Mild-mannered guitar god delivers stellar show
No showboating required when skill is matched by a perfect backing band
The John Abercrombie Quartet Library and Archives Canada Auditorium Reviewed Saturday Night
Saturday night’s concert by the quartet of guitarist John Abercrombie began with great delicacy and there was plenty more where that came from. But in the end, it was a full-spectrum, fully immersive experience for the crowd that filled the Library and Archives Canada auditorium, almost an hour and a half of music dotted with splashy, vigorous explosions as well as gentle beauty, wry humour as well as pristine sounds.
The last thing that the 69-year-old American jazz great did was showboat. He seemed like a guitar hero of the mild-mannered variety, favouring a light, spidery sound in the service of a mature and personal art that asked listeners to meet it halfway, fill in blanks and make connections. As deep as the music was, it easily drew in enough listeners and kept them sufficiently interested, surprised and delighted that a standing ovation and prolonged applause closed the evening.
Abercrombie’s group was something of a dream band, a stellar group better than the sum of its impressive parts.
Pianist Marc Copland, who has made music off and on with Abercrombie for 40-odd years, was an optimal accompanist for the guitarist, someone who fits in all the nooks and crannies of the Abercrombie sonic world. The pianist is one of jazz’s too-rare instantly identifiable players, thanks to chords that are thick, evocative and always on the move; melodies that skitter and resonate with fine, fleeting implications.
There’s simply not a better, more individualistic pianist in jazz when it comes to adding shades of mystery to the musical proceedings with an in-the-moment, yet orchestral, aplomb.
Bassist Drew Gress provided the bottom end of the sound and helped ensure that the music was always shifting and mutable. When his peers were soloing, Gress always had their backs, and he was a commanding soloist in his own right.
The band’s grinning extrovert was drummer Joey Baron. It’s not as if he wasn’t as strikingly subtle and nuanced as his peers. But he also added musical exclamation marks and broad exhortations that fit into the music by dint of his big personality and impec- cable timing. As over-sized as they sometimes were, Baron’s interjections were always delivered with the grace and wit of a swinging standup comic. If anyone was the life of the party on stage, it was Baron. Indeed, at times Abercrombie, sitting nearby, couldn’t stifle his laughter at what his drummer was doing.
Of course, these players combined in a musical gestalt. In the end it was the singular sound that they made together that counted most.
Much of the set consisted of Abercrombie compositions drawn from his most recent disc, 39 Steps. But in a live setting, the pieces grew in intensity and were sometimes capable of developing organically from a few fragile notes into a roiling, vamping cavalcade.
There was the contemplative yet twisting piece Vertigo and the lilting waltzing piece Another Ralph’s. The piece Greenstreet was spun from a spontaneous piano-and-guitar duet (“Why don’t you just start? I’ll jump in,” said Abercrombie). The ballad As It Stands was like the musical equivalent of haiku, allowing for great and touching meanings to be spun from just a few bars of material.
The group also played three jazz standards, of which Abercombie said: “They’re like old friends. You can get real with them.”
The show opened with I Should Care, an oldie that sounded very fresh, grad- ual and personal. A solo guitar introduction flowed into All The Things You Are, during which an impromptu and rubato duet for Copland and Baron was one highlight, while a rugged, quasi-funky prolonged ending was another.
As elegant and lyrical as much of the night was, its conclusion was a romp through the Ornette Coleman blues When Will The Blues Leave? Abercombie’s blues and bop roots were peeking out during his lengthy solo, and Baron gleefully laid into his kit.
It was an exuberant finish to the music. The only better one would have been an encore.