For 18 years, Jazz Unites has presented one of the highlights of the city’s summer outdoor concert traditions. Over the weekend, Jazzfest ’99 at the South Shore Cultural Center showed why this continues to be such an impressive event. Not only does the organization bring the music directly to the community on a scenic lakefront stage, but it also takes chances and presents lesser-known talents with audience favorites. The thousands of families who attended the festival responded enthusiastically, especially on Sunday.
The two musicians who closed the event, violinist Regina Carter and singer Nancy Wilson, exemplified this combination. While Carter is now receiving recognition outside the jazz press, Wilson has been popular for decades.
After years as a featured performer in numerous groups, Carter recently formed her own band to prove that her instrument has a significant role in contemporary jazz. As she showed in her version of the standard “Lady Be Good,” her sound sometimes recalled the skillful pauses of Stuff Smith and the graceful tone of Stephane Grapelli. But she also confronted the notion that strings sound delicate as she built a solid percussive groove along with drummer Alvester Garnett, conga player Mayra Casales, and pianist Werner Gierig. Through her bow, she also conveyed the dark temper and rough edge of “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.”
While Carter broke away from the accepted place for her instrument, Wilson embraced vocalists’ traditionally idolized status. Throughout much of her set, her voice was in fine form as she sang with a polished delivery, even if she occasionally sounded hurried. Her historical sense was particularly inspired. In one of the weekend’s Duke Ellington tributes, she belted the chorus of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and reveled in the humor of “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing” without overdoing the famous chorus. In a fitting tribute to the late Joe Williams, she filled “May I Come In” with gracefully held notes.
Earlier in the afternoon, trumpeter Orbert Davis drew from jazz history for his absorbing set. Although his group was billed as a “double quartet,” they actually performed as a single cohesive unit. With three violinists, a cellist and a bassist, Davis revisited Charlie Parker’s “With Strings” sessions, which were made 50 years ago. Some have claimed that this was a strangely cloying recording, but Davis showed how much tension was in the arrangement of “April In Paris.”
Starting out lush, the string section gradually moved into dissonance as Davis created a contrast with his brittle tone. He also paid tribute to Ellington with a muted solo on “Caravan” and Miles Davis on a warm rendition of “Seven Steps To Heaven.”
That a large amount of people shook off Saturday’s painful heat to attend the festival testifies to the neighborhood’s love for the music. A diverse lineup of great Chicago-area musicians who performed that afternoon and evening reminded the audience how local jazz is distinctively multifaceted. Swing saxophonist Eddie Johnson led a strong quartet in his assertive comeback to performing and recording.
Another saxophonist, Ernest Dawkins, mixed polyphonic horn lines on top of guitarist Jeff Parker’s fragmented groove, for his group, New Horizons Ensemble. But it was the irrepressible organist Charles Earland who got the crowd dancing with his headstrong tempos and extroverted presence.
