Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Duke Channeled in our Living Room
Sometimes the nicest evenings out are not very far away. Ron Carter, jazz educator from Northern Illinois University (no, not Ron Carter the bass player I saw two weeks ago--although I heard our local jazz radio station even confuse the two) served as guest conductor for new first year Clark College music director Rich Inouye's Jazz Ensemble.
The entire program consisted of Duke Ellington music from the "Essentially Ellington" editions, which are direct transcriptions from recordings with annotations by Wynton Marsalis and the edition's transcriber, David Berger. It is obvious that the Clark band had been spending some time working on these charts, but this day with Carter is what gave them a life of swing. I don't recall seeing such a irrepressible band leader. He didn't so much conduct the tunes as dance the band through them. Between numbers he exuded an ebullience of stories, facts and impressions about Duke, his times, and his orchestra, even livelier and fuller than I witnessed Wynton Marsalis hosting up at a Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra salute to Ellington several years back.
The feel of the evening was loose and swinging. It felt like an extension of the rehearsal session Carter had with the band during the day. He called out shouts of encouragement and responses to soloists and sang passages of the songs as part of his introduction, such as a drum part introducing Pyramid. It would have been enough to intimidate a drummer, but Clark's Aaron Piel rose the the occasion.
Caravan was certainly a highlight. In his introduction, Carter told how he had directed the band to slow down the way they were playing it because camels don't walk that fast, they chill. And he then took them into a wonderfully slinky tempo with the band taking solos. Carter left the stage returning with his clarinet, on which he played a long solo with lots of ideas and extensions. And then blending and extending even further, first with rhythm section and baritone sax and then with trombone soloist Shawn Congos accompanied by the entire trombone section. The conclusion consisted of Carter and trombone playing each other down to an easy three point glide down fadeaway ending.
"Duke was Baaad!" said Carter who, like many consider Ellington to be America's greatest composer. One of the baddest moments of the evening was the finale selection Happy-Go-Lucky Local from the Deep South Suite. He told the baritone player to get ignorant, but not too ugly because you don't want to scare people. The entire band worked hard in recreating Ellington's impression of trains. This time Carter took up his alto, following tracks of Johnny Hodges, who he earlier called the best of alto players, leading his day's passengers on an Ellington Expediter, with all of us in the audience grateful for the ride. In his introduction of Ron Carter, Director Inouye said he and the band were going to probably spend the rest of their lifetimes absorbing the information that Carter gave them throughout the day. He certainly made his little over an hour with Clark Ensemble a most full, (overflowing even) giving tribute and bringing life to, well, America's greatest composer.
posted by well-executed buffet at 9:27 PM
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