“A mesmerizing piano solo on “Maiden Voyage” by the song’s composer Herbie Hancock taught the high school ensemble behind him a thing or two about what it takes to become a jazz master at Tuesday’s Grammy Salute to Jazz at Club Nokia. This year they paid tribute to the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records with performances by several of the label’s jazz veterans, Joe Lovano, Cassandra Wilson and Terence Blanchard. But it was the pianist who spent the second half of the 1960s with the label who made the evening extra special. Lest anyone forget, Hancock won the album of the year trophy for “River,” an album that merged pop, folk and jazz in a near-meditative state.
On Tuesday, though, there was nothing clam of folky in the song selection. Hancock took his band of teens through two mid-60s exercises – “Dolphin Dance” was other extended jam – that were reminders of the strength of Hancock’s compositional skills and the openness with which he approaches an improvisation.
Each headliner performed two pieces each as the high-schoolers played either as 18-piece ensemble, a quintet and a quartet. Wilson impressed with a New Orleans take on the antique “Hesitation Blues”; Blanchard took the band on an extended funk journey. Upright bassist Kate Davis of West Linn, Ore., was particularly impressive in her intonation and time-keeping; Noah Kellman, a pianist from Fayetteville, N.Y., displayed impressive feather-weight touches in certain passages.
A few musicians from Blue Note’s initial heyday shared stories of the label founded in 1939 by Alfred Lion. Charlie Haden had two, the first of which concerned him getting a call from Ornette Coleman to come to a studio in Greenwich Village and record. “Denardo’s going to play with us,” Haden remembers Coleman saying. “But Ornette, he just turned 9 years old.” So he cabs it and lugs his bass up seven flights of steps, the most vertical walking he had done in 20 years of living in Manhattan. “And here’s Denardo all set up. We made beautiful music that day. It became ‘The Empty Foxhole.'”
The other one involved Haden approaching label president Bruce Lundvall, who is celebrating 25 years at the helm, in 1990 with a plan to record his Liberation Music Orchestra. It was obviously an expensive project and Lundvall needed to fund it by getting money from two international labels in the EMI family.
Haden was told to call back in a few days to get the final answer. Meanwhile, he left Lundvall with a cassette of pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, with whom Haden had played in Havana. Nearly a week passed and Haden called Lundvall’s office about the orchestra recording only to be told Bruce was not in the office. “He’s on a plane to Cuba,” was the assistant’s answer .