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Oteil Burbridge: Blessed Are the Peacemakers
Posted by
Lana on Aug 28, 2007 - 03:25 PM (3390 Reads) |
By: Randy Ray
For: Jambands.com
The long and storied career of Oteil Burbridge extends from Washington, D.C to Atlanta to Birmingham, Alabama while playing in some of the greatest jambands in music history. His bass playing, whether it be with the six string or the Fender 4-string he utilizes with the Allman Brothers Band, has set new standards in a genre which continually challenges musicians to create new sounds within an old framework, the live stage. Jambands.com caught up with Burbridge during the beginning of ABB’s most recent tour with Bob Weir’s RatDog. Burbridge has had a busy summer. Prior to the Allman dates, he toured for two months with his band the Peacemakers which also included dates with another legendary jam gem—Hot Tuna. If that wasn’t enough to satisfy the musician’s musician in Burbridge, he also recently reunited with fellow Aquarium Rescue Unit and ex-Brother band member, guitarist Jimmy Herring for a series of dates while recording an album with a improvisatory unit called Go There which also features his older brother and Derek Trucks Band keyboardist and flutist, Kofi Burbridge. However, Oteil does know how to “slow everything back down” as the reader will see in this conversation with one of jamband’s most enduring musical icons.
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Music Comes First with Oteil & the Peacemakers
Posted by
Lana on Jan 22, 2007 - 07:23 AM (3684 Reads) |
By: Lawrence Specker
For: Everything Alabama
Days after, I'm still mulling the incredible blend of raw material I heard heated to the welding point on Saturday by Oteil Burbridge and the Peacemakers.
Mahavishnu Orchestra and fusion-era Miles Davis, to be sure. And AC/DC and Led Zeppelin, both of whom were quoted in the show's opening riffs. And Hank Williams Sr., whose "Kaw-Liga" got a thunderous cover. And probably a whole bunch more that I enjoyed without necessarily identifying them.
The early surprise, given Burbridge's personal reputation and excitement over the participation of Widespread Panic guitarist Jimmy Herring, was the phenomenal skill of the Peacemakers. Burbridge's young sidemen were talented and confident enough that Herring took the role of a friend among equals, rather than a big fish visiting a small bowl.
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Allman bassist brings eclectic tastes to classic rock band
Posted by
Lana on Aug 18, 2006 - 05:55 AM (5082 Reads) |
By: Jon Dawson
For: The Kinston Free Press
Oteil Burbridge has played bass in The Allman Brothers Band going on a decade now, and he also has his own band, Oteil & The Peacemakers, which will be opening The Allman Brothers show at Raleigh’s Altell Pavilion on Saturday night. Burbridge talked with Free Press interviewer Jon Dawson last week about the Peacemakers, the Allmans and his taste in music.
FP: What songs are currently making up the Peacemakers setlist?
Burbridge: For the most part we try to concentrate on the new album. We also do a few songs from the second record, and maybe two from the first one. We also do a few covers, such as Hendrix, “Green Eyed Lady” by Sugarloaf; I’m about to introduce a George Jones song into the set; some Sly Stone, some Hank Williams Sr.
FP: With a set like that a live album can’t be that far away.
Burbridge: That’s what I really want to do ... really a live DVD, because you need to see it to get the full scope of what’s going on. We included a DVD on our second studio album (“The Family Secret”) that was pretty much a documentary about making the album, but things really happen in the live set.
FP: What’s the best way for fans of Oteil & The Peacemakers to buy the three albums that you’ve recorded?
Burbridge: We’re on iTunes, we’re in Borders book stores, and you can buy it straight from the record company via links on www.oteilburbridge.com. We also sell them at our live shows.
FP: How long will your solo set be when you open for the Allman Brothers at Altell?
Burbridge: I think we’ll have a 45-minute set.
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Bassist Finds Blue Skies with Allmans
Posted by
Zambi on Oct 07, 2004 - 08:13 PM (5011 Reads) |
By Wayne Bledsoe, bledsoe@knews.com
1 October 2004
The Knoxville News-Sentinel
Ace bassist Oteil Burbridge was prepared when he joined the Allman Brothers seven years ago. He had been tutored by Georgia music icon Col. Bruce Hampton.
In the early 1980s, Burbridge had been gigging around Atlanta when he encountered Hampton - a musician who was legendary for his guitar work, odd sense of humor and good-natured philosophy.
Burbridge said he "fell on hard times, playing music I really didn't want to play, just doing it for the money and, really, not even making any money." Jeff Sipe, who was playing drums with Hampton in the band the Aquarium Rescue Unit, introduced the unhappy bassist to Hampton.
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Bassist makes 'Peace' at the Farm
Posted by
Lana on Jul 31, 2004 - 08:51 AM (4019 Reads) |
BY Mark R. Pantsari
Special to The Post and Courier
You could very well call Oteil Burbridge the "Ace of Bass," if the moniker had not already been completely stripped of all positive connotation by the soulless Swedish pop group of almost the same name.
But simply going by the Birmingham, Ala., native's musical output in the past decade alone, it's pretty easy to realize why Burbridge is recognized as one of the most versatile and talented bassist in music today.
Oteil Burbridge first became known in the groundbreaking group the Aquarium Rescue Unit during the early 1990s. The group, formed by jam-band patriarch Col. Bruce Hampton, was instrumental in the creation of the popular H.O.R.D.E. tours in the early '90s, which over time featured like-minded bands such as Phish, Leftover Salmon, Widespread Panic, the Dave Matthews Band, and Blues Traveler on the same bill.
Along with Burbridge, the ARU featured other star players like the Rev. Jeff Mosier, Jimmy Herring and Jeff Sipe.
Along with the Aquarium Rescue Unit credits on his resume, Burbridge's playing is featured on albums by Victor Wooten, Soulive, God Street Wine, Frogwings, Kevn Kinney and Phish's Trey Anastasio. In 1997, Burbridge became a member of another legendary band, the Allman Brothers Band, when he replaced the late Allen Woody (who left the Allmans to form Gov't Mule with Warren Haynes).
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550 Blues lands Oteil Burbridge tonight
Posted by
Lana on Apr 16, 2004 - 01:38 PM (2785 Reads) |
From the Macon Telegraph
4/16/2004
If you catch Oteil Burbridge live, he'll make you do one of two things: take off your shoes or get on your feet.
Burbridge, called the Michael Jordan of bass players by some of his peers, is scheduled to play tonight at 550 Blues with his band, the Peacemakers. Admission is $10.
The show starts around 10-ish. Expect funk, jazz, gospel, bluegrass, classical and Cuban and Latin rhythms.
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The Book of Oteil
Posted by
Zambi on Feb 29, 2004 - 02:47 PM (2884 Reads) |
By: Benji Feldheim
For: JamBands.com
2004-02-28
Oteil Burbridge smiles as if he came into this world with the same ear to ear grin on his face that shines while he plays with the Peacemakers, the Allman Brothers Band, Vida Blue and Gov't Mule. He keeps that smile strong, even when talking about painful memories, and even while we both shiver in the cold basement under Canopy Club in Urbana, Illinois. People know about Oteil's playing, with his scatting silkily smooth over the tone of his bass, tweaked slightly with an envelope filter, and many other acrobatic bass techniques. To see the man play live is to witness how warm a human being can be not just from the simple joys in his or her life, but after they found a way to make joy out of pain.
Our talk abruptly shifted from music to life, God and a way to have faith without being weighed down by the negativity that has tarnished many religious groups of people. Oteil and I both experienced crises of faith in our lives, and so for some time, this was not an interview, but a conversation between two people who had to see genuine ugliness in life before finding God again. This won't be some kind of missionary effort, especially since I'm Jewish, but if you can simply feel that God is love, then you already believe enough.
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Page Turner
Posted by
Zambi on Feb 07, 2004 - 09:59 AM (1909 Reads) |
http://www.atlanta.creativeloafing.com/vibes_feature2.html
VIBES | FEATURE 01.01.04
Page turner
Phish's McConnell comes into his own as a bandleader
BY KEVIN FOREST MOREAU
Unlike his bandmates in Phish, keyboardist Page McConnell didn't have a lot of extra-curricular irons in the fire when the jam-band icons went on an extended hiatus in 2000. Although he kept busy on records by Gov't Mule and Tenacious D, McConnell, more than any other member, seemed to be defined solely by his work with Phish.
The perception was one even McConnell himself seemed in no real hurry to dispel. "Obviously," he says, "Phish is my primary thing, and my first love, I would say. So oftentimes, I'll gauge things by how they affect me in Phish."
To many Phish fans, that insular view was born out by McConnell's eventual side project, Vida Blue. A collaboration with two of the most accomplished rhythm players in the subculture of jam and funk bands -- drummer Russell Batiste (The Funky Meters) and Atlanta-based bassist Oteil Burbridge (the Allman Brothers, Aquarium Rescue Unit) -- Vida Blue struck many in that scene as a tentative, unfocused work. One observer, on the jam-scene nexus Jambase.com, went so far as to opine, "If there was a lead voice and band leader coming through, the music would have some power, direction and force!"
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Freeform music with Vida Blue
Posted by
enigmajean on Feb 07, 2004 - 09:58 AM (1813 Reads) |
12 January 2004, The Burlington Free Press
(c) Copyright 2004, The Burlington Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
By Tom Huntington
Three weeks ago, Page McConnell had no idea what would be going down tonight at Higher Ground, where the Phish keyboardist's adventurous fusion trio Vida Blue mixes it up with spicy Afro-Cuban-hip-hop seven-piece the Spam Allstars.
In McConnell's defense, it was two days before Christmas and his sights were understandably set on Phish's four-night New Year's run at Miami's American Airlines Arena, though the Blue crew's ensuing East Coast tour with the Latin Grammy-nominated Allstars tonight's show is the last of the eight dates was nonetheless looming in the back of the Vermont musician's mind.
"I don't know what it's going to be, actually," McConnell said with a laugh in a phone interview regarding the Vida/Spam gigs, "but I'm really looking forward to it."
Such a lack of foresight would probably come as no surprise to fans familiar with Vida Blue's freeform approach, which, for the most part, has espoused a mantra of spontaneity and improvisation ever since McConnell formed the side project in 2001 after Phish decided to take a break from the action the year before. Named after the former Oakland A's southpaw pitcher and 1971 Cy Young Award winner, Vida Blue also features one of the more solid rhythm sections around in Allman Brothers Band bassist Oteil Burbridge who first started dropping jaws in the early 1990s with Southern-fried fusion group (and Phish contemporary) Aquarium Rescue Unit and renowned New Orleans drummer Russell Batiste of The Funky Meters and Papa Grows Funk.
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Finding Comfy Grooves (New York Times review)
Posted by
enigmajean on Feb 07, 2004 - 09:46 AM (1904 Reads) |
The Arts/Cultural Desk
IN PERFORMANCE: POP
Grabbing the Limelight by Turns
And Finding Comfy Grooves
By KELEFA SANNEH
14 January 2004, The New York Times
(c) 2004 New York Times Company
Vida Blue
Roseland Ballroom
Lots of bands start off as loose-knit conglomerations of like-minded musicians. But Vida Blue, the egalitarian trio led (if that's the right word) by Page McConnell, the keyboardist from Phish, has ended up that way, too. And on Saturday night Vida Blue, named after the former major-league pitcher, gave an easy-to-please audience a two-hour lesson in the pleasures and perils of musical democracy.
For the band's second album, "The Illustrated Band" (Sanctuary), Mr. McConnell merged his group with the Spam Allstars, a Miami-based Latin funk collective. "The Illustrated Band" consists of four extended jams, but Saturday's concert was more disjointed and more interesting, although not quite satisfying.
It sometimes seemed as if every musician onstage was going to get a chance to be bandleader. Early on the group played "Ochimini," and the percussionist Lazaro Alfonso, from Spam Allstars, led call-and-response vocals. Then he passed the baton to the bassist Oteil Burbridge (a Vida Blue member who also plays with the Allman Brothers), who sung along with his own angular counter-melodies.
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