Every year around Jazz Fest we (and no doubt the festival programming committee) lament the shrinking pool of jazz giants: the kind of players who attract broad audiences due to their historical importance, experience, and technical mastery. This year alone the world has lost Shirley Scott, Big John Patton, Ray Brown, Wilber Morris, Russ Freeman, and Roy Kral. What’s not often said is that the jazz audience is undoubtedly shrinking too, as fans who grew up along with the music grow older and fewer alongside their heroes.
4:30 PM * Uri Caine
7:10 PM Patricia Barber
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Guitarist Coryell and altoist Blythe both played with drummer Chico Hamilton early in their careers, though not at the same time. Both were recruited to play this festival slot as part of a Hamilton reunion band. But when the leader bowed out for health reasons, fest organizers scraped together this dog’s breakfast: Coryell and Blythe with bassist Mark Egan and drummer Paul Wertico, who’ve both backed Pat Metheny, though not at the same time. Coryell’s combination of slinky jazz-guitar chops with the bite and speed of fusion is a perennially good one–a little slick, a little raw, but not too much of either. And Blythe would be worth hearing even if he were fronting the Backwater High All-Stars. He arrived with a splash in the 70s, thanks to his cutting tone, serrated vibrato, and rhythmic incisiveness. Because he tends to record his small book of original tunes over and over, his albums have gradually inspired less and less interest, but he can still raise the neck hairs with a piercing high note and make any band sound like it’s dancing right along with him. KW
Chicago Cultural Center
Although Bill Holman is an accomplished tenor saxophonist, he made his reputation primarily as an arranger. In 1952 he joined Stan Kenton’s big band as an instrumentalist, and in short order he was writing and arranging for him. He went on to do the same for a veritable who’s who of big band leaders, including Woody Herman, Maynard Ferguson, Gerry Mulligan, Terry Gibbs, Count Basie, Buddy Rich, and Doc Severinsen, and his bold and brassy arrangements have come to define the modern big band sound. Holman has a masterful way with punchy counterpoint, and he knows how to make the brass strut like a flock of peacocks, but his tendency is to go for more when less would do, and he can crush a swinging rhythm with the heft of his charts. He’ll conduct the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, the acclaimed repertoire band led by fellow Kenton alum William Russo, in what’s billed as a tribute to his own oeuvre. PM
