The standing room only crowd was a healthy mix of young people all the way to the older jazz fans.  What we had in common was the curiosity and excitement to experience the brilliance of this slide guitar prodigy, Derek Trucks.  Rolling Stone named him one of the 100 best guitarists of all time when he was 23.  Trucks and his band performed some cuts off the recently released Already Free, as well as music from earlier albums such as Joyful Noise (2002) and Songlines (2006).

If you’ve never heard The Derek Trucks Band, they play roots music - an eclectic blend of Southern rock, soul, blues, jazz, classical, and world music (including East Indian and Latin.) Simply put, it was exhilarating! Trucks plays with such intensity and focus, one might think he was in “the zone,” as he rarely looks up from his guitar.  With a pyrex tube over a finger, his slide guitar goes from blues to sitar effortlessly, really something amazing to behold.

The band does a phenomenal job of backing Trucks: the versatile Kofi Burbridge on Hammond organ, clavinet and flute; Yonrico Scott is a powerful blues and jazz drummer also lends backing vocals; bassist Todd Smallie provides strong rhythms and majority of backing vocals; and percussionist Count M’Butu played African drums, shaker, scraper, cowbell and stick.

The stand out artist in the band is lead vocalist, Mike Mattison, whose range in scale as well is style is quite astounding.  From raw soul to gritty blues and a natural falsetto. Mattison has a relaxed demeanor that fits well with the band, but there’s no downplaying the passion in his voice.

Their version of a song that has become a jazz standard and has been performed by artists as diverse as John Coltrane to Brian Setzer, “My Favorite Things,” was breathtaking, featuring Kofi Burbridge on flute and organ, with just about everyone taking a turn at improvization.

If you like the blues and rock music of the 1960s, The Derek Trucks Band will definitely be worth discovering live.