WYNTON MARSALIS WITH JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER SWUNG AT UMS JAZZ SERIES FOR THE 17TH STRAIGHT YEAR

Wynton Marsalis

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s Sunday afternoon show at Hill Auditorium was its 17th and continues to be one of the more highly anticipated of UMS Jazz Series. Arguably, the JLC is the top jazz orchestra working and their shows are full of swing, surprises, and of course Duke Ellington’s music. It wouldn’t be an authentic JLC show without Wynton Marsalis drawing from the Ellington songbooks.

This time out, Marsalis didn’t open with Ellington’s music. He opened with eight members of the orchestra tearing through a Buddy Bolden jumper and rolling through Jelly Roll Morton’s Smoke House Blues and Dead Man Blues. I attend the JLC shows when they play UMS Jazz Series.

This year was the first time the Marsalis was out front playing and soloing like mad. Normally, Marsalis is in the trumpet section calling tunes while the featured players manage most of the workload. Marsalis sounded fit and imaginative. It was exciting seeing him open up.

Marsalis remains one of the finest jazz trumpeters out there. That’s big because there’re talented and hungry trumpeters out there such as Jeremy Pelt, Terell Stafford and Sean Jones. Marsalis doesn’t get any love from critic polls these days. Besides being the top spokesperson of the music, Marsalis is a wonderful jazz educator.

He prefaced each song with a history lesson about the making and importance of the song. So you felt as if you’re attending a jazz concert and a course in jazz history. After the eight members worked up the audience, Marsalis brought out the other members. 

Then he called three Ellington favorites from different eras of his career. For example, Marsalis opened with a number Ellington wrote in the early 70’s. Then the orchestra worked their way south playing an Ellington song from the 30’s and one from the 40’s.

After playing Ellington’s music, the orchestra wolfed down Kenny Burrell’s Layresto like vegetarians fresh fruit. Surprisingly, giving all the New Orleans and Ellington music the orchestra played the best number the orchestra played was Its Not Easy Being Green, which Ali Jackson arranged.

Jackson is a longstanding member of the orchestra, and he holds down the drum chair, the most demanding spot in the orchestra. Jackson had the most kick-ass solo on Dead Man Blues that many audience members probably were still thinking about over breakfast this morning.

For two solid hours the JLC did what it does best that’s keeping Duke Ellington’s, Buddy Bolden’s and Jelly Roll Morton’s music young and in the public eye.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DETROIT ORRIN EVANS PERFORMED AS A BANDLEADER

Pianist Orrin Evans

When jazz pianist Orrin Evans has played Detroit, he’s always been part of a popular jazz band. Evans played the Detroit Jazz Festival with trumpeter Sean Jones, and at a few local jazz clubs around Detroit with jazz drummer Ralph Peterson. At the 2013 Detroit jazz fest, Evans was a key member of drummer Karriem Riggins' band, which had one of the best sets.

At each concert, Evans showed he was a jazz pianist with a bottomless imagination. The New Jersey native was part of the same generation of star jazz pianists as Cyrus Chestnut and Jason Moran, but Evans is not a household name as they are.

That’s not a blow against Evans because he’s been putting in work. He’s earned two Grammy nods, and he’s made 20 albums. Two new releases are due this year.

At the Jazz Café Thursday night, Evans for the first time played Detroit, which he considers his adopted hometown, with his trio drummer Chris Beck and bassist Madison Rast. 

The trio fancy standards and the trio is OK with stretching them to where the standards are almost unrecognizable. The trio played extended and imaginative remixes of How High the Moon, All Blue, and I Want to be Happy, stripping each bare like kitchen cabinets then applying fresh coats of varnish.

Beck was the most high-strung member. He’s pushy like Elvin Jones was. Beck makes his band-mates work as if they have something to prove. At this stage of their careers, their reputations are bulletproof, and they don’t have anything to prove. But, neither Rast nor Evans seemed bothered by how hard Beck pushed them.

My favorite was how the trio stretched out on Beck’s original Hodgepodge. Flames rushed from the piano when Evans soloed. What’s neat about Evans is he plays the music as a life-long student, as if there’s always new discoveries. Each number the trio played qualified for  highlight reels. 

DMITRY BAEVSKY REOPENED THE DETROIT GROOVE SOCIETY'S JAZZ CONCERT SERIES

Saxophonist Dmitry Baevsky

Jazz concert promoters Andrew and Diane Rothman began the Detroit Groove Society home concert series 10 years ago. Many top jazz musicians such as Danilo Perez, Cedar Walton, and Geri Allen have played the series. There are several jazz series around Detroit that also book top national jazz musicians.The DGS series is different. You hear musicians in the quiet of the Rothman’s living room, and you can mingle with the musicians between sets. 

At the other series, the musicians are hard to get to. You have to stand in a long line to get an autograph. Not at the DGS series. Last year, the DGS took a break. The series averaged four concerts per year, and had been going strong 10 years. 

Sunday afternoon, the DGS restarted the series with an outstanding concert from Russian born alto saxophonist Dmitry Baevsky, featuring guitarist Randy Napoleon. Much of last week, the pair performed around Detroit with bassist Paul Keller and drummer Sean Dobbins. Not a bad pickup band. The band sounded as if they have toured together for years.

Baevsky moved to New York from Russia in 1995, and since he has made quite the name, putting out three good albums The Composers, Down With It, and Introducing Dmitry Baevsky. His style is like the great Art Pepper, particularly when Baevsky races through up-tempo bebop tunes. He called several Bud Powell numbers Sunday, which the band had a blast navigating.

The concert opened with a hard bop burner Circus straight from the Jazz Messenger’s songbook, followed by Benny Golson’s Fair Weather. The band stuck with bebop and hard bop tunes throughout. There were breathtaking takes of cuts by Dexter Gordon, Jimmy Heath and Tadd Dameron.

Baevsky told the crowd he wanted to team with Napoleon for years, and it finally happened recently. He did not let on if they plan to make an album. It would be criminal if they did not make at least one.

Napoleon’s style is a nice contrast to Baevsky’s way of working through chord changes. Although Napoleon has enough chops to fill up an auto supply warehouse, he carries on like an accompanist. 

Napoleon graduated from the University of Michigan, played with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, and he has been Freddy Coles go to guy for seven years.

Baevsky and Napoleon were the headliners Sunday, but Keller and Dobbins were the crowd favorites. Their solos tickled and excited the crowd. They played throughout like kids happy to be home from school on a snow day.

In the past, the DGS has favored jazz pianist. Andrew is a pretty good closet jazz pianist, so his strong like for pianists is understandable. The series was set to restart with a solo set from pianist Fred Hersch, but that didn’t work out. Booking Baevsky was a damn good plan B to ge the DGS running again.

TERENCE BLANCHARD'S BAND PLAYED CUTS FROM 'MAGNETIC' AT THE PARADISE JAZZ SERIES

Terence Blanchard

The Paradise Jazz Series at Orchestra Hall draws a conservative crowd. No one understands that better than the jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard does. He helped book two strong seasons. The Paradise Jazz crowd can be disinterested if the music isn’t straight ahead acoustic jazz or some form of bop. Jazz singer Gretchen Parlato received a cold reception when she performed neo-soul tinged jazz at the series two years ago.

Blanchard played the fourth concert of the 2013-2014 series Saturday night with his young band drummer Justin Brown, pianist Fabian Almazan, bassist Joshua Crumbly, and saxophonist Brice Winton. Blanchard’s special guests were saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and guitarist and vocalist Lionel Loueke.

Last year, Blanchard cut a wonderful jazz fusion album Magnetic. His band performed cuts from the album. When Blanchard said his band would play cuts from the album, I was worried the music would be too experimental and hip for the conservative audience. I was wrong.

Blanchard played many of the album’s lighter cuts and a few standards. The wildest the band got was Hallucinations, a jazz fusion cut evocative of Miles Davis's fusion era work. I thought the cut would frighten the audience, but the audience took to it like a newborn to breast milk. 

Blanchard has a young band, and he isn’t the kind of boss who expects the youngsters to do all the manual labor. He got his hands and work boots dirty, too. It was exhilarating the things he did on the trumpet. 

The concert’s downer was Ravi Coltrane playing was difficult to hear. In 2012, he put out his debut for Blue Note Records Spirit Fiction. Many jazz critics agreed the album was Coltrane's best. Sadly, last night Coltrane was little more than a stage prop. In all the years I’ve supported the Paradise Jazz Series, malfunctioning microphones have never been an issue.  

Blanchard never allowed things to get out of hand musically. Pet Step Sitter’s Theme Song, which closed the concert and pianist Fabian Almazan wrote, was the concert’s best moment. Blanchard could’ve pushed the band and himself to let their hair down more. 

Blanchard understands the Paradise Jazz audience and it seemed he opted to keep things clean and respectable. The concert wasn’t the best of this series. So far, the Branford Marsalis concert was, and pianist McCoy Tyner’s and Eddie Palmieri’s concerts are upcoming.

JASON MORAN WAS THE CENTERPIECE OF AN EXCITING REWORKING OF DAVE BRUBECK'S SPIRITUAL 'THE GATES OF JUSTICE'

Jason Moran

The last time jazz pianist Jason Moran’s trio, The Bandwagon, hit Detroit was 2011. The trio was set to headline a Saturday afternoon concert at the Detroit Jazz Festival. The show was rained out, and no makeup date was promised. Many festivalgoers were pissed because Moran doesn’t perform in Detroit often with The Bandwagon. In recent years, he’s come through Detroit with Joe Lovano, Charles Lloyd and Greg Osby.

At the Fillmore Detroit Sunday afternoon, Moran, a native of Houston and a Blue Note Records recording artist returned to Detroit as the centerpiece of the project Jazz Speaks for Life sponsored by the Detroit Jazz Festival Community Series. The concert was presented in two-parts.

The Bandwagon played the first half, sort of an opening act for an ambitious reworking of the late jazz pianist Dave Brubeck's spiritual work The Gates of Justice. Moran opened the project with a unique take of the hymn Lift Every Voice and Sing, known as the African-American national anthem. Moran, drummer Eric McPherson and bassist Tarus Mateen blued up the hymn, taking it through a smorgasbord of tempo changes.

The Bandwagon followed the hymn with Moran’s original RFK In The Land Of Apartheid. Then the trio dovetailed into pianist Jaki Byard’s Out Front. Moran likes using special effects. On one of his albums, he improvised to two women talking on the telephone, and on another cut, he tickled the ivories while someone scribbled on a notepad.

To close the first half of the concert, Moran played a cut of Billie Holiday singing. The Bandwagon played along as if a part of Holiday’s band. Moran warmed the audience up for the second half of the concert, which included Detroit the Brass and Percussion Ensemble, the Wayne State University Concert Choral Choir, the Detroit Choral Society, and the Bandwagon. Norah Duncan IV was the conductor, and Cantor Alberto Mizrahi and Emery Stephens were featured soloists.

That’s a lot of action on one stage. I was concerned if all the parts would mesh. The music Gods were smiling down because this reworking of Gates of Justice was exciting as if three mini-concerts were going on at once. Moran was the right hire to pull off this project. He isn’t afraid to take risk.

Like Brubeck had, Moran has a unique way of playing the piano. When Moran soloed on Lord, Lord and How Glorious is Thy Name, it seemed as if Brubeck's spirit was sitting next to Moran whispering instructions into his ear. And Moran obliged. 

THE COOKERS COOKED AT JAZZ AT THE CENTRE

The Cookers

Jazz at the Centre is three concerts into its first season. The series has quickly become the top jazz concert series in Detroit. That’s a big deal because of the stiff competition in town. There’re outstanding jazz concerts at Orchestra Hall, the Jazz Café’, and the Virgil Carr Center. The JAC’s audience has increased. The other jazz series have been operating for years and has a loyal following.

Saturday evening the JAC, inside the Northwest Activities Center, put on its best concert so far. The dream band the Cookers – David Weiss, Eddie Henderson, Billy Hart, Cecil McBee, George Cables, and Donald Harrison – played a two-hour set that featured some music from the band’s albums Cast the First Stone and Warriors. Plus, the band tried out three new tunes slated for an upcoming release.

The Cookers have the heaviest frontline in jazz trumpeters Eddie Henderson and David Weiss and saxophonists Billy Harper and Donald Harrison. Harrison is a new member. He replaced saxophonist Craig Handy.

Harrison is an alto saxophonist with much curb appeal. The New Orleans native and alums of the Jazz Messengers has a stellar body of recordings that includes This Is Jazz, Indian Blues, Nouveau Swing, and For Art’s Sake.

During the concert, Harrison had several arresting solos. On Peacemaker, he nearly blew the clothes off the people in the front-row. That solo was ample proof Harrison is a good fit.

Dave Weiss, the band’s founder, almost caused a riot when he called Croquet Ballet, one of the band’s signature numbers. A man in the audience familiar with the number yelled an ambulance should be called, which implied the band would swing so hard on that number someone being injured was possible. The JAC audience is into crowd participation. So much so, you feel, at times, you’re at a comedy show.

Croquet Ballet was one of several showstoppers. The others were Slippin’ and Slidin,’ a McBee blues hot off the press that had a handful of tempo changes, and Farewell Mulgrew,  George Cables’ nod to the late pianist Mulgrew Miller. Farewell Mulgrew was the loveliest number of the evening.

The drummer Billy Hart performed all the band’s dirty work and only soloed on Freddie Hubbard’s The Core. Hart is an old school ham who likes playing long solos. He was all over the drum kit like dirt on work boots. The organizers of the JAC promised a jazz series unlike the others in Detroit. So far, the series is living up to its billing.    

TERENCE BLANCHARD & SEAN JONES CARRIED THE CONCERT DEDICATED TO THE MILES DAVIS-GIL EVANS DUO

Miles Davis and Gil Evans

Miles Davis and Gil Evans created three classic jazz albums Miles Ahead, Sketches of Spain and Porgy And Bess. Thursday evening at the Paradise Valley Jazz Series, trumpeter Terence Blanchard with an all-star band -- drummer Peter Erskine, bassist Christian McBride, and Trumpeter Sean Jones -- performed music from those albums backed by musicians from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. 

Before Blanchard started the concert, he gave some background of the Davis-Evans relationship, and the importance of the music they created together. Blanchard rushed through that bit of jazz history. It seemed he was anxious to play. 

It didn’t take long for Blanchard to excite the audience, opening with selections from Miles Ahead. The two-hour concert was billed as Miles Davis & Gil Evans: Still Ahead. At times, it felt overwrought though Blanchard and Sean Jones were brilliant.

Jones is a force on trumpet. Perhaps the top trumpeter of a generation that includes Terell Stafford, Jeremy Pelt, Corey Wilkes and Dominick Farinacci. Jones records for Mack Avenue Records, and he’s put out an outstanding body of recordings. Roots and No Need for Words are his best albums. In concert, Jones is consistently awesome.   

At the start of the opening set, Jones gave the audience a taste of how lovely he can play on New Rhumba and My Ship.  He didn’t play again until the second set.

During that set, Jones performed the music from Sketches of Spain. Jones didn’t copy Miles’s style. Neither did Blanchard. Jones reworked Saeta and Solea. It would’ve made Gil Evans proud of Jones’s handling of the music.

The only questionable part of the concert was the lack of soloing from McBride and Erskine. They were a big part of promoting the concert. Surely, their names helped ticket sells. But they didn't see a lot of action. On The Buzzard Song from Porgy and Bess, Erskine had a crowd-pleasing exchange with Blanchard. That was it.  McBride never soloed.

Jones and Blanchard carried the concert. That was good enough. It was clever featuring Blanchard during the first set and Jones the second. Blanchard was the crowd favorite. 

On the music from Porgy And Bess, he blew the polar vortex out of town. During his soloing, people yelled encouragements like at a racetrack. A man was so worked up, he demanded Blanchard replay Bess, You is my Woman Now. Blanchard blushed. Then slid into the next number.