Saturday, February 21, 2009

Bobby Hutcherson + Lou Donaldson: PDX Jazz Festival 2.21.09 Crystal Ballroom



This was the one show in this year's Portland Jazz Festival I had been anticipating for weeks; a Saturday afternoon matinee at the Crystal Ballroom with one of the greatest boogaloo groove alto players with pure bop roots along with one of the most admired vibraphonists in jazz history, Bobby Hutcherson. Does life get much better?


Lou Donaldson is 82 years old. He was part of the generation of musicians who emulated Charlie Parker and was more or less an original Jazz Messenger for Art Blakey. He also led his own group through a number of Blue Note records releases between 1957-62. But his greatest contribution is in being one of the individuals who brought a more blues gospel kind of playing into the world of mainstream jazz. He is one of the grandfathers and godfathers of a boogaloo groove style generally accompanied by some of the finest B3 organists in the history such as Charles Earland and Dr. Lonnie Smith. He is one of the last legendary musicians of his generation and he still can put on a heck of a show.

I overheard a couple of jazz photographer types with 300mm lenses talking before the show about what to expect. He did an interview as a PDX Jazz event earlier and was throwing out opinionated one liners that took the interviewer and others in the audience aback. And his show was full of the same. He made it clear that this was going to be a show of straight ahead jazz. "No Fusion no Confusion. No Kenny G or Najee." And no rap. "50 Cent ain't worth a quarter." In his ramp up to Bye Bye Blackbird, he talked about how it was a song that Miles Davis used to play back when he was playing jazz. There was an audible response from the audience. But that response was even louder when he introduced his Alligator Boogaloo by saying this was maybe Blue Note's biggest record. "I don't know about Norah Jones and all that. We used to throw records like that out in the street." I guess it proves you can get away with a lot when you are a legend in your eighties.


The B3 organ-guitar-sax quartet has its own set of jazz rituals. One is to have most of the groove tunes after first solo be followed by an energetic guitar solo and an organ solo that starts out solid, takes itself down somehow and then cascades into wild swirling fury til the sax comes in and brings it all home. It is definitely a form that was refined in decades of playing for drinking folks in roadhouses on the chitlin' circuit. In an interview segment on Lou's 2000 Live on the QE2, (which also featured several of the tunes and jokes in Saturday's concert) he talked about how he was forced to bring in an organ many years ago while he was in ghetto clubs with no amplification and he continued to use it for records "because the organ gives you the sound of a big band if it is done correctly and the people love it."


An afternoon with Lou Donaldson seems likely to include some of his classic tunes like Blues Walk. But will also feature a Charlie Parker tune. He introduced another tune which he did not name in the introduction other than to say it was associated with the greatest jazz figure of all time. I figured he was going to do an Ellington tune, but instead kicked out an absolutely lovely version of What a Wonderful World complete with a Satchmo vocal for the last couple of lines of the tune. I turned around in my seat to watch a thousand people in daylight all trying to keep from being too noticeably misty eyed.

But with Lou Donaldson you are also going to get some blues. The first of the bluesWhiskey Drinkin' Woman Blues was introduced as being a cautionary tale about getting to know the woman one has a Viagra binge with before you marry her. It Was A Dream showed him in full command of the blues, this one with a great punchline that ended his set with a chorus of how his visit with George W Bush was a dream because he woke up with a President named Barrack Hussein Obama. The blue state crowd roared with approval.

I wasn't sure there was going to be an encore, but here comes Lou and quartet for one more. He talked about Bird again then launched into a most energetic turn at Cherokee, his own to be sure, but clearly a version in the Parker tradition. Not one for the Confusion Fusion crowd, to be sure. And it served as a great self-testifying moment for this musician who calls himself one of the Last of The Mohicans.


Bobby Hutcherson's set was all about the music. No set introductions or back announcing of tunes. For most of the show he threw out the names of tunes to the band inventing it as he went along. Most were standards: Old Devil Moon, Nancy with the Laughing Face, Old Devil Moon, For Sentimental Reasons, and I Thought About You. But the Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer classicOut Of This World was my favorite. It is a tune that, it seems to me, demands a special precise attack and phrasing. Hutcherson's last approach on its chorus made me want to ride in that tune, if not forever, for a very long time.

Hutcherson is truly a painter when it comes to the vibes. He creates mood and color.
This was especially evident in the second tune of his set, a ballad that sounded like a cross from the Themes to Sandpiper, Spartacus love theme and Black Orpheus with a touch that put the listener's, at least this listener's emotions right in the center of things.


I saw Hutcherson about 20 years ago at my first Cathedral Park Jazz Fest and my recollection was that of a very physical and engaged player. That impression was definitely reinforced with today's performance. He breathed deeply like an athlete for not only himself, but it seemed for the rest of his quartet. When he went in for the attack either for the melody line or midst solo, it seemed to be with absolute focus and a kind of abandon. After decades of his life devoted to playing the vibes, he still seems surprised and sometimes joyous when unique surface sounds occur he brushes his mallets against the bars.


I loved this show. I splurged a bit and got the ones for the higher priced section. Most of us in that section looked like we had spent too much time in record stores. And the section behind us looked more like a lot of folks who had seen lots of nights of clubs and concerts. Regardless, it looked to me like most folks there were pretty darned happy to be at such an event. To Bill Royston and PDX Jazz: this one you got right.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:13 PM
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