A big weekend for jazz kicked off the new year with the now annual NYC Winter Jazzfest taking over a few blocks of Greenwich Village and scores of performances showcasing the future of jazz as part of the APAP (Association of Performing Arts Presenters) conference. It’s become fashionable to bemoan the death of jazz – dwindling audiences, overpriced entrance fees, struggling musicians, and an art form that is struggling to evolve are just some of the complaints – but the reality doesn’t always seem to fit the doom-mongers’ view.

The New York Times achieved the laudable, dropping in on 18 shows over 2 nights; SHK by contrast opted for just the one outing to the atmospherically transformed Highline Ballroom, in whose genteel surroundings the great McCoy Tyner headlined a showcase for the Blue Note Management Group.

The country may be in its deepest recession since the 1920s but the Federal Reserve’s bailout of Wall Street seems to have provided an unlikely stimulus to a scene with a hunker down philosophy that tends to prosper in bleaker times. By 9pm the Chelsea venue was full with the shirt-and-tie brigade, the curious and the cognoscenti alike, all of whom had parted with $25 to partake of mini kobe burgers and potato straws. Amidst the clink of malt and bourbons, young Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez took to the stage and promptly blew us all away.

Rodriguez is a protégé of Quincy Jones, spotted at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2006, and rightly identified as a prodigious talent. A performer with a sense of the dramatic, he demonstrated on his own composition, Crossing the Border, explosive chops and a dazzling dexterity that at times struggled to express the freneticism of his ideas. A fresh interpretation of Quizas revealed humor and allowed for a depth and softness of touch to shine through, before the energy and excitement returned for his closing numbers. He was the first to perform on the night, but nothing which followed left a stronger impression.

Drummer Francisco Mela, another Cuban, led his own troupe in between playing side man to Rodriguez and McCoy Tyner, and injected the bandstand with a vigorous groove melding jazz sensibility with straight-up Cuban rhythms amidst the jungle of his group, Cuban Safari. An infectious stage presence married with a voice that transports you to his island, Mela’s exuberance cost him, on my count, at least three drumsticks throughout the evening, but it’s clear why Joe Lovano is so enthralled by his talent.

Next up the main draw. A member of Coltrane’s classic quartet in the early 1960s, subsequently recording a number of solo albums for Impulse and Blue Note, McCoy Tyner’s status in jazz is near-mythic, and his quality has not diminished over time. It is a privilege to still be able to experience him live, and a lesson in technique, control, and what Kenny Werner would describe as mastery. Upright and powerful, his presence at the piano, his sound, exhilarates – switching effortlessly between time registers, keeping the enthusiasm of Mela’s drumming in check, coaxing Gerald Cannon’s full bass lines with the slightest nod of the head. One of a few ‘legends’ whose playing has never been compromised by the tag.

Attired to make Jon Batiste (see below) look conventional, Gary Bartz slots obediently into Tyner’s quartet, conjuring an elegance and flow almost too beautiful for this lounge, nonetheless inviting a glimpse of the originality that inspired a following.

Following Tyner would probably not appeal to most performers, but the debonair young Juilliard graduate from New Orleans, Jon Batiste, has an insouciant talent and is refreshingly at ease on stage. With the strut of a born entertainer, and a sizable entourage in place behind him, he tore into a scorching solo ragtime blues before the full band kicked in for The St James Infirmary Blues. Followed by a turn on the melodica, the hand-held, free-reed “blow-organ” he is helping to popularize, Batiste played out the rest of the night, exemplifying the reason jazz need not despair, and warming an otherwise frigid city with a Southern homeyness and a feeling that times really ain’t so bad.

Links:
Alfredo Rodriguez
Francisco Mela
McCoy Tyner
Jon Batiste