Each season, the jazz festival at the South Shore Cultural Center gets a little bigger, a little better, a little more popular.
And this year’s edition of the outdoor event, which ran over the weekend at 71st Street and the lakefront, was no exception. With pianist Gene Harris and singer Bill Henderson (among others) playing well-received sets on Saturday afternoon, singer Ernie Andrews and the Jazz Members Big Band performing ebulliently on Sunday afternoon, JazzFest ’96 clearly delighted its huge audience.
But the highlight of the festival (which was staged by non-profit Jazz Unites) came when drummer Max Roach led his quartet Sunday night in a hard-hitting, rhythmically combustive performance. If the festival’s sound system didn’t always do justice to the tone colors that Roach’s front line sought to achieve, at least the energy, drive and musical ingenuity of the band were unmistakable.
To his credit, Roach not only gave his sidemen ample room for solos, but also allowed trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater and tenor saxophonist Odean Pope to establish the tone, mood and musical vocabulary for each number. Whether these two musicians were stating themes boldly in unison, trading fast-tempo riffs or inventing intricate melodic counterpoint, they offered some of the most charismatic playing of JazzFest ’96.
Even beyond their sonic force and rhythmic aggression, Bridgewater and Pope reveled in the art of bona fide jazz improvisation. By switching frequently between duple and triple rhythmic divisions, by changing abruptly from lyric phrases to rhythmically agitated ones, by slipping from major scales to minor scales to exotic modes, they kept their work perpetually fresh and unpredictable.
All the while, Roach provided a hard-driving, if somewhat spare percussion accompaniment, with bassist Tyrone Brown staying right with him. On this occasion, Roach had distilled his playing to its essence, avoiding complex, overlapping rhythms in favor of bold, comparatively simple ideas.
Even so, the virtuosity with which Roach articulated fast-moving passages and the range of color, texture and attack he summoned throughout this set were revelatory. Long decades may have passed since Roach’s heyday at the dawn of bebop, but neither his technique nor his inner fires have been diminished a bit.
Moreover, Roach and his quartet covered a wide range of musical languages, from pieces based on ancient African chant to vintage ’40s bebop to simply, honestly stated ballads.
And when Roach closed his show with a solo, playing a lone cymbal in tribute to drummer Jo Jones, there was no doubt that JazzFest ’96 had reached its dramatic and musical peak.
