APRIL 28, 2009 -- PARK SLOPE: The Water Surgeons arrived, poised to perform at 7 pm sharp, on one of the first warm Tuesdays in Spring. As the small empty room became less empty and felt smaller, trombone titan Josh Roseman began discussing the set list with his fellow surgeons, trombonists Curtis "Curha" Hasselbring and Jacob Garchik, and Australian keyboard maestro Barney McAll. In Barbes, it's hard not to feel like you're on the stage with the band, which can be good or bad, depending on whether the band members seem like people you wouldn't mind sitting close to. Things to take into account are personal hygiene, attitude, and humor, and fortunately the Water Surgeons pass with flying colors.
The intriguing instrumentation of the band only does great things for the music, and as a listener you truly feel like you may not hear music played like this ever again. Aside from their primary instruments, each Surgeon has a secondary weapon in waiting, Garchik armed with an accordion and Casio SK1, Roseman with an electric bass, Curha with an electric guitar, and McAll with more keyboards and miscellaneous noisemakers. When unified, the trombones promoted a deep rich harmony, which McAll tweaked with ease with loops and samples from his sound library. The blue ribbon goes to a sampled clown horn, which McAll revealed during the opening Boz Scaggs cover. The bones were all in full effect, throwing back some classic soul sounds, enchanting the small crowd and playing in time to a Casio driven drum beat, but the tranquility would occasionally be toppled by a slightly out-of-tune clown horn being triggered by McAll's synth. Unsettling at first, hilarious at second, and incredibly appropriate by the end. It was the perfect way to introduce the balance of talent, composition and humor off of which the Water Surgeons thrive.
Throughout the set, the small space and lack of drums converted the room into a resonating chamber for the plethora of sounds taking place, all contributing towards the whole. Be it the creak of chairs and instruments as the players constantly switched over, the click of effects pedals, or the children of certain band members discussing "pizza time," the music had a way of spinning all of these external sounds into a positive addition. Every musician contributed pieces to the performance, and there wasn't a weak one in the bunch. Standouts included Barney McAll's happiness-inducing Hymn 573 and Jacob Garchik's nu-gospel arrangement, comically referred to as "megachurch."
I'd hate to come off as over-complimentary, but this show definitely did good things for me. I'll sum it up conclusively by lifting some text from Josh Roseman's stage banter routine. The Water Surgeons, in full, are "highly 'squisite."
