Hancock, Brecker & Hargrove's Directions in Music: A Legend Gets Outshown by the Youngsters
Mar 02 '05
The Bottom Line In which the author stays for the whole thing.
In the fall of 2001, to celebrate the diamond anniversaries of the births of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, legendary jazz pianist-keyboardist-all-around-innovator Herbie Hancock teamed up with saxophonist Michael Brecker and trumpeter Roy Hargrove for a group and tour they called Directions in Music, an immensely successful project which yielded forth a Grammy-winning live document (Live at Massey Hall) in 2002. Recently the trio reconvened with a show called Directions in Music: Our Times, and currently on tour with it.
As band names go, Directions in Music is pretty sucky. Vague and vaguely academic, it reeks of pretension, and suggests nothing so much as a moldy liberal arts college textbook from 1963. Nevertheless, when my company was given several free tickets to their performance at Madison’s new Overture Center for the Arts (for which my company designed the MEP systems), I jumped at the chance to see Hancock and Brecker, two artists I’ve long admired (albeit from a distance – I only own two Hancock CD’s and I’ve only known Brecker from his work on others’ records) live on stage.
Ambling unintroduced (and nearly 45 minutes late) onto the stage like a goofy Tracey Morgan impression of himself, and followed rather uncertainly by the rest of the group, all wearing looks ranging from bemusement to disinterest to outright alarm, Hancock took a few quick glances at the audience, confusedly looked around the stage, then walked across the stage, and then, finally off of it altogether, and into the wings - “that was worth my 40 bucks!”, someone shouted – from where he re-emerged moments later.
With the rhythm section of Scott Colley on upright bass and Teri Lyne Carrington on drums securely at their stations, Brecker dutifully occupying the just-off-center-stage Ed McMahon role and Hargrove, looking all of about 15 years old in their company, meandering the stage’s nether regions, Hancock finally approached the microphone to greet the audience and introduce the band. Mumbly and dry, he referred to the (frozen) Lake Monona (incidentally, the lake Otis Redding’s plane crashed into) as a popsicle God had dropped, and teasingly called Carrington – who just happened, at that moment, to be carefully adjusting her cymbals – the drum tech. He also spent at least as much time introducing two iMac monitors (applause!) and a strange instrument in Brecker’s hands called the EWI (pronounced “ee-wee”: Electronic Wind Instrument), as he did the rest of the band.
“Consider this an experience,” he said with a self-effacing chuckle as the lights finally started to dim and he turned to address his iMac. For the next few minutes the hall was filled with seemingly random sound effects that appeared to have no origin with the musicians on stage despite the effortful looks on all their faces. The disconnect was confusing: Hargrove was clearly blowing his trumpet into the microphone, but there was no trumpet to be heard. Who was making what noise, and, well, why? Only Carrington’s percussion – spacious, dynamic and (as Hancock had warned us earlier) fascinatingly detail oriented – was discernible; and by the time she and Colley emerged from this wildly self-indulgent sound collage with a recognizably funky, but resolutely low-key groove, much of the audience was already feeling a little squirmy, a condition which only worsened over the course of a sprawling, 30 minute jam on Hancock’s classic “Dolphin Dance”, regardless of the eye-popping solo delivered early on by Hargrove, and the snakes-intertwined musical chemistry between Colley and Carrington.
Even before the end of that first number, people in expensive seats were getting up and discreetly heading for the door (with tell-tale winter jackets draped over their arms). But, increasingly, the infrequent breaks between songs became opportunities for folks to head home; and with each passing number, polite discretion – hunched bodies shuffling quietly along the rows trying their best not to be noticed – turned to absolute shamelessness – whole rows of seats being boldly abandoned by dismissively muttering half-dozens, respectability be damned. Unfortunately, this spectacular ongoing exodus was one of the most exciting and memorable things about the concert.
That, and the pathetic desperation in the voice of a heckler who was reduced to begging "play 'Watermelon Man'... PLEASE!"
Perhaps it's merely the inevitable danger of being an artist as prolific, enduring, and diverse as Herbie Hancock - that everyone in your audience has likely shown up to see their own particular version of you, and chances are the version presented isn't going to match up - and to a certain extent everybody's bound to be at least a little disappointed.
That heckler was likely so hung up on Headhunters that he could only fail to find the funk in anything else Hancock and Co. might be playing (and there was plenty of funk to be found - even before the band finally ingratiated themselves with what audience was left with a hard-earned version of "Watermelon Man" closing out the single barely-warranted encore); and I overheard the woman next to me confessing her love for Gershwin's World to her husband before the show. They didn't last.
Personally, I would have been thrilled to hear something off Future Shock, or maybe some reinterpretation of an old Stevie Wonder song. That said, in large part, I got what I expected from the show - a handful of long, boppy improvisations delivered by a crew of old and not-so-old and actually-kinda-young jazz pros.
If I was disappointed in anything, it was neither the music itself nor the audience's divided reaction to it (for every disgruntled escapee, there was at least one or two who stayed behind to whoop and holler for the solos). If I was disappointed in anything it was this:
Carrington taps out some intricate jungle-style beats, and Colley matches them up with a suitably jumpy bassline. Hargrove steps up to the microphone, and fills the theatre with a sound so fresh, so clean and simultaneously so ecstatic and frenzied that it almost made me gasp for air. Meanwhile, Hancock is motioning to someone off-stage. A tech arrives, and the two spend all of Hargrove's solo checking cord connections or whatever on the friggin' computers.
Were they not hearing what was happening on the very same stage with them. Is Hancock so narcissistic that he had to upstage the first glimmer of crowd-pleasing excitement in the show with something as interesting and musical (and dare I say, soulful?) as simple computer trouble-shooting?
In fact, this little non-performance from Hancock is singularly indicative of what I disliked about this show. Hancock and Brecker (whose highlight performance consisted of what was essentially a product demo for the EWI) were focused so much on their toys, that they seemed absent from the music itself. Far from integrating electronic and acoustic sounds, all Hancock did with his computers was throw in some perfectly unnecessary sci-fi sound effects while the other players were actually playing. Both Brecker and Hancock went through motions of delivering fiery solos, convulsing wildly as they stretched the tonal bounds of their respective instruments (yes, occasionally Hancock did play that grand piano), but in most cases, their solos were repetitive, rote, and loud-for-loud's sake.
The two veterans were invariably shown up by their younger ensemble-mates. Teri Lyne Carrington, especially, was awe-inspiring, not only delivering positively trigonometric rhythms with explosive energy and precision, but doing it all with a form follows function ethos. Likewise, Colley almost physically merged with his bass; and Hargrove not only demonstrated an astonishing ear for melody and negative space, he also demonstrated an easy respect for his band mates, and a visible love for the music. The happiest moment of the evening for me came when Hargrove just barely caught himself falling into a goofy hip-hop bounce on stage while listening to Carrington, Colley, and Hancock work a particularly funky groove.
You go, Roy!
The evening was hardly wasted, and I've already put CDs by Hargrove and Carrington on my to-buy list. But ultimately, it was a disappointment - aiming too often for my head, when what I was really hoping for was a punch to my gut. Then again, with a name like Directions in Music, what should one expect?
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
plorentz
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Paul Lorentz
Location: The Land of Limburger and Leinenkugel's
Reviews written: 946
Trusted by: 280 members
About Me:
Somebody turn the lights on...
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.