Or, the best thing that could happen to jazz in Santa Fe.
Jazz sometimes jumps up and smacks you in the ears. It's occasionally still risky, rebel music from the edge or the underground, outsider music of layered complexity and emotional force.
Jazz can soothe, too. Witness the lineup at the just-completed Santa Fe Jazz and International Music Festival. An astonishing panoply of musicians-20 acts spanning 17 days-with flavors ranging from the plain vanilla of Tuck and Patti, Robben Ford and The Yellowjackets, to the edgier concoctions of Marc Copland, trumpeter Ron Miles or The Dave Holland Quintet.
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Add the amazing 10-piece South African a cappella vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo, oud-master Simon Shaheen and a host of Brazilian performers, and the International dimensions of the festival covered remarkable territory. In the hit-or-miss world of jazz and world music bookings in Northern New Mexico, it could take months or years of shows at far-flung venues to experience what the SFJIMF delivered in 17 days.
Presented by local musician and promoter Bruce Dunlap and The Open Arts Foundation, the SFJIMF was a major event amidst Santa Fe's usual summer of cultural excesses. As sophisticated and open-minded as the Santa Fe music audience can be when it comes to alt.country, far-flung world music, underground house, avant mix DJs, and outré Western composed music, jazz remains on the margins of the Santa Fe scene.
This makes it even more remarkable that Dunlap risked such an extensive series of bookings at the largest and priciest venue in town, The Lensic. Admittedly, some of the acts verged on adult
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contemporary radio, a kind of smoothed over and reheated hash of derivative, deadly familiar easy listening "jazz lite." Still, the sum of the performances offered an expansive range from the soporific to the sublime.
For example, the strange double bill of the unrelentingly introspective pianist, Marc Copland, and the affable and accessible (and masterful) vocalist, Kurt Elling. Copland, who cites Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Paul Bley, Joni Mitchell, Ravel and Debussy as eclectic influences, played a remarkable set, characterized by dense thickets of chords and extended dissonances, suspensions and melodies that were sometimes almost atonal. Copland obviously has an encyclopedic grasp on the seemingly infinite possibilities inherent in jazz harmony, and his explorations created unresolved, unrelieved tension in a context of abstraction, a hall of harmonic mirrors.
Elling, on the other hand, came to sing, in the great accessible tradition of the most entertaining of jazz vocalists. His voice a dry and usually unornamented instrument backed by a sensitive and talented trio, Elling was at ease with his material, and with the history and context of his art form. He took a few playful chances, but never strayed far. Mercifully, he avoided the lounge-singer excesses that sometimes plague jazz vocalists, only falling back on the melismatic clichés of notes bent upward or down a few times.
Gary Burton's and Dave Holland's quintets finished out the SFJIMF's final weekend, and both groups were stunning, each in their respective ways. Vibraphonist Burton, who was guitar wizard Pat Metheny's mentor and who taught at Berklee College of Music for years, has an amazing band of teen and 20-something musicians, each of whom has somehow not only absorbed an enormous amount of jazz vocabulary but also has his own unique voice. Pianist Vadim Neveloskyi and guitarist Julian Lage contributed tastefully constructed and thoughtful solos, as well as inventive compositions. Lage's tango was particularly affecting, as was his rubato solo introduction to "My Funny Valentine." Drummer James Williams, still a senior at Berklee, propelled the band in fresh form, along with bassist Luques Curtis. Burton's playing was inspired, characterized by his usual four-mallet technique and long melodic lines. As unlikely as it may sound, the three harmonic instruments of piano, vibes and guitar worked perfectly together, thanks to the careful listening and musicianship of Burton's young sidemen.
The Dave Holland Quintet provided a passionate and bracing end to the festival, with the highest degree of group interaction, finely woven compositions and the most artistic adventure in evidence for the entire three week duration. The final bold adventure in need of recognition is Dunlap's staging the festival on such an ambitious scale in such a largely jazz-indifferent town. Never quite gaining the local support that chamber music, opera and various folk and pop forms garner, presenters have tried a wide variety of angles and enticements, including the New Mexico Jazz Workshop's summer series at the Madrid ballpark, booking into small venues, not charging a cover, increasing the cover, what have you, and never to great effect.
The Santa Fe Jazz and International Music Festival, though, offers an
enticing future in Santa Fe for jazz innovators and the vital edge.
