Brian Slattery Photo
Elizabeth and the Catapult.
Elizabeth Ziman — stage name Elizabeth and the Catapult — began her set solo, with a song that found her fingers racing across her keyboard to tell a story of tumultuous love.
By that point in the evening no fewer than three couples were dancing across the open floor of Cafe Nine. They slowed when the song got more spacious, and leapt into frantic activity when the notes took off.
“Wow. Well, good night everyone!” Ziman joked at the end of the song. Then she got serious: “That is the biggest joy of my life, having you dance in front of me. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
Elizabeth and the Catapult were the headliners for the latest installment of Manic Mondays, a series put together by Manic Productions that increasingly has drawn healthy crowds to the club on the corner of State and Crown. And this time, part of the crowd brought their dancing shoes.
The southern Connecticut-based Passing Strange kicked off the evening with a set of originals penned by singer and keyboardist Kate Mirabella. As the band itself tells it, the project began at an open mic in April 2017 when drummer Anthony Paolucci heard Mirabella play. He suggested they try playing together at the next open mic, and they did. Numerous concerts and two albums later, Mirabella and Paolucci had a tight set to bring to Cafe Nine’s stage. Mirabella’s piano work covered bass parts, harmonic structure and countermelodies, while Paolucci’s drums gave the songs forward momentum and added texture, something unique for every song that also gave Mirabella a chance to unleash her voice. Song by song, Passing Strange reeled in the crowd, as applause grew for each passing song. Midway through the band’s set, a couple got up to dance and didn’t stop. They had serious moves, and the floor was theirs. A smile crossed Paolucci’s face as he saw them. Mirabella beamed.
“Thanks for dancing!” she said.
Julia Caesar, out of Burlington, Vt., brought a distinct brand of indie rock that riveted the crowd. A four piece of Katy Hellman on bass and vocals, Liz Stafford on guitar and vocals, Megan Rice on guitar and vocals, and Steven Lebel on drums were a telepathically tight unit, full of intricate, textured rhythms provided by all four. They often played their instrumental passages facing one another, blending their sounds together seamlessly. Then they turned to the microphones to deliver exquisite three-part harmonies. Lebel was an endlessly inventive drummer, Hellman a tough, sinewy bassist. Stafford and Rice were both excellent leads, Stafford showing an affinity for the upper reaches of her instrument while Rice knew how to work a pedal board. But it was the sound of the group together that prevailed, energetic, thoughtful, surprising — and groovy enough to bring a second couple to the dance floor.
Rice, like Mirabella did before her and like Ziman would after her, also thanked the dancers for doing their thing. “I wish I could dance,” she said. “I would be like lost spaghetti.” Rice also regaled the audience with a story of her friend “Ross from Vermont, who was here last week and left us a gourd in the parking lot … he sent us on a scavenger hunt.” She brandished the gourd to the approving crowd. “Classic Ross,” she said.
Manic Mondays is organized around the concept of shorter sets, but the audience deemed a half hour not enough, and got another song out of Julia Caesar before the Burlington group left the stage.
That left the rest of the evening for the New York-based Elizabeth and the Catapult. The Catapult were Jonno Linden on electric guitar and Dylan Aiello on drums — both deft and sympathetic players, able to rock out and take it down a notch, and provide three-part harmonies, always right when the music required. But as the name suggests, the project was Ziman’s show. Armed with virtuosic keyboard chops and an expressive, liquid voice, Ziman delivered one smart, catchy song after the other from across her four-album catalog and a couple from an upcoming album that the lucky Cafe Nine audience got to hear a taste of. In between songs, Ziman revealed a sly sense of humor (“This one’s dedicated to Trump … and adults who act like children”) and a winning honesty. After her joking dedication, she next dedicated a song to musician and colleague Richard Swift, who died this summer.
The set started off harder edged, but as the night went on, and the dancers showed no sign of relenting regardless of what Elizabeth and the Catapult played, Ziman got a little more introspective. She noted that Cafe Nine was a “lovely listening room,” and it proved as good as its word, as the crowd, eventually, barely talked between songs, eager to hear what she had to say.
“I feel like I’m at a recital when I was 10 years old,” she joked. Then her voice became direct. “But it’s only the last song of my set,” she added, “at a cool bar in New Haven.”