A Spiritual for the Crescent City

The drummer Brian Blade calls his band, which is appearing this week at the Village Vanguard, a “fellowship” rather than a sextet or any other kind of ensemble name; this may refer to how the members have remained together considerably longer than most contemporary bands, in which players tend to come and go somewhat randomly. Of the six members of Mr. Blade’s Fellowship, five — saxists Myron Walden and Melvin Walden, pianist Jon Cowherd, bassist Chris Thomas, and the drummerleader-principal composer himself (only guitarist Peter Bernstein is a relative newcomer) — were present on the band’s first album, “Fellowship,” recorded 10 years ago.Two factors influenced the mood of the opening set on Tuesday night. First, it was Mardi Gras in New Orleans, which is usually a happy occasion, except that Louisianans still have little to celebrate in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Since most of the Fellowship originally met attending New Orleans’s Loyola University in the late 1980s, the fate of the Crescent City was weighing heavily on their minds. Second, Tuesday’s set was played shortly after the memorial service for the late tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker. Even though the Fellowship’s music is nothing like Brecker’s, he was one of those rare musicians whose playing cut across stylistic boundaries and affected every jazz musician.The music heard Tuesday, therefore, was appropriate for reflecting on both a city laid to ruin and a fallen comrade; nearly everything played took the form of a hymn, a spiritual, or some other piece of religious or inspirational music. The Fellowship played a total of six tunes, the titles of which were announced at the end. Since several of these took a number of distinct sections (at least one of which changed keys), it was hard to tell precisely where each number began and ended.The first piece, for instance, a new, untitled original by Mr. Cowherd, began and ended with a dirgelike intro expressed by Mr. Butler on tenor, Mr. Walden on bass clarinet, and the composer expressing the melody on single piano notes. The opening section transitioned in the middle to a medium-tempo bop number, showcasing Mr. Butler’s tenor and the drummer’s subtle rhythmic shadings.The second piece was a treatment of the hymn, “I Love the Lord,” rendered in something like a mid-1960s Coltrane style, with Mr. Blade calling to mind the swirling-energy style drumming of Elvin Jones. Mr. Walden, a dynamic saxophonist with lots of star quality, commanded the spotlight here. His improvisations are based more on short melodic motifs than on running the bop-style cycle of chords and choruses, and thus are more similar in theory to Ornette Coleman than Charlie Parker. Yet he knows how to construct an engagingly old-school solo that never fails to jazz a crowd, playing with lots of force, fury, and feeling. There are players with more harmonic technique than Mr. Walden, but few are as fun to watch and hear.The third piece of the night was Mr. Blade’s “Omni,” which opened with an intro reminiscent of the traditional “Amazing Grace,” played by the tenor in unison with piano and guitar. This also led to a faster middle section in 6/8, reminiscent of Charles Mingus’s gospel-styled pieces in that time signature. The most overtly religious work performed in the set was “Let Your Line Shine on Me,” by the blues-gospel guitaristsinger Blind Willie Johnson, which was essentially a duet between Mr. Walden on bass clarinet, replicating Johnson’s gruff, guttural singing, and Mr. Cowherd replicating a church pipe organ on an electric keyboard.It should be noted that Mr. Blade can play in all sorts of modes; the music this week at the Vanguard is inherently different from his latest album, “Friendly Travellers,” which is a set of duets with the Austrian electric guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel, released on Mr. Muthspiel’s own Material Records. The playing on the album is much quieter and more contemplative, and the most surprising track is the title, which finds Mr. Blade switching to guitar and playing a string duet with Herr Muthspiel.Accordingly, at the Vanguard, the Fellowship wound up with two more spiritual pieces, “Calling My Children Home” and “Most Precious One,” which were both in a more introspective, spiritual mode — even the jubilant Mr. Walden was in much more of a mellow mood, playing an alto solo that seemed like a reverential, devotional offering. Say amen, somebody.***Last week, I heard a group with, coincidentally, the same instrumentation as the Brian Blade Fellowship — two saxes plus four rhythm (including guitar). Yet though the playing of the two tenors, Harry Allen and Scott Hamilton, was equally extroverted, the stylistics couldn’t have been more different. Messrs. Allen and Hamilton squared off in a special concert last Friday at the Bogardus Mansion, sponsored by the McMahon Jazz Medicine organization.Messrs. Allen and Hamilton worked most of the evening together, frequently referencing the past masters of the instrument who were most influential on their playing, such as Zoot Sims and Al Cohn on “Just You, Just Me” and Ben Webster on “Did You Call Her Today?” Mr. Hamilton’s playing was much stronger than the last few times I’ve heard him in New York (his recent album, “Ballads and Nocturnes,” offers proof of that), especially his slow, love song feature “The Man With the Horn.” Mr. Allen was also tremendously effective on “Teach Me Tonight,” a ballad with pronounced blues inflections.The two-tenor highlights of the first set were “Apple Honey” and “Sweet Georgia Brown.” The former is not only Ralph Burns’s variation on “I Got Rhythm,” but Woody Herman’s response to what Duke Ellington and Count Basie did with those same chord changes on “Cottontail” and “Lester Leaps In,” respectively. In fact, it seemed to allude to the entire history of “Rhythm” changes. “Georgia” was a brilliantly conceived variation, in which both saxes traded off melody and improvisations throughout, four bars at a time. Messrs. Hamilton and Allen form a formidable pair, evenly matched: Sometimes I think the former has more versatility and flexibility, but the latter has more energy and determination. When they start sparring, I don’t much care who wins, I just want to be there when it happens.wfriedwald@nysun.com

A Spiritual for the Crescent City

A Spiritual for the Crescent City

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