New York City duo Che Chen and Rick Brown are 75 Dollar Bill. Right on the precipice of the first global pandemic of 2020, they expanded as ‘75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band’ and recorded an extraordinary live set at Tubby’s in Kingston, NY.

The duo had won a strong following from their first two albums. They had expanded to include a larger ensemble of players on their third LP, ‘I Was Real’ (2019), that received huge critical acclaim, with the iconic WIRE magazine bestowing the album as their record of the year for 2019. The band were playing live shows in the Northeast right as the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic truly dawned. Ending the run of live dates at Tubby’s in New York, Che Chen explained on the album’s release that;

“We ended the tour at Tubby’s in Kingston, NY, which turned out not only to be the last show of the tour, but our last show for the foreseeable future. Amherst College had completely shut down its campus within days of our concert there, and New York City’s infection rate started exploding shortly after we returned home. There’s a bittersweetness to these recordings in this context. People have lost their lives, their livelihoods--which is certainly true of many musicians and “gig workers” we know--and we’re often cut off from the ones we love. No one really knows how long it’ll be before live shows will be able to happen again. And while I’m heartened by all the ways that people are finding to stay connected and keep music alive online, listening to this recording really brings home all of the reasons that playing music with people that I love, in a room full of people who are vibing off that energy and projecting it back at us, is so important to me.”
The tension and the climate create a totally unique energy and you can hear it in the music. An unassuming little bar filled with a septet (Sue Garner, Cheryl Kingan, Steve Maing, Jim Pugliese and Karen Waltuch alongside Rick Brown and Che Chen) performing as two percussionists, two guitarists, electric bass, saxophone and viola, looping in hypnotic ragas. There are tracks with slow builds, there are tracks that collapse into a wild sonic mess (especially their wonderful cover of Ornette Coleman’s Friends & Neighbors) and there are tracks that just lock instantly into a mesmeric strut. Slow changing desert rock minimalism that weaves like a trance, inspired by the modal traditions of West Africa, India and the Middle East. They create such amazing vastness, a sensational sum of their parts.

Although it has some mournful moments, Live at Tubby’s is a euphoric album of textured grooves, knotty jams and a beautiful capture of just how incredible live music can be… Especially when it all got taken away.