Scenes - Variable Clouds: Live At The Earshot Jazz Festival

... harnessing natural beauty and concocting chimerical designs that extol the virtues of elasticity, mutability, and high-level communication. The Pacific Northwest knows no greater champion of it's beyond-words beauty than this outfit. - All About Jazz. Over the course of 30 years of friendship and playing music together, much is revealed. Since Scenes' debut recording in 2001, saxophonist Rick Mandyck, guitarist John Stowell, bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer John Bishop always seemed to find new and unique destinations every time in the studio. It as well translated night to night on the bandstand as revealed here on their first live recording. Coming as it did after a year and a half of lockdown and few live performances, there was a palpable sense of connectedness between audience and band, each needing the moment and accepting the unanticipated wash of emotions. The band performs originals from Mandyck, Stowell and Johnson, along with Mandyck's masterful reading of the classic "It's Easy to Remember," and closes with Jim Pepper's well-traveled "Witchi Tai To," derived from a Native American Church healing chant.