Trumpeter Roy Hargrove and his quintet, The Roy Hargrove Quintet, along with a series of special guests, took the stage at Nathan Phillips Square, the Toronto Star Mainstage, last Thursday, June 26th. The concert, part of the Toronto Jazz Festival, paid tribute to the “Jazz at the Philharmonic” series of concerts produced by Norman Granz, first held in Los Angeles in 1944, and featuring some of the era’s top swing and bop musicians like Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Oscar Peterson.

Although it was oppressively hot outside on Thursday, the plastic seats terribly uncomfortable, and the concert started twenty minutes late, the concert was well worth the wait.

The Quintet opened the evening with Hargrove’s “Depth”, which featured some nice solos from Hargrove’s saxophonist and Hargrove himself. They played a few bop jazz pieces together that jived, and shined whenever Hargrove took centre stage with a solo. His quintet featured musicians that worked great as support but, with the exception of his saxophonist, had trouble finding that clarity, characteristic of all of Hargrove’s excellent solos.

After the first few tunes, jazz guitarist virtuoso Russell Malone, and saxophonist/flautist Frank Wess joined the quintet for a rendition of Dexter Gordon’s “5 Bananas”, which swung with lots of energy. The highlight of this collaboration was “Over the Rainbow”, with Wess on flute, featuring some of the best solos of the concert – in particular Malone’s and Hargrove’s – with a very nice riff on this old familiar tune.

Hargrove’s band was followed by a new quintet that came on stage with Jake Hanna on drums and Neil Swainson on bass, and led by Cuban jazz clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera, who plays the clarinet as though it is a saxophone, to excellent swinging effect. It seems appropriate that D’Rivera announced he would be playing a tune by Charlie Parker “the greatest alto sax who ever lived, which is why [he] would be playing it on the clarinet”. Unlike Eddie Daniels or Benny Goodman, I could easily have been fooled into believing D’Rivera was playing a saxophone instead of a clarinet because he brings that feel to the music and I loved every minute of it.

Singer Roberta Gambarini joined the D’Rivera band for “Smoke gets in your eyes” and “No More Blues”. Gambarini has a great voice, and she sings in that old Ella Fitzgerald style, but she has neither the clarity nor the stage presence of other contemporary female jazz singers like Dianne Reeve, or Toronto’s own Emily Claire Barlow.

Roy Hargrove returned to the stage to join in on the tribute to Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Rollins with their arrangement of “On the Sunny Side of the Street” from the album Sonny Side Up. Hargrove even sang with Gambarini. The first song he sang was good fun, but by the 3rd song, it was getting old: he sings well, but we were there to see him play superbly on the trumpet.

For the last couple of tunes, the Roy Hargrove Quintet took the stage again, still with Russell Malone. As the Roy Hargrove Quintet filed back on stage, Russell Malone took the energy level – and the volume – up to eleven with the highlight of the evening: a brooding, swinging, downright blue “I’ve got the blues”, which received a well-deserved standing ovation. I was impressed with the rest of the concert, but for this tune, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as the group took things to new levels of grandeur.

The many special guests and ensembles kept the energy high throughout this very strong concert. Roy Hargrove, Russell Malone, and Paquito D’Rivera were the stars of the evening, and their bands merely the support that held them up. Granted, Hargrove’s supporting musicians had nothing on D’Rivera’s with wonderful work by bassist Neil Swainson. While I liked the variety that comes with the solos by the various band-members, only Hargrove, Malone, D’Rivera, (and D’Rivera’s band) could really nail a solo. And when they did, it was a thrill a minute, a joy to watch; I just wish there was more.

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