August 31, 2001, performance reviewed by Dave Conlin Read

Chuck Mangione dispensed with the formalities and opened his set Friday night with the familiar Land of Make Believe, giving the big crowd at Ozawa Hall what they came for right away. The 60 year old central New York native, who made ‘fluglehorn’ a household word three decades ago, then proceeded to lead his six piece band through a dozen numbers of thoroughly convincing jazz, before closing with the equally familiar Feel So Good (plus the encore Freddie’s Walkin)

Rendered threadbare by the jammed jukebox of pop culture, those huge hits seem incongruous containers for the big, bright, and bold tunes they book-ended. Best known as the maker of those memorable, romantic, melancholy melodies, Mangione tonight showed himself to be a savy leader of a very bluesy jazz band. Chuck Mangione – Amazon page

The solos were done craftily so that the audience didn’t lose the focus of the tune – they coalesced to serve the song, rather than sacrificing the song to serve the solo. Like in the third number, a tune that’s even more familiar than Mangione’s biggies, and one in which Mangione and his outfit accomplished the unbelieveable task of making it sound and feel as fresh as a thunder storm.

They built a boisterous, unabashed blues out of Amazing Grace, a tune that’s included in the new album Everything for Love, and the tune that this auditor will be coming to hear the next time this band comes around.

September 5, 2004 performance review by Dave Conlin Read

Tanglewood Jazz Festival 2004 came to a close shortly
before eleven o’clock Sunday September 5 and the last notes
played were not the work of Brubeck, or Connick, or
Marsalis – to name just 3 of the teriffic weekend’s headliners – but
old Johannes Brahms, whose “Lullaby” was played on flute by
Bobby Militello of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Militello toosed off a few lines of the song on flute
(with his saxophone tucked under his arm) when the quartet
came back onstage to acknowledge the audience’s ovation;
everybody cracked up, nobody expected a real encore; it was
another light, funny moment folded into a seriously
brilliant two and a half hour concert, including a dazzling
second set with the DBQ accompanied by the 23-piece Brubeck
Symphonette.

The audience was cued to Dave Brubeck’s playful mood
right from the start, when, after introducing his band, he
said: “I made a tune list and as we walked out here, I told
the boys to forget it. I’m going to play an old tune from
the 30s called ‘Margie’.”

Brubeck introduced the second number with an anecdote
about life on the road – more precisely, about getting
cranky deep into the Quartet’s third European tour of the
year and being placated by being setup with digs in London
for the remainder of the tour.

When he was told that, “We’ll put you up in a London
flat,” he said “Sharp!” It took the audience a moment to
get the joke: he gave them a chance at redemption when his
story continued in the form of introduction to “London Flat
London Sharp,” which Mr. Brubeck said he composed to dispel
the gloomy mood all the travel had gotten him into.

“Now, my left hand will run down the piano in Flats, and
my right hand will go up the piano in … .” SHARPS rang
out from the vast audience, now totally attuned and settled
in for a great musical experience.

The number featured a searing alto sax solo by Militello
and was followed by something completely different, “Theme
for June” from brother Howard Brubeck’s 1959 composition
“Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra.” Beginning with
sublime and quiet notes on the piano, it lead into a bass
solo wherein Michael Moore evoked a feeling of loneliness
so palpable it could make one shudder.

Randy Jones moved the tune along with whispering
brushwork, picking up the pace until Militello’s sax
lightened the feeling and finally Brubeck gave the whole
idea a second thought with a fanciful run of notes before
getting quiet again and fading to silence.

Brubeck spent a few minutes talking about his brother’s
composition, that it gave more room for the jazz musicians
to improvise than earlier pieces for jazz and orchestra,
and that Leonard Bernstein heard it at the original Music Inn in Lenox and
decided to record it, conducting the New York Philharmonic
with the DBQ in 1960.

Brubeck continued by telling us that in the early 50s
and even in the 40s, he “was messing around with crazy time
signatures” but that it didn’t work because people couldn’t
dance to the tunes. Then he began to do popular tunes,
doing them simple at first and then playing them crazy,
“because people didn’t listen once they were on the dance
floor!”

Around the same time he began listening to the little
yellow records of his kids and thought they were pretty
good. One of them was “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” from
which Brubeck wrote an arrangement of “Someday My Prince
Will Come.” Roundly dissed at the time for being so un-hip
as to embrace pop music, Brubeck reminded the audience that
it wasn’t long before the uber-cool Miles Davis put out his
own version of “Some Day…”

Listening to it tonight, one could waltz, march, and/or
just groove to Brubeck’s polyrhythmic genius. It was
followed by the recent piece, “Elegy,” written in memory of
Norwegian jazz journalist Randi Hultin, which featured
Moore’s sorrowful bowing bass and Militello’s plaintive
flute. Drummer Randy Jones had the spotlight as they ended the set
with “Out of the Way.”

For the second set, the quartet was joined onstage by
the 23-piece Brubeck Symphonette, all strings save for one French horn, conducted by Russell
Gloyd, who embellished on Brubeck’s earlier remarks by
saying that one of those London gigs was with the London
Symphony Orchestra during their 100th Anniversary
celebration, with Queen Elizabeth II in attendance. Gloyd
continued in M.C. mode, telling the story of how “Blue
Rondo A La Turk” came to be written by Brubeck after he was
intrigued by the rhythms he heard street musicians playing
in Istanbul while on a State Department tour during the
Eisenhower administration.

Besides “Blue Rondo…”, the set included “Brandenburg
Gate” which Brubeck described as being based on the rhythm
of ‘Danke schön’ German for ‘thank you;’ the
similiarly inspired “Regret,’ which repeats the sound of
that sad word throughout and which he invited the audience
to devise their own programs for because he didn’t know
what the piece was about; and “Lullaby” from his Christmas
cantata, “La Fiesta de la Posada.”

For the evening’s, and indeed, the Festival’s, grand
finale, we were presented with a scintillating performance
of “Take Five,” composed by Brubeck’s original saxophonist
Paul Desmond. All the solos were outstanding, especially
Randy Jones’, which got Brubeck to his feet the better to
enjoy it before returning to the piano to put the wraps on
one of the best concerts Ozawa Hall will ever hold.

Sept. 6, 2009 performance reviewed by Ronald K. Baker

Smack-dab in the middle of a string of sunny days and pleasant temperatures, Sunday afternoon found some concertgoers lingering on the grounds of Tanglewood rather than being in a hurry to be seated in Ozawa Hall for the 2 p.m. presentation. The concert began precisely on time, nonetheless, as the last few trickled in.

Onstage, two elegant Steinways nestled together belly to belly so that the pianists could see each other. And so the summit of the titans began. Mulgrew Miller, with his hulking frame, maintained an upright posture with his gaze fixed on his opposite number, Kenny Barron, nine feet and eighty-eight keys away. For his part, Barron rarely looked up, preferring rather to lean slightly forward with his shoulders closer to the keyboard.

The program notes gave a brief history of previous piano duets, many of which took place with four hands on the same instrument. This occasion, a bit of a rarity, would find each instrumentalist having access to the full range of notes, hence making communication all the more essential. That, ostensibly, was the plan. For whatever reason, perhaps the proximity of the microphone, Miller’s instrument was in the foreground, both literally and figuratively. Barron’s was a bit subdued by comparison.

“Gentlemen, start your engines,” someone might well have proclaimed as the pair began. Barron, the senior member, played a solo introduction. Miller joined in mid-way, first adding a rolling bass line, and then taking the first improvisation, which was followed by spontaneous applause from the Jazz-savvy crowd.

The piece itself, the standard, “Just In Time,” was a fitting entry point that most listeners could relate to. For some, it was one of the more familiar offerings from the duo whose general fare was a clinic in virtuosity, style, and technique that seemed, at times, fiercely competitive.

That said, Kenny Barron played a decidedly lyrical and expressive solo rendition of “Memories of You,” a Eubie Blake composition. Barron’s creativity, subtleties, and dynamic changes to augment the mood, all played well to the crowd – bringing to mind the adage, You can get more flies with honey… . His understated vamp in the left hand came across like a giant on tiptoes. An attentive hush came over the audience.

In succeeding selections, creativity was the watchword. The pair executed runs up and down the ivories with such proficiency that 32nd notes seemed to ripple as effortlessly as the waving of a willow in the breeze.

The high point of the collaboration came when the pair decided to “funk” with each other on the selection “Blue Monk.” It was the only instance of protracted eye contact between the two players. The soulful moment had a feel-good swagger that was optimally engaging. It came to a close with a commanding stride-piano coda, as these two lions of jazz piano reached détente. The Tanglewood audience rose in appreciation.

John Mosca leads the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra

During the brief intermission one of the pianos was wheeled offstage, and the sixteen-piece Vanguard Jazz Orchestra got underway less than fifteen minutes later. John Mosca, veteran trombonist, doubled as moderator. His self-effacing presentation would prove easy to take for the remainder of the afternoon. By way of introduction, he noted that the band has been appearing on Monday nights without interruption at the Village Vanguard for the past forty-three years.

Many of the instrumentalists either lead or are members of other successful jazz groups. The credentials of this lineup are most impressive. Mosca pointed out that the band relies heavily on arrangements by the venerated Bobby Brookmeyer, the trombonist, who was one of the original members of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Vanguard Orchestra.

For this concert, the aggregation began with the rhythm section lulling the listeners into a false sense of security, which was, unfortunately, shattered when the full orchestra entered. There were sixteen separate microphones, one for each player as well as one for the individual players who made their way down front to be featured.

Among those who were called upon for such duty were the stand-outs lead trumpeter Terrell Stafford, tenor saxophonist Billy Drewes, and the alto saxophone virtuoso, Dick Oatts, who performed yeoman’s duty as assistant conductor from his chair in addition to his outstanding solo efforts.

The power of this orchestra, augmented by the amplification, made it hard to imagine how they could fare so well in the relative intimacy of the Village Vanguard. The sound engineer, wrestling with the sound in Ozawa Hall, had the added responsibility to deliver sound to those assembled on the lawn as well.

All in all, the arrangements were stellar and appropriately varied. The crowd, which had tweaked itself after the first concert, seemed appreciative enough, graciously applauding the soloists and the endings as well.

Among the most impressive of the selections were “ABC Blues,” whereon Oatts turned in a monster performance on alto, and, “The Waltz You Swang For Me,” a Thad Jones composition that showcased Drewes on soprano sax. And while many of the pieces waxed esoteric, if not cacophonic, a ballad changeup, called “Kids Are Pretty People,” had an easy feel, evoking images of nightfall in the city.

The soundman got a better handle on things as the concert went along (or the listener became inured to the volume level). Many of the pieces were quite busy by comparison, so that when pianist Michael Weiss presented a pensive chorus or two, accompanied only by the tasteful addition of bass and drums, it provided what seemed like a welcome respite. Gary Smulyan, whose performance was huge on baritone sax, offered up another poignant moment of his own.

Closing out the afternoon, Mosca dedicated the last selection to Edward M. Kennedy, the late senator from Massachusetts. As if to mimic the audience’s response to his dedication, the piece was delivered in subdued tones. Dick Oatts conducted nicely from his center chair in the band’s front row.

The faithful filed out of the hall, richly rewarded for their attendance. Crisp air and the angular sunshine of early September made for a leisurely departure across the green and shadowed lawns of afternoon.