Jazz concert

The Gentlemen’s Anti Temperance League, a jazz quartet, presented the last of this year’s Waseca Public Library Summer Concert series Tuesday night. 

The band consisted of Dan Rosen (vocals and guitar), John Halquist (violin), Joshua Parlante (substitute, electric guitar), and Matt Blake (string bass). The Gentlemen’s Anti Temperance League played a live songbook of jazz which included a range from near-century-old standards and their own material. The band members have played together for about 10 years, starting when a few of the members were friends at the University of Minnesota. 

After the band opened with a purely instrumental track, Rosen’s vocals quickly took center stage. This began with their second song, an upbeat number called “Candy Shop,” and continued throughout the rest of the concert. 

Then, the group performed “All of Me,” a jazz standard that was written by Gerald Mark and Seymour Simons in 1931. This song has gained substantial popularity over the years, thanks to versions by the likes of Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, Billie Holiday, and Frank Sinatra.

One cover that was much more contemporary was “Hell,” by the Squirrel Nut Zippers. That band released their version of the song in 1996 and it was noticeably darker than any other song in the Gentlemen’s Anti Temperance League’s set (among other things, the word “damnation” was spelled out in the song’s lyrics). 

The band resumed playing originals, including “Gravity,” “Stella,” and “Millennial Blues,” but the tension between their audience’s enjoyment of the concert and the strict one-hour time limit became clear. As 8 p.m. approached, Rosen declared that it was “maybe our final tune here.” After “Tu T’es Moqué de Moi,” finished, however, the audience cried out “one more song,” before a single lawn chair was folded. Ending the Summer Concert Series on a high note, the Gentlemen’s Anti Temperance League performed “Canary in a Coal Mine," to their audience of new, adoring fans.