Photo credit: Dan Ojeda
Branford Marsalis worked as hard as any other member of the quartet he fronted at the Pabst Theater Thursday night. Yet, if he broke a sweat, one would be hard pressed to tell. Of the three members of the combo who arrived on the stage wearing sport coats, he was the only one to keep his on through an often-frenzied evening of post-bop jazz. That’s cool.
Marsalis’ cool attire and casual demeanor, grousing about the wintry weather on the trip from Wausau to Milwaukee and remarking on how his daughters and wife watch Bucks games because they think Giannis Antetokounmpo is a looker, contrasted with the disciplined fire they brought to a rousing set largely dedicated to their latest long-player, this year’s The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul.
Marsalis’ bandmates are no less cool, but a couple play their instruments with more physicality than their boss. Drummer Justin Faulkner was first to divest himself of his coat, doubtless to stave off the heat he was generating. No surprise, considering that the energy he brought. “Dance of the Evil Toys,” one of a couple of the night’s numbers composed by quartet double bassist Eric Revis, was roughly commensurate to that of a machine gun bolstered by multiple bumper stocks. When Faulkner would later give slower numbers such as “Nilaste,” another Revis contribution, a soft friction resembling the hiss of old vinyl playing under a turntable needle, it looked as if he was nervously holding back another bout of bashing his kit.
Contrasting with Faulkner’s penchant for maximalism, pianist Joey Calderazzo’s more economic playing was equally emotive, though often more melancholy. His “Conversation Among The Ruins” made the cut for Secret and the night’s set list, being but one showcase for impressionistic pianism. Calderazzo didn’t doff his jacket until well into the set, not long before playing his only arpeggio of the evening.
|
|
Revis, smartly sporting only a vest over his dress shirt, was given the least solo space among the foursome. But his occasional percussive working of the neck and body of his instrument added to the copious musical invention about him, just as his upright position in the middle of the floor centered the band visually when Marsalis would hang further back to take in the interplay of his accomplices.
Though Marsalis’ playful boldness blowing his reeds anchored the proceedings throughout the night, he especially drove his ensemble to frenzied heights toward the end, on Keith Jarrett’s “The Windup” and another Revis number, “Brews,” the latter of which juxtaposed hard swinging with what sounded like minor key Eastern European touches akin to klezmer. Taking on the gently drifting bossa nova of Carlos Antonio Jobim’s “If You Never Come to Me” served to contrast the spasms of contained chaos bookending it.
Marsalis admitted that his foursome’s exploratory run through Jimmy McHugh’s “Sunny Side of the Street” about halfway through the show was a way of giving the audience something they already knew. Wonderful though it was, he need not have made the concession to familiarity. His Quartet’s muses already lead them places worth staying a while.
