It’s a common Rochester International Jazz Festival problem: thinking each night will be remembered as the highlight of the festival, only to have yet another night of highlights. I previously reported that Saturday night could be the standout night, only to have another stellar night of music last night, Sunday the 21st.
When Paul Cornish took Sonny Rollins’s tune “St. Thomas” in his hands at the Inn on Broadway yesterday, there were only echoes of the original for the audience to grip onto. Cornish reminds me of the mid-twentieth-century modernist composer Bela Bartók, who deconstructed counterpoint and found structural material in angularities and asymmetries. Similarly, Cornish deconstructed tunes we might otherwise know well–like “All the Things you Are” and “St. Thomas”– and offered up music with entirely new tastes and textures, using the original tune as scaffolding with endless potential. Whatever influences might have shaped Cornish’s take on jazz, we all left feeling that he was his own musician. He had a laptop with a small synth next to him, which he used sparingly, lightly. Mostly, it provided spoken words at the start or end of tunes, weighty philosophical meanderings about music and the world. The pianist was softspoken, and his playing, too, never roared or hammered down. Instead of playing at the audience, Cornish and his trio presented intimate playing that invited listeners in. He had an excellent band with him that gave him the space to explore and filled in other spaces with equally canny playing. Cornish plays solo tonight in Hatch Recital Hall (5:45 p.m. and 7:45 p.m.), and I’m personally interested in a second take of his playing.
Cuban musician Arturo Sandoval’s show was, for me yesterday, a little like the Monty Python phrase, “And now for something completely different.” He’s the kind of musician whose accolades are hard to keep track of; even the emcee had to be corrected (Sandoval apparently now has 11 Grammy Awards, not 10). Sandoval doesn’t hide behind or even within his music; the man is a force on stage, and he knows it. With an eight-piece band backing him, he worked the audience with his high-octane playing across the trumpet, timbales (Afro-Latin drums), and even the keyboard. He comically recounted a story about bebop from his time working with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (whom Sandoval calls by the bebop founder’s real name, John Birks, because “he was anything but dizzy”), offering humorous takes on Gillespie, Clark Terry, and Charlie Parker. Throughout it, he made sure the audience was paying attention with surprising “bams” on the mic. And then he took off with freakishly rapid bebop scatting that would be hard to do on an instrument, let alone with one’s voice. But the audience was there for his bebop-inspired Afro-Cuban music, which Sandoval gave us using a track from his latest album, Sangú, which translates to “It sounds good.” In a special appearance, Rochester’s soul and blues singer Robin McKelle was invited on stage to sing a blues tune with the band, and she held her own alongside a legend.
I ended my night with Joe Farnsworth, first because he’s such an entertainer on the drums, but secondly because he brought along the rising star alto sax player Sarah Hanahan. The word that comes to mind when I think of Hanahan’s playing is ‘hardcore.’ She’s deeply rooted in the post-bop sound and style, and she traverses those topsy-turvy licks and crass wails on her horn without breaking a sweat. Farnesworth was, however, breaking a sweat to keep up with her antics, which he did with theatrics, as well as the lively, expert playing from the other two band members: Luther Allison on the piano and Joey Ranieri on bass. They started off with post-bop, went to church with Allison playing a gorgeously constructed hymn, returned to bop, and then ended with a hard swinging B. B. King tune, “Everyday I’ve got the Blues.” It was a dynamic show with just the right amount of energy for a 10 p.m. set.
Here’s where I’m headed tonight:
As mentioned previously, I’m all in to go on the peculiar, unexpected journey that Paul Cornish takes listeners on, so I’m headed to Hatch first.
Then, I’m going to catch Joe Farnesworth and pianist Luther Allison again with the NYC All Stars, where they will play with some of the jazz lions in NYC, like tenor sax player Eric Alexander and trumpeter Jeremy Pelt. If you like hard-driving jazz, this will be that show.
My third-grade daughter is a guitar player, so we’re taking her to hear Dave Stryker, one of the major jazz guitarists working today, at the Theater at Innovation Square. The quartet is really a bulked-up organ trio, with organist Jared Gold. We haven’t had much on the organ front yet this festival, so this will be a needed variety for my ears. The Australian tenor player Troy Roberts, a current favorite sideman on the bigger jazz scene, joins the group.
Other notable concerts that I will unlikely make, but want you to know about:
At the Inn on Broadway, Eastman saxophonist Charles Pillow performs with vocalist Amy Azzara, who is the daughter of Eastman School of Music faculty member Chris Azzara. Chris is a music education researcher whose work has focused on developing learning methods for musicians that incorporate improvisation to foster creativity. Amy Azzara is a rising jazz vocalist whose voice has both the communicative power of a folk singer and the precision of jazz scatting. This concert will be an enjoyable one for those looking for approachable swinging tunes tonight.
There is also a smattering of jazz soul singers on the schedule, including Curley Lam Nu-Soul-Jaz Collab with vocalist Ria Curley and pianist Chuck Lamb from Saratoga Springs, and Joslyn & The Sweet Compression, who are on the funkier side of jazz soul.
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All photos: Anna Reguero
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