This time of year is when we have a multitude of musical choices when we do want to venture out. Late June/early July is always the time frame for the regionally famous
Freihofer’s Jazz Festival at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, aka SPAC. This past week was the 35th consecutive year of this event, which began as an upstate adjunct to the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. Promoter George Wein had a lot to do with it in the beginning, but after a few changes in sponsorship it seems pretty stable and has become an instititution in its own right–a ritual destination for thousands of jazz/funk/R & B lovers, young and old. While not as jam-packed and rowdy as Dave Matthews Band audiences or PHISH concerts, it is a rare occasion for tent cities and sprawling tarps to be set up on the grounds for ten hour days of relaxation and revelry. People can bring in their own coolers, beverages, picnic fare, cots, beach chairs, you name it, and make themselves at home for a full day of partying in the sun– and this year the weather was stunning, sunny and dry.
For the first twenty years of its run here, I was in my hardcore jazz-loving phase, and would tout the upcoming performers to the hilt on my FM radio shows, as would my longtime friends at Skidmore’s radio station, WSPN. I would hang out and listen to virtually every performance, noon to midnight, and take copious notes on the music–
in the days before blogs were invented, and there was no place to publish my reflections.
I lived to see Miles Davis back in his 80’s phase, Flora Purim & Airto’s amazing band, The Brecker Brothers in their prime, Jack DeJohnette’s quintet, and was blown away one year by an obscure trumpeter by the name of Hannibal Peterson, who played a monster set with about a 40-piece orchestra– at noon one day, to a nearly empty amphitheater… it didn’t seem right that the energy he was putting out that day on the main stage was unappreciated by most.
Most listeners, then and now, came out for the big name acts, at the later part of the day.
But during those recent years when those “big names” turned out to be performers like Michael McDonald (of the Doobie Brothers), or De De Bridgewater, or Gladys Knight & The Pips, or Boney James (God forbid), I came to believe it was too watered-down for my taste, and began to change my priorities. The most smoking music I can remember
from the late 90’s, about the time I stopped my compulsive attendance, was out on the back lawn, at The Gazebo, when I first heard a trio named “Medeski, Martin, & Woods”–
keyboards, upright bass, and drums– they did an extended version of a Hendrix tune
called CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC which still raises the hairs on my arms when I think about it. But that kind of musical ecstacy became more and more rare in my mind, and I guess I was just kind of losing interest in being a hardcore jazz fan anymore while raising my family. I could still listen to Coltrane or Weather Report, Chico Freeman or Arthur Blythe
at home from my music collection, but I could not pay homage to the sappy Kenny G’s of the world once “smooth jazz” took over. I needed a little bite to my music, true spirit… but that’s just me, sorry.
After you’ve gotten away from a tradition, however, it’s not so bad to go back and see
what has changed. When I looked at the lineup for this year’s Fest, I would’ve wanted to see The Mingus Big Band and Esperanza Spaulding on Saturday, but had to work a long, full day that kept me from doing so. I sent my son Daryn instead, who has inherited a certain specific love of Mingus ever since he scarfed up my copy of
“Mingus Ah Um” a few years back, which surprised me. Bought him a lawn ticket and let him check out the SPAC scene by himself, which he enjoyed for four or five hours before hitting overload. He actually came home with a CD of Michel Camilo’s trio which made me proud of him for his independent taste, as my fanatic friend Dave Casner, a longtime jazz DJ and collector, thought that was the best music of the first day.
But I was interested to see Trombone Shorty as the closing act of the Sunday schedule,
so sprung for some balcony seats for my wife and I– although for reasons I will describe in a minute, I was not looking to spend an entire marathon day there, like most attendees do. Got inside the grounds about 3pm and noted that, while the throng was colorful and abundant, it did not look or feel as crowded, as excited, as I recalled from a
decade or more ago when I had last been a part of this scene. Still, we found my friend Casner’s commodious array of awnings and tarps and chairs and food, and heard a sterling set of the Steve Kroon Sextet’s music, led by a conga player, right in front of
Dave’s set-up, on the Gazebo stage. Then we ventured down to our seats to hear the
Arturo O’Farrill Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, the kind of band I would’ve craved about 25 years ago. They played a great version of CARAVAN, a jazz staple made famous by The Duke Ellington Band, written by a trombonist named Juan Tizol. Nice. There were some intent listeners down in front, and happy campers on the lower lawn paying attention, but it was nowhere near as crowded as you’d see at a rock show, and the amphitheater was less than two-thirds full…which was kind of sad, but understandable,
given the sunny day. Band leader/pianist O’Farrill seemed psyched to be there, however, and gave a few passionate, political spiels in between songs– celebrating Latino culture and the manner in which they “solve the world’s problems, down at the Bodega, while downing a couple of Bud Lights”– a tribute to one of the event’s sponsors.
Next we wandered back to the Gazebo (you get your exercise at these events) and heard the fiery piano of an Asian lady named Rachel Z, with Omar Hakim on drums,
dubbed The Trio of Oz. Nice stuff, with a few nods to pop culture in playing a Sting tune
“King of Pain” and a few other recognizable radio melodies. After that a band came out
that I wish we’d stayed to see– under the name of pianist/singer and perhaps Doctor John protege Brian Mitchell– a growling kind of gumbo-funk with a lead trombone and a snappy street-beat… my wife loved what we heard to start with, but I insisted on heading back to the main stage for Diana Krall. My lady was more into getting charged up, whereas after the night before I was more into lowering my blood pressure, which Diana did for me, in a sultry, subdued set that was likely the antithesis of what Brian Mitchell was putting out, back at the Gazebo. Sometimes the Festival is fraught with tough, simultaneous, choices.
But Diana Krall won me over, given my exhausted state from the night before– she played a great version of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” that was slow and heart-breaking, and a Jobim classic of Bossa Nova that soothed my soul. This was a time when, for me, a beautiful woman with a liquidy voice and a guitar/piano quartet was a
dose of what I needed, and the lack of a brassy sax or music with “bite” was all right.
My NYC friend Kevin Cusick felt the same as me, he was enthralled with Krall– my other friend Dave C. said her band almost put him to sleep, and my wife agreed. There was one surprise though– Krall performed a Tom Waits tune that I thought was a highlight, though I can’t remember its name. Her voice was clearly not as raspy or gritty as Waits’, but she certainly did justice to his song, and popped piano keys in staccato fashion on that one enough to win me over–she is far more than a pretty face, and displayed some stellar chops.
That took us to a late supper at the Food Court before the main event– Trombone Shorty on the main stage. This slender young dude from New Orleans had reportedly
played before a throng of 25,000 in Rochester the night before coming to Saratoga Springs, in a free street concert that apparently begat a flash mob. But now that I’ve seen the guy live, I can understand how that would happen. When I got the tickets my wife did not seem to know who “Shorty” was, though he got some radio play with an
instrumental on WEXT this past year. But I told her– you’re gonna love this band, believe me… and I was right.
I thought his band might be bigger– but with 6 pieces, the sound was huge right from the start. There was a baritone sax, a tenor, plus Shorty’s brass– both trumpet and trombone, to go with a rocky guitar, funk bass, and a wild red-haired aboriginal white dude on drums– all great. Shorty proclaimed a clear New Orleans vibe from jump street, and he made no bones about it, so to speak. After a couple of quick and punchy
instrumentals, he sang a tune I thought came from Doctor John’s gumbo repetoire, but
then I recognized it as a Little Feat song– composed by the late great Lowell George–
…”It’s high time/ you might find/ that the people you mis-used on the way up…/you might meet up…/ on THE WAY DOWN.” Wow, wasn’t expecting that. There were Neville Brothers references as well, but the over-riding reverence of the evening’s music was
the memory of Louie Armstrong– my dear, departed mother’s favorite musician in the world– and I guess what surprised me the most was Trombone Shorty’s virtuosity on the trumpet. The most spectacular and awe-inspiring sequence came when he pulled off
an extended one-note display of circular-breathing that lasted at least 3 minutes or 4, or 5?– and some people said felt like ten, in the middle of “The Sunny Side of The Street.” His cheeks inflated in the manner of both Louie and Dizzy Gillespie, and his breath control never faltered or altered during the entire span of multiple cycles of expansion and contraction of his mighty cheeks. He even mimicked the bulging, expressive eyes of Armstrong as he held the note forever… and when he finally concluded it, he collapsed backwards histrionically and just lay there sprawled on the stage for a minute or two,
while his band took out the chorus to thunderous applause. What a showman… he could sing, he could dance, he could lead a band, command a crowd, he could blow– he was like a new age vaudevillian, with Louie Armstrong as his great god-daddy.
On the trombone his best moments were when “trading fours” with his bandmates– the two sax players alternating with him and his guitarist for some nasty fast licks back and forth for about 8 rounds of improvising… true jazz and not vaudeville or nostalgia at that point. Although I was hoping he kept going for another hour, his climax number was also impressive in an unconventional way– during a long rhythmic jam he strolled over to the drumset and picked up some sticks, started helping out the red-haired dude (who reminded me of a cross between the lead singer of The Spin Doctors, and Oscar the Grouch), then took his seat and proceeded to pound out the drum kit like he owned that too. The drummer switched over to guitar, the bass player picked up Shorty’s trumpet,
the tenor player took up the bass, and the guitarist I think ended up on sax. Only the bari player remained the same, growling like a bass tuba to ground the whole thing.
They took it out like that, to show their diversity, and I was most impressed and thoroughly sated by that time. There was a line in the back at the CD booth too long for us to wade through, and it would’ve been cool to see Shorty sign his CD’s, which I surely
plan to buy after this. But we cruised on out and left it at that, an adrenalin rush at the finale which restored my faith in the power and meaning of the Freihofer’s Jazz Fest at SPAC, perhaps once and for all, as long as the right groups are booked…
Amen…and thanks to Shorty, for bringing his thing to Saratoga!
Wayne Perras, early July 2012