The Crowmatix: Keeping The Band’s legacy alive
By Seth Rogovoy

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., February 9, 2001) -- With the death of Rick Danko in December 1999, the great American roots-rock group The Band finally called it quits. The Band had already lost two of its original members - Robbie Robertson to Hollywood and a solo career after “The Last Waltz” in 1976, and singer/pianist Richard Manuel to his own hand in 1986. With only Levon Helm, who reportedly has lost the ability to sing due to throat cancer, and multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson, still actively performing, The Band as a touring and recording unit is effectively defunct.

The group lives on, however, in the music it left behind, and in the host of bands it influenced. One could credit The Band as the primary influence on the entire “alternative-country” genre, but the group’s significance can be felt beyond genre.

Most directly, however, The Band lives on in the music and lives of those directly touched by the four Canadians plus one American that comprised the original and most illustrious lineup of the group, which coalesced in nearby Woodstock, N.Y., after touring the world as Bob Dylan’s backup group in 1966.

One such musician was Aaron Hurwitz, who enjoyed a long-lasting association with the post-Last Waltz incarnation of The Band, as the group’s producer, engineer, songwriting partner and occasional sideman. Hurwitz performed as the late Rick Danko’s duet partner and produced Danko’s posthumous solo album, “Times Like These,” and it was Danko who coined the keyboardist “Professor Louie.”

It is as Professor Louie that Hurwitz leads the Crowmatix -- a Band-inspired group that has performed with Band-members Danko, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson - into Club Helsinki tomorrow night at 9.

“One thing about The Band: people would come up to them at shows and say, more than ‘I like your music,’ they’d say, ‘You guys changed my life,’” said Hurwitz in a recent phone interview from his home in Woodstock. “The Band itself changed the course of music. So therefore people like myself who were influenced by them and then had the honor to work with them and learn the tricks of the trade, I’d say I definitely bring that along when I perform.”

The Crowmatix have two CDs to their credit and a third in the can ready to be released this spring. The first, “Souvenir,” featured Levon Helm, The Band’s drummer and one of its lead vocalists.

“Over the Edge,” the Crowmatix’s second album, establishes the group’s identity as its own unit. While the album includes instrumental contributions by former Band-members and a version of one of The Band’s lesser-known tunes, “Endless Highway,” the album puts Hurwitz and his longtime singing and life-partner, Marie Spinosa, out front as lead vocalists and songwriters.

But in the funky, roots-rock approach, the mix of country, blues and r&b, the high, close harmonies and the traditional, acoustic textures bumping up against stinging electric guitar leads and organ chords, the influence of The Band is never far away. And Hurwitz can variously sound eerily like several of The Band’s lead vocalists, including Helm, Danko and Robertson. Guitarist Mike DeMicco, bassist Michael Dunn and drummer Gary Burke round out the group, with Hurwitz manning the keyboards and Spinosa handling harmonies, occasional lead vocals and percussion.

While still closely associated with Band keyboardist Garth Hudson - Hurwitz is producing Hudson’s long-awaited solo album, and the multi-instrumental genius of The Band occasionally performs with the Crowmatix - Hurwitz says its time for the Crowmatix to shoulder its own musical load. “I’m not on a campaign to keep The Band’s music alive,” he said. “But their philosophy of playing great music and involving the audience - yes, we’re keeping that alive.

“The Band would always play the Lone Star or a bar or a local gin mill or Carnegie Hall. I’m hoping we’re keeping that tradition alive. As far as the music, we can’t do it on the back of anything. We have our own music.” Nevertheless, in concert the Crowmatix acknowledges its link to The Band, occasionally mixing in old Band favorites to its growing repertoire of Crowmatix tunes, which includes original compositions and tunes by the Grateful Dead, Ashford and Simpson, Etta James.

But no matter what the Crowmatix play, the specter of The Band is never far away. Original songs like “The Great Beyond” and “Tear of the Clouds,” haunting songs that reach out to what cannot be touched, speak loudly and clearly to what has been irreplaceably lost.

Concert watch

Topaz www.topazmusic.com is the name of a saxophonist and a band, both of which will be at Club Helsinki tonight. A native of Austin, Texas, tenor saxophonist Topaz studied at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C.

In 1997, Topaz formed his first band, Future Freedom Ensemble, which combined live jazz with a D.J. Topaz founded his eponymously-named jazz-rock band the next year. The New York-based septet is an expansive, jazzy jam-band, featuring swirling organ textures atop which guitars, horns and other instruments, including sitar and didgeridoo, solo at great melodic and improvisational length.

Speaking of jam-bands, the Old Egremont Club gets into the groove biz tomorrow night with a show by Boston-based Jiggle the Handle www.jigglethehandle.com. One of the top jam outfits on the Northeast groove scene, Jiggle has been a steady presence on the local scene, with appearances at the Berkshire Mountain Music Festival and at Club Helsinki.

The lineup for next month’s second annual Pittsfield FolkFest, at Berkshire Community College on March 10, has solidified with sets by new-folk veteran Bill Morrissey, up-and-comer Jess Klein, and local all-stars Sarah Lee Guthrie and Bobby Sweet.

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Feb. 9, 2001. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2001. All rights reserved.]