September 20, 2005

Aptos native Donny McCaslin, son of local bandleader Don McCaslin, is best known around town as a 16-year-old tenor saxophone prodigy. Now 39, McCaslin made his first appearance as a leader this weekend at the Monterey Jazz Festival. (Dan Coyro / Sentinel)

Music flows freely at Monterey Jazz Festival

By CHARLES LEVIN
Sentinel correspondent

Music at the 48th annual Monterey Jazz Festival this weekend overflowed like the hurricane floodwaters that burst through New Orleans’ levees.

Images of the Big Easy always pervade a festival that salutes the Crescent City’s birthright music. But this year, the sounds (not to mention the smells of jambalaya and barbecue ribs) seemed acute as New Orleans residents began returning home after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

The New Orleans Jazz Vipers, one of the Big Easy’s leading traditional bands, greeted fans when the gates opened at 6 p.m. on Friday. The seven-piece group, with a regal and rarely seen bass saxophone, kept the crowd enthralled with tunes like "Avalon," "Crazy Rhythm" and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans."

The band works without a drummer, relying instead on John Rodli’s insistent rhythm guitar and Robert Snow’s percussive bass playing.

Aptos native son Donny McCaslin wowed a small but enthusiastic crowd at the Nightclub stage. Locals know McCaslin as a 16-year-old tenor saxophone prodigy (his father is local bandleader Don McCaslin).

In his first appearance at Monterey as a leader, McCaslin, now 39 and living in Brooklyn, showed off a mature compositional style. Courtesy of Ben Monder’s rich guitar colors, McCaslin has married the textures of pop bands like Coldplay with the sensibilities of post-bop jazz.

Larry Carlton pumped the Jimmy Lyons Stage to its feet Saturday afternoon with a rousing set of blues, funk, pop covers and smooth jazz. Carlton’s searing guitar tone supplied ample reminder of his adroit work on Steely Dan’s 1976 masterpiece "The Royal Scam."

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Oakland singer Ledisi joined Carlton and his crack Sapphire Blues Band on the Aretha Franklin hit "Chain of Fools," bringing the crowd to its feet. Fellow picker John Scofield and Carlton dueled on the jazz-funk standard "Cold Duck Time" to close the set.

Later that night, pianist-composer Carla Bley delivered the festival’s finest commissioned work since Monterey General Manager Tim Jackson revived the practice in 1994.

Previous compositions have excelled but paled as paint-by-numbers work compared to Bley’s collage-like "The Black Orchid." The title recalled her one-and-only job as a cocktail pianist in the early 1950s when she lived in Pacific Grove. "It was my first gig as a leader even though I was the only musician," Bley quipped.

Musicians from the 18-piece band — including Bley’s Lost Chord chums, bassist and Bley husband Steve Swallow, saxophonist Andy Sheppard and drummer Billy Drummond — huddled around the frizzy, mop-haired Bley like barflies as she mutated fragments of "Here’s That Rainy Day" and "My Foolish Heart." The humor gave way to a luminous work of swing and funk with memorable trombone work by Marty Wehner.

Singer Tony Bennett, introduced by festival board member and personal friend Clint Eastwood, followed with a 19-song set that was as much Las Vegas as New Orleans. At 79, in excellent voice and nattily dressed in a sharp blue suit, Bennett delivered the goods, extending his arms, punching the air with his fist, dancing trademark pirouettes.

The crowd roared approval when Bennett gave them "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." But Bennett swings with the best and proved it on a breakneck tempo version of Duke Ellington’s "It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing."

On Sunday, Alameda singer Natasha Miller won the standing-room-only crowds over at the Starbucks Coffeehouse Galley with her sparkling vocals. She shared the glory with Bobby Sharp, an octogenarian songwriter who wrote Ray Charles’ 1961 smash hit "Unchain My Heart" and then disappeared from the music business after a battle with drug addiction.

The pair teamed up on Sharp’s "As the Years Come and Go," leaving the crowd in tears.

Madeleine Peyroux’s vintage jazz sound and Billie Holiday-like vocals caressed an overflow audience later that night at the Garden Stage. Peyroux invoked Crescent City vibes on Patsy Cline’s "Walking After Midnight," courtesy of Ron Miles’ subtle trumpet work and Scott Amendola’s dirge-like drum groove. Keyboardist Larry Goldings peppered the set with trademark restraint on piano and organ.

New Orleans native son Branford Marsalis, the festival’s artist-in-residence, delivered one of the few hard bop sets on the Jimmy Lyons Stage all weekend. Powered by the indomitable Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums, Marsalis’ set left some in the crowd hungry for more, others overpowered by the barrage of notes.

Pat Metheny closed out the affair, offering a host of exotic acoustic and electric guitar sounds. Metheny and saxophonist David Sanchez gave new meaning to the words "shred" on two feverish numbers from the guitar man’s 20-year-old collaboration with avant-garde saxophonist Ornette Coleman.

Metheny’s music employs musical traces of all things American: jazz, folk, blues, rock, country. Metheny ignores boundaries.

It’s also impossible to ignore the ethnic makeup of Metheney’s band. Metheny is white and hails from a Kansas City suburb. There is also the band’s two Latinos: saxophonist Sanchez hails from Puerto Rico; drummer Antonio Sanchez (no relation) is from Mexico City. Christian McBride, an African-American from Philadelphia, rounds out the group on bass.

New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina revealed scalding truths about race in the United States. Images of up to 100,000 poor and mostly black residents found themselves stranded as levees broke and submerged the saucer-like Crescent City under water.

But at Monterey, it was, is and always will be different. It’s the place where all races mingle without dissonance.

Music knows no such boundaries.

Raves, rants and random observations

Compassion abounded this year as patrons donated more than $10,000 to the Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Fund, money that will benefit displaced musicians of the Gulf Coast states.

MORE COMPASSION: Michael Brecker, a regular at Monterey and among the world’s most respected tenor saxophonists, is suffering from myelodesplastic syndrome, a rare blood cancer and needs either a blood marrow or blood stem cell transplant. Officials with the National Marrow Donor Program took more than 200 blood samples in two days in a search match for Brecker, exceeding their expectations, according to Tim Jackson.

HARDEST-WORKING MAN AT MONTEREY: John Scofield played with three different bands on three different sets, including a tribute to Ray Charles featuring the legendary gospel vocalist Mavis Staples.

COSMIC MOMENT: Tony Bennett pointing to the sky and noting that a full moon hid somewhere behind the clouds. Seconds later, the moon appeared as if on cue as Bennett sang the first "fly" in "Fly Me to the Moon."

THEY MUST BE MUTANTS BECAUSE 16-YEAR-OLDS DON’T PLAY THIS WELL, RIGHT? We’re talking about The Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, directed by Santa Cruz resident Paul Contos. After hearing the all-star ensemble, culled from the nation’s best high-schoolers, veteran Los Angeles guitarist Lee Ritenour said it was time to retire early. Name to watch out for: Alex Han, who dished some serious alto sax on an arrangement of Elmer Bernstein’s film score to "Walk on the Wild Side" and the John Coltrane classic "Giant Steps."

DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO MISS NEW ORLEANS? Joe Braun, 47, the saxophonist-leader of the Jazz Vipers, knows. He’s also worried that musicians may not return to his hometown, leaving the powers that be to rebuild an ersatz New Orleans with a Disneyland version of its unique culture in the wake. "That culture needs to be saved," Braun told the Garden Stage crowd on Saturday.

Branford Marsalis, he of the Big Easy’s first family of jazz musicians, scoffed at the idea. "If they gentrify New Orleans, then the tourists won’t come," Marsalis bristled later that day outside the festival’s press tent.

Branford’s folks spent two years in Virginia some years ago when father Ellis Marsalis taught music there. His mother couldn’t wait to come home, he said. New Orleans is the only city, Marsalis opined, with its own food, culture and music.

"You can’t find that in Richmond, Virginia," said Marsalis, who now lives in Durham, N.C. "They’re still fighting the Civil War in Virginia. They ain’t figured out that they lost yet."

Contact Charles Levin at wmlevinotd@earthlink.net.

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