Tuesday
February 18
The past few years I’ve been curious to
what the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival is all about. Hampton and Idaho seem such
a far stretch yet there is a prosperous history dating back to 1985 when
Hampton first performed and donated $15,000 towards a music scholarship
program.
This is the festival’s thirty-sixth year
and eighteenth since being renamed for it’s favorite patron.
Over 293 schools and 10,000 students from
Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Washington,
Wisconsin, Wyoming and British Columbia compete in the festival.
For nearly a decade festival publicist
Virginia Wicks has kept me present with each roster change - add on performance
and ceremony. I’d planned attending last February but became immersed in
organizing the first National Jazz Awards, which unfortunately coincided with
the event. This time tickets arrived well in advance and preparations made in
timely order.
I love traveling but am apprehensive about
making the first move, sort of like dress rehearsal before for a major
performance. It’s during this period I battle anxiety. Once in flight I tend to
settle in.
This morning was no different.
It’s been an unforgiving winter in Toronto
where temperatures the past five weeks have nose-dived well below zero much of
the time – minus twenty-five centigrade with wind chill. Combine that with an
ever-present layer of dingy snow and granite like ice - too many days absent
sunlight and you’ve got the ingredients for mass despair - hopeless depression.
Not yet factored in the equation - long lineups and US Immigration.
Check in was little more than a blemish on
the day as I faced an hour and half baggage tote and pull through what seemed a
six mile maze of numb bodies all striving to reach one immigration officer.
Security is thick and prevalent with questions to the point and probing. This I
don’t mind considering the current state of international affairs.
Next up, two hours and ten minutes holed in
the cabin of my US Air flight waiting for a cue to exit. Seventeen planes lie
ahead facing a rigorous deicing. The flow of air inside the cabin fluctuates
between dead hot to slightly breezy. I had totally forgot packing necessary paperback
and magazine in computer pouch and finished reading the Toronto Star morning
edition with plenty tarmac time to kill.
A good twenty minutes pass before we get a
solid bath clearing the wings of snow and ice. Just as we begin taxing to
position the Captain cuts in to say we’d be returning to our original gate due
to a malfunction in the nose cone. If it was as dry as my nose cone I figured a
good lubing was in order.
Two hours and ten minutes pass before we
taxi back in position and lift off. I love a good send off but this one only
welcomed anxiety.
Throughout the flight to Denver I wondered
if a connection to Spokane would be in the cards. No such luck. As quickly as I
exited I was directed to the Customer Service counter to find half of the six-mile
lineup waiting to reacquaint themselves. Another hour passes before a miracle
occurs - I actually secure a seat on the 5:10 to Spokane and an additional five
hours to will away.
I don’t know if it was the comfort of
hearing those words or a sense of security moving in that made the unsettling
anxiety dissipate. I think it was also the ten-dollar calling card and warm
call home.
Once in Spokane, I find myself standing at
a stilled baggage ramp begging for that big black case with all toiletries and
clothes to come rushing forth. Not a chance. Lost!
I take a deep breath, fill out the
necessary documents and meet several young faces sporting signs pointing to
Moscow, Idaho and the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.
Within the hour I meet drummer Jeff Hamilton,
a few side musicians, and vibraphonist Terry Gibbs. Now, if you’re making an
hour and half drive in deep darkness a bit frayed and confused, Gibbs is the
guy you want riding shotgun.
At seventy-eight the man is a live wire
capable of firing up a community twice the size of Idaho. Throughout the drive
Gibbs told some wonderful stories, reminisced, laughed, talked of his new
label, favorite recordings and wondered if there were any vibes around to do a
bit of practicing.
Welcome to the Palouse
I’m always curious about the landscape of
any given destination. To know I was in the Palouse region somewhere in the
Idaho panhandle invited curiosity.
The Palouse is located in Southeastern
Washington and North central Idaho in an area ripe with rolling fields and
forest lands. The word Palouse originates with a large village of Palouse
Indians and is from the Sehaptin Indian word for village and large rock. The
village was located at the junction with the Palouse and Snake River.
Many communities lie within the Palouse
region. Pullman, Washington and Moscow, Idaho are the main hub cities, with
many smaller surrounding towns nestled among wheat, lentil and dry pea fields
and natural forestlands. The Palouse Hills have unusually rich soils that
produce high yields of wheat, barley, dry peas, lentils and canola, which
supply an international market.
The University of Idaho enrolls nearly
12,000 students from across the country and more than 60 foreign lands.
Moscow
After settlers arrived in 1871, the town became
known as “Paradise Valley.” In 1877, Samuel Neff filed for a postal permit
under the name of Moscow because the area reminded him of his hometown of
Moscow, Pennsylvania. Moscow grew with the arrival of the railroad in 1885.
Wednesday – February 19
The big discussion early morning was
concerning the future of the Lionel Hampton Center.
With five million committed - an architect,
advisors and site secured - supporters of the Lionel Hampton Center remain a
great distance from raising $40 million to erect a center to house a national
jazz archive, twenty million in scholarships and endowments for the festival,
1200 seat performance hall, classrooms, in an effort to bring jazz and
education under one roof. With an economy nose-diving near recession and the
great Hampton now a bold figure from jazz’s illustrious past, the ambitious
project may have to linger until the economic residue of 9/11 has been cleansed
from the system. The Dotcom philanthropist is no longer a potential donor going
the way of the last receding Ice Age.
I met publicist Virginia Wicks promptly at
ten a.m. to be carted to a morning workshop given by the instrumental quintet
Five Play lead by Buffalo native and drummer Sheri Maricle.
Virginia is the international media voice
in raising awareness of the event. Wicks was long time publicist for vocal
great Ella Fitzgerald and trumpet icon Dizzy Gillespie. Her ties with the
American jazz community are extensive and endearing.
The Sub Ballroom of the University of Idaho
served as center stage for Five Play’s performance and question and answer
session. The room was three quarter filled as Maiacle led the quintet through
tidy versions of “Sentimental Journey, Just in Time, No Greater Love,”
climaxing with “Caravan.”
Maricle on her own is a seasoned pro
possessing all the given attributes a well-rounded jazz drummer needs to power
an ambitious ensemble. Front line players, saxophonists Karolina Strassmayer
and Anat Cohen played it safely down the middle pretty much the same
temperature throughout. Bassist Nikki Parrot rolled nicely with Maricle as did
pianist Chihiro Yamanaka.
The question and answer period in some ways
was more compelling in that each woman comes from a country far beyond this
continent - Austria, Japan, Australia. Each painted a different portrait why
they chose to relocate to live the jazz dream on these shores.
Next up - University Auditorium and sixteen
year old phenom - pianist Eldar Djangirov.
The young Russian has been in the United
States barely five years yet he’s consumed much of jazz’s history. His solo
segment attested to that.
Djangirov began with Chick Corea’s
marvelous “Armando’s Song” which in many ways sounded very much like the
original down to the soloing. The same could be said for Oscar Peterson’s “Nigerian
Marketplace,” Duke Ellington’s “Love You Madly”, Bill Evan’s take on “Body and
Soul” and Monk’s “Bemsha Swing.” All were reverently played - neatly colored
with the master’s harmonic and melodic preferences. Which brought me to
question where is Eldar in all of this.
Djangirov played one original “Perplexity”
and finished with Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints” which in itself begged closer
observation.
Djangirov has piano technique light years
beyond most practicing players even many of the current icons but lost in the
long exercise is a personal statement - room for interpretation. Some of his
most original moments were in the harmonic restructuring of “Body and Soul”
which Eldar performed later with Claudio Roditi and Slide Hampton at clinic
number two.
Roditi plays a rotary valve trumpet whose
history can be traced back a hundred years and is a popular instrument with
Europe’s great gypsy musicians. Here again the music was safe, guarded and
familiar.
With Hampton and Roditi probing standards
“Body and Soul, Speak Low and Milt Jackson’s “Bag’s Groove” pianist Djangirov
was freed of his devices and asked to think his way through solo passages. This
he did with greater creativity.
During the verbal exchanges with students
Hampton spoke of humility - John Coltrane’s great humility and that music is
the most important thing and it should be absent ego. He also attached a dream
context to the standard ”Speak low” informing everyone that it was originally
sung by the beautiful big screen actress Ava Gardner in a movie.
The evening all star concert billed as the
Pepsi International Jazz Concert was high on talent but short a couple
headliners - Paquito D’Rivera and pianist Hank Jones both were hindered from
making the trip due to the east coast blizzard of 2003.
Even without both parties the show went
ahead as scheduled and as musically structured as the daytime presentation.
We arrived to catch the remaining moments
of Russians - saxophonist Lembit Saaesalu and pianist Leonid Vintskevich. Next
up a splendid quartet featuring pianist Benny Green, guitarist Russell Malone,
bassist George Mraz and drummer Lewis Nash. The quartet played a seamless
version of “East of the Sun” which gained momentum through the heated soloing
of Malone concluding with a riveting display of virtuoso technique and
thoughtful soloing from drummer Nash.
While settling in for what was perceived a
full set of material from the headliners, pianist Eldar Djangirov slides in to
do a lengthy intro to “Caravan” then rides the rhythm section through a energy
filled performance.
Thursday February 20
We took a break from day-long clinics to
travel the countryside to the Lapwai community –home of the Nez Perce Indian
Nation. Throughout the hour and half journey I couldn’t help but marvel at the
terrain – the long hilly slope of the land, the steep valleys – land absent
foliage other than a few evergreens providing shade over a few distant
farmhouses.
At one time there were more than fifty
bands of Nez Perce Indians covering an estimated seventeen million acres of
land in northeastern Idaho, southeastern Washington, and north central Idaho.
Lionel Hampton and side musicians had made
the exchange trip since 1996 entertaining school children from elementary
through high school. The students gave him a feather and made him an honorary
chief of the Nez Perce tribe. With Hampton’s passing tradition was carried on
by drummer Wally Gator Watson and quartet.
After an hour-long excursion through jazz
and rhythm and blues a few students of Lapwai elementary performed the Iron
Butterfly dance in traditional dress supported by tribal drums.
These were moments Hampton cherished. It’s
a credit to festival organizers such connections remain in tact.
The evening concert billed as a tribute to
the late great jazz bassist Ray Brown proved to be a first class affair.The
night featured splendid duets between guitarist Russell Malone and pianist
Benny Green. Performances from trombonist Bill Watrous, saxophonist David
Fathead Newman and a wonderful version of “The Nearness of You” from the
flugelhorn of Roy Hargrove sitting in for Clark Terry.
There were varying degrees of ability
presented as four student vocal winners showcased before the large crowd along
with a student big band playing a heated version of “Straight No Chaser”.
Friday February 21
We were back at Sub Hall for an
extraordinary vocal workshop with Roberta Gambarini. I found an opportune
location front left facing a large speaker. The next hour Gambarini proved why
she is the rarest of rare talent competing for space amongst the Diana Krall’s
and Nora Jones. Gambarini is perfection. Throughout verse and course on “Lush
life, Triste, Deep Purple” and other choice standards Gambarini sang with great
warmth, clarity in large full-bodied tones. Each vocal phrase was delivered
with purpose and just the right degree of emotion.
This was also a terrific learning session
for pianist Eldar Djangirov. Accompanying a singer is vastly different
proposition from playing solo. There were times the young pianist had
difficulty separating himself from advancing a tune for his own purpose to that
of allowing the singer free rein to guide the action. As time passes and
experience comes to play Djangrirov will hear the rhythm and delivery as a
silent metronome and be able to follow each vocal line with the most
appropriate harmony and pacing.
Later that afternoon the Roy Hargrove
Quintet were set for what would prove to be one of the grand highlights of the
festival – a clinic / performance.
Surrounded by pianist Ronnie Matthews,
saxophonist Justin Robinson drummer Willie Jones the Third and bassist Duane
Burno, Hargrove and company soared through an original “Circus, Freddie
Hubbard’s “First Light” a gorgeous read of the ballad “The Very Thought of You”
and another self-penned excursion
“Promise”. All the players fielded questions about attitude, the
difference between east and west coast playing, and learning. Bassist Burno and
pianist Matthews reminded students that the best education for playing jazz was
still on the streets. Each discussed the limitations to curriculum jazz.
The evening became a joyous occasion with
the appearance of James Moody. Moody began with a brisk take on the old jazz
chestnut “Cherokee” playing with great virtuosity on flute. Moody then switched
to tenor saxophone and was teamed with trumpeter Claudio Roditi on “Tenor
Madness” before performing his signature “Moody’s Mood For Love.” Singer
Roberta Gambarini joined in to bring the tune to a rousing finale. Throughout
Moody kept the humor content high even making a reference to ex-heavyweight
champion Joe Frazier being in attendance after which he’d caught everyone’s
attention then delivered the punch line; “Oh, that’s not the champ. I’m sorry
about that lady.” The lines have been used hundreds of time and are familiar to
musicians but one can’t deny the timing. It’s still terribly funny.
Singer Ethel Ennis, longtime Hampton
sideman trombonist Benny Powell and Bill Watrous provided additional highlights
before more students were featured main stage.
Saturday February 22
Saturday afforded time to check out the
“Celebrating Hamp and Ray” photographic retrospective downtown Moscow.
The day was bright and sunny and air as
pristine as cool mountain water more than conducive for a long walk.
Destination? The Prichard Art Gallery
midway down Main Street.
Moscow looks much like the renovated
outlying farming communities that surround Toronto making the gallery a natural
component in the cultural fabric of the populous.
I’d met curator Grayson Dantzic, son of
famed jazz photographer Jerry Dantzic in Toronto a couple summers past during
the outstanding photographic exhibition of jazz images., Mid Century Jazz at
the Stephen Bulgar Gallery. I’d hoped to connect and involve myself in some of
the striking photos once again. No such luck.
The exhibit was presented in a dark
upstairs area far above the main floor arena of pop art. The images were soft
copies of the originals in some cases resembling RC prints. The young lady manning the telephone had not
a clue a photographic exhibit inhabited the premises or the whereabouts of
Grayson Dantzic. So much for the visuals.
Mid afternoon with vocal giant Ernie
Andrews proved more compelling. I traveled with Andrews from the University Inn
to Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre. I’d brought Andrews to the Beaches
International Jazz Festival in Toronto nearly a decade earlier. At seventy-five
he’s the last of a handful of frontline male jazz vocalists still working. If
there were a comparison to be drawn it would suitably be to the late Joe
Williams. In fact, Williams spouse and that of Al Grey sat by each other during
Andrews somewhat confessional session.
Andrews exhibits a bit of swagger and deep
blues roots which surface often throughout the sequence of material. He’s
totally convincing whether singing an all out blues shout of crooning a
favorite jazz standard.
Clinics are not his forte. This one played
more as a reflection on a career – good choices bad choices - the children and
beyond. There were lapses when Andrew’s musings neared melancholy – almost like
an aging prizefighter facing his estranged manager.
The rhythm section of the Lionel Hampton
New York Big Band backed Andrews. The marriage didn’t exactly take - in that
the hard vein of blues that pumped life into the music had little influence
over the backing unit.
Andrews fared better during an evening slot
in front of the Lionel Hampton Band with bassist/conductor John Clayton at the
helm. This was something to watch.
Clayton fired up the ensemble on “Lucky So
and So.” If you’ve never heard the marvelous version with the Gene Harris Big
Band then you’ve missed the very best of Andrews.
Clayton ruled the band with a smile, cup of
the hand, rhythmic body language and brilliant instincts. Andrews for his part
jazz stepped himself center stage – right to left with immense style and grace.
The voice rang strong and impressive.
Before Andrews surfaced Lou Rawls did a
nifty bit of bouncing blues.
Rawls has it all – huge hits, radio, television,
big dollars, large arenas everything that comes with universal popularity. He’s
calm, smiling and seriously comfortable in the limelight.
A few bars into a vintage blues it became
apparent what a terrific talent he’s always been. It’s the blues that brings
him into the light. This is the sound from which his distinguished career was
launched and one abandoned along the way for soft pop. The murky choices have
in some ways diminished the potential catalog of memorable recordings.
The evening also showcased the “Hampton
Trombone Factory” with the Lionel Hampton School of trombones and special
guests.
Spokane February 23
Here I am once again facing Homeland
Security.
I empty every possession into various trays
and separate twenty spent rolls of film of which should never be radiated. An
officer takes them aside and individually wipes them down and places a cloth in
what looks like a Zamboni, which actually is some kind of ionizer. The process
goes on an eternity as each roll is smeared with the pad. Another officer takes
my shoes away to be x-rayed while another scans my backpack, jacket and body.
Lord, help us!
It’s at this moment I smile with
anticipation that Canada is but a few hours away.
Reflections in jazz.
The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival is a
special event unlike any I’ve ever attended. The hospitality and organization
is first class much like the imported talent. Treatment of the press and
photographers was a welcome relief from that accorded us by the jazz festival
organizer in Barbados.
It’s hard to be critical of a situation
that comes fresh as a spring breeze and a community that embraces it so
passionately. Hotel rooms for next year’s event are already accounted for. The
persistent cheering for every solo and formidable performer led me to question
whether I was really at a jazz happening or an N’Synch concert.
A special thanks to Lynn Skinner, the crew,
the performers and Virginia Wicks.
Everybody’s efforts made my stay a pleasant affair.
Bill King
