AT ARETHA'S JAZZ CAFÉ THE NEA JAZZ MASTER DRUMMER LOUIS HAYES SWUNG WITH THE VERVE OF MUSICIANS HALF HIS AGE

Louis Hayes

At Louis Hayes's concert Sunday night, I wondered if other attendees were blown away by how athletic his playing still is at 85. Hayes, the 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship—the highest honor bestowed on a jazz musician—returned to Detroit for a weekend at Aretha's Jazz Café. Off the bat, Hayes set the tone for the high-grade swing the audience would be lavished with for 90-minutes. Silver Serenade and Arab Arab were the two scorchers Hayes opened the concert with. Witnessing him burn rubber through both numbers showed his dexterity as a masterful jazz drummer hasn't withered with age. His cymbal work was crisp, and his rimshots embodied a youthful muscularity. All night long, he was equally dynamic as when he held down the drum chair in pianist Horace Silver's and alto saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderly's bands many decades ago. Then, after submerging the audience with the two opening tunes, Hayes let them come up for air on Tadd Dameron's ballad If You Could See Me Now. Hayes had a well-condition band—pianist Rick Germanson, saxophonist Abraham Burton, vibist Steve Nelson, and bassist Gerald Cannon—that punched even harder in the later rounds of the set. The members were so evenly yoked that neither overshadowed the other. Germanson and Cannon were the band's linchpins, Burton blew the paint off the walls, and Nelson's solos had an athletic quality. Hayes isn't one of those old-timers who spend a chunk of a set reminiscing about the old days. But, for what it's worth, I've always enjoyed it when jazz musicians of Hayes's era include a jazz history lesson in their concerts. Anyway, he performed for 90-minutes with no commercial interruptions and with the verve and stamina of a musician half his age.