The Love Dogs bring down the curtain at the "National Music Foundation" (8/27/99)

by Seth Rogovoy

(LENOX, Mass., Aug. 29, 1999) - It was the last concert of the National Music Foundation's summer series, and it may well prove to have been the final concert ever at the wayward organization's campus. As such, a couple hundred people were on hand for the unspoken farewell - no "Last Waltz"-style superstar sendoff here -- on Friday night, with entertainment provided by the Boston-based Love Dogs.

The curtain came down neither with a big bang nor a whimper, but something fittingly in between. Performing in the newly-renovated Center Theater - soon to be home to Shakespeare and Company if all goes as planned - the Love Dogs played an eclectic set of mostly post-swing- and pre-rock-style dance music.

Fronted by singer/percussionist E. Duato Scheer, who also wrote many of the band's selections, the group boasted a horn-heavy lineup of three saxophones with keyboard and rhythm section accompaniment. It was thus a sax-lover's night, as alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones honked, squealed and sang their way through the group's R&B-inflected repertoire.

The evening was billed as a swing-dance night, and although this was not the first time the music foundation got its genres confused - remember the infamous ads touting Los Lobos as a "Tex-Mex" band? - the distinction was lost on the dozens of swingers who came ready to hoof it on the theater's dance floor, one of the best in the region.

Scheer was an engaging frontman, boasting a smooth voice and clean-cut presence. He didn't camp things up zoot-suit style - although his suit was suspiciously boxy - but delivered his material with respect and integrity.

That material ranged from the proto-R&B of Ray Charles's "Roll With My Baby" and Ike Turner's "Much Later" to the jump-blues of Louis Prima's "Oh Babe!" to the Afro-Cuban-inflected "Hot Weather Blues" and "Lock You Up" to Scheer's own "Who Got You, Mama?," one of several New Orleans-style numbers, replete with washboard and some very Dr. John-like barrelhouse riffs by pianist Alizon Lissance.

Scheer led into a jumping "My Baby's So Big and Hot" with an authentic soul-gospel testimony and acquitted himself beautifully on a version of Irma Thomas's slow Southern soul ballad, "Ruler of My Heart." Female saxophonist Myanna engaged in a steamy duel with Glenn Shambroom on guitar during "Much Later," and tenor saxophonist Mario Perrett entertained the crowd from the dance floor with a solo on another number.

The dancers were as much a part of the show as the band, and while the skill level ranged from novice to expert, it was especially heartening to see some of the most exciting steps being performed by dancers who appeared to be barely in their 20s. Swing or not, these people knew how to move. The center theater's dance floor is a beautiful piece of work itself, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste. Perhaps the new owners might find a way to make use of it.

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