It's a shame saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc doesn't (or doesn't have the
opportunity to) spend more time leading large ensembles. Shame because,
while he can play fast and free as well as 100 other players in this
town (and better than another 1,000), he's a hell of a bandleader, and
not in the overwraught post-Trane mold. He swings slow and sweet, crazy
bluesy. He knows that the music didn't start with Ascension but
goes back at least to Ellington and up through Ornette, and isn't just
jazz but Big Joe Williams and T-Bone Walker too.
Or at least he seems to, but it doesn't matter what he's got in his
record collection. Wherever it comes from, we need more like him: more
bandleaders that can get the music to the point where they just smile
and clap in rhythm.
Moondoc arrnaged a great octet for this free show in an East Village
community garden (his second in what he said will be an annual event),
with Roy Cambell and Nathan Breedlove on trumpets, Steve Swell on
trombone and Zane Massey and Michael Marcus on saxophones, with a
rhythm section comprised of drummer Reggie Nicholson, bassist William
Parker and Bern Nix on guitar, And yes, just like the old days, the
guitar was a part of the rhythm section.
Nix was also the sweet spot. While he's probably best known for his
seat in Ornette Coleman's Prime Time through the '80s, Nix was almost
miscast in that band. He's more at home with chordal accents, and is
generally seen around town playing standards. Something happened in the
last couple decades where all the jazz guitarists either crank what
their mamas gave 'em through a rack of distortion or think they're
something special in saying they play their instrument like a saxophone
when God knows we already have enough saxophonists. Nix kicks it with
the high hat and lets his big old hollow body ring.
The group presented two rolling, composed suites in two brief sets,
illumed by porch lights with the hanging willow branches that let you
know you're in Alphabet City brushing the tops of their heads. "That
was easily recognizeable as blues, right?" Moondoc said after they
played a piece called "Blues for You, Blues for your Mama and Daddy
Too," although the question really didn't need to be asked. After a
cold and rainy week, the clouds relented for an end-of-the-summer
party, complete with a keg and watermelon. And Jemeel Moondoc, ever in
a fashionable hat, was the perfect host.
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