50 Years and 10 Nights

I had never been to Carnegie Hall before and was not disappointed this past Monday night when I attended the Fujitsu Jazz Festival tribute to Paquito D'Rivera, "50 Years and 10 Nights of Show Business". We had crappy balcony tickets so the sound could have been a tad bit louder but this did not diminish our enjoyment of the evening. I liked the slightly informal feel to the concert. I've been asked to shut up at Lincoln Center since I tend to get excited and chatty during my favorite parts. But I was able to periodically whisper to JC without annoying anyone. I'm not sure if it's a Carnegie Hall thing or just because there was a statistically significant portion of Latinos in the audience.

The concert began at 8:10 PM with Bill Cosby opening up the stage with some jokes. He even made fun of Paquito's shoes! Paquito came out with his band which included piano, bass, drums and percussion as well as a marimba player and a steel drummer. They paid homage to Dizzy Gillespie with an avant-garde arrangement of "Night in Tunisia" which Paquito referred to as "NightMARE in Tunisia". The piece was all over the place metrically and had a really interesting, airy sonority due to the instrumentation. Paquito also has a harpist as part of his orchestra which seems wrong when you first see it. All doubts are erased once you hear Edmar Castaneda! In addition to the usual strumming, he can play the harp so that it sounds exactly like a double bass with his left hand and nearly like a piano with his right. He did a long improvisation this way. I didn't even know you could get that kind of sound from a harp. It was intriguing to see an instrument take on a new identity.

After that he invited Michel Camilo onstage. When he mentioned the fact that he's from DR we gave a little shout from our balcony. Michel and Paquito played "Why Not", just piano and sax. It was great watching them interact as they played. They are at ease with each other and used to making good music together. Then some other invited musicians came on for more pieces. I was a little disappointed that Michel didn't play a lot and that his pieces were entirely jazzy/bluesy in feel. I would have loved to have heard him tumbando in a more Latin number.

Paquito then told a story about how some years ago his mother wanted him to meet some artists friends of hers. He was hesitant to but after she offered to cook him a nice dinner he agreed. And he says that meeting these ladies changed his life. They are "Las Hermanas Marques", a pair of elderly sisters who play guitar and maraca and sing. They did two cute pieces ("Esto es Felicidad" and "La Tartamuda") which the audience thoroughly enjoyed.

His next story was about the cool, jazzy jingle of a radio station in Miami. "NY Voices" sang it live from behind the curtain and then they came out to sing a couple of tunes. This quartet sings in the style of Manhattan Transfer (the group that influenced Juan Luis Guerra). They too were amazing. I'm not the biggest vocal music fan since I'm obsessed with instruments, but to hear human voices harmonize so perfectly and beautifully was really moving. Though very different in idiom, they reminded me a bit of Chanticleer, which I heard for the first time over the holidays. The first piece was completely a capella and the second featured nice scatting by the mezzo soprano.

Rosa Passos, the famous Brazilian singer also performed some pieces while playing guitar. She has a beautiful voice. However I'm not the biggest fan of the slow stuff she does, so at this point I took a mental intermission (the show was so long they skipped intermission) and read the program and just zoned out a bit. That is until acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma came out to accompany her. It was great to hear him live; he truly makes that cello sing!

We travelled to Argentina with a few Tango pieces. Two dancers provided elegant accompaniment to the music. In addition to the pianist Pablo Ziegler and Paquito, there was an accordionist and a guitarist on stage. I have not listened to a lot of Tango but I enjoyed their minor melodies and the melancholic feel of it.

The string section of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas (YOA) came out to accompany Paquito on his clarinet as he performed some Classical pieces, one by Brahms and another by Mozart, the latter which he lent a jazzy bend to. His sound on the clarinet is very sweet and it was inspiring to hear him play the Brahms.

Even more inspiring was when Bebo Valdes, Cachao, and Candido came on stage to play. Bill Cosby joked that all three of them together are almost 300 years old! A lot of people were near tears when they started playing. We all had a sense that it was an historical moment and that we were very fortunate to hear these three legends playing together. Candido was absolutely charming: smiling the entire time and looking like he was having a grand old time on the congas. Cachao looks very frail but that didn't stop him from jamming on that bass. Bebo still has a very refined air to him and I really enjoyed his style on the piano (more than Michel's actually). His chords are not overly clunky (almost more reminiscent of the Romantic era than jazz) and his melodies are very lyrical. The three of them together created magic that night.

At that point the entire YOA came onstage to perform a Gershwin potpourri as the finale. Paquito started it off by doing the intro to "Rhapsody in Blue" on his clarinet. Then they switched into "Summertime" and his wife, soprano Brenda Feliciano, sang the tune. The piece went on for a while with Brenda singing and the very accomplished orchestra accompanying. The concert finished with one of my favorite endings ever, that of "Rhapsody in Blue" (think United airlines commercials).

The show ended, aptly so, with a standing ovation.

It was definitely an unforgettable and inspiring night.