Bill Frisell |
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Mon. September 18.2000 9:32 PM EDT |
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Review: Shorter, Frisell And Trumpeters Make Monterey Jazz Fest SoarBlend of straight-ahead, cutting-edge blues, international sounds at 43rd edition. by Correspondent Josef Woodard |
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Saxophonist Wayne Shorter took a peerless quintet to the Monterey Jazz Festival. (Maurice Ramirez) |
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MONTEREY, Calif. — On Sunday at the Monterey County Fairgrounds, the great saxophonist Wayne Shorter unveiled "Vendiendo Alegria" — commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival — for his group
It's a beautiful work, by turns smart and sensuous, and reveals Shorter's continuing interest and skill in expanded ensemble writing with classical allusions. But perhaps the most surprising moment for Shorter fans came at the opening of his set, when he reclaimed some of his '60s Blue Note-period magic by playing tenor saxophone on a few cool, atmospheric numbers — as opposed to indulging his more rococo post-fusion work. And he made it work thanks to an unusually sympathetic group, pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, drummer Brian Blade and Shorter's old Weather Report comrade Alex Acuna on percussion. There were many surprises at the 43rd edition of the Monterey Jazz Festival, which turned the fairgrounds into a dense and rumbling thicket of sounds and smells over the weekend. This is one of the world's great festivals, and jazz of varying styles and persuasions resounded from five different stages, from the large Arena stage to the intimate Coffee House, all linked by a food and merchandise passageway. This was the year that humble guitar hero Bill Frisell finally made it to Monterey. He did so in three separate sets, as part of the festival's new "Showcase Monterey" feature, in which a designated artist performs in different settings. It's an idea borrowed from the Montreal Jazz Festival's annual series. On Friday spectators heard Frisell's new quartet, a warped roots-music assemblage with Greg Liesz playing wonderfully goopy-sounding pedal steel and lap steel guitars while upright bassist David Piltch and drummer Kenny Wollesen cooked up loopy vamps — some of which would put a smile on a Deadhead's face. On Saturday, a horn section augmented the quartet, which played much of the same material but with the artful Salvation Army-like charm of Frisell's horn charts. But the real Frisell epiphany — and a great moment in the festival — came on Sunday, when the guitarist played his first public duet with drummer Paul Motian. Frisell has performed with Motian intermittently since 1981, usually in a trio with saxophonist Joe Lovano, and they enjoy a loose, mumbly conversational style — with nods to Thelonious Monk and their own brand of abstractionism — unique in all of jazz. In sharp contrast with the quartet's groove instincts, Motian plays less with a pulse than a sense of color, and Frisell took advantage of the freedom, experimenting with effects and poetic abandon. A Festival Reborn This is a festival reborn, granted a renewed international reputation thanks to artistic director Tim Jackson. A decade ago he took over the reins from founding director Jimmy Lyons and instantly instilled a new attitude, saving the festival from a reputation grown frustratingly stodgy. The trick Jackson manages to pull off involves delicate artistic politics: He must appeal to various factions, old and new, conservative and cutting-edge, even to a blues crowd that lapped up a blues menu on Saturday afternoon. It's a question of balance and sneaking things in the side doors, as with Saturday's trumpet theme. The hot, young and often tradition-bound horn players Roy Hargrove and Nicholas Payton satisfied a certain niche, but the adventure element was found elsewhere. Tom Harrell's fiercely intelligent and emotionally deep big-band set, with guest alto saxophonist Greg Osby, was stunning, as was an appearance by this year's jazz trumpet hero, Dave Douglas — whose quartet with sax foil Chris Potter soared before a packed house at Dizzy's Den. Douglas' appearance here two years ago was met with a lukewarm reception and half a house. What a difference a few awards and a deal with RCA make. Dusting Off Some Favorites One unofficial motif this year had to do with the art of refreshing, and reinventing, old tunes. Frisell's quartet gave an ethereal air to "Shenendoah" (RealAudio excerpt), its melody laced over drones of pedal steel guitar and bowed bass, and singer Dianne Reeves recast Cat Stevens' "Morning Has Broken" (RealAudio excerpt of her version off In the Moment: In Concert) and Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" in her own Afro-jazz mold. Panamanian singer Ruben Blades ended his vibrant set backed by the tight Costa Rican group Editus — one of the weekend's highlights, to be sure — with a wild take on "Mack the Knife," which kept modulating and morphing into a serpentine Spanish-language variant. Trumpeter Payton's wild variations on "St. James Infirmary," and especially the odd-metered, modal take on "Hello Dolly," offered some of the freshest Louis Armstrong tribute fodder in this Satchmo-dominated centennial year. Frisell was at it again on Sunday night in his duet with Motian, taking "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" to heights of supernatural sweetness. Late on Sunday night, guitarist Pat Metheny ended a juicy set — marred by sound problems — with an encore of his personalized "Summertime," from the album he made with guitarist Jim Hall. Here, saxophonist Michael Brecker laid out the melody over Metheny's manic, post-Richie Havens strumming technique. Unlikely Heroes The finest standard-bearer of this festival, though, was pianist Bill Charlap, an undersung hero of today's piano jazz scene. His trio, with bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Kenny Washington, dispensed dinner-club polish and live-wire imagination without apology. Sublimity yielded to inspired ridiculousness at the tail end of the festival as drummer Matt Wilson's quartet brought its light-headed lunacy to the Night Club stage. From Tad Dameron to a tribute to Kiss and a free jazz gambit based on "Survivor," the band's shtick works, principally because the musicians' credentials, and chops, are fully in order. They're young brigands, stoking the tradition while making post-modernist whoopee in the age of irony. Nowadays there's a place for that at Monterey, which is one of the reasons the festival is well positioned for the next 43 years. |
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