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| Spring Quartet |
It’s the latest jazz all-star group,
and it’s called the Spring Quartet. Pianist Leonardo Genovese, bassist
Esperanza Spalding, saxophonist Joe Lovano, and drummer Jack DeJohnette are the
members. Friday night, at Detroit’s Orchestra Hall the quartet put on the best
concert so far of the 2018-2019 Paradise Jazz Series. What was immediately
delightful was the quartet only performed original tunes. There’re too many
highpoints during the two-hour concert to list. The concert was broken into two
sets. The first set, the emphasis was on Genovese the lesser known of the members
but who shouldered the bulk of the workload both sets, and the multi-Grammy
winner Esperanza Spalding. Genovese is an energetic pianist with traces of
Ahmad Jamal’s and Cecil Taylor’s musical DNA running through his bloodstream. On
the numbers which he was featured “Herbie Hands Cocked,” “Spring Day,” and “Ethiopian Blues,” Genovese
had a Simon Says command of the piano. Wonder if this group would be worth checking
out if he wasn’t a member. On a different note, this concert was the first time
I witnessed Spalding play like a pure jazz bassist. In fairness to her, the
other times I caught her she was the leader, performing her original tunes.
Spalding crushed all my earlier reservations about her being a bonafide jazz
musician. She is the real deal, and it was a delight listening to her craft one
delicious solo after the next. The quartet was balanced. The first set served
as a warmup for the second where the quartet stretched out on several of DeJohnette’s
tunes such as “Ahmad the Terrible,” and “One for Eric.” Genovese and Spalding
were the standouts the first set and Lovano was consistently brilliant the
entire night. DeJohnette, however, was the most breathtaking soloist when the
zoom lens was cast on him. As far back
as memory serves, DeJohnette has been an exhilarating and tasteful drummer,
perhaps the most tasteful in jazz. Every lick and rim shot during the concert
was spot on and meaningful. The capacity audience was so lit they gave a
well-deserved lengthy ovation after the concert, demanding an encore, giving
the impression had the quartet refused the audience would’ve burned Orchestra
Hall down. That’s the impact the quartet had.
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