[Dixielandjazz] That's What Good Band Leading Sounds Like-was Amplification

[Stephen Barbone]

Given the recent discussions on amplification, band sound etc., I
thought this review from the NY Times might prove interesting for many
of the band leaders on the list, as well as some others. If you can get
by the fact that it concerns a "modern" jazz group and invest 30 seconds
of reading time for the "sound" message, please do so. If not, please
delete.

Cheers
Steve Barbone

Discipline in a Muted Sound
Lewis Nash
Kaplan Penthouse

A small subcategory of jazz is marked by typically African-American
musical expression — carrying distinct elements of blues and gospel —and
filtered through a silencer. Or to put it another way, the music is
imprinted by such precise attention to dynamic control that a strange
quiescence results.

The Modern Jazz Quartet is famous for that sound; John Lewis, of that
group, derived some of his thinking from Count Basie's 1930's bands. But
other groups of the quartet's time (Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Horace
Silver's groups, Miles Davis's quintets) controlled a greater share in
the jazz language then and since, and this more delicate sound isn't
often heard.

Lewis Nash, a remarkably subtle, swinging drummer, resurrects it. His
concert on Thursday was part of Jazz at Lincoln Center's season
dedicated to the drum, yet if you hadn't known, it wouldn't have been
easy to tell that a drummer ran the group. You could say for sure,
however, that it was a person of discipline.

Thad Jones's "Ain't Nothin' Nu" was determined by a septet's blaze of
sequential soloing; some Celtic songs by trilling melodies harmonized
between two lead instruments; an original minor blues, "106 Nix," by an
M.J.Q.-like quartet sound, shared with bassist Peter Washington, the
pianist Renee Rosnes and the vibraphonist Steve Nelson; Flanagan's "Mean
Streets" by a tight piano-bass-drums arrangement. In the first set, the
group onstage grew smaller, song by song. The second set began with a
duet of Mr. Nash and the saxophonist Steve Wilson and gradually grew
larger again.

Each permutation of the group played with a nearly perfect distribution
of sound — so much so that it seemed we were hearing a postproduction
mix from a studio session. It wasn't a fluke; that's what good
bandleading sounds like.   BEN RATLIFF