JAZZ REVIEW : Lena Horne Brings Down the House at the JVC Festival : Her set at a tribute to Billy Strayhorn is a high point of the event that has been plagued by poor attendance.
NEW YORK — The annual JVC Jazz Festival, which opened Friday, is suffering attendance problems.
The intimate afternoon recitals have been dropped. Even Town Hall was not filled Saturday for a strong concert headed by Anita O’Day.
The trouble, explains producer George Wein, is the shortage of new blockbuster names. More and more there seems to be a reliance on both artists over 50 and tributes to deceased musicians. This time around there are salutes to Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey and Billy Strayhorn.
If they all worked out like the Strayhorn event, Wein would have nothing to worry about. The star of this event, Sunday evening at the packed Avery Fisher Hall, was Lena Horne.
This amazing woman, who turns 76 next week but looks much younger, sings with more assurance, more power, more true jazz sensitivity than she did a half-century ago. Her set was a triumph guaranteed to eclipse anything that may happen during the rest of the week.
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The premise for the program was a commemoration of the life and works of Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington’s aide de camp, who died at 52 in 1967. Showing great emotion, Horne explained how she met Strayhorn--her dearest friend--in Hollywood in 1941. They became, as she put it, soul mates.
She sang “Something to Live For,†the first Strayhorn tune ever recorded by Ellington (in 1939), and “A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing,†which typified Strayhorn’s delicacy as lyricist and composer. Her set also included the title tune of the Ellington musical “Jump for Joy,†which she called Ellington’s only protest song.
Horne’s intonation and phrasing were flawless. Her range took her into a couple of beautifully held high notes. Though Strayhorn’s genius was her focal point, she ended the set with her famed “Stormy Weather,†which all but tore down the house.
The daunting task of following her fell to Mercer Ellington, who met the challenge masterfully. His all-Strayhorn set with the orchestra took new approaches to long-familiar pieces. He even converted “Take the A Train†into a virtual suite, complete with a trumpet concerto by Barrie Lee Hall, a waltz version, a ballad version by Shelly Carroll on tenor sax, and a roaring finale.
Other Strayhorn masterpieces followed, including the little-known “Charpoy†and “Passion Flower,†with Charles Young assuming the Johnny Hodges role on alto sax.
Singer-pianist Bobby Short ended the show by singing “Lush Life,†also played earlier by saxophonist Joe Henderson, in a set marred by Al Foster’s noisy drumming. The evening opened with a low-key duo performance by cornetist Warren Vache and guitarist Howard Alden, highlighted by a memorable treatment of the exquisite Strayhorn ballad “Lotus Blossom.â€
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The weekend’s other significant events included an outdoor recital Sunday afternoon by drummer Art Taylor. The former expatriate is now firmly ensconced in New York with his quintet, Taylor’s Wailers, a spirited hard-bop unit devoted to the music of Bud Powell and other bop pioneers.
Saturday at Town Hall, singer Nancy Marano performed with her accordionist Eddie Monteiro, who extracted every sound, from organ to vibraphone, on an electrically enhanced instrument that has taken this once-despised box light-years beyond “Lady of Spain†and clear into the 21st Century.
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