Very interesting review in the Detroit Free Press.
POPULISM COEXISTS WITH ADVENTURE: Jazz festival should take care not to veer too far from art
September 2, 2003
BY MARK STRYKER
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Two Saturday night scenes illuminated the most enigmatic and complex edition of the Ford Detroit International Jazz Festival in memory:
At the main Amphitheatre Stage, as many as 200,000 people crammed the plaza to hear Chaka Khan's gaudy and emotionally blocked R&B. At the Pyramid Stage, perhaps 2,000 adventurous souls witnessed progressive alto saxophonist Greg Osby rebuild the jazz tradition into a spellbinding postmodern vision of cubist rhythms and oblique harmony.
Here, on opposite sides of Hart Plaza, was the classic dichotomy of commerce and art. And here, in a nutshell, was the tension that percolated during the 24th annual jazz festival, which closed Monday night with Natalie Cole.
Nearly $1 million in losses and sagging attendance the last three years have jeopardized the future of what is still North America's largest free jazz festival. Leaders at Music Hall, which produces the festival, eliminated a day of programming and one of four stages this year. Festival director Frank Malfitano also booked three crossover acts -- Khan, Roberta Flack and Cole.
The idea was that a more compact festival streaked with populism would call home all the people who had wandered in recent years to competing events.
On one level, the strategy worked. Police estimated Saturday's crowd at 250,000, an opening-day record. Despite rain Sunday evening and most of Monday, preliminary police estimates show attendance for all three days topped 600,000, more than the 500,000 four-day figure of the past two years.
Official city estimates will not be available until later this week. Though the festival is free, attendance drives concession revenue and attracts corporate sponsors.
But what about artistic integrity? The headline from this purist is this:
If you have to book Khan to make sure I can hear Osby, that's a compromise I'm willing to make. But only as long as the festival remains committed to jazz in all its most profound manifestations. It's about trust. The 2003 lineup had shortcomings -- not enough cutting-edge musicians; too many repeat acts from recent festivals. But there were enough thrilling moments that no one should be dropping the atom-bomb word of this debate -- sellout.
When, however, does the tail begin to wag the dog? (Short answer: When the instrumental-pop playlist of "smooth jazz" radio infects the programming.) A little success is dangerous. Those who love the festival fear that, emboldened by crossover success, corporate sponsors and bean-counters will push for a higher dosage.
This is not to absolve Music Hall from its faulty management history or its spotty record of raising corporate dollars and marketing the festival, but we shouldn't even be having this debate. The festival's longtime title sponsor, Ford Motor Co., gives $250,000 annually. That's a pittance compared with what it could afford.
Ford -- or some company -- should up the ante, and proudly, without demanding one iota of artistic imput. Jazz is to Detroit's cultural soul what the automobile is to our economy. Jazz critics probably don't represent a large enough demographic to influence boardroom decisions, but we have a right to point out the obvious.
Now to the music:
Best Set 1: Sunday, the irrepressible James Moody (on alto and tenor sax and flute) demonstrated that serious jazz musician and entertainer aren't mutually exclusive identities.
Moody delighted the crowd with his trademark clowning, ribald jokes, the bebop classic "Moody's Mood for Love" and the bawdy "Benny's from Heaven," complete with nutty yodeling. But "Sonnymoon for Two" was all business: Moody's edgy tenor and contemporary use of dissonance suggested a great tiger stalking his prey. At 78, Moody's life force is astonishing.
Best Set 2: Detroit trumpet hero Marcus Belgrave led three trumpet summits. He had the hottest rhythm section of the festival on Saturday -- pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Rodney Whitaker and drummer Karriem Riggins -- and the seven proteges he assembled from across the country balanced cutting-contest bravura with substantive improvising.
Michigander Rob Smith got the best of a ballad medley, but youngsters Maurice Brown and Sean Jones brought the house down in a frenzy of high-note fireworks on Freddie Hubbard's "Birdlike."
Best Set 3: Intimacy is a rare and risky strategy at an outdoor festival, but bassist Ron Carter's quartet drew listeners into a subtle sound world Saturday, weaving an unbroken suite of sophisticated music touching on driving modal post-bop, a ballad, a waltz, a samba and more.
When Hubert Laws joined the quartet on piccolo for an impromptu reading of "Blue in the Closet," it played like a frisky coda to Carter's meticulous concept.
The singers, good and bad: The performances were wildly uneven, with the breakdown not necessarily occurring along the jazz/not-jazz fault line. Best was 23-year-old newcomer Lizz Wright, who sang gospel-influenced soul with a richly textured voice, expert pitch and long-breathed phrasing in which her sanctified embellishments never upstaged the message of the lyrics.
Wright's exquisite taste should be a lesson to others, including Nnenna Freelon, whose taffy-pull histrionics made a mess of "Stella by Starlight" and whose ill-conceived reggae-beat version of "Body and Soul" desecrated some of the loveliest harmonies in popular music. Another dud was Ilona Knopfler, undone by preening affectations and indiscriminate taste in rock-era material.
And don't get me started about Peter Cincotti, the overhyped 20-year-old, whose green pianism and dress-up vocals need another five or 10 years on the vine.
For the record, Roberta Flack wasn't as satiny as in her prime, but sweet enough that the hits sounded like you remembered.
Favorite sight: Moody, backstage before his set, smiling, his ear cocked, basking in the glow of tenor saxophonist Donald Walden's golden reading of Tadd Dameron's "If You Could See Me Now." Moody played Dameron's evergreen when the ink was still wet some 55 years ago. His own legacy was in the air at Hart Plaza even before he took the stage.
Contact MARK STRYKER at 313-222-6459 or stryker@freepress.com.
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