RFH senior Jake Tavill celebrates the release of his debut solo recording INDIGO CHILD — and on a school night, yet — during a Sunday night multi-bill upside The Downtown.
When we first met Jake Tavill in the paperless pages of redbankgreen, he was an 11 year old actor platooning in the role of Young MacDuff — and under the direction of the usually wordless wizard of mischief TELLER, no less — in Two River Theater’s bloody-good production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Now a 17 year old senior at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, the native Rumsonite has focused in recent years on making music — honing his keyboard skills, finding his singing voice, and writing songs that draw inspiration from the work of classic rockers, bluesmen and R&B masters who made their mark long before he was born. As detailed here in a recent redbankgreen profile, the result was Indigo Child — a fully fleshed and professionally recorded set of songs that our Music Desk described as “loaded with funky beats, horn arrangements and mellow vocals.”
This Sunday evening, after the last of Red Bank’s Halloween Parade revelers has scurried back to home and hearth, Jake Tavill commandeers the second floor of The Downtown for an album release party that includes several of his fellow local musicians, and the live debut of the really-big Indigo Child Big Band.
Running between 6 and 9 pm, the all ages, multi-band bill commences with a 6:15 set by the Red Bank area “alternative indie garage pop psychedelic punk surf” band Conover. The Machine follow at 6:55, with the celbrated singer-songwriter Taylor Tote and her band appearing at 7:35.
Then at about 8:10 comes the evening’s headline attraction: Jake Tavill appearing with the 14 piece — you heard that right, 14 piece — Indigo Child Big Band, in a detail-intensive recreation of the entire Indigo Child album. It’s the sort of thing you’d normally see from 1960s-70s veterans in a valedictory mood — purveyed here by an engagingly audacious, tremendous young talent who’s just exploding off the start line.
Tickets for the October 19 show ($10 advance, $12 at the door) are available from any of the featured acts, or by emailing Jake himself at [email protected]. And, in a break from the way his classic-rock forefathers did it, all admissions come with a free download of the Indigo Child album.
