Corridor Buzz - The Premier Source of Arts & Entertainment News and Information for the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Corridor

REVIEW: Redman leads trio through exploratory set

07-06-2008 | Music

By John Kenyon and Steven Horowitz

Check CorridorBUZZ.com for reviews after each mainstage set throughout today's final day of the Iowa City Jazz Festival. Click here to read reviews of Friday's and Saturday's performances.

A saxophone player in a trio is potentially setting himself up for a long night. While the bass can shoulder a small portion of the melodic burden, nearly all of it falls on the horn player's shoulders. That was the task Joshua Redman tackled with his festival-closing performance at the Iowa City Jazz Festival on Sunday, and he was equal to it.

His band was very familiar with the festival stage by the time of Redman's set. Drummer Bill Stewart backed John Scofield on Saturday, while bassist Matt Penman played with Scofield as well as Jenny Scheinman, who performed just before Redman. Both supported Redman well, but it was the star who created the most spark.

The saxophonist opened his set as he did on his latest album, Back East, with a version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein chestnut "Surrey With the Fringe on Top." It brought to mind perhaps the Saxophone Colossus himself, Sonny Rollins, whose own version of the song, captured on his still-fiery Newk's Time, set the standard.

That followed with "Herbs and Roots," an older Redman original found on his own Village Vanguard live album, 1995's Spirit of the Moment. "Zarafah," a tune from Back East written for and dedicated to his mother, was next. It started with Redman playing a pretty unaccompanied solo on soprano saxophone for about three minutes before Stewart and Penman joined in. The title Back East would seem to refer to Redman returning to New York City, but in this case, the raga tones and rhythms of Eastern music apply. It was a long, questing track after the two shorter opening songs, and it brought the crowd fully into Redman's corner.

He later reached way back in his repertoire, plucking "Soul Dance" from his 1993 sophomore outing, Wish. It was another tune that found him pulling out the soprano saxophone, and he used the instrument to its fullest drawing expressive solos from the instrument.

He rounded out the set with the standard "Easy Living" and his own "Hey Mama," the latter a slice of wonderfully catchy hard bop blues that gave Stewart a chance to cut loose in a way he didn't with Scofield the night before. The tune swung, the effort bringing a sheen of sweat to the already soaked trio on this humid July evening.

Impending bad weather cut the show a bit short. Redman was asked to play a short encore, and while he said brevity was never his strong suit, he also said he was mindful of the flooding that the community had endured and didn't want anything more to happen.

"Congratulations to you all for being such a strong community," he said before launching into the last song of the night, a funky jam that gave Penman a chance to shine and found Redman soloing masterfully yet again.

To hear a snippet of Redman's version of "Surrey With the Fringe on Top," click here.

-John Kenyon

 

Scheinman delivers a smoldering set

Jenny Scheinman is a multi-talented artist who has released two albums so far this year, one as an avant-garde jazz violinist, the other as an Americana singer songwriter. Wearing a sleeveless, yellow-flowered summer dress, the slight, curly-brown coiffed damsel took the stage looking like the latter, but she immediately launched into a sad but energetic futuristic jazz tune accompanied by a three-piece combo that consisted of Adam Levy (electric guitar), Matt Penman (stand up bass) and Rudy Royston (drums).

Scheinman’s dress was weighed down by clothespins to keep her hemline down while vigorously playing her instrument. As stage emcee Dennis Green noted backstage, “Modesty is not usually something male jazz artists have to worry about.”

Although Scheinman originally hails from North Carolina, there was little evidence of Appalachian influence on her violin playing. Instead, her style clearly bore the imprint of Eastern European music, albeit in a much more radical way than normal.

This was most evident when Scheinman bowed the strings in long, low gestures that somewhat mimicked the sound of someone crying, or alternately when she would play short, fast strokes that imitated laughter. She mostly did this when soloing or when the band played quietly in the background.

Scheinman also played an unnamed Stephane Grappelli/Django Reinhardt tune where she and Levy traded licks, while Royston and Penman kept the beat bouncing.

Scheinman did not speak much during the first 40 minutes of her set. She thanked the crowd for showing up after the first song, but it wasn’t until the enthusiastic applause after one song did she tell the crowd its name (“American Dipper”).

After about an hour Scheinman told the crowd, “I know this is a jazz festival, but I just put out a vocal album, so I thought I’d sing one. It’s kind of a jazz song. It’s by Jelly Roll Morton.” (Morton is one of the many people who claimed to have originated jazz.) She then launched into “Winin’ Boy Blues.” She followed it up with a song from her other new album, which she said includes a much fuller jazz orchestration, and played “Born Into This.”

Scheinman and company finished with a funky encore number that featured Levy playing some nasty notes and sticking out his tongue KISS-style (in jest) while the rest of the band moved in and out of the groove. Scheinman then took over and led the band through a quiet interlude and ended the song on a lovely, pastoral note.

Click here to hear a snippet from Scheinman's set.

-Steven Horowitz

 

Brent Sandy Quartet plays it cool in the heat

Iowa City Jazz Festival emcee Dennis Green introduced trumpeter Brent Sandy as a man who had played on stage during every festival but two since its incarnation in 1991. However, Saturday was the first time Sandy performed at the festival with a band that bore his name.

The temperature was in the 90s on a sunny day when the Brent Sandy Quartet, featuring Steve Grismore on electric guitar, Greg Mazunik on electric bass, and drummer Justin Le Duc, hit the stage. The band led off with an upbeat number called “Chase the Jazz” and then rolled into a more space-oriented fusion number by Ornette Coleman. Sandy’s trumpet tone was bright and in the forefront of both songs, although he allowed each of his sidemen to take turns jamming and soloing.

The first two songs took almost 30 minutes. Then Sandy and company mellowed things out with a version of a tender version of Duke Ellington’s sacred ballad, “Heaven.” The band then picked up the pace with a martial beat on the next tune, in which drummer LeDuc showed off his chops by keeping the cadences tight as the rest of the band played shifting tempos around him.

“We’re in the heart of the Midwest,” Sandy said as he introduced the next song, “so I am going to play something with a Midwest vibe.” The selection, called “Justice and Honor,” had a dignified aura as Sandy wailed long notes into the air while the band at first played quietly behind him and then built to a climax as the song ended.

Soprano and tenor saxophonist Joel Vanderheyden then joined the band for a few fast-paced numbers co-written by Sandy and Grismore. The heat and humidity caused Sandy to request (semi-jokingly) for some baby powder from the crowd before introducing the next special guest, tenor saxophonist Kim Richmond, who played smoothly on a slow tune.

The Quartet played a short rousing Mexicali tune to end the set. Richmond and Vanderheyden both joined the Quartet during the encore that featured the brass players taking solos then jamming together boisterously to create a wall of sound.

Click here for a sound clip from the Brent Sandy Quartet.

-Steven Horowitz

Pierson's big band offers tastefully timeless tunes

Keeping with tradition, much of the first two days of the Iowa City Jazz Festival focused on jam-based groove music. Following the pattern, Sunday promised to start and end with more straight-ahead, traditional jazz. First up, the Corridor-based Rod Pierson Big Band featuring Craig Boche, a standard big band playing nothing but familiar hits, new and old.

That's a big shift from the futuristic soul jazz of Medeski, Martin and Wood from Friday night and the aggressive six-string workout of John Scofield on Saturday, but it shows how dedicated festival organizers are to covering as much of the breadth of the music that falls under the jazz umbrella as possible.

When most people think of jazz, they likely have something like Rob Pierson's band in mind. The 13-piece group played tightly arranged, bright and brassy big band jazz, with vocalist leading the charge on most.

The group started with a couple of Frank Sinatra classics, "Come Fly With Me" and "Ring a Ding Ding," then brought things into the latter half of the 20th century with Harry Connick Jr.'s "Recipe for Love."

It's strange how a musical genre that was once so popular is now relegated to one slot on a jazz festival, an occasional theater date or, largely, weddings and parties. One could call Rod Pierson's band a wedding band and consider it a slight, but the musicians -- who on this date included local heavyweights like Rich Medd and Jim Drier -- played with passion and precision, rendering these old sounds timeless. A surprisingly large crowd of hearty souls braved the early-afternoon heat to take it in.

Those who did heard a lot of great tunes, including "Under My Skin," "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," "Take the A Train," "Lady is a Tramp" and "Fly Me to the Moon."

Click to hear the Rod Pierson Big Band's take of "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning."

-John Kenyon