Cory Wong and the Wong Notes
Mondavi Center, Davis
February 21, 2024
Photos by Paul Piazza
Guitarist Cory Wong and his amazing band made a stop at the Mondavi Center in Davis on their recent tour. Bandleader Wong and his group have made a name for themselves with their syncopated, relentless fusion of jazz, rock and funk.
The young guitarist cut his teeth as a musician with bandmates Peter Janjic (drums) and Kevin Gastonguay (keyboards) whom met at the McNally School of Music in Minnesota. The three put in a seven year stint, playing relentlessly at a local Minneapolis jazz club before Wong became a session musician in Nashville where most of the band are based today. At the same time, Wong was jamming with and being mentored by some of the titans of Minneapolis funk, including members of Prince’s band. This was an era Wong termed as an education in “Vibrant Soul Music.”
Wong was invited to join Vulpeck And the Michigan group after the group were floored after witnessing his style of rhythmic attack on the Fender Strat. The group made it their mission to become a “live rhythm crew” and got big notice on the jam and jazz scene after doing an admission free tour. They became innovators in crowd sourcing and were quite self sustaining. Eventually, the buzz around them found the band headlining Madison Square Garden-one of the first bands to ever do so without a major label or even a manager.
He began releasing music on his own in 2016 and after an EP and an album, released The Optimist, which charted on the U.S. Jazz albums list. Wong’s third album was called Motivated Music For The Syncopated Soul and his fourth was Elevator Music For An Elevated Mood. Along the way, Wong worked with many collaborators including bassist Victor Wooten, Jon Batiste, and jazz titan Dave Koz. Later he made two very different records with both Koz and Batiste when touring slowed down during the pandemic. He also started a very successful podcast called “Wong Notes” during this time, that features conversations with innumerable luminaries of the music world.
Next came a variety show on YouTube called Cory Wong and the Wongnotes, which featured skits, musical guests and interviews about subjects like music gear, rhythm, and genre. The majority of the ensemble band on that show is the band that Wong tours with today.
At the Mondavi show, the group explored Wong’s ever evolving catalogue of material and gave each of the band members a chance to shine-particularly impressive were tenor sax player Kenni Holmen and keyboardist Kevin Gastonguay. Naturally a portion of the show took brief turns into live skits that were both humorous and informative. One these was about the evolution of the saxophone that resulted in the synthesized saxophone era. After telling the story, the band went on to play “Peg” by Steely Dan. Later, after the conclusion of the show, Wong and his bandmates changed into athletic warm-ups and came out to do a “press conference,” where they debriefed about and self-critiqued their performance and then took questions from the audience before concluding the show with an encore.
Opening the show were La Lom, who made quite an impression. The Los Angeles area band are an instrumental trio who blend the sounds of Cumbia Sonidera, 60’s soul ballads and classic romantic boleros that emanate from radios, backyard parties and dance clubs of Southern California with the twang of Peruvian Chica and Bakersfield country. They were mysteriously energetic and it is a safe bet that we will see much more of them in the year to come. The band will headline at The Chapel in San Francisco on May 17th.
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