Vanguard Jazz Orchestra

City Hall

February 12, 2006I maintain that there’s nothing quite like music to evoke a specific time or place. So if you were at The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra’s Monday night opening at the City Hall, and thought you’d been transported to New York, that’s perfectly fine.

This band is so great it defies description.

It was founded in 1956 by Thad Jones, one of three brilliant musicians in New York who were looking to hold practice sessions within walking distance from a bar — Jim and Andy’s — where musicians hung out after knocking off.

Virtuosos all, the ensemble rapidly called attention to themselves among the New York jazz cognoscenti.

Forty years later, surviving Thad Jones’ move to Europe and the death of Mel Lewis to cancer, the band lives on.

What sets this band apart is its pedigree of arrangements, bequeathed them by Thad Jones himself, and later Bobby Brookmeyer.

These arrangements were built upon the legacy of the great Duke Ellington and Charlie Mingus orchestras.

So, from the start, this band dealt in nothing but the very best. And they sound like the very best.

The genial and wry John Mosca, trombonist and leader, introduced the band and maintained a humorous running commentary throughout the evening to the amusement of the packed auditorium.

From the opening number, the superb ensemble work was on display — articulation, phrasing, dynamics cohering into a perfect combination of sound.

To top it off, was the first of several trumpet solos, the first a thoughtful essay by Nick Marchione.

In fact, that was the pattern for the whole of the first set, great ensemble playing and brilliant soloing.

What a treat to hear a big band of full complement — including Douglas Purviance on bass trombone.

Notably in balance was the rhythm section of Dennis Irwin on bass, Jim McNeely on piano, and the lastest Mel Lewis successor on drums, John Riley.

It can’t be an exaggeration to say that some of the finest orchestral composition of any genre come from the pen of this band’s arrangers.

For example, the piece composed by Julie Caradiniri, which began with a lengthy saxophone solo to sparse chordal accompaniment from the piano before introducing the full ensemble, was a masterpiece of orchestra writing and shows how expressive, in unexpected way, a jazz orchestra could be. And I mean no disrespect to the greats — Mingus and Ellington.

One amusing feature of the evening, was the antic trumpet section whose hands would suddenly surface in unison and just as quickly disappear. Or the latin percussion instruments that emerged with some salsa to latin-flavoured numbers.

The time flew.

The concert, which started at 8 p.m., finished well after 10 p.m. And so it seemed that we had not only been transported in place, but in time, as it were.

Because listening to a band of superb quality does that — to me at any rate.

One is caught up in every lovingly-rendered nuance of tone, colour and dynamic, admiring the parts while taking in the whole effect. What a delight.

Someone asked me afterwards, what was the review going to say. My reply was “How many ways can you say excellent?”

Indeed.

Ron Lightbourne