Feb 21

Feb 21 Big Diehl (II)

After Aaron Diehl did the introductions at the outset of tonight’s concert at the University of Chicago’s Reva and David Center for the Arts, I sat anxiously awaiting the violence that would ensue. I already knew that vibist Warren Wolf was a weightlifter. It is obvious by looking at his chiseled physique, but his interest in weightlifting came up during a prior concert at the Logan Center two or three years ago when Wolf headlined the concert. Diehl added another dimension to Wolf’s biography: Wolf is so strong that he has actually broken a vibraphone while playing it during a performance. With that tale in mind, I expected powerful downstrokes from Wolf’s mallets as he violently contorted his body, rising up, and then smashing down. Oh, the horror.

Ah, but tonight’s performance was focused on the Modern Jazz Quartet’s lasting legacy. Even though they were beboppers at heart, those guys were the antithesis of the punk aesthetic that rose from the ashes of industrialized England in the mid-Seventies. They were anything but violent, which also proved to be the case with Wolf’s playing tonight. There are a number of vibists working today, including Jason Adasiewicz, Joel Ross, Stu Katz, and Thaddeus Tukes. By comparison, beefy Wolf is economical when it comes to using his body to propel the mallets over, under, sideways, and down. That should not be taken to mean that he doesn’t achieve a powerful and appealing sound, which was true of each player on the stage tonight. He might be dubbed the Gentle Giant.

Aside from his tale about Wolf, Diehl did a nice job last night giving us a preview of what he and his friends would be up to tonight. In fact, Diehl’s comments between numbers echoed much of what he said last night. He is a teacher at heart.

And so, we were treated to an evening of music that brought the Modern Jazz Quartet decades of acclaim, as well as fame and fortune. Diehl and Company began with a standard composed by MJQ pianist John Lewis entitled Two Bass Hit. From there, I largely lost track of the song names. For me, the most notable song came toward the end of the evening when Diehl announced that the group would be performing a selection by Brazilian guitarist Laurindo Almeida, who joined with the MJQ to record an album entitled Collaboration. I was familiar with two albums by Almeida entitled Brazilliane, Volumes 1 and 2. My old friend Ron Cuzner, a noted late night jazz DJ who hosted the Dark Side for years turned me onto to those albums. Once again, Almeida’s work proved worthy.

During the middle of the concert, Diehl and company decided to explore the four numbers paying homage to Bach that the MJQ recorded on an album entitled, Blues on Bach. The group took on Blues in B Flat, Blues in A Minor, Blues in C Minor, and Blues in H (B). Of course, it was readily apparent how the MJQ melded jazz and classical music. Who doesn’t like the Blues and who doesn’t like Bach?

The concert lasted a bit longer than the typical concert in the Logan jazz series, with the group even coming back for an encore, playing a selection off Diehl’s new album entitled the Journeyman.

It was an evening of straight-ahead jazz played by four exceptional musicians. I had encouraged my friend Jeff Sosman to attend, We go back to the 4th Grade, and traveled together in 1975 to New York to attend the Newport Jazz Festival where we saw the likes of Sarah Vaughn, Eubie Blake, Sonny Stitt, James Moody, Charles McPhersion, Charles Mingus, Keith Jarrett, Dianna Ross, Teddy Wilson, David Bromberg, Bill Evans, and Count Basis, among dozens of other great musicians. At the end of tonight’s concert, Jeff said to me, “Thanks for telling me to come to this. It was really great. For once I didn’t fall asleep,” which pretty much sums up the evening. Although the music was low-key in terms of volume, it’s intricacy required a level of attention that made it impossible to doze off.

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