Jazz Review : Colorful Monterey Festival Celebrates the Jazz Spectrum

MONTEREY —  Imagine a combination of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, a Moroccan souk, and a Saturday night jam session, then place it all at the end of an airport runway, and it almost, but not quite, captures the atmosphere of last weekend’s Monterey Jazz Festival.

It was a colorful outdoor event at which the cooking smells from racks of beef, pork, chicken and catfish, the roar of jets from a nearby airport, and a chaotic party attitude sometimes threatened to overwhelm the sound of the music.

Fortunately, the music prevailed.

Among the showcase Saturday and Sunday night performers, Joe Henderson, Shirley Horn and Max Roach were the scene-stealers.

Henderson, working within the ascetic framework of a tenor saxophone-bass-drums trio, had the most difficult task. Making no concessions to the chatty, party-oriented Saturday night crowd, he simply came out and laid down nearly an hour of brilliant jazz improvisation. Remarkably, by the time he was finished, most of the once-boisterous audience had quieted down under his spell.

Horn had an equal impact. Also working with her regular trio, she simply did what she does best--redefine, with exquisite taste and subtle understatement, a set of familiar standards. Her readings of “The Look of Love” and “A Song for You” were perfect examples. Blending voice and piano into one near-symbiotic instrument, she transformed each song into a mini-drama, complete with breathtaking pauses in rhythm and sudden shifts of emotion.

Roach’s percussion ensemble, M-Boom, was a revelation. All nine members played mallet or percussion instruments, from Roach’s standard jazz drum kit to congas, tympani, vibes, marimba and steel pans. Their interactive pieces, which included straight-ahead jazz, Afro/Latin rhythms, and an unusual work in 5/4, were performed with the multilayered rhythms and rich timbres of African drum collectives.

Other headliners did not fare as well. Ornette Coleman has managed to bring threads of structure and continuity to his group, Prime Time, that have not been present in the past. But the ensemble’s quirky assemblage of funk, rock and free-jazz improvising is still a far cry from the seminal music of Coleman’s early years. Most noticeably absent in his set was his most appealing quality--the ability to generate attractive, instantly recognizable melodies.

Billy Childs’ curiously titled “Concerto for Piano and Jazz Chamber Orchestra” (more accurately, for jazz piano and chamber orchestra) confirmed his growing compositional skills. The work’s Prokofiev-like second movement was the most attractive segment, with Childs’ occasionally syrupy-sounding strings the only flaw in his still-growing orchestrational abilities.

With events taking place, often simultaneously, on three stages, it was almost impossible to hear everything. A selective list of the many highlights has to include: Saturday afternoon’s marvelous blues program; Sunday afternoon’s collection of talented high school jazz bands; the offbeat Either Orchestra from Boston; the easygoing mainstream jazz of the Kyle Eastwood Quartet and the Dottie Dodgion Trio; the hard-driving contemporary sounds of the Black/ Note Quintet and the David Sanchez Quartet; and the brilliant piano work of Jessica Williams.