Monterey Jazz Festival 2013: Some Memorable Moments
The Mosaic Daily Jazz Gazette got to check out this year’s 56th annual Monterey Jazz Festival on a gloriously beautiful September weekend. Any visitor to Monterey knows that you can’t catch all of the greatness, since so much is happening at the same time. Some of the performances we caught at Monterey 2013 that we found particularly memorable:
Joe Lovano-Dave Douglas Quintet. Much of the attention at this year’s Festival trained on two Wayne Shorter compositions commissioned by the Festival. Shorter earmarked these pieces for performance by Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas and their Sound Prints quintet. Listen to this interview with Lovano, Douglas and bassist Linda Oh following the Monterey premieres. We got to hear the band play them in the more intimate setting of Dizzy’s Den. Both new Shorter pieces — Destination Unknown and To Sail Beyond the Sunset — evidently inspired the band, egged on by drummer Joey Baron, who laughingly launched waves of carpet bombing and other percussive provocation, and more subtly, by Linda Oh’s sure touch and line.
Wayne Shorter Quartet. In this latest stop on the Wayne Shorter 80th birthday celebration journey, the Shorter quartet sounded decisive, emphatic and direct in Monterey. This group’s success relies heavily on the effectiveness of its telepathy (individually and collectively, their playing far transcends mere issues of technique); this time, their creative synchronization seemed virtually faultless.
Joe Lovano Us Five. Lovano wore lots of hats this year, as Monterey’s Artist-in-Residence. His Us Five group was in urgent, powerful form. In its current rendition, percussion seems especially out in front; the band’s two drummers, Otis Brown III and Francisco Mela, played off one another with particular effectiveness, making it abundantly clear how two drummers, playing together in one group, can move air so differently and yet tell their respective tales in such consistently persuasive ways.
Ravi Coltrane. Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane’s Monterey set surprised us, with overtones more strongly suggesting his father’s sound than we had heard from him in other settings.The signature Ravi Coltrane power, drive and seriously complex musical intelligence were all fully in evidence; his group, particularly the volcanic drummer Johnathan Blake, matched Coltrane’s intensity and commitment.
Claire Daly. Clearly relishing her Monterey debut, baritone saxophonist/flutist Claire Daly and her group (which swings at the drop of a hat) delighted her afternoon audience with an irresistible hour of Thelonious Monk compositions. Her set mostly offered less-often-played Monk, like Two Timer and Teo, along with a Light Blue constructed from near-seamless tradeoffs between Daly and bassist Mary Ann McSweeney. Their bonus: a “Holiday Medley,” replete with Daly’s vocal rendition of Monk’s lyrics to A Merrier Christmas.
Piano Trios. The Festival provided a refreshing respite from the crowds with its presentations of piano trios in a warm, intimate club-like setting (although happily for us, without the distractions of clinking glassware and smoke). This year, two pianists – Uri Caine and Orrin Evans – brought able trios to play three sets each. Caine offered commentary and ruminations in the art form of the piano trio, with bassist John Hebert and drummer Clarence Penn sagely chiming in. And in the set we heard, Orrin Evans opened the standard and the familiar, like Autumn Leaves, as intricately knotted affairs, like an escape artist letting himself get tied up. Then he engaged his alert cohorts, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Donald Edwards, to help him untie the knots without apparent effort.
Lou Donaldson. The 87-year old alto saxophonist (and newly designated NEA Jazz Master) Lou Donaldson gave a hilariously contemporary tutorial of the blues, backed by a game group including Akiko Tsuruga on her Hammond B3.
Bobby Hutcherson. Master vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson stepped into the slot vacated by the recent passing of pianist Cedar Walton. Hutcherson, battling health challenges, rallied surges of energy when it counted – particularly on Cedar Walton’s Bolivia. Yet on the eve of John Coltrane’s birthday, he summoned Coltrane’s spirit in his eloquent version of Dear Lord, to close the Festival. We suspect we’ll have to revisit the West Coast to hear this giant, whose harmonic approach and sense of space helped shape modern jazz as we know it today. Hutcherson closed his set on a wistful note, with his words, “Goodbye, Monterey.” Our hope: that he — and we — will be back.
-Nick Moy
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