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| Christian McBride and Dianne Reeves |
The
2018-2019 Paradise Jazz Series opened Friday evening at Detroit’s Orchestra
Hall with a double bill that featured a duet from Grammy winner’s bassist
Christian McBride and vocalists Dianne Reeves, and saxophonist Tia Fuller. Friday’s
set was the second time McBride and Reeves have performed as a duo. From the
onset, it was clear McBride and Reeves hadn’t spent much time rehearsing, and they were winging it. McBride and Reeves
are master improvisers and performers and
the duo was engaging, and the near-capacity audience was thoroughly enthralled
by the performance from start to finish. McBride and Reeves have loads
of chemistry and a high level of reverence for each other’s respective talent.
Reeves spent most of the set scatting, which by the end of the set had become a
bit annoying. Reeves undoubtedly has one of the greatest voices in music, and
surely a large segment of the audience would’ve preferred
she spent the set just singing. To Reeves’s credit,
she has the scatting thing down to a science, and she’s arguably one of the
best in the game. McBride surprised the audience toward the end of the set when
he moved from the bass to the piano. Surprisingly, McBride is a pretty competent
piano player, but he shouldn’t harbor any future aspirations of playing piano full-time.
McBride and Reeves had the audience hyped
for saxophonist Tia Fuller’s set.
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| Tia Fuller |
It was Fuller’s first time at the Paradise
Jazz Series. Fuller is no stranger to Detroit. She is one of the stars on
Detroit’s Mack Avenue Records, and she has an excellent body of recordings the
most current being “Diamond Cut.” Fuller’s set was not one of her best, given the
string of memorable performances she’s put on
in Detroit over the years, particularly at the Detroit Jazz Festival. Fuller’s
playing Friday evening was surprisingly inconsistent in spots and strong in
others. She was test-driving a new trio. The
new band has yet to gel fully. Fuller
called selections from “Diamond Cut” and spent a good amount of time explaining
to the audience the album's origins. Fuller’s
set was a last-minute inclusion, which might explain why Fuller didn’t show up
with her regular bandmates such as drummer Rudy Royston and bassist Mimi Jones,
or some of the stars on “Diamond Cut.”
The Paradise Jazz goers are experienced
jazz-heads. Maybe Fuller wasn’t aware of that and that the series wasn’t the appropriate
setting to dry run a new trio.
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