[JPL] Headliner Can’t Make It? Here’s a First-Class Fill-In

[r durfee]

August 28, 2007
Music Review | Charlie Parker Jazz Festival 
Headliner Can’t Make It? Here’s a First-Class Fill-In 
By BEN RATLIFF
Abbey Lincoln, singing at two free outdoor concerts in
New York in two consecutive days, on the same weekend
as the memorial service for her ex-husband, Max Roach,
and not too long after open-heart surgery: all this
seemed a bit much to hope for. And it didn’t happen.
Ms. Lincoln was scheduled to play both days of the
15th annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival over the
weekend — in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem on Saturday
and in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village on
Sunday — but had canceled by Saturday afternoon. 

Luckily, Cassandra Wilson, an important stylistic
descendant of Ms. Lincoln, filled the hole. As Ms.
Wilson explained from the stage, she wasn’t supposed
to take part; she had stopped by on Saturday to say
hello to friends on her way upstate, and soon found
herself agreeing to headline that evening, singing
with Ms. Lincoln’s band. On Sunday, she repeated the
favor at Tompkins Square Park.

Ms. Wilson uses phrasing as a sharp tool, and her
strong declamations or stretched-out vowels dig
furrows around the beat. This gives the music
traction, and Sunday’s casual, more-or-less-impromptu
set needed it. Onstage with her were the pianist
Jonathan Baptiste and the bassist Michael Bowie, from
Ms. Lincoln’s band, and the drummer Marcus Gilmore, as
well as the saxophonist Evan Schwam, from Chico
Hamilton’s group. They played the most standard of
standards: “St. James Infirmary”; “Caravan”; Charlie
Parker’s “Now’s the Time”; Thelonious Monk’s “Blue
Monk,” with Ms. Lincoln’s lyrics.

Scatting and bebop singing aren’t really her thing,
but “St. James Infirmary” was. It fit her slow-drag
voice, and at crawling tempo, the band members showed
what they had: Mr. Bowie soloing in almost vocal-like
phrases with glottal stops; Mr. Schwam playing
throaty, crying choruses. And with small
improvisations — in her line “He can search, he can
search, he can search this whole wide world over,” she
put both a hesitation and a melodic glide — Ms. Wilson
made it work. 

She closed her set by singing, a cappella, a series of
Yoruba chant-phrases, leaving it to the band to figure
out a groove for it as she left the stage; soon that
groove turned into “My Favorite Things.” She returned,
and gamely, but also happily, sang as much of the
lyrics as she could remember. 

The drummer Chico Hamilton, now 85, brought his
chamber-jazz band, Euphoria, which exists to play his
highly managed compositions. As much now as in the
’50s and ’60s, Mr. Hamilton writes and writes and
writes, and his pieces don’t stay on one road; they
change dynamics and strategies, suitelike even when
they’re not suites proper, with articulated melodies
and room for pointed solos. 

The band, with electric guitar and electric bass, two
saxophones, a percussionist and Mr. Hamilton behind a
trap set, lined up in a row by the lip of the stage.
It played a brace of new pieces, most of them composed
in memory of someone. One, “Thoughts and Prayers,” was
for the drummer Jo Jones; it included a sermonette for
the high-hat cymbal. Mr. Hamilton dedicated another,
“Just Play the Melody,” to Mr. Roach. It contained a
long space for Mr. Hamilton to play a solo with
mallets on tom-toms — nicely tuned of course —
organized into phrases that crested and resolved; the
band came in at the end, following the contours of his
melody, then shifted to a shuffle beat. Some audience
members up front got up to dance, something you don’t
see often at jazz concerts. “That’s the best
compliment I can get,” Mr. Hamilton remarked, gazing
at the dancers.

Todd Williams, a saxophonist in Wynton Marsalis’s
bands during the ’80s, went missing from jazz for
quite a while, working in religious music. He has
returned, leading small jazz bands, and the one he led
on Sunday had a curious duality. Mr. Williams is a
crowd pleaser, with a neat synthesis of John
Coltrane’s and Cannonball Adderley’s phrasing and
harmonic language; his pianist, Eric Lewis, was a
crowd-riler, moving from ostinatos to blenderized
whirls of notes, hitting the keys about as hard as
anyone can, lodging his solos into your neck. The
audience applauded both extremes.

And Maurice Brown, a young trumpeter, opened the
afternoon with jazz and funk that was a little more
light and amiable than he and his band are capable of,
though it seemed to fit the low-key, summery occasion,
a backyard party for thousands.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/arts/music/28char.html?th&emc=th

Roy Durfee
P.O. Box 40219
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87196-0219
rdurfee2003 at yahoo.com


       
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