[Dixielandjazz] Greg Osby performing with Trudy Pitts

[Steve Barbone]

Not specifically OKOM but an interesting take on what can happen when a so
called "smooth jazzer" meets a swinger. And rest assured, Philadelphian
Trudy Pitts swings her butt off at age 70+. Every once in a while we run
across her and she sits in with Barbone Street (if there's a piano in the
venue).

Neat lady . . . great player.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

A Saxophonist Known for New Ideas Meets an Organist From the Old School

NY TIMES - By BEN RATLIFF - January 27, 2007

The saxophonist Greg Osby is one of the most specific writers and arrangers
in jazz. He makes small-group music that can be aslant with odd or long
meter, and serenely played; it¹s not battering or superexpressive, but glows
within its own tight structure. Always, he comes with a grid.

But the group under his name at the Jazz Standard this week, Greg Osby and
the Organization, is more casual. It¹s a quartet that includes the
Philadelphia organist Trudy Pitts, who is now in her 70s and an important
link to the history of her city¹s jazz scene. Mr. Osby is deferential toward
her, and more willing than usual to wing it. In Thursday¹s late set, for all
intents and purposes, she was as much the boss as he was.

Ms. Pitts began the set on piano and, with Mr. Osby alone, played ³Body and
Soul.² She allowed a lot of open space into her playing, and she transferred
some of the organ¹s inherent drama to the piano: she presented ideas one
after the other, sequentially and charismatically, swelling and quieting.
Mr. Osby picked around the famous melody subversively, running parallel to
Ms. Pitts, taking wide harmonic routes around the horn without going
dissonant.

They were joined by the guitarist Paul Bollenback and the drummer Gene
Jackson ‹ crisp, clean-sounding musicians ‹ and they started a version of
Milt Jackson¹s blues ³Bags¹ Groove,² with Ms. Pitts on organ. The Hammond
B-3 is a high-expression machine: if you are not riding the volume pedal and
the vibrato control, you are not really playing it.

Ms. Pitts wrung them out, going from a muted tinkle to a rippling, volcanic
roar. (There was visual theater in the solo as well: the sight of Ms. Pitts,
amiable and grandmotherly, wincing and shaking her head, magicked by her own
sounds.) 

When she finished her solo, she seemed to leave a crater behind her. And Mr.
Osby, in emergency mode, started to sound more outgoing, working blues
phrases and sweet, high-register shouts into his playing, channeling bits of
Cannonball Adderley.

Mr. Bollenback, for his part, is fluent in 1960s-style organ-jazz guitar
accompaniment as an almost classical style: the muted tone; the short, fast
runs; and subtle slides. His response to this challenge, and all those that
followed, was to play faster and more smoothly, using sweep-picking and
extended harmony.

Warming to her work, Ms. Pitts began adding extras to songs, directing
arrangements and shaping the set. She sang an introduction to ³Autumn
Leaves,² elongating phrases as she liked; she added a cadenza in that same
song, interpolating Handel¹s ³Hallelujah² chorus; she transformed ³Caravan²
into ³Amazing Grace.²

Ms. Pitts had personality to spread around, and there was nothing to be done
about it: the rest of the band sounded narrower in her presence.

Greg Osby and the Organization, featuring Trudy Pitts, continues through
tomorrow night at the Jazz Standard, 116 East 27th Street, Manhattan; (212)
576-2232.