NEW YORK — Sound, vision, volume, nuance, vocals, strings: "A Magic Science: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix," presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival on Friday and Saturday, set out to be a tribute to a fallen
genius and a vibrant, two-hour concert of genre-bending expression, with rock and blues classics reinterpreted by leading practitioners of hip-hop, soul, fusion and more.
The show promised to be a fret fanatic's dream, what with noted session player and former "Late Night With David Letterman" bandmember Hiram Bullock, blues/noise guitarist Chris Whitley and Living Colour founder (and guitar legend) Vernon Reid, who also served as co-producer and musical director. Also performing were the Gil Evans Orchestra, led by the late bandleader's son, Miles Evans; Medeski Martin & Wood, who served as house band; turntablist DJ Logic; Sandra St. Victor, formerly of the Family Stand; and Marc Anthony Thompson, a.k.a. Chocolate Genius, who handled most of the vocal duties.
As if that musical fire- and star-power wasn't enough, the two-night run featured a projected light show designed by Glenn McKay, whose '60s psychedelic graphics have been displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
But for every brilliant moment, such as Thompson singing "Spanish Castle Magic" in pidgin Spanish, Reid tearing into "Red House" or St. Victor adding mournful majesty to "Hey Joe," there were other, less satisfying moments.
After the all-star cast performed a loud and rambling version of the Troggs' "Wild Thing," a song Hendrix had covered, Thompson grabbed the mic and said, "Sorry, Jimi."
Bullock turned "Up From the Skies" into a lengthy, stodgy bit of grandstanding. After performing a charged but somewhat disjointed acoustic version of "Driftin'," Whitley appeared confused and was somewhat incoherent. He attempted to start his next number, but the break in the show's pace brought boos and laughter from the audience, which threw the already shaky guitarist off further. After a tense few minutes, Reid came out, put his arms around Whitley — whose absence from the next evening's performance a BAM spokesperson attributed to illness — and escorted him off the stage.
Whitley's behavior might not have been professional, but, as Thompson pointed out, it was "the closet thing to real, and in the spirit of Jimi."
Sadly, it was more in the spirit of the Jimi who died Sept. 18, 1970, of asphyxiation due to an apparent accidental drug overdose, than it was in the spirit of Jimi the enormously influential virtuoso guitarist.
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