It was a full
[Joe Lovano]
[Jon Batiste]
[Myra Melford]
[Michael Mwenso]
[Ron Miles]
[Rudresh Mahanthappa]
The Times checked in with a review...
[T]he festival doesn’t uphold bebop as a rigid absolute, or impose Parker’s music as a precondition. There tends to be a refreshing absence of formal tributes among the artists on the bill, and a healthy abundance of the informal kind, sometimes as fleeting and allusive as a scrap of melody shoehorned into a solo. Usually, that’s enough.
Still, there was a welcome charge in the air at Tompkins Square Park in the East Village on Sunday evening as the tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano unfurled a billowing, adroit improvisation, using elements of “Barbados,” a Parker tune. Leading a band with Leo Genovese on piano, Esperanza Spalding on bass and Lewis Nash on drums, Mr. Lovano was dipping into “Bird Songs” (Blue Note), his 2011 Parker-themed album.
Parker, who died in 1955 at age 34, lived at 151 Avenue B from 1950-54.
Great event for the neighborhood, the park and jazz fans. Reminded me of what we have lost over the years that comes out only for special events. Loved it! Loved it!! Loved it!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat an event! I'm so sorry I missed it!
ReplyDeleteIts great to see Lovano do stuff like this, great bop, post bop sax player, one of my favorite of our time. And very unfettered, he does a lot of weird stuff just because he wants to, I saw him once do a whole show of Enrico Caruso songs.
ReplyDeleteEven though I believe that jazz encourages moral decrepitude and lasciviousness in our womenfolk (especially once they start passing around those jazz cigarettes) this event was infinitely superior to the standard Sunday fare of junk punk sounds hammered out to sparse groups of shirtless thrashers, all within a wink or two of nodding off. Yeah, I can dig it.
ReplyDeleteSo nice to be in a fully integrated scene, as well.
ReplyDelete