Monterey

It was good weather for jazz in Monterey over the weekend, and the Monterey Jazz Festival was a good place for an author. Leroid David and Pete Leon, honchos at the Tower Records booth on the old fairgrounds, said that the signing session for Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, was the most successful book signing in all the years that Tower has hosted events at Monterey. A record number of folks lined up to buy the book and have me inscribe it. Many thanks to all of the old and new friends who came by, including DevraDoWrite.
Guitarist John Scofield was greeting fans and signing CDs at an adjoining table. During lulls, we had a rare opportunity to catch up with one another’s doings. Later, I caught just enough of fellow guitarist Larry Carlton’s set with his Sapphire Blues Band to hear Scofield sit in and tear off a blazing blues solo.
A few impressions of other music that I selected from the rich Monterey smorgasbord :
In keeping with the pattern of concurrent attractions at modern megafestivals, it is impossible to hear one band without giving up the chance to hear others. On a limited time budget, this listener had to duck in and out of performances. I arrived at a set by pianist Benny Green and guitarist Russell Malone to hear only two and a half tunes. The half was the last part of a fast “The Way You Look Tonight,” Green’s piston fingers blazing. Each man played an unaccompanied piece, then on “Sunny” demonstrated the empathy they have developed over years of duo collaboration; two of the most satisfying contemporary players.
After dining too quickly on a reasonable facsimile of New Orleans jambalya from one of dozens of fast food stalls, I hurried to the Bill Berry Theater to catch the last number by another duo who think and breathe as one, Sheila Jordan and Steve Kuhn. The piece was a blues in which Jordan sang about her life from age fourteen, when she first heard Charlie Parker. It was a brilliantly balanced blend of musicianship and theatrical story-telling—carefully made, natural and moving. Kuhn’s piano accompaniment and the depth of his soloing made him in every sense a full partner. Jordan, a great original, ended with a tribute, eight bars of vocalese that was pure Billie Holiday.
Alto saxophonist John Handy reprised the concert that electrified the Monterey festival 40 years ago. Violinist Carlos Reyes and guitarist Steve Erquiega subbed for Michael White and Jerry Hahn, but the stalwart bassist and drummer of Handy’s original quintet, Don Thompson and Terry Clarke, were gloriously present. It would have been unthinkable for Handy not to give the audience “Spanish Lady,” the piece that brought him a standing ovation in 1965. He delivered a passionate rendition that climaxed in Reyes’ surging violin choruses and climaxed again in a Handy solo that went into the super-stratosphere of the alto. History repeated. He got a standing ovation.
It took Sonny Rollins most of his set to hit his stride, and he strode to a faretheewell on the last piece, the calypso “Don’t Stop The Carnival,” achieving rhythmic intensity and thematic development close to his best work of the 1950s and early sixties. Rollins was also splendid on “I Want To Talk About You,” but when is Rollins not a moving ballad player? Listeners who expected Steven Scott, the pianist on Rollins’s latest album, seemed not to be disappointed that guitarist Bobby Broom was the other primary solo voice. Nor should they have been; Broom was a worthy foil and partner.
I was able to hear Carla Bley with The Lost Chords, the quartet that incudes her partner Steve Swallow on bass, tenor saxophonist Andy Sheppard and drummer Billy Drummond. After intensive touring, the quartet is tight, full-bodied and possessed of even more engaging wackiness than in its recent CD. Later, recapturing a formative experience of her youth, Bley premiered “Appearing Nightly at the Black Orchid.” The four-part composition for big band was inspired by her first and only job as a solo pianist, when she was seventeen, at a Monterey club called The Black Orchid. She introduced it with a piano pastiche that hinted at several songs without stating them. I wish it had gone on much longer. Her writing for the band was loaded with Bleyian harmonic mystery and deep textures supporting soloists who sounded inspired. It seems to me among Bley’s best work, and I am eager to hear it again.
Tony Bennett sang brilliantly, enjoying himself enormously and extending his set to nearly an hour and a half. He interacted intimately with his quartet and with the audience. Perhaps in honor of the jazz festival setting, he gave pianist Lee Musiker, guitarist Gray Sargent, bassist Paul Langosch and drummer Harold Jones plenty of solo space. I watched his set on a big screen in the festival’s Turf Club with a roomful of musicians who cheered Bennett with appreciation for his timing, dynamics, phrasing and swing. “So,” one prominent jazz figure asked another as they applauded, “is he a jazz singer?” His friend replied, “Does it matter what you call him?”
The two nights I was at the festival, there were jam sessions after midnight in the capacious lobby bar of the Hyatt Regency. As usual in such situations, the quality of playing and players varied, but it was enlightening and encouraging to hear two Australians—the seasoned alto player Andrew Speight, now based in San Francisco, and Simon Chadwick a seventeen-year-old tenor saxophonist imported for the festival as part of the Australian Youth All-Star Big Band. Speight is a polished Charlie Parker expert with penetrating tone and ferocious delivery. Chadwick is a tall blonde youngster with a choir-boy face and huge tone. When he keeps the number of notes under control, his sense of melodic construction makes him someone to listen for as he develops. The Saturday session also provided an opportunity to hear the Bay Area tenor saxophonist Anton Schwartz, whose work that night exceeded what I’ve heard of him on records.
Some of the best music of the festival was on screen in the documentary film Brotherly Jazz, the story of Percy, Jimmy and Tootie Heath. This was the first public showing of the film produced by Danny Scher and directed by Jesse Block. Made not long before Percy died, it melds the brothers’ life stories with performances including terrific versions of “Autumn Leaves” and Jimmy’s “Gingerbread Boy.” The sound track needs equalization, but the film effectively interweaves perfomances by the group not long before Percy died in April, archival photos and video and the brothers’ on-camera reminiscences. It has sparkling versions of “Autumn Leaves,” Yardbird Suite” and Jimmy’s classic “Gingerbread Boy. It presents tributes from a dozen or so admirers, including Herbie Hancock, George Wein, Marian McPartland, Chico Hamilton, Peter Jennings and the brothers Jeff and John Clayton. Brotherly Jazz captures the Heaths’ determination, artistic integrity and humor. Of growing up as the youngest in a musical family, Tootie says, “If it hadn’t been for the example set by my brothers, I might have gone astray and become a doctor or a lawyer.”