The new class of NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) Jazz Masters was sworn in tonight at the IAJE bash: Ray Barretto, Freddie Hubbard, Chick Corea, Bob Brookmeyer, Buddy DeFranco, Tony Bennett and John Levy. Each spoke briefly and movingly as he accepted his award. Jon Faddis led a big band that played, beautifully, the “Beige” section of Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown and Beige.” Bill Hughes and Dennis Wilson led the Count Basie band in a set that turned out to be mostly accompaniment for the singer Nnenna Freelon, who did her patented jazz-cum-show business thing.
Barry Harris was brought up to join the Basie band on piano for one number. Oddly, the most important living Bud Powell successor was relegated to providing accompaniment for Freelon. The two bands combined at the end in “Battle Royale,” a piece the Ellington and Basie bands famously recorded together in the early 1960s. Then, the massed forces played “One O’clock Jump” as a finale, with Paquito D’Rivera, Slide Hampton, Corea, Jimmy Heath and James Moody sitting in. Moody, who apparently left his saxophones in his hotel room, scatted some of the most interesting music of the evening.
There materialized on the bandstand an extremely short, extremely young person holding a trumpet and looking as if he couldn’t wait to start blowing. After D’Rivera on clarinet, Slide Hampton on trombone, Corea on Piano, Heath on tenor saxophone and Moody had soloed, the boy played four or five chourses of the blues. He played well enough–within a narrow range but with continuity of ideas–that the world-class musicians surrounding him looked at first perplexed and then delighted. On the final choruses, Heath and D’Rivera set a riff, everyone joined in, including the boy, and the evening ended in affirmation.
I managed to make my way through the throng at the foot of the bandstand to find out something about this poised youngster. He told me that his name is Tyler Lindsey. He’s from Virginia Beach, Virginia. He’s ten years old. He plays in three bands in his hometown, and he came to the IAJE meeting with his dad. “I was glad to hear you,” I told him. “I was glad to play,” he said. It was quite a night for him. And for the rest of us.