A Family Affair

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The New York Sun

The good news is that the acoustics in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s new theaters are every bit as good as we were led to hope they would be. The quality music made in them may vary – as it did during the inaugural concert opening night – but the sound is spectacular.


The largest space, the Rose Theater, was officially inaugurated last night with an all-star concert spotlighting artistic director Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Large rooms notoriously distort the drum sound, but all through the opening concert I kept noticing what a great drummer the orchestra’s Herlin Riley is – as if I’d never heard him before.


In the Allen Room, the middle-sized space that was officially opened on September 30, I had noticed something similar. The first time we applauded, we heard only the applause – not its echo. In a hall like Carnegie or Avery Fisher, when you clap you instantly hear the sound bouncing back and forth across the walls and ceiling. But given jazz’s tempo and dynamics, a little reverberation goes a long way. Any excessive echo tends to be very distracting.


The opening concert was a smorgasbord of sounds and styles from the 100-year history of jazz. We heard selections representing Count Basie (“Jumpin’ at the Woodside”), King Oliver and Louis Armstrong (“Dipper Mouth Blues”), and Benny Goodman (“Sing Sing Sing”). The world of Latin jazz was represented by “Furio for All,” a very aggressive samba that spotlighted percussionist-composer Cyro Baptesta, who looks like a mad scientist and plays a Spike Jones-like battery of Brazilian rhythm implements. Oddly, Duke Ellington, the jazz icon that the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra most often celebrates, wasn’t represented.


One Marsalis arrangement, “Call to Prayer,” did suggest Ellington’s many “train” pieces. And two other modern pieces had a similar spiritual underpinning: Charles Mingus’s “Better Get Hit in Your Soul” in a swinging 6/8 and a surprisingly danceable version of John Coltrane’s “Resolution” (from “A Love Supreme”).


Three splendid performers presented three outstanding ballads. Tony Bennett seemed to whisper the words to “Lost in the Stars,” transforming that epic text into the most intimate secret. Abbey Lincoln sang “Down Here Below” with a marvelously Gil Evans-like orchestration; I wish she would do a whole album with big band backing. And Joe Lovano played an exquisite solo on “Body and Soul,” incorporating the song’s history with great tenor saxophonists like Chu Berry and Coleman Hawkins but making it his own.


Most of these highlights came in the first half. The second wasn’t as consistently on the same high level, but there was a witty treatment of Thelonious Monk’s “Bright Mississippi,” which spotlighted violinist Mark O’Connor and four clarinets. The rendition made the song’s roots in “Sweet Georgia Brown” clear; It sounded like Monk being played by Claude Thornhill or even Hal Kemp. For some reason, however, Mr. Marsalis misguidedly gave over much of the second half to communicating the theme of family.


This started fine with legendary drummer Gene Krupa and his talented grandson staging a drum battle on “Sing Sing Sing.” And I welcomed the chance to hear trombonist Dick Nash (best known for his work with Sinatra) playing “All The Things You Are” with his son Ted Nash, from the orchestra’s reed section. But then the proceedings got bogged down in what amounted to an in-house family talent show.


The evening ended well, however, when the artistic director brought his own brothers (and father) on stage. As President Bush said at last June’s NEA Jazz reception, “There’s a Marsalis brother for every instrument”: Wynton on trumpet, Branford on tenor, Delfayo on trombone, Jason, the youngest, on drums, and the patriarch, Ellis, on piano. They played Wynton’s original, “Crescent City Strut,” a parade theme a la “Bill Bailey.”


Is there any down side to the new Allen Theater? Yes, literally. The main seats are too small – and I am hardly the portliest of jazz fans – especially if you’re trying to take notes.


The New York Sun

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