by Steven Pisano
With members hailing originally from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Israel, and across the U.S., the lineup of the all-star SF Jazz Collective brings an international flavor to their fluid and thoughtful style of post-bop jazz. Their mastery was in full force at their recent week-long residency at Jazz Standard; I caught them last Friday.
Formed in San Francisco in 2004, the Collective features a revolving membership. Each year, their repertoire includes one new piece from each of its eight members, and the balance features the work of an earlier jazz great. This year’s honoree is tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, who recorded albums for Blue Note in the 1960s and Verve in the 1990s.
There is a Latin splash to the current configuration of the Jazz Collective – though it's more like adding some salsa picante to an existing dish. Robin Eubanks, widely regarded as one of the finest trombonists of his generation, took something of a back seat to the leads set by Edward Simon on piano, David Sanchez on tenor sax, and Miguel Zenon on alto.
Zenon plays his sax while standing almost statue-still. If you watched him play, but somehow turned down the sound, you’d wonder if he was playing at all, except for those swarming fingers which move over the tabs on his horn like ants at the entrance to their nest.
Then again, you’d simply be downright loco to turn down the volume. You want to crank it up, man! As they used to say back in the day: This cat can blow!
Zenon’s solos on “Evolution” (written by trumpeter Avishai Cohen) and Henderson's “Jinrikisha” exploded and spread into the room like the waves of heat from a nuclear reaction. Of course, I’m willing to bet that if you took Zenon’s pulse even when he is playing at full tilt, it would be no more than an athlete’s 40 beats per minute. Instead, it was the audience that was sweating.
By way of contrast, Edward Simon, was peaceful and confident on the piano; I could imagine him playing meditative organ music in a big church. Playing next to Simon, vibraphonist Warren Wolf was also very cerebral and serene in his playing. It was as if stage right–Simon on piano, Wolf on vibes, and Matt Penman on bass–was the thinking side of the band, all cool, deliberate, and intellectual, while stage left–Sanchez and Zenon on saxes and Obed Calvaire on drums–was the wild and unbridled heart, the raw emotional side. And, in the middle, steady and measured, with a little dash of both, were Eubanks on trombone and Cohen on trumpet.
Another highlight of the set was drummer Obed Calvaire’s “Absolvents,” which he said was written after some family friction. The piece included chaotic drum rhythms, changing musical directions, and smooth phrasings on saxophone, indicating a mutual forgiveness in the end between father and son.
(Photos by Steven Pisano)