Drummer Ups Ante With Exhilarating Result
Jazz Festival University of Idaho, Friday
By the time Joshua Redman brought the crowd to its feet Friday night at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival, the heavy lifting already had been done.
In one of the festival’s best concerts in memory, the peak moments came early when drummer Elvin Jones found the sweet spot in pianist Geri Allen’s dense sound. Insinuating his crackling bebop phrasings into the thorny thickets of her playing, he pushed her to an extended chorus of controlled but astonishing intensity.
Trumpeter Wallace Roney, a former classmate of Allen’s at Howard University, added the icing with a languid behind-the-beat trumpet solo punctuated by dazzling bop-style phrases.
It was 15 minutes of what the Idaho festival does best. Each year, jazz greats of several generations step on stage to swap ideas. Out of four nights of nonstop music, there are numerous moments ripe with possibility. More often than not, they are lost to circumstance, but they sometimes burst into full bloom, as when the veteran Jones and the exceptional young Allen found themselves locked in their fierce pas de deux.
If Friday night’s show was an indication, the festival’s evening concerts have stepped up to a new level. The reason is Jones, who recently has anchored the house quartet.
Best-known for his work with the ground-breaking John Coltrane quintet of the ‘60s, Jones has become the driving force behind the festival’s trademark jam sessions. Unwilling to sit back and play predictably, he continually ups the ante, driving the other players to new heights with his inventive and sometimes startling playing. He has described his style as a “flow of rhythm” - and it’s an accurate description - as he shifts the beat from the cymbals to the toms or snare, dropping the occasional bass-drum accent. Jones is now in his late 60s, but there is not an ounce of slack in his playing: He is a powerful, broad-shouldered presence who amplifies and focuses the energy of the group.
His older brother, Hank, is a consummate piano player and one of the finest accompanists a singer can have. When singer Gail Wynters commented on the pleasure of singing with such an august group, she really was referring to Hank Jones, who can make any singer sound better.
None of this is meant to diminish the impact of the young Redman, who has shown great growth in his playing in just the past two years. With his own group, his work can be lax and methodical, but Friday his playing had a biting edge. He and Roney battled each other to a standstill with splendid runs of virtuosity and heart.
The redeeming feature of Lou Rawls’ pointless show-closing lounge act was the appearance of Lionel Hampton, who despite failing health still plays the vibes with the soul of a true musician.
, DataTimes