Moment's Notice from Gregory James

Last Thursday Laurie Anderson began her residency at SF Jazz with a duet performance with Eyvind Kang on viola. With Ms. Anderson on electric violin and MacBook (yes, I think we can officially call the Mac an instrument) generating samples and sound effects and loops and echoes, the expanded range of the viola to violin was lovely. They both improvised over tonal centers and motifs. One tends to forget what an accomplished violinist she is; for all the performance art aspects of her work and the visuals, this was a performance that centered on her tone (lovely, not an easy thing on a solid body electric) and ideas. I realized she has probably listened to a fair amount of the late violinist Billy Bang (a long time colleague of Butch Morris). The performance was re-scheduled from a year before, due to the death of Lou Reed. Without needing to overtly mention it, the evening was all about life, and death, and love. The first spoken words were about the death of her father, later the death of a mare, and the love of a stallion in her family for a mare, who was eventually sold, to the heartbreak of the stallion. There were no electronic effects on her voice, which was intimate and conversational in the small space. Kang was solid and attentive; often one had to look at their hands to figure out who was playing what. His acoustic viola, a beautiful instrument, was also treated with some looping and echo effects. Ms. Anderson, with trade mark spiked hair, wore a knee length baggy silk plaid shirt, and silk pants that resembled jeans. A very hip grunge look. As with all her performances, the profound, and the absurd are noted with wry humor and modesty, in the face of an unknowable universe. Which why, 40 years into her career, she is still the hippest gal (or guy) in town.

Saturday night the Charles Lloyd New Quartet played SF Jazz as part of his residency. Charles has been one of my most profound influences, since I saw his first great quartet, with Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee, and Jack DeJohnette in the 60's at the Fillmore. (Opening for Albert King, headliner B.B. King, no less. Thank you Bill Graham). The New Quartet, with Jason Moran on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass, and Eric Harland on drums, has been his primary vehicle since 2007. It is ironic, but probably not an accident, that the two most forward and contemporary bands in the world are led by elders: Charles Lloyd and Wayne Shorter. They have always pushed the boundaries, with exquisite taste. Charles was in brilliant form Saturday, it was perhaps the finest performance of his I've ever seen, and one of the very best performances I've seen from anyone. (Miles and Ravi Shanker clocked in a few). Many of the pieces started out as whisper soft ballads and then built to rock and roll intensity. (After the concert, Charles addressed the audience and reminded us that as a youth in Memphis, he played with many blues masters, including Johnny Ace, Bobby Blue Bland, Howling' Wolf, and B.B. King). They played through the changes of Autumn Leaves, without the melody, it became completely new. The final encore, requested by many in the audience, was Forest Flower. Like all forward explorers, I don't think he has played the song that made him famous for many years - like every note he plays, it was completely fresh and new. In the words of The New York Times’ Ben Ratliff: “Follow the career of Charles Lloyd, and you see a map of great jazz across half a century. His shows, full of momentum and intuition, perfectly represent the idea that the best jazz needs to be experienced live.” Charles's start in the big time was musical director for Chico Hamilton, with whom I had the privilege of playing in 1979-1980.

Last night we saw the brilliant Spanish pianist Alex Conde for the second time in a month. (He's that good) This was a live performance of his recording "Descarga for Monk" at Doc's Lab, a fantastic new club at the site of the historic Purple Onion. With a complete command of flamenco and jazz, he was joined by John Santos on congas, Jeff Chambers on bass, Jon Arkin on drums, the other worldly beautiful La Tania and Melissa Cruz on palmas and baile, and Jose Grillo, cante, cajon, and palmas. Quite a few Spanish pianists have tried to incorporate flamenco; the technical challenges of playing what is at heart a guitar based music have defeated most. Conde's left hand could be Paco's or Tomatito's bass string falsettas; he even quoted Diego del Gastor in his performance last week at the Red Poppy Art House, which featured Melissa Cruz and Fanny Ara, and Jose Cortes on cante. Possessed of a brilliant crisp technique, and a seemingly infinite wellspring of ideas, he is not to be missed.

Thursday evening Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock performed as a duo at Cal Performances. For many years Cal Performances has booked jazz programming to rival or surpass SF Jazz. To me, and I imagine many others, this was the anticipated jazz concert of the season. It did not dissapoint. Two paralel Steinway concert grands with the lids down, and two synth keyboards were all these grandmasters needed. From the first few notes on acoustic, they sounded exactly as I thought they might. Chromatic, slightly dissonant, at first I thought they were channeling Webern, but from the program notes of other performances, it may well have been excerpts from Bartok's Mikrokosmos. Chick tended to play lead in the upper register as the improvisation unfolded, with Herbie providing telepathic accompianment with chords in the middle and lower register. Given identical instruments, it was instructive to hear the difference in tone; Chick brighter throughout the evening, Herbie darker and lush. This first piece segued into All Blues! I've always said great improvisors can make an old piece fresh; it took the audience a while to realize what they were hearing. Herbie, of course, was still with Miles when that tune was occasionally in the set list. Although only a year apart, Chick spoke of first seeing Herbie lead a jam session on a Monday night in 1959 at Birdland, and has considered him a hero ever since. Herbie spoke of once calling Chick from a recording session to make sure a tune he had just written wasn't in fact Chick's. The template was set for the evening's performance: an ultra-modern chromatic intro, which could range from ballad to stride, eventually turning into a re-worked chestnut from their pasts. Cole Porter's (You'd Be) So Easy to Love was a delight. The encores: Maiden Voyage, and then Spain, with Chick leading the audience in a four part sing-along harmony. At one point he had the audience sing back phrases he and Herbie were improvising. It literally took the audience inside the head of the performer. Bravo!