By LORNA CHEROT LITTLEWAY
THE DIEGO MONGUE Band played at the Spencertown Academy Arts Center (SAAC), Saturday, March 15, as part of its Roots and Shoots Concert Series. The program was produced in association with the Capital Region Blues Network. The night was the sneaker set entertaining a leather soles audience. The high-energy band was like an injection of adrenaline for the mostly senior sold out crowd.
Drummer/song writer Mongue is the son of Misty Blues vocalist Gina Coleman, who has performed several times at the venue. The band is fronted by Chantell, who SAAC board member Wayne Greene saw perform an Aretha Franklin tribute in Edgecomb, MA. He introduced her as having “a set of pipes!” (She can hold a note forever especially in the upper register.)
Band members include Cam Bencivenga, acoustic guitar and Chase Bradshaw, bass guitar. Chantell also plays a 6-inch mini tambourine “my baby.” The musicians, who switched off playing different instruments, are Williams College students, graduates and soon-to-be graduates. An audience member called out, “Have you guys been carded?”
The band played a mix of mostly up tempo blues, jazz fusion and rock. (The floor was jumping.) The program opened with “Long Walk” by Jill Scott. The lyrics were unusually clever – “Find a spot for us to spark conversation.” The song included Ella Fitzgerald style scatting and a screaming guitar solo. “Long Walk” was followed by a very up tempo “Blues All Day,” which was followed by a Diego written number – a lamentation about making amends in order to “Find My Way Again.” BB King’s classic “Thrill is Gone” followed and included Chantell scatting.
Mongue invited Kai LaMothe, a Williams’ sophomore who plays Strandberg guitar, to sit in on the next three numbers. “While You Were Gone,” which featured a guitar duel with Bencivenga, and “You’re All My Blues” which the band played at the International Blues Challenge (IBC) in Memphis, TN this year. The first set closed with “Cissy’s Strut” which Chantell described as a “fun, funky jazz with blues undertones song.”
In the second half of the program Chantell noted the power of music to bridge generations. There is a “20 plus years age gap” between she and her band mates, who have performed together for 18 months. She playfully introduced them as Only Baby/Diego, Favorite Baby/Cam and Best Baby/Chase. The band demonstrated its virtuosity when Diego moved to bass guitar, Cam played drums with Chase on acoustic guitar for the first two numbers: “I’m In A Vibe,” written by Chantell, and a slower tempo “Sleepless Night Blues,” written by Diego when he was 13 years old. The band also played “I’m In A Vibe” at the IBC.
“Give Me Strength,” also written by Diego, followed and Chantell called Bencivenga’s guitar solo a “sound bath.” “Senor Blues,” about a good-looking charmer who “loves ‘em and leaves ‘em,” was next. The band cleared the semi-finals at the IBC but did not make it to the finals. “To lick their wounds” Chantell wrote lyrics for “Won’t Go Back” and the band worked out the music the night they learned their fate.
LaMothe was invited back onstage for a rousing version of Aretha Franklin’s “Rock Steady” which Chantell explained as coming out of the Black Southern Church. The audience was invited to sing back “Rock steady” to Chantell’s “Rock” in the final refrain. The show closed with a slower tempo of the classic “Nobody Knows You”.
Chantell is a twin and her entire family- siblings to grand elders – sing. Bandleader Mongue writes most of the songs and has been performing since age 14. He will be 22 later this year and is set to graduate from Williams College then too. Among his many accolades is opening for the legendary blues musician Taj Mahal. Bencivenga is bound for Boston’s famed Berklee College of Music later this year. All of the band have a great future.
Throughout the show the youngsters had the gray-haired heads bopping and the feet gently stomping.
