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MyspaceThis jazz supergroup functions quite differently from what one would expect given the individuals involved. As a pianist, bandleader, and composer, Chick Corea’s reputation is built on consummate musicianship, technical prowess, and brainy ideas. Jack DeJohnette may be the greatest living jazz drummer, and the ensembles he leads are generally hard-driving, post-bop express trains. The only hint at what was in store on Tuesday night might have come from recent concerts by Bobby McFerrin, the expansive, category-of-one vocalist who likes to conduct duets with the audience and is known for his playfulness onstage. Coming together as a trio, these master musicians created a thrillingly offbeat evening of entertainment that simultaneously took jazz out toward the limits of free improvisation and back to its roots in vaudeville.
The concert consisted of one long improvised piece performed without intermission, and a single, more familiar encore of Thelonious Monk’s classic “In Walked Bud.” From the outset, it was clear that this show would not be about the standard or the expected. McFerrin was generally the instigator, although Corea and DeJohnette showed a remarkable willingness to go along with his impulses. At one point, all three musicians were at work together making sounds underneath the lid of Corea’s piano. At other times, one would lay out and pantomime a march or a drum roll while the other two made the music. Paradoxically, it was only when McFerrin used a high-pitched voice to order Corea off the piano bench-“Move over, daddy!”-that the music settled into a deep blues groove.
Discoveries abounded as the shenanigans onstage became more and more rambunctious. DeJohnette has a great, gruff singing voice and Corea can turn a melodica into a close approximation of a blues harmonica. The Granada was a splendid venue for the show, as everything from the click of a drumstick against the rim of a snare to the “ah-choo” of a sneeze in the back of the hall sounded crystal clear. Compared to the seriousness and musical depth of some piano trios, this was a lighthearted evening, but there’s no question that audiences everywhere will be wowed by the McFerrin, Corea, DeJohnette traveling circus.
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BROCCOLINI AND MASHED POTATOES
I think Charles has it right: "circus" "vaudeville" "shenanigans". Might as well come right out and say it: Bobby McFerrin is no longer a jazz musician; he has morphed into some sort of performance artist. Which is fine if that's what he wishes to do, but the concert should not be booked as a jazz event. And not just because it didn't swing -- until the encore -- but because it really isn't about the music. Most of the people I went with really enjoyed it -- but all of them said they would never listen to a CD of the event. They just liked to see three men playing like children, having fun, spurning convention, being present in the moment.
So, I suppose it is some sort of zen exhibition. But let's face it, some of this is more "be here then" than "be here now." The routine of the three of them plucking, bopping and scraping under the piano lid -- didn't we already cover that territory with Keith Jarrett in the 1980's? We got it: -- all sounds are equal . . . music is in everything . . . it is only convention and expectation that makes us prefer the keyboard to the mallet.
McFerrin, of course, is the ambassador of spontaneity, and is ever in pursuit of the unique gift of the moment. And so this concert (as also his Voicestra concert last year) resembled a kind of workshop. He is even quoted in the program, proudly guaranteeing minimal rehearsal. But it is an old truism that you only get out what you put into something. Had these cats not been who they were -- I don't think the audience would have been as warm to them. In the balance of star-power and substance, I'm afraid the former tilted the scale by far. A spontaneity workshop can be a great thing -- but don't ask those of us who love jazz to shell out $70 to watch it, without our permission. Spontaneity should be a love-dance with tradition, not a spurning of it. McFerrin seems intent on never doing a song that we might know, or that -- god forbid -- has already been written. It is as if improvisation, the quicksilver of every jazzman, has grown impatient with playing merely outside of keys and rhythms, and now must play outside of every definition and expectation. And one of those is the concert itself. "Outside" is a relative concept, and derives its artistic value through its contact with an "inside." The more outside you go, the less shared reference with the audience, the more self-involved you become, or appear to be.
(see below for remainder of my comment.)
witwaltman (anonymous profile)
May 1, 2008 at 2:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Do these three musicians wish to communicate with us? Do they care we are here? Would it be such a compromise to the purity of their artistry to bend so low as to please their audience, to flatter our expectations, to stir our memories, just a little? (How 'bout a little "Spain" from the "Play" album?) Was it just me, or did I not feel a great relief and longing surge through the audience at the 'blues moment' an hour into the concert; and then again at the Monk groove in the encore? DeJohnette seemed to voice my complaint, in the freedom of the moment, when he growled "this has gone on way too long: it is time for the blues." But the most disturbing confessional moment came (if spontaneity is anything, it is often transparently unguarded) for me during the "broccolini and mashed potatoes" rant. McFerrin suddenly asks (in what was the "singer's" only use of "words" in the whole concert), with a child's stratospherically high falsetto "Mommie? Whatchya doin'?" He then voices the mother answering that she is making dinner 'broccolini and mashed potatoes' and the child must eat it because it is 'good for you.' By the time I got to asking myself whether the concert was nutritional or not, candy or vegetables McFerrin worked himself into a manic repeating rant "Is this entertainment? Are you being entertained?" Over and over, until "Are you being entertained to death?!"
Is that then the point? McFerrin the performance artist is too creative to be boxed into a "jazz concert"? And the audience (was there an edge of contempt and accusation there?) is too square and staid to appreciate such fine artistry? Yes, Bobby, Chick, and Jack I DID come to be entertained. How foolishly traditional and uncreative of me!
witwaltman (anonymous profile)
May 1, 2008 at 2:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)