Monterey Jazz Festival All-Stars, Irvine, CA

[Elliot]

The Montery Jazz Festival All-Stars is a band which played at the 50th Monterey Jazz Festival in September 2007, and is now on a 50+ city tour. They played at U.C. Irvine last night.

The "All-Stars" label is, IMHO, deserved in this case: James Moody on sax and flute; Terence Blanchard on trumpet; Nnenna Freelon on vocals; Benny Green on piano; Derrick Hodge on bass; and Kendrick Scott on drums. (Hodge and Scott are from Blanchard's working band.)

The quintet (sans Freelon) opened with Dizzy Gillespie's "Be-Bop," which featured strong solos from Moody and Blanchard (and a boring drum solo from Scott, who got better as the evening went on). Blanchard imitated Dizzy's sound during the head, but sounded like no one but himself during his solo, which began with short, staccato phrases and built into long melodic lines.

Next was "Montery Mist," also by the quintet. Then Freelon came out and sang "Winter Love" (her lyrics to a tune by Gerald Wilson). Blanchard strolled for this tune, and Moody switched to flute.

Everyone then walked off, except for Freelon and the bass player, who did "Skylark." The next tune featured Moody and the rhythm section, doing Moody's novelty vocals on "Benny's from Heaven." The first set ended with Freelon singing "Time After Time," backed by the full quintet.

After intermission, the quintet played a Benny Green original, "Central Park South," and then Freelon sang "Journey," an original by Kendrick Scott . Next was "Pensativa," a feature for Benny Green, backed only by bass and drums.

The highlight of the entire evening, for me, was Blanchard's performance of two tunes from last year's "A Tale of God's Will": "Levees," backed only by bass and drums, and "Funeral Dirge," with piano, bass and drums.

Everyone came out for the last tune, Duke's "Squeeze Me," with scat vocals by Freelon and Moody. (Freelon sounded a lot like Ella on this tune, the only one on which she scatted.) The encore was "Misty," sung by Freelon backed by the quintet.

I love Blanchard's playing, in almost any context, and it was good to see Moody still going strong at 82. I had never heard Freelon before, but she has a strong voice and a good sense of swing. I liked that they mixed some original tunes with the warhorses, and also mixed features for individual players with those for the full band. All in all, a very fun evening.

[David Gitin]

Same show I caught in Santa Cruz (right down to the encore). I share your appreciation of those Blanchard features (and I also enjoyed the pared down style of Benny Green, as if he'd gone from Oscar Peterson and now tracks John Lewis).

[Valerie]

they're at UCLA tonight but i can't make it.

[Elliot]

I also enjoyed the pared down style of Benny Green, as if he'd gone from Oscar Peterson and now tracks John Lewis

I noticed that as well.

[Elliot]

L.A. Times review of the UCLA show:

Prime music the way it's made at Monterey

The revered jazz festival's 50th Anniversary Tour All-Stars get into a groove at UCLA.
By Don Heckman, Special to The Times
January 21, 2008
The Monterey Jazz Festival, with its golden anniversary coming later this year, is by most estimates the world's longest-running continuous jazz festival. But its more significant attribute has always been that music, not longevity, is the festival's heart and soul.

So it was appropriate that the festival's 50th Anniversary Tour All-Stars at UCLA's Royce Hall on Friday night offered nearly 2 1/2 hours of prime, straight-ahead, mainstream jazz. As in the festival, there were no light shows, no smoke machines, no eardrum-shattering decibels, just a continuing flow of ever-engaging music from trumpeter Terence Blanchard, tenor saxophonist-flutist James Moody, pianist Benny Green, bassist Derrick Hodge, drummer Kendrick Scott and singer Nnenna Freelon.

The pace was set early, if a bit tepidly, in a romp through the melodic maze of Dizzy Gillespie's "Bebop." Although the rhythm section in particular seemed to need a few minutes to find its acoustic togetherness, Blanchard and Moody ripped through choruses, gradually urging the music into a swinging groove that prevailed for the rest of the evening.

The contrasting solo styles of the two horn players reflected the appealing range of musical individuality that has always been characteristic of the Monterey Festival programs.

Blanchard's improvisational passion, always present in the ascending emotional arcs of his solos, was enhanced by a near-vocalized use of slippery, half-valve tones, especially during a series of dark, atmospheric solos on a pair of selections from his New Orleans-inspired CD "A Tale of God's Will."

Moody, on the other hand, has always been a melodist, pure and simple. Whether he was playing a slow-grind blues chorus or ripping fast-fingered runs, a constant melodic focus -- filled with listener-friendly musical handles and an occasional emotional yelp -- was at the center of every one of his choruses.

Freelon was superb, especially during her gorgeous renderings of "Skylark" and "Misty." A thoroughly mature interpretive stylist, she has also refined her voice, her tone shimmering with across-the-spectrum tonal texture, her pitch spot-on. That came on top of the sheer fun of her scat singing with Moody on "Just Squeeze Me" and the sensitivity of her lyric writing (and interpreting) for Gerald Wilson's "Romance (Winter Love)."

The evening was exactly what it was advertised to be -- a mini-version, live snapshot of the Monterey Festival in action. And it succeeded in what it attempted to do -- remind jazz fans that the real festival will again set up its tents in September for another not-to-be-missed celebration of America's music.