Hot damn. Tonight I heard a group of musicians billed as The Eddie Bayard Quintet, fill Mt. Lookout’s capacious Art Deco music hall, The Redmoor, with virtuosic and heartful improvisations. Without added showmanship or jazzy theatrics, their notes sang, sultered, and pressed upon me in the way notes do, when musicians say what they have to say with clarity.

Onstage were tenor saxophonist Edwin Bayard, drummer Melvin Broach, trumpeter Mike Wade, guitarist Wilbert Longmire, and standing bassist Eddie Brookshire. Enjoy the sketches, and keep your ears peeled for their next show.

Mike Wade on trumpet at The Redmoor, 3.26.09

Eddie Brookshire on bass at The Redmoor, 3.26.09