High energy is the order of the day as we listen in on the opening cut in Project Grand Slam’s The Shakespeare Concert, the classic “I’m Falling Off of the World,” and as the band digs into another stone-cold jam in the form of one “Redemption Road,” the fact that there’s no audience in front of them does little to dampen the live concert vibe in the room. Under the direction and constant prowess of Mr. Robert Miller himself, Project Grand Slam proceed to slam us with big grooves for the duration of the tracklist – including those behind ballads – producing the kind of limitless energy that is scarcely found inside of a studio, and frankly more akin to something you can’t find anywhere but on stage.
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“Constable on Patrol” has always been one of my favorite Project Grand Slam tracks, and it lives up to its jazz-laden reputation excellently in The Shakespeare Concert. There’s a slight change of pace as we segue into the flawless “It Is a Miracle to Me,” but where the vocals take over command of the harmonies in this song, the opposite can be said of “Yeah Yeah,” which definitely feels like the most rock-heavy dance track on the LP. Miller’s bassline is as fat as a nuclear warhead here, but it still manages to slip into a more subtle role in “My Baby” without sounding like it’s sourced from a completely different player. These musicians are too smooth for school, and it needn’t take more than a cursory examination of this record’s romanticized “Lament” to agree.
Funk comes back into the fold for “New York City Groove,” punctuating the midsection of The Shakespeare Concert with a bit of rhythmic discord that’s only hinted at in songs like “Constable on Patrol.” “Juliet Dances” slows everything down almost to a standstill, and yet the way it buffers the audience for “Aches and Pains” makes this feel more like a real concert than just a CD. Project Grand Slam proves that they can turn a groove on a dime with their transition into the larger-than-life “The One I’m Not Supposed to See,” but by this point in the tracklist, any wonder about whether they can do as much is essentially to the wayside.
“No No No” continues the potency of “The One I’m Not Supposed to See” only to turn us over to the definitive indulgence of a very casual “Stockbridge Fanfare,” the only real example of Miller allowing for excess to structure the climax of the material. It doesn’t sully the concluding cover of Hendrix in “Fire” at all; contrarily, I would make a case for the rough riding of the second portion of The Shakespeare Concert being truer to the spirit of a legit concert than most any other attribute here. From beginning to end, there isn’t a second in which Project Grand Slam sound like they’re playing from within a box – they’re right here with us, practically in person, with what has to be one of the more inventive ways to make a pandemic live record that I’ve come across in the last two years.
Chadwick Easton