An All-Star Tribute Recalls the Downtown Loft Scene

By NATE CHINEN
Mark Morganelli waited until the last possible moment to blow his horn at the Rose Theater on Monday night. Walking out during the concert’s finale — “Ow!,” a standard Dizzy Gillespie ditty — he joined an all-star jam in progress, sidling up to the clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera. His fluegelhorn solo was brief and by no means flashy. Its directness and modesty suited Mr. Morganelli, just as it suited the tone of the evening.

The occasion was a 30th anniversary tribute to the Jazz Forum, a performance space that Mr. Morganelli first operated in a Cooper Square loft in the East Village, later moving to a nearby space on Broadway. From 1979 to 1983 it was a mainstream anchor of the waning loft scene. After its demise Mr. Morganelli established Jazz Forum Arts, a nonprofit presenting organization mainly active in Westchester County, where he now lives. (A schedule of events in Dobbs Ferry, Tarrytown and Mount Vernon is at jazzforumarts.org.)
Mr. Morganelli presided efficiently over Monday’s tribute, keeping a crowded bill on schedule. The program included well over a dozen Jazz Forum veterans. There were lulls, especially in the first half, and turnout could have been more robust. But the pace was brisk — set changes barely registered — and there were plenty of highlights to go around.

Some of these came courtesy of pianists, notably including Barry Harris, who led the first of his instructional workshops at the Jazz Forum. Mr. Harris opened the concert with “Like Someone in Love,” bringing in that standard’s melody with an unhurried solo introduction. Then the bassist Ray Drummond and the drummer Leroy Williams eased into gear. After a turn as a trio they stayed on to support the alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, who ended his contribution with “Wee,” another Gillespie tune.
Cedar Walton and Kenny Barron followed Mr. Harris’s lead: each played a solo preface to a songbook standard, and each was suave both in trio format and beyond. Mr. Walton, with Mr. Drummond and the drummer Louis Hayes, backed the tenor saxophonist George Coleman on a boppish blues; Mr. Barron, with Rufus Reid on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums, played behind Mr. D’Rivera and the trumpeter Claudio Roditi.

A few other standout moments had nothing to do with pianism. The tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano began the concert’s second half with George Mraz on bass and Al Foster on drums, tackling “Fort Worth,” one of his own ruggedly open-ended tunes. The guitarist John Scofield enlisted the same rhythm team for “The Days of Wine and Roses,” with a sparser lyricism. Then Mr. Lovano and Mr. Scofield joined forces to tackle “Hallucinations,” a vibrantly syncopated theme by Bud Powell.

The only dispiriting performance came from the singer Jon Hendricks, who delved wanly into bossa nova and the repertory grab bag of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross (with Kevin Burke and Aria Hendricks, his daughter). But Mr. Hendricks was warmly welcomed when he followed Mr. Morganelli onstage, doing his part to bring the concert to a close.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/arts/26rose.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss