BOB BALICK BAND AT NOMAD JAZZ BAR

The Bob Balick Band, a trio of seasoned jazz entertainers out of the Wilmington and Philadelphia areas, treated a mixed crowd to an exuberant three-hour set at Nomad Jazz Bar this past Friday.

Made up of drummer Bob Balick, saxophonist Larry McKenna, and keyboardist Bill Schilling, the trio met the audience with a highly impressionistic sound.

Reaching high decibels of volume, it would have been hard for anyone with his back turned to the band to believe that the sound came from a three-man ensemble. With deliberate ease, Schilling superbly multi-tasked between walking bass lines, and intense harmonic flair that floated on a blues-infused air alongside the melodies carried out by McKenna. The result was successful, as well as tone-setting.

The tranquility with which McKenna complimented the cascades that ruminated on the keyboards was soothing and served as a launching pad for the acrobatic spurts of melodic showmanship, which he inculcated in the numbers. The intervals at which both instruments met were further highlighted by Balick’s expressive percussive passages.

The effect was one of constant churning, as one-third of the group expressed wailing and lamenting through effective use of blue notes and minor scales, held together by a concise regiment of rapid chord changes. This was concluded with the splashing nature of the percussion, which aptly textured the trio’s sound.

Painting mournful urban soundscapes, one could easily have imagined oneself surrounded by the towering skyline of midtown Manhattan. The vivid and story-telling element of the group superseded their technical virtuosity, becoming the main reason why the evening’s patrons were left at the set’s end, donning reassuring smiles of approval.