Although the great jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins (78), master pianist Dave Brubeck (88), and virtuoso double bassist Charlie Haden (71) may be senior citizens, they play as if they’re still young, and what a show they each put on in the last week during the Toronto Jazz Festival. Their sets may have been short, but every minute counted, and every minute was top notch.

Sonny Rollins, the epitome of cool, who made his name as a “saxophone colossus” on the album of the same name, opened the TO Jazz festival on Friday, June 26th, with his very tight band. He walked onto the stage with his ultra cool white jacket and sunglasses, ready to give the audience a run for its money. He opened his show with a whirlwind solo in “Sonny, Please” with so much energy, a little game of “name that tune” in his solo, and a whole lot of bop, that the concert probably could have ended after just the one song, and the audience still could have gone home happy.

But Sonny and his group entertained for seventy minutes, a short concert, but every minute was fine, finer than his last Toronto performance in 2007, which was longer and still great, but not quite this good. He may have run out of breath now and then, but that’s a minor qualm for a 78-year-old that can keep you smiling throughout the whole concert. And Sonny knows how to put on a show. As he takes his solo, ready to heat up the piece and the room, he comes downstage, centre stage, and starts playing away, dancing as close as he possibly can to the audience. Sure, he’s a showoff, but the totally loveable kind. At his last concert, I remember being annoyed that he let his band play too much – we were there for Sonny not for his band – but not so this time. He played his heart out with various hits like “In a Sentimental Mood”, “They Say It’s Wonderful”, “Nice Lady”, and “Strode Rode”.

Rollins’s solos aren’t as technical as say, the young star, Chris Potter. But his solos are completely melodic, good from start to finish, from the heart, and never fail to please. He’s one of the last old jazz greats and seeing him in concert is always a pleasure. This year his group was very good, especially percussionist Victor Y. See Yuen, whose bongo drumming was incredibly melodic and a pleasure to listen to. I especially enjoyed the solo call and response between Rollins and Yuen: sure Yuen is percussion, but he plays like he’s playing the melody, and that’s a rare find in a percussionist.

On Canada Day, the current Dave Brubeck Quartet – Bobby Millitello on saxophone, Michael Moore on bass, and Randy Jones on drums – lit up the stage at the Nathan Phillips Square Mainstage, a cheap venue with a lot of energy, but rather crummy sound. It was no venue to hear Brubeck play some of his trademark solo piano, but the quartet worked well. Last year’s performance at the Four Seasons Centre Opera House had better acoustics, but made the mistake of taking pieces written for a quartet and playing them with a big band. Not so this year, as the quartet played as a quartet in good form, starting out with a wide selection of Duke Ellington’s compositions from “C Jam Blues” to “Take the A Train” and beyond. Dave Brubeck played a Yamaha piano with wonderful skill, an old master at work. Bobby Millitello’s saxophone sounded a little too much like the bad 1980s crooning movie soundtrack saxophone and occasionally his sound became rather a misplaced nuisance. But Michael Moore, on bass, gave some stunning solos and occasionally, as Brubeck got tired, helped him out with his part, playing the piano’s pick-ups in the encore of “Take Five”.

The highlights of the concert were the starting medleys of Duke Ellington pieces – when Brubeck’s energy was high – and the addition of Brubeck’s son, Matthew Brubeck, on cello, to the group, for the last few numbers. The 6’8’’ Matthew Brubeck makes his cello look tiny, but he sure can play. He lives in Toronto and teaches jazz improvisation for strings at York University, and occasionally joins his dad on stage – last year and this year at the TO Jazz festival – and what a lovely addition. They started out with a composition by Brubeck based on the rhythm of “Sermon on the mount”, a beautiful piece which they also performed together at last year’s festival. When Brubeck announced the piece, he told the audience “Matthew will play the melody first [eyeing Matthew to make sure he does play the melody], and then he’s going to improvise and that will set him free.” It’s interesting that Brubeck Sr. should say that as so many of the acts at the festival started off looking almost a little bored (still great, but not like they were fully enjoying themselves) as they played the necessary melody, anxious to get to their solos when they really shone. Matthew Brubeck’s jazz cello is extremely melodic and his solos rather complex and gorgeous: a joy to listen to.

Brubeck’s concert was the most expensive one at the mainstage this year, costing audience members $55 per ticket for the pleasure. I suppose Brubeck is old enough that we might not get another opportunity to see him, and everyone wants to be able to say they saw “Take Five” live in concert, but Brubeck is past his prime. He was innovative and inventive in the 1950s when he took the jazz world by storm with all kinds of peculiar time signatures. But his music is now music of the past; the real stars of this year’s festival were the younger folks.

That being said, Charlie Haden gave a fabulous duet performance with pianist Ethan Iverson at the Glenn Gould studio on Sunday, July 5th, in the style of old, relaxed, mellow Bill Evans-esque tunes from the 1950s. Haden’s career has spanned over 50 years and he has played with everyone, from Ornette Coleman to Keith Jarrett, in every genre from cool jazz to free jazz to country, and his rich background made for a rich performance. He also regaled the audience with a variety of stories about the pieces he played or the musicians that wrote them, an educated musician with a lot to offer, aside from playing a darn good bass, and he’s quite the character, to boot.

The acoustics in the Glenn Gould studio are in every way excellent to the point that it was actually possible to hear every note that double bassist Charlie Haden played. He and Iverson played a variety of old favourites, from Haden’s own compositions to covers of tunes like “Blue in Green” from Miles Davis’s groundbreaking album “Kind of Blue”. Haden played a bass line that might as well have been a melody: it could have stood on its own and it was certainly intricate and melodic. And his solos were a joy to listen to at all times. His instrument is huge and low, but Haden knows how to get a beautiful sound out of it, which makes you listen carefully to catch all the nuances.

Ethan Iverson played the piano with a beautiful, laid back touch, melodic, but not overdone, playing with clarity. But make no mistake: this was not an “easy” style, but well chosen. And Iverson proved his prowess indisputably in the encore. An audience member called out a request for Haden’s song for his wife, “Song for Ruth”, which Iverson had never played before. Haden headed over to his briefcase to search for the music and handed Iverson a half-page part that looked like it was handwritten: all melody and no chords. Iverson took the mike to explain to the audience that not only would he have to sight read the piece, but also Haden had given him a part for a B flat instrument and so he would have to sight transpose, as well. If we hadn’t been told, we never would have been able to guess that Iverson had never played the piece, let alone that he was going through a technical feat to sight-transpose it. Iverson also noted that this sort of thing happens all the time with Haden, who took the opportunity to tell the audience that he is famous for getting the best musicians to play with him. And it’s no surprise why: Haden is a bassist, a rhythm section, and a melodic force.

Brubeck, Haden and Rollins can all play the heck out of their instruments. Seeing any of them is a joy, and what a joy to get to see them all in one fabulous week: a whole range of different styles and a whole range of different kinds of mastery.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Featured Posts, Music, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.