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Craig Handy Quartet at Sunset Jazz Club
Hommage a Dexter Gordon
Sunset Jazz Club
Paris, France
July 8, 2016
Tributes to noted jazz musicians are frequent throughout Europe, especially in Paris. Each "hommage" centers on the hits and compositions of a star, performed by a musician with a high skill-level for the instrument identified with the honored one. For this two-night booking, it was a salute by New York tenor saxophonist
Craig Handy
saxophoneb.1962
Dexter Gordon
saxophone, tenor1923 - 1990
Handy's style parallels Gordon's: a big sound, spacious phrasing, long melody lines, and playing behind the beat in a laid-back
Lester Young
saxophone1909 - 1959
As usual in Paris, the music started 20 minutes later than the announced time. That was no biggie, being common in this "Golden Triangle" of three longtime Paris jazz clubs on rue des Lombards in central Paris (dual-level Sunset-Sunside, Le Duc des Lombards, Baiser Sale') and elsewhere in the city's 20-some venues.
The quartet played "LTD" (a k a "Long Tall Dexter") as the first of the set's five lengthy pieces. Handy launched the swinging arrangement with a robust opening burst, American-born expat pianist
Kirk Lightsey
pianob.1937
Nicola Sabato
bass, acoustic
John Betsch
drumsb.1945
Before announcing the second song, Handy spoke words that should be barred from any paid performance, music or otherwise: "We've never played this book together, so I hope you'll bear with us as we wind and wiggle our way." Apologies are never encouraging to an audience, and very rarely made by the pros. I began listening for glitches, but didn't detect any blatant ones in "I Told You So" by pianist
George Cables
pianob.1944
Donald Byrd
trumpet1932 - 2013
The set's only ballad, "Ernie's Tune," offered a change of pace in this bebop-swing outing. Handy treated its plaintive melody with a more ethereally light tone. Gordon composed and named the song for a character in the New York City play "The Connection." When it was staged in Los Angeles in 1960, he contributed three other songs and played a role as a soft-spoken junkie jazz musician, demonstrating his acting skills long before his film roles in "'Round Midnight" in 1986 and "Awakenings" in 1990.
The lively "Cheese Cake" was the most recognizable Gordon chart played, Handy's exuberant bop phrasing further elevating the impact of the quartet's tribute. Hearing it made me crave more memorable Dexter Gordon hits, such as "Blues Up and Down," "Dexter Rides Again" and "The Chase." But the choices for this set on opening night left more to be desired. Maybe it was the leader's jet lag, and maybe the second set and subsequent night's show included some of those, even
Thelonious Monk
piano1917 - 1982
Tags
Craig Handy
Live Reviews
Patricia Myers
France
Paris
Dexter Gordon
Lester Young
Kirk Lightsey
Nicola Sabato
John Betsch
George Cables
Donald Byrd
Thelonious Monk
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