Saturday, February 16, 2008
Classical Jazz Quartet at PDX Jazz 2.16.08
I bought the tickets for this one thinking it was the Classic Jazz Quartet due to the lineup, which was the motivating factor and why I didn't think about it for more than a minute or so...Ron Carter, Kenny Barron, Stefon Harris, and Lewis Nash. It was only a few weeks ago that I realized that this was the Classical Jazz Quartet and that their body of work would be arrangements of Bach, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky. I am wary of pull-together collections of A-List musicians recruited around theme, especially those that get subtitled or titled with the words "A Tribute to.." but there is a sense of cohesion and group to this gang of four and a history, especially with Carter and Barron that goes back many years.
So is this a new MJQ aka the Modern Jazz Quartet, another group of solid jazz stars (a Heath brother, Milt "Bag's Groove" Jackson, et al.) with what Wikipedia article described as "genteel baroque counterpoint." Maybe not as genteel here and definitely as baroque. The Classical Jazz Quartet has moments of pure swing with the arrangements of recognizable classics clearly there for points of departure purposes. Additionally this group performed at least three originals: Two by Carter Nearly (which my co-pilot said sounded like a late fifites early sixties Miles tune, even more so when Chet Baker joins Carter on the Patero album with their recording of the song) and Candelight and Harris' Epilogue for Milt Jackson, dedicated to the MJQ's vibemaster.
Lewis Nash is clearly a full purpose bebop-style drummer, his soloing would use the complete real estate of his kit. Full of inventive touches he began a piece with hand drumming on his snares and ended a brush solo at another point by waving them in the air and letting the microphones pick up the vibrating noise.
Stefon Harris has a percussive feel on the vibes that at times reminded me more of vibes more latin and ethnic such as Arthur Lyman or Cal Tjader than the traditional jazz vibraphone sound of Hampton, Milt Jackson or Bobby Hutcherson. The balance between piano and vibes is key to the success of a group like this, He knew when to sit out during Kenny Barron's solos and when to blend and extend the vibes to the sound of the piano.
There are very few jazz piano players more elegant and lyrical in delivering their style than Kenny Barron. His work with Stan Getz has always dazzled me, especially their album of duets, People Time. In this setting, it is hard to keep focused and admire all of the pieces of the whole as much as I would like to. It would have been great if Bill Royston, Mr. PDX Jazz in the Santa beard, could have also booked a solo or duo set with the great Barron while he was in town.
A couple of times I heard Ron Carter pull out sounds that, well, could only come from Ron Carter. At the end cadenza of a couple of times I heard sounds from the end of his solo on Quincy Jones' Walking in Space or on Footprints on Miles Smiles. There is a sound of a run that is truly his own and also when his hand splays out to catch some notes at the end of a phrase.
This was classy stuff of finery for a February Saturday night at the Newmark Theater. It is worth noting that not only four separate careers in jazz converge for this collaborative project, it is also the merging of three generations of jazz. Barron and Carter born in the thirties and forties, Nash in the fifties, and Harris in the seventies. Their mission is one of a kind of unity, listening close particularly when they all seem to be holding a corner of a quilt of sound ideas and counterpoint, both gentile and otherwise, especially in the later numbers and encore.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:04 PM
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