Some musicians can say more with a whisper than others do with a roar, a point that guitarist Kenny Burrell and pianist Claude Williamson established throughout a beguiling opening set Tuesday night at the Jazz Showcase.
If Burrell’s previous Showcase engagements have had their ups and downs, this time the self-effacing guitarist sounded particularly persuasive, in part due to the contributions of his pianist.
A nearly forgotten veteran of bands led by Charlie Barnet, Red Norvo, Bud Shank and many more, Williamson spent much of his career in the anonymity of uncounted West Coast studio and television dates. Recently, however, he returned to bona fide jazz work, and he has found an ideal partner in Burrell.
Both of these artists, after all, prefer to play on the softer end of the dynamic range, even in climactic passages. Within their muted idiom, however, Burrell and Williamson are capable of producing uncommonly poetic lines, witty phrasings and vibrant tone colorings.
Williamson, especially, speaks volumes with the exquisite quality of his tone, a carefully weighted sound that draws its color not from the sustaining pedal but from the warmth and delicacy of his touch. It’s a lyric, sometimes melancholy sound suggesting a French sensibility.
Ultimately, the individuality of Williamson’s lines–with their surprising stops and starts and perpetually shifting rhythmic accents–comes as a great gust of fresh air, rendering the solos of many other be-bop-influenced keyboardists predictable by comparison. Clearly, Williamson owns one of the most inventive right hands in jazz pianodom.
Burrell obviously savors this work and draws inspiration from it, spinning perpetually creative lines of his own atop Williamson’s accompaniments.
The other boon to Burrell’s playing was the music of Charlie Parker, which the Showcase is saluting all month. Instead of exploring his more ethereal, harmonically ambiguous repertoire, Burrell stayed mainly with straightforward be-bop. In Parker classics such as “Yardbird Suite” and “Scrapple for the Apple,” the guitarist produced profoundly creative lines devoid of glib effects and familiar be-bop turns of phrase.
With Eddie De Haas producing warmly resonant phrases on bass and Wilbur Campbell stirring things up on drums, this quartet offered a stronger first set than visiting artists typically achieve with local rhythm sections. If Burrell’s guitar sometimes was a bit overamplified for the occasion, throwing the ensemble sound out of balance, that problem should be easy to fix.
And once Burrell’s amplification is under control, Williamson’s pianism should sound even more ravishing.
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Kenny Burrell and Claude Williamson play through Sunday at the Jazz Showcase, 59 W. Grand Ave. Phone 312-670-BIRD.
