10:59 p.m. - 2007-03-25
Concert
We went to a concert last night, making use of a couple gift certificates we had lying around that Barb gave us a long time ago. The band was called the San Francisco Jazz Collective or Cooperative or Aggregate or something like that. Among its eight members were Dave Douglas, Joshua Redman and, the main reason we went, Bobby Hutcherson. There was also a piano lady, an alto player, a trombonist, a bass player with big heroic hair, and a drummer who looked like he was seventeen but is probably a little older. They were all very good. I think naming the band San Francisco Jazz Whatever is meant to confer a democratic spirit where everyone is equal and there's no real leader. In reality, I think Joshua Redman gets to call the tunes and tell everyone what to do, since he's the movie star of the band and therefore has all the clout. Also, he spent lots of time talking between pieces. And he probably gets to fly first class while the other members are stuffed into coach.
Everything they played was either written by someone in the band or a Monk piece arranged by someone in the band. The latter included Epistrophy, Bye-Ya, Ugly Beauty, Mississippi Bright or Bright Mississippi, a couple whose titles I don't know but I recognized them, and one I've never heard before. Also, Brilliant Corners. The arrangements exploited all the different horn sound effectively and were very clever. Maybe a little TOO clever. On several of the originals and a couple of the Monk tunes I was distracted periodically, trying to determine what meter they were in. Of course, it's possible that my slow, slow brain can't keep up with the adventurous jazz of today. It's also possible that much of their playing and arranging is largely facile. Either way, it was challenging music, played well.
ALTHOUGH, Kia and I agreed afterward that there was perhaps too much emphasis on the arrangements, such that they were allowed to overshadow the improvising. There were really only a couple times throughout the two sets when the soloists were given enough space to build up momentum and, you know, get into something. One such instance involved Redman, which pretty well proves my thesis, see above. The alto player played some blistering passages, the pianist played some nice stuff that was hard to hear, the drummer was really good and had at least two cowbells. And then there's Hutch.
Hutcherson seems like he's not totally at the top of his game anymore, but he still has all the qualities in his playing that have cemented his jazz legend status, like his great phrasing and economical melodicism. Also, on the Monk numbers his solos tended to be the ones that best reflected and served the material, as though he were the one digging the deepest, possibly imagining the composer's thought process while he soloed, so that he was in the style and manner of say, Brilliant Corners, and not just playing a bunch of hip-sounding shit.
Also, watching Hutcherson was interesting, because he's well into his sixties and apparently taking on some weird old guy characteristics. Often when he wasn't playing, he would appear to laugh at a joke that only he could hear, then alternate between apparent jollity and seeming crankiness, and his playing was punctuated by mock-theatrical flourishes, like if Jackie Gleason or someone were playing vibes. This was very interesting to me, as such behavior seems endemic to vibes players as they get on in years. Milt Jackson and Lionel Hampton were both deeply weird men by the time they were old, and Hutcherson seems to be in a similar process of weirdening. This is of some concern to me, since I play the vibes sometimes. Sitting there in that darkened auditorium, watching the older guy make with the vibraphone madness from somewhere within his own world: Was I peering into my own future? Sans the jazz legend part, I mean? Was this my...future?
If so, it could be a lot worse. Anyway, it was a good show. Thanks, Barb!
