“I just want you guys to know you’re our guinea pigs,” Zaretsky told the crowd as couples, friends, and families settled in for the show, unfolding their lawn chairs and unwrapping their pre-made sandwiches. The quartet proceeded to play an hour of traditional blues mixed with four original songs.
Greg Benn takes a guitar solo.
One song included band member Greg Benn slowing the tempo to tell the crowd a story before launching into a deep guitar solo. In his story, a man comes home to his girlfriend asking him to leave. He tries to talk it out with her, only to discover she’s seeing another man.
“Telling a story and that’s it. That’s blues” Benn said.
“I usually don’t like these kinds of things,” New Havener Jan Doyle noted, but “this was perfect”.
