Respect for the Masters

Two recent dates at the San Francisco Jazz Festival (SFJAZZ) show that the jazz tradition continues to thrive and change with the times. On October 10th, pianist Benny Green paid a  birthday tribute to the music of Thelonious Monk with a concert called “Monk’s Dream: 50 Years Fresh.” He was joined by the regular members of his trio, Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums, along with a guest saxophonist, the venerable Donald Harrison.

They played tunes from the aforementioned 1963 Monk album, Monk’s Dream, such as “Five Spot Blues,” “Bye-Ya,” and the title tune, as well as other music from the master. Green, who looks considerable younger than his 48 years, is a talented and engaging pianist, bring bop and stride sensibilities to his playing. He has played with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and in Betty Carter’s band. All the band members seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves while playing Monk’s music, and they showed that his quirky music can be played afresh without falling into mere imitation.

A week ago, October 23rd, I saw a master in the flesh, guitarist Jim Hall, who is now 80 and still going strong. Hall has been active on the jazz scene since the mid-1950s, playing with the likes of Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Giuffre, Sony Rollins, Paul Desmond, Bill Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Ben Webster, Lee Konitz, and on and on. He has recorded over 30 albums as a leader and almost as many as a sideman.

His current group includes Greg Osby on saxophone, Steve LaSpina on bass, and Terry Clarke on drums, and all contributed significantly to the evening of standards, originals, and free-floating improvisations. Hall, sitting on a folding chair, sits hunched over his Gibson - the guitar almost seems to have replaced the mid-section of his body - and he shakes out baby powder on his fingers between songs. But he still produces a beautiful, rounded sound from his guitar and seems to have lost little in dexterity. Hall is a quiet presence on the stage but the music he produces is magical.

New Dog, Old Tricks

I just enjoyed an evening of mellow jazz at the San Francisco Jazz Festival with the duo of Roy Hargrove and Cedar Walton. Trumpeter Hargrove, 41, has experimented with a lot of different sounds during his career, including funk and hip hop, but tonight he sounded like the traditionalist. On both trumpet and flugelhorn, he generally stuck to a quiet but incredibly warm sound and the set of quiet jazz tunes. He stands still when he plays, legs slightly apart, mostly leaning back when he blows. But the tone that he generated has a classic grace to it - very appealing to the ear. He ought to consider more singing as well - his whispery solo turn on "Never Let Me Go" was riveting.

Walton, 77, also has a quiet manner while addressing the piano, but he was up to his old tricks. He played with the famous Benny Golson-Art Farmer Jazztet in the late 1950s before moving on to The Jazz Messengers in the 1960s. A hard bop pianist, he's always had an angular approach to both harmony and rhythm. He's still got it as evidenced tonight, but he holds it all together with his own sense of the blues.

A piano-trumpet duo is certainly an uncommon jazz grouping, but these two jazz greats made some wonderful music together.

Ellis Marsalis Live in San Francisco

Ellis Marsalis is the patriarch of one of the most prominent jazz families in America. He has played piano and taught jazz in his native New Orleans for decades, but it is only since his more famous sons, particularly Wynton and Branford, have come to prominence that he has started to gain some well-deserved recognition. (Marsalis and his sons are group recipients of the NEA Jazz Masters Award for 2011.) His former pupils include well-known jazz artists Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison, and Nicholas Payton. Despite coming from New Orleans, Ellis was never a Dixielander, and back in the day he played with the likes of Cannonball and Nat Adderley.

On March 17, he played at the San Francisco Jazz (SFJAZZ) Festival in a quartet that was a bit of a family affair, as it featured youngest son Jason on vibes. The elder Marsalis plays with a gentle elegance and sureness of touch that speaks of the years spent below the radar in New Orleans. One can see where his sons absorbed so much music and musical history from. Jason, who is known primarily as a drummer, is a terrific and lively vibes player. Father and son showed a wonderful sense of playfulness as they made music together.

The program featured a lively dose of Thelonious Monk tunes taken from Ellis’s 2008 album, An Open Letter to Thelonious, including “Evidence,” “Round Midnight,” and “Straight, No Chaser.” The interpretations were both faithful to the originals and updated too. The group also played a wonderful version of an old King Oliver tune called “Doctor Jazz,” with Ellis starting out on solo piano, attempting to adhere to a 1920s playing style, then the group coming in for an extended and swinging modern version. The evening was a class act all the way.

Roy Haynes - Live at SFJAZZ

One can only bow to the master. Drummer Roy Haynes has played with a who’s who of jazz greats over the course of his long career: Lester Young, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Chick Corea. Now 85, he shows no signs of slowing down.

     Haynes was born in Boston in 1925 and made his professional debut at the age of 17. He came out of the bebop era, but in the 1940s played with both Lester Young and Charlie Parker, so he was hardly defined by any single style. He spent five years with Sarah Vaughan in the 1950s, but he also worked with those on the more experimental edges of jazz, such as Coltrane, Andrew Hill, and Eric Dolphy.

     As a sideman, Haynes appeared on Vaughan’s In the Land of Hi-Fi (among others), Monk’s Live at the Five Spot, Rollins’ Brass & Trio, Dolphy’s Outward Bound, Getz’s Focus, Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Jackie McLean’s Destination... Out!, Coltrane’s Newport ’63, and on and on. He’s also recorded as a leader since 1954’s Busman’s Holiday. Two of my favorites are We Three (with Phineas Newborn and Paul Chambers; 1958) and Out of the Afternoon (1962). There’s also a recently released (2007) 3-CD career retrospective - A Life in Time: The Roy Haynes Story - which is highly recommended.

     His playing modes range from hard swinging to bebop to jazz fusion and the avant-garde, but he is always identifiably Roy Haynes. He has a percolating effect on the drums: popping on the snare, sometimes implying the beat more than playing it (playing with the time), and bringing the cymbal playing to the foreground. He’s long been known as “Snap Crackle” in acknowledgment of this electric and pulsing sound.

     On November 6, Haynes made a stop at the San Francisco Jazz Festival with his band, the aptly named Fountain of Youth: Jaleel Shaw on alto and soprano sax, Martin Bejerano on piano, and John Sullivan on bass. There were very few showy drum solos during the evening, but Haynes made everyone in the band sound better with his constantly inventive playing. One gets a very strong sense of Haynes listening to what the others are playing and reacting instantaneously - he’s the group’s central nervous system, sending out rhythmic pulses of energy across the synapses to keep everyone swinging. You are always aware of what he’s rapping out on the drums, and he keeps your rapt attention.

Kenny Barron - Live at SFJAZZ

I recently saw Kenny Barron in performance during the San Francisco Jazz Festival. He is an elegant and melodic player and was in top form on October 24th.

     Barron was born in Philadelphia in 1943 and was already playing piano professionally as a teenager. After moving to New York City, he was hired by tenor saxophonist James Moody. He was a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s Quintet for five years in the 1960s. Barron also played with a number of jazz luminaries, including Freddie Hubbard, Milt Jackson, Ron Carter, and Stanley Turrentine. In the 1970s, he was a member of Yusef Lateef’s band.

     At this time, he also became a professor of music at Rutgers University, a position he maintained until 2000. Barron also toured and recorded with Stan Getz in the 1980s and co-founded the quartet Sphere with Charlie Rouse, Buster Williams, and Ben Riley. He has made over 40 recordings as a leader and has five Grammy nominations.

     At SFJAZZ, Barron was playing with his trio - Kiyoshi Kitagawa on bass and Johnathan Blake on drums - as well as David Sánchez, a former Rutgers student of his, on tenor sax. The program got off to a fast start with a Tommy Flanagan tune called “Freight Train,” with everyone taking solos. This was followed by a more relaxed Kenny Barron original called “New Samba.” There was also a lovely version of “My Funny Valentine,” including a terrific extended solo by Kitagawa on bass.

     A couple of other Barron originals, “Bud Lite” (a tribute to Bud Powell) and “Lemuria” (from the album of the same name), showed how fleet a player Barron is. However, from my sonic vantage point in the balcony, the piano was not sufficiently enunciated from the rest of the band. Fortunately, Barron did a solo medley of Ellington/Strayhorn tunes, showcasing his lovely technique (he does seem to tickle the ivories). The evening ended with a selection (“Theme #1”) from a film soundtrack that Barron had composed but that was never used in the final movie (a straight-to-video classic, apparently). This was the most straightforward bit of jazz played during the whole concert, but the simple melody was a real crowd pleaser.

Curtis Fuller - Live in Chicago

Photo courtesy of T. Leasenby.

While on vacation last week, I had the pleasure of catching legendary hard bop trombonist Curtis Fuller at Andy’s Jazz Club in Chicago on September 16. Andy’s, just north of the Loop, was founded in 1951 by Andy Rizzuto and it is still one of the best places to hear jazz in Chicago, every day of the week. My friend Tim and I were sitting at a table literally abutting the front of the stage, with Fuller and his quintet playing a few feet in front of us.

     Trombonists rarely become famous, as they are not frequently leaders on recording sessions. Fuller, born in 1934, is one of a handful of recognized trombonists in the jazz world and is still going strong. He was born in Detroit and orphaned at a young age. Growing up, he was friends with fellow Detroit musicians Paul Chambers and Donald Byrd. During a stint in the Army in the early 1950s, he played in a band with Nat and Cannonball Adderley. He then was a member of Yusef Lateef’s quintet, made the move from Detroit to New York, and began recording.

     Influenced by J.J. Johnson, among others, Fuller was (and is) known for the lovely sonority of his trombone playing as well as his dexterity and speed. And it seems that 1957 was his breakout year, during which he recorded with a who’s who of jazz greats: Sonny Clark (Dial S for Sonny), John Coltrane (Blue Train), Clifford Jordan (Cliff Jordan), and Bud Powell (Bud! The Amazing Bud Powell, Volume 3). Listeners were impressed with this newcomer to the scene, as were his fellow musicians. As Bud Powell exclaimed, “Man, that cat can blow!” He also recorded as a leader that year on New Trombone (with Red Garland) and on my personal favorite of his albums, The Opener.

     Clearly, he was busy. Fuller continued to record prolifically over the next five years, including stints with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Art Farmer/Benny Golson Jazztet, as well as under his own leadership on Blues-Ette (1959) and Soul Trombone (1961). Later in the 1960s, he played with the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. Recordings became less frequent in later decades, but he is still heading to the studio, with a new album this year, I Will Tell Her.

     Fuller was obviously enjoying himself at Andy’s, his playing energized by his young rhythm section and the trumpet of Pharez Whitted. The interplay among the musicians, and the concentrated listening that is necessary to play jazz - something often missed in more formal concert settings - was clearly on display in the intimate surroundings of Andy's. Fuller had some terrific solos on the slower ballads and nimble plunging on the fast numbers such as Oscar Pettiford’s “Oscarlypso” (also called “Oscalypso”; from The Opener). Catch this living legend in action if you get the chance.

Plenty of Sugar - Lou Donaldson Live

Last week, I had the pleasure of seeing saxophonist Lou Donaldson live at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. Donaldson is an icon of the soul-jazz genre and at 83 is still playing great music. As Donaldson once put it, “Blues is the backbone, and if you don’t have it in jazz, it’s like taking sugar out of a cake.” This could be taken as the solemn oath of soul-jazz. Before recording as a leader, Donaldson played with a who’s who of jazz luminaries in the early 1950s, including Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Jimmy Smith, Clifford Brown, and Milt Jackson. This is where he cut his teeth in bop and hard bop.

     The concert opened with “Blues Walk,” the title tune from his 1958 album and his self-acknowledged theme song. This is a relaxed, swinging groove that perfectly embodies the soul-jazz ethos. Donaldson, unapologetically, doesn’t stray from this soulful and bluesy source. As he stated, “We’re gonna play straight-ahead jazz. No fusion, no confusion.”
     Ably backed by organ, guitar, and drums, Donaldson played a couple of his all-time hits, “Alligator Boogaloo” and “Gravy Train.” He also humorously sang some down-home blues, including “Whisky-Drinkin’ Woman,” and the audience discovered that he does a mean Louis Armstrong impression on “What a Wonderful World.” He displayed his bop chops on Charlie Parker’s “We” and showed his lyrical side on a rendition of “L-O-V-E.” A terrific version of “Bye Bye Blackbird” rounded out the evening. (An earlier live version of Donaldson playing this tune can be heard here.) All in all, it was an evening of sheer joy, with plenty of sugar in the cake.

Dianne Reeves in Concert - Sheer Brilliance

If you haven’t heard Dianne Reeves live, you owe it to yourself to seek out one of her tour dates. You will get to hear one of the great jazz vocalists of our time. I had the chance to see her for the first time in San Francisco two nights ago as part of the SFJAZZ Festival and everything she touched turned to sonic gold.
     The concert, with Reeves backed by a quartet, included pop songs, blues, jazz, and world music. This is one of the common criticisms of Reeves - that she’s all over the vocal map – and I tend to fall into this camp as well. I would have liked to hear her take on more straight-ahead jazz. But I feel a bit miserly for thinking this because her musicality in all these genres is of the highest level. You can’t have too much of a good thing - really.
     The concert started with a couple of love songs from her latest album, When You Know. But the proceedings really took off when Dianne got to “Be My Husband,” a tune made famous by pop diva Nina Simone, a singer that she clearly has an affinity for. In fact, Reeves recently did some tour dates in Hong Kong and Australia in a tribute show to Nina. Reeves began by playing her voice like an instrument: not scat singing per se but rather a complex and extended rhythmic solo of astonishing versatility. This morphed into the sonic blast of “Be My Husband,” an anthemic song showing that she’s got the chops dynamically as well. Reeves also performed Simone’s “Do I Move You?” later in the show.
     The second set opened with Reeves and guitarist Romero Lubambo doing a lovely Brazilian-tinged version of “Our Love is Here to Stay.” This was the song that made me wish for more jazz standards from her. Her voice moves with a facility and playfulness that recalls the best of Sarah Vaughan. Reeves did perform a favorite of mine -  “One For My Baby” from her Grammy-winning effort in George Clooney’s 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck. But the highlight of the second half was a down home blues called “Today Will Be a Good Day,” composed by Reeves in honor of her mother. “Down home” in Reeves’ case was Denver, Colorado, and this is a rollicking good tune. (There’s a terrific version of Reeves doing this song on YouTube.)
     Reeves has been among the elite jazz singers for over twenty years now, and she still brings an immense sense of joy and sheer brilliance to her live performances. She once said of Nina Simone: “The thing I love about her spirit is there was no part of her self that she didn’t access.” It’s clear that Reeves also pours it all out in concert. Don’t miss her on tour if you get the chance.