Hampton Festival: Opening Shot

Local wisdom has it that the population of Moscow, Idaho, doubles during the week of the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. Half of the temporary immigrants seem to be Russian musicians and others from the former Eastern bloc. At the opening concert in the University of Idaho field house, we heard satisfying sets by pianist Leonid Vintskevich and his saxophonist son Nik, who plays soprano and alto. They performed as a duo and with a strings orchestra, playing pieces written by Dr. Lynn Skinner, the founder and executive director emeritus of the festival. Tenor saxophonist Lembit Saarsalu, from Estonia, also played at a high level.

Saarsalu and the Vintskeviches followed the unusual solo guitarist Enver Izmailov, who taps the instrument's strings, in the manner of Stanley Jordan. He developed the approach in Ukraine never having heard or heard of Jordan. Izmailov's virtuosity encompasses jazz techniques, blazing speed and harmonic ingenuity, but his artistry is deepened by his incorporation of folk elements and effortless use of time signatures native to his part of the world. Izmailov is a master musician and a master entertainer.

After hours at the main festival hotel there was a jam session that featured a changing cast of Russian music students attending the festival to participate in workshops. None of them looked older than seventeen. All of them played at or near professional level--an impressive element of the festival's Moscow-to-Moscow exchange program. They are among hundreds of jazz students from elementary, middle school and high school programs who descend on the Hampton festival to learn from and sometimes play with the corps of professionals who come here to impart their knowledge.

The concert's Nat King Cole tribute brought together Nat's brother Freddy with Monty Alexander, a pianist profoundly influenced by Nat Cole; drummer Jeff Hamilton, bassist Christian McBride and guitarist Russell Malone. Benny Green was on piano in the rhythm section for a set by three trumpeters, Claudio Roditi, Terrell Stafford and Vern Sielert. All were splendid in Lee Morgan's "Sidewinder" and in Sielert's arrangement of Kenny Dorham's "Lotus Blossom," but Roditi left the most memorable impression with his uncomplicated, heartfelt "Body and Soul" in the ballad medley.

I'll be writing at length about the festival in a Jazz Times article to appear in a spring issue, and I'll be posting more here in the next few days. It is snowing now, I have no proper cold weather gear, and have to hitch a ride to the next concert. Later