It was a mistake to listen to the CD Chano y Dizzy! by Terence Blanchard and Poncho Sánchez before Blanchard’s concert at the Zankel
Music Center at Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs on June 26. The 600-seat
Helene Filene Ladd concert hall at the Center has made it unnecessary to get to
Saratoga two or three hours before a free performance in order to get a seat.
But I was early enough that I listened to the entire album, from the
introductory Tin Tin Deo/Manteca/Guachi Guaro medley to the concluding
Ariñañara. Why was this a mistake? Because the recording put me in a mood and
gave me expectations that the performance ruined and could not meet,
respectively.
Blanchard was recently described in The New Yorker as a “stunning trumpeter and an attentive bandleader
ever alert for burgeoning talent.” This is indisputable. But the performance
left me thinking that technical virtuosity without musicality is meaningless. The
music was outstanding and yet I felt like a stone. The quintet performed with a
clear and distinct anchoring in the jazz tradition, even if it is somewhat
dubious to refer to the plural offerings that fit under the jazz umbrella, even
as early as the 1940s, and to an ever-changing genre, as having a “tradition.” But
when Blanchard said that Fabian Almazan, the pianist, was from Cuba, I thought
to myself: “Where is his tradition? A
little montuno during one of the
solos would have been nice!” Maybe he does
evoke Lecuona, or Lilí Martínez, or Peruchín sometimes; I don’t know. But in
that moment, and with a great a sense of irony, I remembered David Brooks’
column, published the day of the concert, about the experience of listening to
Bruce Springsteen live in Spain. He wrote: “if you embody a distinct musical
tradition, if your concerns are expressed through a specific paracosm, you are
going to have more depth and definition than you are if you grew up in the
far-flung networks of pluralism and eclecticism…Don’t try to be citizens of
some artificial globalized community. Go deeper into your own tradition. Call
more upon the geography of your own past. Be distinct and credible.”
I am critical of the performance with trepidation because almost
everyone in the audience seemed so pleased and taken by the musicians. I
noticed some significant early departures but I can’t say they meant
dissatisfaction. The people around me appeared to be excited and the standing
ovation at the end lasted long enough to bring the band back on stage for one
more song. During a brief moment of silence just before the encore, while
Blanchard set his computer for a reverb effect on the trumpet, someone shouted:
“We can’t let you leave yet!” On my way to the parking lot, I overheard someone
say that the piano introduction to the second song in the set was “gorgeous.”
All the comments I overheard were positive. There were many smiling faces.
Only once, during the first song, did the ritual applause
following a solo was not given to Blanchard. He winced and stood silent for a
short while, perhaps thinking he had stopped too soon, or that the solo did not
have the flow whose resolution leads to a deserved, as opposed to mechanic
ovation. Then he resumed soloing. It is not clear to me whether the pause was
part of the solo or a second try. After that, applause followed every solo.
Were the ovations ritualistic or deserved? All I can say with certainty is that
the musicianship was out of this world and yet I was not moved to applaud once.
Everyone was extremely good and no one, not even Blanchard, stood out. This was
reflected in the applause for each musician: clapping was evenly pitched for
everyone.
Laurent De Wilde has said that jazz musicians play first for
themselves, second for the other members of the band, and third for the
audience. I would describe the concert the same way, but I’m not sure that De
Wilde’s caveat about the audience applies. He suggests that, despite coming
third in the ranking, the attention of the audience “is vital for [the jazz
musician] to reach the right degree of concentration, and their enthusiasm is
the only true index of shared pleasure.” Except for that singular wince at the
beginning, I am not sure that the quintet really cared about what the audience
felt. I may be projecting my own lack of “shared pleasure,” but they all
appeared remote, lost in their own inner, musical world. Blanchard even said
that the backdrop view was so gorgeous (the stage is backed by a glass-window
that opens up to a pond surrounded by trees) that he wanted to play facing the
window, with his back to the audience. He said it tongue-in-cheek, of course,
and he meant it as a compliment…to the auditorium.
Unlike many outstanding musicians who can’t put two words
together coherently, Blanchard was very articulate and funny during his
introduction of the members of the band. He shared a good and humorous story
for each one of his mates. This was my introduction to his music in a live
setting so I don’t know if it was all impromptu or rehearsed. In fact, it
actually pains me to say that the introductions and the theme song at the end
of the performance, a straight-ahead tune, were the best moments of the show.
When they came back for the encore and I heard the “We can’t let you leave
yet!” shout, all I could say to myself was “Ay, Ay, Ay.”
I can’t wait to read the enthusiastic and positive reviews
by others of this performance so I can find out what I missed. Blanchard said
that, typically, when people come up to him after a show, they do so to say
they enjoyed it very much. “The ones who hate it simply leave,” he added. No
one laughed at this; not even a chuckle. I’m not sure why leaving right away after
a concert would be a sign of displeasure. Maybe he meant leaving in the middle
of a show? I didn’t hate the performance and I certainly did not walk out while
they were playing or after the first song, which set the tone for the whole
set. I just made a mistake.
I admit freely that my sentiments are probably an instance
of the “it’s not you, it’s me” syndrome.
For better of for worse, there’s only one point of view I can write
from: my own. Is there a lesson here? I think so. Before you go to a post-bop
concert, do not listen to swinging, poly-rhythmic, Afro-Cuban jazz. That kind
of preface will not set you up right and you’ll end up with a headache. I love
Be-Bop, Post-Bop, even Cool jazz (Miles only, though). Blanchard’s concert just
didn’t do it for me. On the drive back home I listened to El Gran Combo’s Sin Salsa No Hay Paraíso. By the time I got
to Albany my headache was gone.
