by S. Rotan Hale
When you think of the Monterey Jazz Festival and the years of fabulous performances, a world of jazz greats comes to mind. However in this case we’re talking about a particular 6-member band of stellar artists joined together on tour.
And so it was the night of April 19 at Roanoke’s Jefferson Center that vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater and Kurt Elling backed by pianist Christian Sands, Lakecia Benjamin (saxophone), bassist Yasushi Nakamura and drummer Clarence Penn graced the hall with their collective, melodic brilliance.
The show opened with Benjamin blasting through a rendition of a couple of tunes with a flood of high-energy notes in tribute to John Coltrane. Benjamin would later return to accompany the two vocalists adding her chops to certain tunes.
Sands who is also the group’s musical director carried the night showing his incredible ability and versatility switching between keyboards and styles. He told the story of meeting the legendary pianist and composer Dave Brubeck at his home where they exchanged licks and stories. At the time Sands was just thirteen years old and playing professionally in cocktail lounges in New Haven, CT, his hometown. The story spoke volumes regarding his connection with such a legendary jazz figure and served as the perfect lead-in to Brubeck’s classic song Strange Meadow Lark.
Each featured vocalist told their stories adding another dimension to the show. Dee Dee entered the stage to rousing applause and began to reminisce about hanging out and performing with the great Chick Corea, a pianist, and composer who she said encouraged her to play clubs to promote the hiring of young musicians by club owners. With her classic raspy voice, she slipped into one of Corea’s most popular tunes Spain through which she masterfully handled the choppy up-tempo lyrics with ease. Benjamin added some sassy sax joining Dee Dee as she scatted through a Thad Jones/Mel Lewis version of Bye Bye Blackbird that she said was re-arranged by Christian Sands.
Paying respects to the great pianist and composer Amad Jamal who recently passed, Kurt Elling a master/seasoned vocalist in his own right said “Another great tree has fallen. We treasure all of the great heroes that come before us as “Prez” (Lester Young) and Brubeck.”
During a touching tribute to saxophonist and composer the late Wayne Shorter, Elling said: “Wayne was a mentor, a creator of stories, an oracle, a bodhisattva.” He continued to tell of performing with Shorter and spoke at length of other meaningful experiences they shared. Everyone could hear and feel Elling’s deep reverence for Shorter whose profound wisdom and mystical aura certified him as a giant of not just jazz but the universe itself.
Sands tinkled melodically on the piano beneath Elling’s classic storyteller voice that shaped each word eloquently as he tipped gently through the most mesmerizing account of a conversation he once had with Shorter who inspired him with notions of a better world. One could hear a pin drop in the hall throughout his telling of the story.
At the time Shorter had heard a youth orchestra in a music school in Brazil improvising on a piece by French composer Maurice Revel, all to his delight and amazement. “Wouldn’t that be a thing if we could listen to each other as people in orchestras do,” Wayne said to Elling. “If we could listen to each other that way as human beings and pay attention deeply, how different the world would be.”
Aside from the music that night, which was truly a treat in and of itself, the show was more than just a jazz concert but a rare opportunity for those in attendance to connect with legendary jazz artists through the intriguing stories told by actual legends themselves.
Calling out the names of a slew of jazz greats, Elling dedicated to them, the tune A Remark You Made a gentle ballad co-written by Wayne Shorter with Joe Zawinul his longtime collaborator he spent years within the Grammy Award-winning jazz fusion group Weather Report from 1970 to 1986.
Elling and Bridgewater traded licks as the entire group engaged in a funky super-syncopated version of Les McCann’s timeless classic Compared to What capping another incredible night at the Jefferson Center.
