Posted by Neptune on June 20, 2000 at 12:54:15:
Ozomatli Truely rocked the house!!!
Well, Saturday June 17th finally came, and with it, Ozomatli's preformance at the Playboy Jazz festival at the Hollywood bowl. Sick as hell, I emerged in the "V" section of the Hollywood bowl (For those of you who have never been to the bowl, the V section is what is commonly referred to as the "nose bleed" or "cheap seat" of the bowl.) After an extremely phat set from John Scofield, Ozomatli took the stage in style...
Starting from midpoint in the bowl (sadly well below where I was standing), the entire group paraded through the audience, and up to the stage. I wasn't sure if they were going to be able to pull it off like they normally do, but somehow, it worked even better than normal.
Taking the stage, Ozo launched in to the standard crowd pleasing "Ozomatli!" intro, which jumped into Chango. The band was in rare form.
Here is something to consider, The playboy jazz festival has been going in Hollywood for 22 years, the types of bands that have played there have included the yellowjackets, stanley clark, chick corea, fourplay, buddy guy, but mostly, straight ahead Jazz preformers. And along comes Ozomatli, a relatively young group, not what you would call a Jazz Band (at least not in the classical sense), and they rock the whole Bowl!
When Ozomatli launched into Chango, i spotted a few people standing (besides me and my crew) with hands in the air. A row down, A lone man in an tan Ozomatli t-shirt bounced to the music. As the song continued, more people stood, and the crowd became more alive.
The band played at least two of the new songs (1,2,3,4 and Dos Cosas Ciertas), maybe more (can't really remember now, such is the way being sick works).
Painfully obvious was the absense of Chali 2na and Cut Chemist. Here is what kinda rubbed me wrong. The Bio that was handed to the staff for the program still had chali in the band shot, still had quotes from him, and made _no_ mention of Kanetic or Kid-wick. But, live on stage, and tearin shit up, was Kanetic and Kid-wick.
While it saddens me to see that Chali and Cut have apparently decided to not try and share their time between the two bands, I'm glad to know that :
1. Cut and Chali are persuing their passion, Jurassic 5.
2. Kanetic and Kid-wick are more than capable replacements.
I'm left with one question, When's the new album?
-Neptune