McLaughlin-Corea Five Peace Band and a fan’s disappointment

The Five Peace Band — guitarist John McLaughlin, keyboardist Chick Corea, alto saxist Kenny Garrett, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade — opened the last leg of a multi-month tour with a three-night stand at Jazz at Lincoln Center last night. The players’ musicianship can’t be faulted, their energy was high and they looked like they were deeplyÂ engaged in having fun. So are my expectations and/or standards disproportionate, unfulfillable? Why at concert end did I feel more enervated than invigorated?Â

Having informed Al Di Meola, electric guitarist in Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, during a radio program a couple weeks ago that he was never my favorite fusion plectrist (but I have received a passel of his recent albums and I’m trying to catch up by listening to them), I’ve got to admit my overwhelming partiality to McLaughlin. I liked his sound from first exposure to his debut albums of 40 years ago — heavy-weightÂ Devotion, gentleÂ My Goal’s Beyond and the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s unprecedented Inner Mounting Flame, as well as his major contributions to Tony Williams Lifetime’s Emergency!, Miles Davis‘Â In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson and On The Corner, Carla Bley’s Escalator Over the Hill — and a fine but under-rated album titled Spaces which he recorded with Corea, Larry Coryell (whose project it really was, though to his credit you can’t tell it from the highly collaborative music played), Miroslav Vitous, Billy Cobham and yes, Corea on electric piano. I was delighted by McLaughlin’s acoustic Indian-collaborative ensemble Shakti, which I reviewed for the original Chicago Daily News in the mid ’70s during its first, little-heralded tour. I’ve interviewed McLaughlin twice (as published in my book Future Jazz and the unauthorized posting here) and have found him extremely articulate, intelligent, modest yet self-aware, humorous — quite the admirable gentleman. The proof is in his music: at its best hot and cool, impassioned and complex, rockin’ and lyrical, balanced and outrageous. I think he plays earnestly and ambitiously every time out, though I’ve seen performances of both his electric and acoustic groups where something intangible keeps my from feeling as happy as I want to be.Â

I’m a fan of Corea’s, too — Now He Sings, Now He Sobs is one of the most sweepingly lyrical, original and accessible piano trio albums of the past half-century, and more recently his sextet Origin and trio with drummer Jeff Ballard, among other projects with young musicians, have contained splendid, tasteful compositions and realizations. I have my issues with his Elektric Band, with RTF (in its original state and its reunion) and with his Scientology-themed works, but I’ve interviewed Chick, too and have been impressed by his direct, personable address, his broad perspective and of course his pianism.Â

Furthermore, McLaughlin and Corea seem mutually complementary — as they acknowledged onstage at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall. They both spoke nostalgically of New York as it was when they met in 1969, and their collaboration — especially in moments when one accompanied the other — demonstrated considerable imagination and rapport. McLaughlin, trim and elegant but wielding his solid-body gtr as a laser beam he aimed from the gut, shot out zillion-note lines in phrases of irregular length; Corea chorded to contrast and used efffects sparely to offset him. Corea fingered romping melodic figures employing both hands; McLaughlin strummed soft, supportive, sparing chords beneath.Â

And it was truly a Five Peace rather than a two-man show: Blade drummed imaginatively yet thunderously, with rapt attention at every moment; McBride laid down a particularly solid yet flowing bottom on electric bass, and complicated ideas on upright (particularly in the three-hour concert’s closer, “Dr. Jackle” hardbop written by the late Jackie McLean to play with Miles). Best of all, saxophonist Garrett was thoroughly integrated into the group, not merely an add-on, and he took some of the most garrulous, blues-drenched solos of show, emerging naturally from the arrangements instead of Â seeming to interrupt them for his spots.Â

So what was wrong? Anything? Watch this clip from an earlier concert of the Five Peace Band, for reference’s sake. . .Â

Nothing, right? It’s great! Well, have I gotten old and deaf? I resist that notion.

Perhaps the FPB’s new material leaves something to be desired: no single melody other than “Dr. Jackle” was memorable, striking in outline or expressivity (they didn’t play Miles’ “In A Silent Way/It’s About That Time” though it’s in their book). There was a lot of melody, especially issuing from Corea (especially in his lengthy multi-part “Hymn to Andromeda,” presented as the concert’s climax but in need to better focus) who has a lot of ideas, so many he doesn’t settle in to explore any in significant depth. We were treated to McLaughlin’s “Raju” from his last album Industrial Zen, and to his “New Blues Old Bruise,” which occasioned the most heady and muscular fusion of the evening, to my mind, but their melodies were lost amid the jamming that issued from them.

McLaughlin’s use of space — brief hesitations he cued the band to respect as a gathering of breath before plunging on into collective improv; brilliant placement of his own statements over the din — was exciting, but he has also developed the tic of constantly double-picking (like trilling) each sin
gle note (maybe he’s doing something else, that’s as close as I could deduce from the sound) which rendered notes’ actual pitches sort of irrelevant. His best solos — for instance, “Air India” on Escalator, “Go Ahead, John” on Miles’ Big FunÂ — have always included bold, legato inventions besides rapid-fire attacks. The attack was there, but inventive variations seemed at a premium.

Garrett’s improvisations clung to blue notes and incorporated an array of vocalism — gruff tone, hardy-har-har “laughling,” commendable passages of careful note selection (revealing the influence of Miles Davis, with whom he toured in the ’80s, as McLaughlin and Corea had in the late ’60s-early ’70s), infrequent Coltranesque streams of chord-running. These effects had him standing out from either McLaughlin or Corea, giving the front line another strong dimension. And Garrett never seemed less than McLaughlin and Corea’s equal. Same with McBride and Blade — the Five Peace is a true band. It also played some true jazz, launching into episodes of unbridled, intense, genuinely unpredictable group improv of a manner too seldom heard at Jazz at Lincoln Center.Â

So maybe I was disappointed because I wanted to hear something I remember from decades ago — and had just not opened myself to what my old heroes are doing now. Or maybe I’m tired of the single-minded dynamic (loud except during introductions, without much transparency) that renders a lot of so-called jazz fusion a macho enterprise. Maybe my own tastes have changed, matured? (NO! — I still love crunchy, funky, explosive music! And I’ve always liked subtle, soft, moody, evocative sounds, too.) The Five Peace Band didn’t have an off-night, they were righteously self-satisfied. Some members of the audience slipped out during the concert — bored with the unit? Eager to relieve the baby-sitter? — but not many. Applause was generous.Â

But I left wondering if my standards are too lofty, my responses jaded by too much stimuli, my desires for satisfaction beyond any band’s abilities. Or — was it just a matter of dynamics and sound mix in the House that Swing Built? The Five Peace Band’s live two-cd album is being released this week, so there’s another opportunity to think about all this. Would I have liked the Five Peace Band better and would they have collaborated more musically, more sensitively — if they’d been unplugged? Would that undermine the very essence of fusion?Â

howardmandel.com
Subscribe by Email |
Subscribe by RSS |
Follow on Twitter
All JBJ posts |

Share this:

Related