Ticker repaired, pianist keeps beat
By Peter Landsdowne, News Telegram.com correspondent
WORCESTER — Joined by alto saxophonist and flutist Bobby Militello, bassist Chris Smith and drummer Cody Cox, perennially popular pianist Dave Brubeck kicked off the 16th annual Mass Jazz Festival Friday night with a dynamic concert at Mechanics Hall that served as part of Music Worcester Inc.’s 151st Worcester Music Festival.
With his once jet-black mane of hair now completely white, a frail and stooped Brubeck, who turns 90 on Dec. 6, received a standing ovation from a crowd of more than 1,000 fans even as he was helped up the stairs to the stage. Once seated behind the keyboard of the hall’s grand piano, Brubeck told audience members that perhaps they shouldn’t expect too much, as Friday’s performance was his first since a three-month hiatus spent recovering from cardiac surgery, as well as his first gig with bassist Smith and drummer Cox, who were filling in for the pianist’s regular bassist and drummer.
Having said that, Brubeck lit into a Duke Ellington medley that revealed Brubeck has seemingly lost none of his prowess at the piano. He established a solid groove on “C Jam Blues,” which featured an impassioned alto saxophone solo from Militello before morphing into an atmospheric reading of Duke’s “Mood Indigo.” Brubeck kicked it up several notches, tempo-wise, for a rollicking version of “Take the A Train,” Ellington’s theme song, which had the pianist using big block chords to replicate Ellington’s original arrangement.
“Boy, it feels good to be back,” a relieved Brubeck said after the medley, a comment that drew a roar of approval from the crowd.
Brubeck went back to the 1920s for a jaunty romp on the old standard “Margie,” which he counted off at a medium tempo. Militello contributed another incendiary saxophone solo in the style of boppers Charlie Parker and Cannonball Adderley before giving way to Brubeck, who countered with a piano improvisation that began with some sketchy chords and evolved into a section of stride piano and several choruses of big block chords underpinned by Smith’s booming walking bass line and Cox’s drum accents. Incidentally, both Smith and Cox are students at the Brubeck Institute, the pianist’s music school at the University of the Pacific in California.
Brubeck toyed with the time on “Keep Travelin’,” a blues piece inspired by a poem his wife Iola wrote about a musician’s lonely life on the road. Brubeck superimposed a triplet figure over each beat in the 12-bar blues form, a device used by many rhythm and blues musicians, while Militello preached, honked and screamed on his alto saxophone. With bassist Smith and drummer Cox in tow, Brubeck worked up to several choruses of rolling chords that highlighted some skilled re-harmonizations of the three basic blues changes.
Complete on >> http://www.telegram.com/article/20101121/NEWS/11210483
0 Comments:
Post a Comment