Sunday night blues with "Lisa and the Po'k Chops"

Lisa and the Po'k Chops have interesting histories, individually and together. Lisa DaCosta started singing professionally when she decided to major in music when she began college back on the East Coast in the early '80's. Jazz was her thing initially, although she was a prolific gospel singer as a teenager. Lisa wailed with the best of them from the structured, disciplined, confines of her gospel choir in a small South Jersey Baptist church not very far from where Bruce Springsteen developed his unique musical outlook.

The Po'k Chops bass player, Dave Lishner, stands next to Lisa in how long he's been working as a professional musician. Currently, a standard Yamaha electric bass is his axe of choice, although he 's a thoughtful and nuanced keyboard player. Like many "jazz heads" of his generation, Lishner was influenced by the crop of blazingly innovative fusion pioneers who graduated from the demanding and eclectic "University of Miles Davis" at the dawn of the earth-shaking paradigm shift in Jazz and Rock music in the late '60's and early 70's.

Together, they fashion an uncompromising rhythmic bed on which the Po'k Chops' keyboardist and musical director, Jeremy Ryan, lays down a barrage of saucy soundscapes that sets the table for Lisa's sassy vocals. Ryan, the Po'k Chop who has had the most success professionally, has five recordings to his credit already and has worked with the Seattle Symphony. But, despite the obvious symphonic reference, Jeremy's musical soul was forged out of the hypnotic, infectious, gumbo-bayou spirit that runs through the musical veins of New Orleans. "I recorded my last recording down in New Orleans, in the wake of Katrina," Jeremy said. "Man, dealing with the whole storm thing was tough, but it helped imbue the music with a certain, haunting, unforgettable energy," he earnestly reflected. Jeremy's resume is as impressive as his command of a range of keys… electric piano, synthesizers, clavinet and organ. He's played with the likes of Harry Connick, Jr., and, Jeremy's latest record, New Orleans' legendary Dr. John plays on two of tracks.

The Po'k Chops have performed at venues in downtown Seattle like Jazz Alley, the Whisky Bar, Rendezvous and The Blarney Stone. Now come and enjoy them at Amore.