Wycliffe Gordon and Friends Explore the Symmetry Between the Sacred and the Secular

Wycliffe Gordon and FriendsDizzy’s ClubThrough October 29When one attends the late show at Dizzy’s, there’s often bad news accompanying the good vibes: If you don’t time it properly, you may have to wait in a long line. Of course, it’s nice to know that jazz is so popular that people are willing to line up to hear it. Last night, the first set was a corporate affair and ran late; thus, a hundred or so of us stood around for an hour and watched as the suits — tuxedos, actually — and their dates spilled out of the club and paraded past us. The 9:30 set finally began at about 10 p.m.It was worth the wait: Wycliffe Gordon and Friends were so warmed up from the early set that they were truly raring to go. Not that I have ever heard Mr. Gordon playing with anything that could be described as a lack of energy or imagination, but the five players — and two special guests — were positively supercharged during the late set on Thursday.This was a highly symmetrical set that fully engaged the house. Mr. Gordon is an outstanding example of a trombonist and bandleader who can please a crowd without appearing to pander to it. Everyone in the group participated joyously in that spirit, starting with pianist Ehud Asherie and tenor saxophonist Adrian Cunningham, as well as bassist Corcoran Holt and most especially drummer Alvin Atkinson Jr.Here’s what I mean by symmetrical: He started with two jazz standards, one from the swing era, the other from the hard bop period. First it was Duke Ellington’s “In a Mellotone,” with Mr. Gordon on slide trumpet and switching to trombone later in the piece, and Mr. Cunningham on tenor. The slide trumpet is a relatively rare instrument; it’s actually more famous for a photo — of the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band with the young Louis Armstrong playing one — than it is for any recording. It’s very much against the odds that we would hear one twice in the same month at the same club, and yet Steven Bernstein also played his slide trumpet a few weeks ago at Dizzy’s. It was evident from the get-go that the five players were already fully energized and completely in sync with each other; from the first note they were hitting all the right beats together and breathing as one. “Mellotone” was upbeat and swinging; if there was one word to describe it, it wouldn’t be “mellow.” This was followed by John Coltrane’s “Mr. PC” — dedicated to the bassist Paul Chambers, not Perry Como — during which the quintet got even more intense. Scholars have shown that the tune of “Mr. PC” is closely related to the spiritual “Joshua,” and this foreshadowed more Gospel-styled performances later in the set.Mr. Gordon then announced two love songs, which turned out to be something of an ironic misdirection — or at least they were highly unconventional love songs. First was “Toast My Bread,” from Mr. Gordon’s 2006 album with the bassist and songwriter Jay Leonhart; I like to think that Mr. Leonhart’s knack for quirky original words and music rubbed off on Mr. Gordon. This is indeed a passionate, funny love song to a very specific culinary delight; when he sings “put my bread in your toaster,” it’s not in the least a double-entendre. Mr. Gordon’s use of the plunger mute here enhanced the toasty feeling. It’s making me hungry for toast — “toasty roasty golden brown” — even as I write.Mr. Cunningham, who, like the leader, is also a winning vocalist, did his crowd-pleasing turn on “Oo-Shoo-Be-Doo-Be,” which Dizzy Gillespie composed for that very purpose, and which was also recorded memorably by Sammy Davis Jr. Along the way, Messrs. Gordon and Atkinson joined in, launching a scat exchange, and they all captured Dizzy’s sense of highly cultivated nonsense.Like I said, it was a very symmetrical set: we next proceeded to two numbers in which the mood turned from the ridiculous to the sublime. Mr. Cunningham switched to clarinet for “In a Sentimental Mood,” the 1935 Ellington classic that is widely regarded as iconic but isn’t heard nearly enough. Mr. Cunningham employed a dry woody tone that suited the tune perfectly, and Mr. Asherie was especially effective. In announcing the next tune, Mr. Gordon described the ensemble as his “International All-Stars,” as Mr. Asherie was born at Tel Aviv, Mr. Cunningham is from Sydney, Australia, and Mr. Holt is of Senegalese descent. That was the set-up for a breathtakingly beautiful performance of a traditional Irish song, “Londonderry Air,” which was played as a duet between Mr. Gordon and a guest pianist, Aaron Diehl. Using the plunger mute again, he fully captured every nuance of the human voice, transmuting the melody from a folk song into a prayer.Actual prayers followed: Mr. Gordon brought on a guest vocalist, C. Anthony Bryan, who performed a medley of three Gospel classics in dedication to Mrs. Gordon’s mother, who died a few months ago. He sang “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” a capella, and as he moved into “Amazing Grace,” Mr. Gordon sat down at the piano to accompany him. It was a subtle, intimate moment in the middle of a loud, boisterous set.Mr. Gordon and his quintet climaxed the night with a number that smartly satisfied both ends, the sacred and the secular. This was an extroverted reading of the traditional “Down by the Riverside,” in which the whole band sang and invited the house to join in. There was a brief “C-Jam Blues” in which the leader made his closing announcements, and he and Mr. Cunningham engaged in some funny shtick wherein they play softer and softer, until there was no sound at all emanating from their horns.Clearly, the late Dizzy Gillespie provided more than the name of the club, serving as a role model for Wycliffe Gordon and Friends to show that instrumental virtuosity and the intellectual side of jazz are not inapposite to uproarious humor and rabble-rousing hi-jinx. Mr. Gordon adds a deeply felt spiritual component as well, and shows how all of these ideas can coexist beautifully.

Wycliffe Gordon and Friends Explore the Symmetry Between the Sacred and the Secular

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