Death Punch bassist comes home in midst of headlining tour with new album on the way

Five Finger Death Punch/Three Days Grace/Bad Wolves/Fire from the Gods

6:30 p.m. Dec. 6 at Rupp Arena, 430 W. Vine. $39.50-$89.50. 859-233-3535. rupparena.com, ticketmaster.com, fivefingerdeathpunch.com.

Take a look at the imposing profile of Chris Kael and you might agree that in a metal band named Five Finger Death Punch he has found a home.

But underneath that Titanic beard and his group’s powerfully aggressive music sits someone who, for all his global touring experience, is a neighbor.

Kael is a Lexington native, a graduate of Lafayette High School and a one-time DJ at WRFL-FM. He played, back in the day, scores of shows in such long-since-demised local haunts as the Wrocklage and JDI (formerly the Jefferson Davis Inn). But the bassist’s last few visits have been in the more expansive company of Five Finger Death Punch. The band will bring Kael home this weekend for his third Rupp Arena appearance since 2015.

What put Kael and Five Finger Death Punch back in full global view this year, however, was a song called “Blue on Black.” The band cut it for the 2018 “And Justice for None” album, although the composition’s roots stem back over two decades. Blues-rock guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd recorded (and co-wrote) it for his 1997 sophomore album “Trouble Is…”

This year, Five Finger Death Punch’s re-recorded the song with Shepherd, country star Brantley Gilbert and Queen guitarist Brian May. Proceeds from the recording, along with a portion of ticket sales from the band’s fall tour, are being donated to the Gary Sinese Foundation to assist first responders, veterans and their families.

A new Five Finger Death Punch album and spring tour was announced this week with the new record, “Inside Out,” coming out Feb. 28, 2020. Until then, Kael and company remain a road warrior outfit currently in the midst of another headlining tour with a packed roster of support acts. For the Rupp return, the bill will also feature the Canadian rock troupe Three Days Grace along with Bad Wolves and Fire from the Gods. For Kael, the show means a third appearance at the venue where he saw his first concert – a 1989 pairing of Cinderella and Bullet Boys.

“We’re touring the world, going to places I never thought I would play,” Kael said ahead of the 2015 Rupp concert. “I’ve been able to stand in the middle of Red Square and be recognized by fans in Russia. I mean, to come to this notoriety in Five Finger Death Punch represents everything that, back in the day in Lexington, a 13-year-old me was dreaming about.”

Origins Jazz Series All-Stars performing The Nutcracker Suite

7 p.m. Dec. 7 at the Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center, 300 E. Third. originsjazz.org.

At the height of the Swing Era, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite – one of the most familiar and beloved of holiday themed classical works – had received numerous jazz makeovers. The results were pleasant but unremarkable, setting the melodies of the original music to more rhythmically inclined arrangements for more rhythmically inclined combos.

In 1960, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, still vanguard artists when it came to swing and orchestral jazz, set out to reinvent the Nutcracker altogether – or, at least portions of it – by essentially re-composing music based on Tchaikovsky’s melodies as opposed to simply “jazzing up” a revered seasonal work. This weekend, the Origins Jazz Series draws upon the performance insights of artists who have performed or been affiliated with performances over its last two seasons (and a few that will be featured later in its third round) along with educators from the University of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, Kentucky State University and the Central Music Academy to bring the Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker to life. Matt Pivec, director of jazz studies at Butler University, will direct the band.

Many critics have suggested it was Strayhorn, then based in New York, who did the majority of the Nutcracker rewrites as Ellington spent much of 1960 on the road. Regardless of who did what, what resulted in recordings cut that summer was music that made the Nutcracker sound like it had been penned for the Ellington orchestra all along.

Throughout the piece, the Tchaikovsky melodies are easily viewed, with possible exception of the Russian Dance (“Trapek”), renamed “Volga Vouty” for the Ellington/Strayhorn suite. The theme to Dance of the Reed Pipes (retitled “Toot Toot Tootie Toot”) is unveiled in lines of playful, woozy swing soaked in the blues. Similarly, the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (retitled “Sugar Rum Cherry”) becomes a sparring match between two of Ellington’s most acclaimed saxophonists, Paul Gonsalves (on tenor) and Harry Carney (on baritone), played out over a sly, percussive rhythm to provide the piece with a very different air of danceability.

Speaking of saxophones, Strayhorn replaces the strings at the heart of its March (retitled “Peanut Brittle Brigade”) with saxophones to balance Ellington’s orchestral outbursts for a very natural sense of swing.

Tchaikovsky’s full ballet was close to 90 minutes. The Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker is less than half that length, yet its sense of orchestral ingenuity in no way shortchanges the music.

Best of all, the Dec. 7 performance is, thanks to underwriting assistance from the Bluegrass Community Foundation, is a pay-what-you can concert for adults and free for children 16 and under.

Johnny Conqueroo/The Slaps/This Pine Box

9 p.m. Dec. 6 at The Burl, 375 Thompson Rd. $10. 858-447-8166. theburlky.com, johnnyconqueroo.com.

Town Mountain/Morgan Wade

9 p.m. Dec. 7 at The Burl, 375 Thompson Rd. $17. 858-447-8166. theburlky.com, townmountain.net.

A very busy weekend at The Burl commences on Dec. 6 with the return of Lexington power trio Johnny Conqueroo. The show celebrates the release of a typically collar-grabbing four-song EP by the band called “Takin It Easy,” a philosophy guitarist/vocalist Grant Curless, bassist Shawn Reynolds and drummer Wils Quinn don’t exactly adhere to.

With ample keyboard/organ colors to flesh out the trio sound, the trio rips through three servings of ultra-confident, boogie-infused fun (“Calculations,” “Only Child” and “Rock and Roll”) before easing into the blues-gospel chill of the EP’s title tune. The recording is over and out before you know it. Then again, leaving fans hungry for more has become a rocking credo for the Conqueroo clan.

Then on Dec. 7, the turbo-charged bluegrass grind of Town Mountain takes over. Though hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, Town Mountain long ago earned honorary Lexingtonian status simply for ties it has established over the past decade. The band introduced itself by way of intimate shows at such long-gone venues as the original Willie’s Locally Known on North Broadway and Nastasha’s Bistro before working its way to sets at high profile gigs for the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Festival (a memorable fall concert with the co-billed Travelin’ McCourys) and what has now become a regular Saturday headlining slot at the Festival of the Bluegrass.

Still touring behind 2018’s “New Freedom Blues” album, Town Mountain remains a mix of raw tradition, ageless string music smarts and a discreet contemporary accent or two.

While its festival shows are always great fun, nothing beats hearing guitarist/vocalist Robert Greer, banjoist Jesse Langlais, mandolinist Phil Barker, fiddler Bobby Britt and bassist Zach Smith cut it up within the intimacy of the great indoors.

This story was originally published December 3, 2019 at 9:38 AM.