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Review: Lovano Quartet UnshackledBy Ronald K. Baker - April 16, 2008
iBerkshires Contributor
 | | Joe Lovano |
Joe Lovano Quartet & Robert Glasper Trio
at the Williamstown Jazz Festival
An amazing blend of tradition and modernity beckoned with an understated elegance, inviting patrons into the warmth of the newest jewel in the Williams College crown — the ’62 Center.
A stiff breeze in the early April evening on Saturday made for a congenial gathering inside the glass doors beneath the unobtrusive, blue neon sign facing Main Street.
With characteristic grace and aplomb, professor Andy Jaffe, director of the Williams College jazz program and of the weeklong Jazz Festival, was overheard explaining a glitch in scheduling that must have been maddening.
With less than an hour to go, the opening act had yet to arrive. They had inadvertently taken a wrong turn and were presently back-tracking from somewhere near Boston. But not to worry. The headliners, Joe Lovano and company, had agreed to open the performance in their stead. Barring any further complications, the Glasper Trio could arrive in time to fill the second spot in the concert.
The lobby of the ’62 Center features a dizzying array of sights and sounds. Particularly noteworthy was a display of digital photography that hung on huge glass panels on the outside walls. A featured artist, Donn Young, had captured some of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged his own studio. In others the special effects were masterful. Images ranged from the beautiful and graceful to mirrors of the seamier and consummately unsettling aspects of our society. Welcome to a multicultural, world-class arts center.
As promised, the Joe Lovano Quartet took to the stage and did so in no uncertain terms. Dressed in a Nehru jacket and a hat he said Dewey Redman would have worn, the master saxophonist proceeded to lead his group through a no-holds barred tribute to Redman. The wild improvisational romp featured a single-chord harmony marked by a bass ostinato that seemed the only fixed point in the chaos that ensued.
He unleashed the pack of lions, his sidemen. They spontaneously composed moment by moment unshackled by any earthly bounds, least of all their own imaginations.
With John Menegon (bass) and Matt Wilson's irrepressible flair on drums, pianist Frank Kimbrough turned the Steinway grand every which way but loose. It was a New York City streetscape, a free-for-all that came out of thin air, a mind-boggling throbbing and pounding that reaffirmed for some listeners all the reasons to live in the Berkshires instead.
Lovano moved around the front of the stage with a remote bell microphone attached to his horn. It was baptism by fire for the uninitiated to amorphous, simultaneous improvisation. Would the audience sit still for 75 minutes of this? They would indeed. The quartet would have them begging for more.
The virtuosity of each performer was augmented by the excellent acoustics and careful amplification. The string bass began the intro to the second selection. Its sound was full and rich, clear and never muddy, from fattest to finest.
The band offered up a brief tease: a snippet of melody reminiscent of the head of a tune. But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Instead, Wilson played a masterful drum solo. His studious appearance, a cross between mild-mannered Clark Kent and "Prairie Home Companion's" Garrison Keillor, gave no hint of the madman and the devil underneath. He was erudite and funky, alternately dazzling and tasty.
At one point, he extended forward over the top of his set to rap the front skin of his bass drum with his stick. As planned, it elicited peals of laughter from the audience. His antics were a delight.
In ensuing exchanges between the sax, piano, and the bass, each succeeding phrase by the respective players gained in intricacy and innovation. Kimbrough, a 15-year veteran of the Maria Schneider Group, was off the scale in technical excellence as he ran through passages with fingerings that had musicians in the audience looking at each other in disbelief. It was a case of each instrumentalist besting the others with individual expression.
The concert was billed as a tribute to the late Dewey Redman. But a nice change of pace came with an original composition by Kimbrough called "Quickening." It was the first ballad of the evening and gave the audience a chance to catch its collective breath following a good deal of esoteric stuff in the Redman and Ornette Coleman tradition.
The slower piece not only offered a more standard chord progression but also an opportunity for Menegon. His bass fiddle became a lead instrument with interesting subtleties more commonly associated with its smaller cousin, the cello. The ending was so neatly packaged it left one wondering if there had been a sudden power outage.
The overall impression this group conveyed was like running with the big dogs. You better not go near that playground ill prepared. Lovano got a hold of a microphone along the way and introduced one of the numbers. His voice dripped of the Big Apple – so suave and so hip. It was easy to imagine him in his other role as teacher at NYU, or riding shotgun on the way to a gig giving you pointers on harmonizing the diminished chord
The performance by these giants at the top of their game just kept on coming at you: triple stops and pseudo chords on the bass; a master jazzman milking the gorgeous Steinway; drumsticks blurring like a time-lapse photo then dragged across a cymbal simulating a human scream; sax arpeggios creatively exhausting the entire range of the instrument, and four cats so attuned to each other they must be joined at the hip (pun intended). Their playing outshone the glittering '62 Center itself. It was a great night to be alive in Williamstown.
The Robert Glasper Trio
After a brief intermission and a cursory re-tuning of the piano, the "opening act" took to the stage. Glasper warmed the audience with his humor under fire. He described the odyssey from Brooklyn during which he had napped only to awaken to signs welcoming him to the outskirts of Boston. He related the harrowing, break-neck paced journey that followed the navigational error.
Robert Glasper |
His pleasant manner was a counterpoint to his rather imposing exterior. He probably didn't get to catch any of the Lovano group's performance, which may account for his agreeing to play anyway. There were some huge shadows cast by the headliners.
Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of sidemen Vincente Archer (bass) and Damion Reid (drums), and Glasper himself on piano, the beat in the ensuing music would often prove as elusive as the correct route to Williamstown had. That was lamentable. Could it be that Glasper was just off? It certainly would be understandable.
It's hard to imagine the tension inside a car with three musicians when they realize they're going to be at least 90 minutes late.
Glasper has been described as having been deeply involved in the hip-hop world. Wouldn't you think you might have occasion to tap your foot? Not so.
The band rarely came anywhere near a groove despite the eye-lock between the leader and percussionist Reid. The latter was quite accomplished on drums, forming a potentially explosive blend that sadly went begging.
For his part, bassist Archer had impressive chops. The fingers of his right hand must be made of leather. So strident was his plucking of the strings, they slapped against the neck like a sling-shot.
The trio seemed to settle down a little on their second selection. It slid into a Latin feel bringing to mind Chic Corea, Gary Burton, and maybe even Pat Metheny. But a 5/8 meter kept the beat inscrutable despite the repetitious couple of chords underpinning the piece. This lack of place to hang your hat would prove endemic. The youthful drummer's skill and determination notwithstanding.
Nor was there a dearth of musicianship. Glasper demonstrated remarkable melodic independence as well as finger dexterity, though it was "full of sound and fury," it was a technical tour-de-force. It's easy to see why he's touted as an up-and-comer in some critical circles.
A solo by Archer had the trappings of a minor fugue and was engaging. But overall, with tempos that ranged from blistering rides to would-be funk, there was all too much "Where's the beat?" When it finally came around, as it did momentarily in a piece titled "Silly Rabbit," it was too little too late for some. The audience began to thin despite cajoling from the ebullient keyboardist.
This group deserves a purple heart for persevering against great odds as well as a fresh hearing when the deck is stacked a little more in their favor.
Ronald K. Baker is a contributor to MuzikReviews.com. |
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