Disappointment

I caught Ornette Coleman at the Portland Jazz Festival recently. This was my first time seeing him and my last, I think, as I found the show a real disappointment. I'm a fan of Coleman's music, like anyone who listens to the music this blog "covers" would be. I think Free Jazz is one of the best records ever and his early stuff (The Shape of Jazz to Come, Change of the Century and This is Our Music among others) are fantastic. I can even get into the occasional Prime Time tune and I really enjoy Skies of America. There have been a few clunkers in his catalog (The Empty Foxhole being the worst, I think) but largely, Coleman is someone who's gone out and made great (albeit largely the same) music for 50 years. So it was really a drag to drop a chunk of change on a really bad concert.

The lineup was Ornette on sax (occasionally trumpet or violin), his son Denardo Coleman on drums, Charnett Moffett on electric bass, Tony Falanga on upright bass and Al McDowell on electric piccolo bass. Denardo played way too flamboyantly with too much rock feel and occasionally losing the time all together. McDowell's bass often sounded like a guitar and was generally inoffensive (thought the wah pedal should be smashed). Moffett played a lot of wanky funk licks that sounded terrible to my ears. Falanga held the time together and was the most integral and musical of the side musicians. Ornette can form any band he wants to and he does this? I guess it's to his credit that he's still trying new and different things in music but it's too bad he doesn't seem to know what sounds good and what doesn't.

The playing was largely quite tight and they played a series of short versions of Coleman's tunes. Overall, I found it incredibly boring and, by the number of people who started leaving only one song into the set and continuing throughout, I clearly wasn't the only one.

Oh well. The time to see Ornette was long ago I guess.
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Another big disappointment for me recently was hearing the new John Gross CD. John Gross was active in LA for about 40 years before moving to Portland at the end of the 90s. He has been playing in a duo with drummer Billy Mintz for many years whom some drummers I know worship. I saw the Gross/Mintz duo play shortly after I moved to Portland last year and I was not really that interested. They played traditionally structured tunes with slightly out melodies and solos. But so many people love them here in PDX that I gave their CD, Beautiful You, a listen. Surprisingly, it's great. The playing is really different and beautiful and deep. I know none of those words really mean much but I can't really describe it otherwise. It's stuff that I usually wouldn't like but the quiet beauty and strength of it is astounding. Though the tunes are traditionally structured, there's something about their playing that makes this recording special. Neither player is in any hurry but they also don't seem to over congratulate themselves on their own playing. It's not lowercase music and it's not free improv. It's just really, really well done free jazz by a couple of unique players.

So it is with regret that I tell you to avoid Gross' new disc, "Strange Feeling." It's a collection of straight tunes played straight in a trio of drums, bass and sax. It's really too bad because Gross' playing is so one-of-a-kind on Beautiful You. But when he plays this straight stuff he sounds like just another jazz horn player.

Fortunately, the Cecil show at the PDX Jazz Fest was great. So all is not lost.