Archives for 2013

(The Rifftides staff gives profound thanks to Mark Sheldon for letting us use his pictures for several of these reports. To see more of Mark’s jazz photographs and other work, please visit his website).

Kuhn followed with “Two By 2,” a blues with altered harmonies, the title tune from his 2007 duo album with bassist Steve Swallow. Then came “Blue Bossa” by trumpeter Kenny Dorham, the first name musician to hire the young pianist in the early ‘60s. Kuhn’s unaccompanied out-of-tempo introduction was a high point of the set. He told the audience about the importance to his development of the eight weeks he spent in John Coltrane’s quartet in 1960, then introduced a musician heavily influenced by Coltrane. Tenor saxophonist Devin Phillips is a New Orleanian who moved to Portland following Hurricane Katrina. He has made his mark in Oregon’s jazz community.

His dreadlocks contrasting with his impeccable business suit and sensible shoes, Phillips played Billy Eckstine’s “I Want to Talk About You” and Coltrane’s “Mr. P.C.” The choice of tunes was intended as a tribute to Coltrane. It was effective on that basis, but the guest shot with Kuhn also served to provide a major showcase for a young player of considerable potential. A favorite in his new hometown, Phillips stimulated substantial applause and cheering. Perhaps even more rewarding, he earned a smile from the veteran Williams for his up-tempo playing on “Mr. P.C.” Kuhn sat out Phillips’ first choruses of the famous blues, then entered with stealth and began increasing his power through several choruses. That set up Williams for a complex bass solo ending with his simply walking the 4/4 time. That, in turn, introduced a round of four-bar exchanges between Phillips and Baron, leading into the final statement of the theme. It was a stimulating performance, crafted on the fly by four canny musicians.

Phillips departed to long applause and the trio played Henry Mancini’s “Slow Hot Wind, which Kuhn laced with the flurries of 16th note triplets that have become one of his signatures. He played the piece out with a slow cool ending that subsided into a natural fade. “Stella By Starlight” was an exercise in reflection, rich with deep harmonies. Kuhn closed with two of his best-known compositions. For “Trance,” Baron produced red and green rods, using them to etch shimmers, splashes and whispers of sound behind Kuhn’s solo and a mesmerizing Williams bass improvisation. In the fast waltz “Oceans in the Sky,” Kuhn achieved the unique intensity that gifted players can generate in ¾ time. He built the feeling into a platform upon which Williams and Baron constructed what became not so much a duet as a mutual solo, two minds joining as one. Then Baron executed a long, melodic statement full of suspensions, silences and pauses. It was wizardry at the end of a magical set.

Next time: wrapping up the festival.

It did, because we were sort of on parallel paths. I heard him for the first time in 1957 up at Brandeis University, where he was doing a concert with George Russell. When I heard him play and after I listened to a couple of his recordings, I said, “My goodness, this is what I’m trying to do, but he’s already doing it, so I’ve got to somehow absorb that and then continue to find my own voice,” which I think I have over the years. But initially, it was an epiphany. Bill was like a big brother to me and, uh…

Kuhn breathed deeply, swallowed hard and held up a hand signaling a pause that lasted half a minute or so.

…Excuse me; it’s fatigue and emotion…when I came to New York he was very helpful, introducing me to different people and recommending me for jobs. So, we hung out quite a bit. He was a very special person. We stayed pretty close all of his life. Bill was helpful to me, very helpful.

You can listen to audio of the Kuhn interview and nine other PDX festival jazz conversations at the Oregon Music News podcast page.

The Bill Evans-George Russell performance of “All About Rosie” that impressed Kuhn at Brandeis is incuded on this CD.

Jackson, alto saxophonist Bobby Watson, trombonist Curtis Fuller, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, pianist George Cables and bassist Buster Williams all spent time in various editions of Blakey’s combo. Drummer Lewis Nash subbed for Blakey (1919-1990), whose small bands nurtured so many future stars that it is frequently referred to as the university of Art Blakey. From the first phrases of “Are You Real?” through “Along Came Betty,” “One By One,” “Moanin’” and other pieces from the Blakey book, it was evident that the idea was a good one. The combination clicked.

Watson’s phrasing, dynamics, tonal variety and joyful demeanor stood out in a group populated by some of the music’s most interesting players. In a ballad medley, his “These Foolish Things” was marinated in blues character and in humor that included a deftly placed allusion to Johnny Hodges. Forty-three years following his death, Hodges’ spirit hovers over this festival and jazz at large. His tunes are in the repertoires of several artists. Soloists frequently refer to him in their improvisations. Cables’ medley choice was “Body and Soul.” He couldn’t resist inserting eight bars of “Prisoner of Love,” as pianists have since Nat Cole did it on a famous recording in the 1940s. Cables, Williams and Nash constituted a powerhouse rhythm section. Henderson followed Cables with an abstract creation he did not disclose as “You Don’t Know What Love Is” until near the end of his solo. He long ago fashioned his Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan influences into a personal approach. He occasionally makes judicious use of half-valve effects, as he did during “One by One.” Henderson opened his “Moanin’” solo with a direct quote of Morgan’s opening phrase on a famous 1957 recording.

Six-and-a-half feet tall, Jackson is reminiscent of Dexter Gordon in more than height. The roominess of his sound and the gliding assurance of his conception recall Gordon and, often, laconic elements in the style of Wayne Shorter during his Blakey period. The senior member of the tribute group, in his 79th year Fuller’s trombone tone has a slightly muffled quality that contrasts with his quickness of execution and the wit of his ideas. Following impressive solos by Watson and Henderson, Fuller quoted “Everything Happens to Me.” A master of conciseness who speaks his piece and gets out, his solos were short stories, not novels, as in Benny Golson’s classic “Blues March.”

A striking aspect of the band was the close attention each member paid to what the others played. There were nods, grins and sometimes “Yeah,” the jazz musician’s seal of approval. The audience’s own endorsement was a standing ovation. Their reward was an encore, “A Night in Tunisia.” Each of the Blakey all-stars played one solo chorus. When the concert ended, they strolled offstage into the wings chatting and laughing. The concert was a one-shot get-together, but the Blakeyites and the audience had such a good time, it would be surprising if the band didn’t do it again.

“When every element is in perfect alignment—compatible musicians, the right room, good sound—how do you approach the music?”

Here’s some of what they said.

Jack DeJohnette: “I go into an alternate space, and once I touch a cymbal or other component of the instrument, I’m off.”

Lewis Nash: “I feel a wave of gratitude to be a part of it.”

Chris Brown: “It allows me to get back to being like a baby—that sense of wonderment, discovery.”

Joey Baron: “Clock time stops. I’m right there, right then. I never know if it’s clicking until the music starts. I enjoy surprise. I want to be a part of the surprise.”

(Above, l to r, Baron, DeJohnette, Nash, Brown)

Ms. Barber’s fans seem to admire whatever she does. The Thursday night audience at Portland’s Winningstad Theater indulged the pianist and singer’s every eccentricity. They chuckled as she spent the first two or three minutes of her set adjusting or removing her shoes. She pointed upward with a demand that someone, presumably the sound engineer, “Fix this thing.” Unhappy with something about the beginning of her first piece, she yelled a four-letter oath that materialized twice more in the course of the concert. Several people in the crowd laughed in amusement.

Following extended keyboard noodling, the bassist and drummer came aboard and the piece developed into Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-a-Ning.” Sipping occasionally from a cup, frequently removing and replacing her glasses, Ms. Barber soloed with sketchy melodies undergirded by rich chords that continued in support of Patrick Mulcahy’s powerful bass solo. Mulcahy was also impressive in variations on Kenny Dorham’s, “Blue Bossa.” Barber decorated the piece with a wordless vocal whose volume became alarming every time she leaned into the microphone.

Guitarist John Kregor joined Mulcahy and drummer John Deitemyer in the rhythm section for “The Storyteller” from the recent Barber album Smash. Kregor’s solos during the evening varied from conventional swing to spacey. On some, he used electronic loop effects. He was never less than interesting. Deitemyer opened “Bashful” with a tightly articulated drum statement that Barber followed with a solo composed of intricate phrases and no apparent continuity in the melodic line. She again loudly uttered the obscenity, fully amplified. The interweaving of guitar and piano was a highlight of the piece. As she did occasionally throughout the concert, Barber added wordless vocal interjections as percussion effects.

Aside from the Monk opener, the sole standard in the set was “I Thought About You,” taken slowly. She sang the seldom-used verse and then the chorus with only Mulcahy’s bass as accompaniment. It was affecting, marred a bit only by Ms. Barber’s alteration of the Johnny Mercer lyric. He wrote,

I peaked through the crack and looked at the track,
The one going back to you and what did I do?

I thought about you.

She sang, “cracks,” “tracks” and “ones.” I quibble, but messing with Johnny Mercer is not allowed.

More than one reviewer has written that Ms. Barber’s lyrics qualify as poetry. You be the judge. Here’s part of her lyric for “Scream,” also from the new CD:

“Scream / when Sunday / finally comes / and God / isn’t there . . . . the soldier / has his gun / and the war / isn’t where / we thought it would be.”

“Scream” had further intriguing guitar by Kregor, with lots of echo. The piece ended with Ms. Barber singing a long, loud note, holding it for more than a minute in a prodigy of breath control.

Following a standing ovation, the band returned for an encore whose title was not announced. It opened with a bass solo, then went into a quirky piano-guitar unison line and a fleet piano solo. Ms. Barber leaped to her feet and reached inside the piano to pull on the strings, creating several explosions of sound. Kregor employed distortion that enhanced the rhythmic qualities of his solo. The sidemen went silent and Ms. Barber closed unaccompanied on piano, with a bluesy passage among the abstractions, and faded to a quiet ending.

She got another standing ovation. Someone in the crowd shouted, “Portland loves you.”

Later at the Winningstad, alto and soprano saxophonist Kenny Garrett launched his quintet into a blitz of energy and volume that rarely subsided in a two-hour concert. With pianist Vernell Brown, bassist Corcoran Holt, drummer McClenty Hunter and the remarkable percussionist Rudy Bird, Garrett segued from one piece to the next without announcing titles. From the opening number, which seemed to have brief intimations of “Flamingo,” the set approached pure rhythm and pure sound. For enjoyment, it may have required that the listener accept it as a mystical or spiritual experience rather than one based in conventional jazz values. Garrett’s adoration of John Coltrane is unquestionable, but he has moved well beyond the Coltrane apprenticeship of his early career into a realm of his own making. Twenty-three years ago, Garrett made an album called African Exchange Student. His attachment to the roots music of Africa has grown ever more powerful.

In several instances, the efforts of the five musicians melded together; they might have been one percussion instrument, so powerful—or overpowering—was the mass of rhythmic sound they produced. At times, surges of rhythm moved the crowd to frenzied cheering. When Garrett and Hunter or Holt faced one another in simultaneous improvisation their duets were passages of relative calm, eyes in the storm of sound.

In the opening sequence Bird (pictured) played conga drums. Later, he moved through his corner of the stage from one percussion instrument to another; wind chimes, tambourine, a variety of hand-held bells, rattles and shakers. Sometimes, he strapped a wireless microphone to his head and continued drumming or playing a shaker as he sang melodies in unison with Garrett’s saxophone. Brown soloed on piano with chords so pungent that they stood out even in the swirl and urgency of percussive sound. After a solo in which Garrett made the horn sound as if it were crying, Holt applied his bow to the bass and the two faced off in a mournful duet. Then Garrett went to the edge of the stage, seemed for the first time to notice the audience and appeared to be speaking into a stand mike. His lips were moving, but no words could be heard. That bit of stagecraft may have had a point known only to Garrett.

The final piece, or the final segment of the one piece, was comparatively slow, even elegiac. Again Bird sang or hummed in unison with Garrett’s saxophone. Using gliding slurs, Garrett briefly evoked the lyricism of Johnny Hodges. It was an unexpected turn in a concert otherwise mainly devoted to intensity.

When his 1997 self had faded to black, Garrett turned back to the packed hall and said, I think I’d better practice more. I was trying to rise above myself. Hopefully, I’ll get there.”

His 2013 quartet will play tonight in a PDX concert that has been sold out for days.

The world may not need Scott Hamilton records, but the evidence says it wants them. They keep selling, and he keeps filling concert halls and clubs. Last night at the Portland Jazz Festival, he filled Jimmy Mak’s, one of the primary listening spots in a city whose number of jazz clubs seems to belie speculation that the music’s audience is declining. He plays by ear—distinguishing him from the mass of musicians his age who tend to be rigorously schooled in harmony—and he plays with passion and humor. Hamilton is a quoter. In the course of “Cherokee,” for instance, he included, among other references, snatches of “Raincheck,” “Tangerine” and “March of the Siamese Children.” Hamilton appeared with pianist Dave Frishberg, bassist Dave Captein and drummer Gary Hobbs.

In the set I heard, Hamilton got off to a happy start with Hodges’ “Squatty Roo,” then floated into “In a Sentimental Mood,” his roomy, slightly grainy tone putting a bit of an edge on the Duke Ellington melody. In his solo, Frishberg was a pointillist, fragmenting the chords while building a lyrical solo. Through the eight tunes of the set, Frishberg’s work emphasized the wisdom of simplicity. Sometimes he seasoned the simplicity with note-bending and explosive little left hand surprises. Captein’s power as a bassist does not preclude precision and rapid articulation. Throughout the evening, he demonstrated his flexiility, notably in double stops in his solo on Ellington’s “Love You Madly.” Hamilton toasted Captein by quoting from “Cocktails for Two.” Hobbs solidified the reputation he developed when he was with Stan Kenton. He displayed plenty of power last night, but his most riveting moments were relatively quiet ones when he used brushes in exchanges with Hamilton and Frishberg.

Hamilton threw Frishberg a curve by calling the rarely performed Ellington ballad “Tonight I Shall Sleep With a Smile on My Face,” whose chord structure is unconventional and demanding. It turned out that Frishberg had never played the song. Hamilton went to the side of the stage and found a lead sheet. Frishberg studied the chords intently as he played the tune for the first time. The piece closed with Hamilton sustained and ethereal on a high note. Frishberg sighed deeply, shook his head and slumped in relief. Hamilton grinned with satisfaction at the success of the performance and the prolonged applause. Then he instructed the rhythm section, “B-flat,” set a riff, and the quartet played out on the harmonies of “I Got Rhythm.” They earned a standing ovation that lasted for a minute or two after they left the stand.

Further thoughts on the evening:

The softness and reflection of a Hamilton-Frishberg duet on “I Surrender Dear” was disturbed more than once by audience applause. Sometime, appreciation is more appropriately shown by silence.

Now and then a Portland MAX light rail train glided by just beyond the club’s big windows facing 10th Avenue. The passengers gazed in as we looked out at them. A woman on the train waved.

It’s good to be back in Portland.

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