News
July 09, 2011
[Review] Bass master’s quintet dazzles with hard-won jazz
Christian McBride and Inside Straight NAC Studio, Tuesday night
There's nothing like a road-tested, working band to remind you why jazz has thrived as vital music for a century and to give you hope for the future.
And there's no better example than bass master Christian McBride's Inside Straight, the tough and travelled quintet that dazzled a packed house in the first of two intimate Ottawa jazz festival concerts Tuesday night at the NAC's Studio.
Years of performing nightly shows in front of live audiences becomes a crucible where musical and personal relationships are polished and perfected to the point that allows the risk-taking improvisation that makes jazz unique and in-the-moment.
From the opening bars of the soulful, slinky McBride original Brother Mister, it was clear Inside Straight was going to deal honest, hard-won jazz from the top of the deck.
There were wide grins and high energy solos from everyone, especially the dynamic vibraphonist Warren Wolf - "the Mike Tyson of the vibes," McBride joked later, quoting a newspaper review - and sinewy alto saxophonist Steve Wilson.
There was no letup as they rolled into Freddie Hubbard's Theme for Kareem that ended with a rollicked back-and-forth between McBride's big meaty bass sound and Ulysses Owens Jr.'s bedrock drumming.
Wiping the sweat from his face, McBride showed the showman's chops he learned at hundreds of con certs by clambering up on the comfy green chair provided by the festival's title sponsor, a perch from which he introduced the band looking every bit like a fitter, hipper Jabba the Hut.
Then there was an airy blues, Starbeam, before the band began the centrepiece, a gospel-tinged, solofilled version of Used to Could that McBride described perfectly as music "with a high degree of cholesterol - lardy with bacon fat tossed in."
A ballad, Tenderly, the frantic blues Stick and Move, that included an extended and explosive solo by Owens, Jr., and an encore ended an hourand-a-half show that gave the band maybe 20 minutes to catch its breath before a second concert.
Ah, life on the road.
