In a crowded late-night restaurant overlooking Lake Maggiore, in the southern tip of Switzerland`s Ticino region, Mickey Barthelemy sat with friends and fanned herself with a menu. ”It`s as hot here as it is in New Orleans,” she said with a touch of amazement.
She should know. Barthelemy is-in the language of Ascona-the ”prima dama di New Orleans,” the wife of the Crescent City`s mayor. But although she was referring to the tableside temperature, she might just as well have been speaking of the musical surroundings: the 15th annual Festa New Orleans Music. For 10 days at the beginning of July, dozens of bands, comprising more than 200 musicians, take over this quiet resort town, appearing on six stages on or near the lakefront. All the music is free-the festival`s principal sponsors include a bank and a cigarette company-and it drew an estimated 120,000 visitors to Ascona (population: 5,000).
Throughout the often-surprising European summer jazz-fest circuit, nothing is more incongruous than this paean to New Orleans. The music includes traditional jazz (otherwise known as Dixieland) as well as such modern forms as electric blues, R & B, gospel and zydeco, but the common denominator is New Orleans: The musicians live there or else play in one of the styles inextricably bound to that city.
Thus, a New Orleans band such as Rockin` Dopsie and his Zydeco Twisters, which graced this year`s Chicago Blues Festival, rubs shoulders with the band led by Kenn Lending, a Swedish guitarist who can match up with some of the world`s best electric blues players. On one stage, an ambulatory listener could hear Oliver Morgan, whose records in the `60s made him a pioneer of the modern New Orleans R & B sound, before wandering over to hear the solid strains of Rudy Balliu`s Society Serenaders, a Dutch outfit with an admirable grasp of the earliest New Orleans sound.
Some groups crossed time streams in a manner that could only prove objectionable to purists. A case in point: the ensemble led by the
octogenarian trombonist Louis Nelson, a former sideman of the great New Orleans clarinetist George Lewis. Nelson`s band included European reedman Sammy Rimington, whose solos can combine the rigors of the traditional jazz genre with a comparatively modernist sensibility. And throughout the festival`s 10-day run, the sounds of a marching brass band could be heard snaking through the streets of Ascona (there were three such bands in attendance).
The one-man gang behind this outpouring of music is Hannes Anrig, a 48-year-old graphics designer and trumpet player who has rigidly adhered to his concept. In fact, Anrig`s devotion to an ideal might even be considered a bit too rigid: Even though he focuses on the sounds of New Orleans, none of the modern jazz sounds of that city, as exemplified by such musicians as Wynton and Branford Marsalis or the fine pianist David Torkanowsky, were on display. Nevertheless, one is inclined to admire Anrig for remaining true to his original vision.
The large and delighted crowds stood as testimony to that vision-and yet, one afternoon late in the festivel, Anrig was clearly perturbed as he sat with friends near the Festa office. The promoter also ships some of the bands he hires to other European venues, and he had experienced a number of delays and logistical problems in northern Italy. All the arrangements had been secured well in advance and the concerts in other parts of Switzerland had gone without a hitch, but Italy is . . . well, Italy, where smooth sailing is not an overriding goal.
Anrig`s over-the-border difficulties point up Ascona`s (and the entire Ticino region`s) most intriguing aspect: The confluence of Italian culture with Swiss temperament. The primary language, the cuisine, and the physical surroundings-from Lago Maggiore to the cobbled piazzas that dot the town to the valley roads through the neighboring mountains-are those of northern Italy. But Ticino is still a Swiss canton: The trains run on time and the people go to bed before dawn.
Such is not always the case in Perugia, Italy, the site of Umbria Jazz, which has become one of the most significant summer jazz parties in Europe. This year, after-hours jam sessions led by saxist Ralph Moore and a wonderful young trumpeter, Roy Hargrove, frequently ran past 7 a.m. These sessions followed the nightclub performances, which break up around 3 each morning and that are the heart of Umbria`s importance. And these in turn followed the mainstage concerts, which began at 9 each evening and featured headlining groups from the summer-fest tour.
This year, Umbria Jazz, which concluded its 10-day run July 16, was the scene of knock-`em-dead performances by Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie with Phil Woods, and the Mingus Superband, a star-studded ensemble dedicated to tunes written by the late Charles Mingus.
There was also a Chicago night, and this was decidedly not knock-`em-dead material. The evening paired the classic jazz-and-blues singer Joe Williams, a native son of the Windy City, with the Jazz Members Big Band, a collaboration that already has taken place at the Chicago Jazz Festival. But Williams sounded old, and the Jazz Members, inexplicably slated after Williams and his trio had performed an hour, played with neither distinction nor emotional immediacy.
The Umbria stage-monitor system may have played a part. Throughout the festival, performers seemed to be having trouble hearing themselves on stage, and this may have explained why the Jazz members` vocalist, Frieda Lee, experienced what could charitably be called ”adventures in pitch.”Whatever the reason, ”Chicago Night at Umbria Jazz” proved disappointing to anyone familiar with the band`s work.
Umbria Jazz will be reciprocally presented at this year`s Chicago festival by the Giovanni Tommaso Quintet, which also played at Umbria. The band was undermined by members of a rhythm section completely at odds with one another. (So different are the pulses of the pianist, drummer, and leader Tommaso, they often sound as if they are playing in three different bands.)
Two other Chicagoans-guitarist Fareed Haque and drummer Mark Walker-made excellent contributions to the band led by the Cuban-born saxist Paquito D`Rivera, which proved to be the hottest ticket among the nightclub bands at Perugia. Umbria Jazz is unique in re-creating a jazz-strip setting in addition to the large-scale concerts that characterize most jazz festivals: at six locations within a few blocks of each other, the music begins at midnight, and each locale features one group for the run of the festival. The effect is that of a small portion of Greenwich Village magically transported to the Appenine mountains, where Perugia sits.
In addition to D`Rivera, this year`s midnight shows offered Carmen McRae, the Moore-Hargrove Generations Sextet, and the Pizzarelli family guitar trio. The indisputable highlight was found in the Forum, a Perugia disco made into a jazz club for the festival where the impressive pianist Mulgrew Miller headed up a new quartet. With Steve Nelson on vibes, this band played long songs, stretched into labyrinthine solos, and was everything a late-night club band should be.
But even they couldn`t stretch things longer than ”Gospel Is Alive in New Orleans,” a presentation of three groups at the central Morlacchi Theater. There, surrounded by the opulence of an 18th Century teatro, audiences of 400 or more young Italians routinely rocked through the morning to the sounds of 20th Century sanctified soul.
