The Lynne Arriale Trio (with Omer Avital on bass, Anthony Pinciotti on drums) finished up its late winter tour as the guest artists of the Third Sunday Jazz Series, held in the late 19th century elegance of the Redstone Center and sponsored by Polyrhythms, an arts advocacy organization affiliated with the Quad Cities Jazz Festival, based across the river in East Moline, IL. The building itself is a work of art, originally housing Peterson’s Department Store and now a combination bar and grill, Mississippi River music history gallery, and multi-use performance space. And from talking with Nate Lawrence, head of Polyrhythms, it was also clear that this monthly jazz series stands in sharp counterpoint to the traditional jazz fare of the renowned Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Festival. (Who expected jazz politics here in “River City?”)

 

The usual format for Third Sundays is an afternoon workshop geared toward students and families, followed by an early evening (6-8 pm) performance that also begins with a pre-concert talk. You can’t come away from Third Sundays without learning something, and this format truly enhances enjoyment of the music. Once you have sung “Bye Bye Blackbird” with the Lynne Arriale Trio, how can you not feel a part of whatever else is on the set list? And as my friend John remarked at the end of the evening, “They practice what they preach!” The spontaneous communication, the collaborative storytelling, the give-and-take soloing that the Trio demonstrated a couple hours earlier were on full display throughout the evening performance.

 

If anyone in the evening audience expected to be a passive listener, Lynne Arriale dashed that expectation within the first thirty seconds of the pre-concert presentation. As she had done earlier at the workshop, she quickly engaged the audience in a call-and-response demonstration of basic rhythmic patters, adding in quick exercises in phrasing and some hints about the trio’s approach to what was to be their opening tune, the Stones’ “Paint It Black.” As the formal concert began, we were already primed to be carried away by the dark mood that hinted of North African winds and sand. The first set continued, drawing largely from Arriale’s recent quartet albums (Nuance and Convergence) that mix jazz standards, pop covers, and original works: The pianist’s feisty “Crawfish and Gumbo;” Blondie’s “Call Me” highlighted by Avital’s solo on melody; Lynne’s gorgeous “Dance of the Rain” featuring Avital soloing the intro on oud and Pinciotti’s tabla-like hand percussion; an appropriately sunny “Here Comes the Sun”; and a rousing “Night in Tunisia” filled with Arriale’s dizzying runs. Lynne sent her colleagues off stage and played two exquisite pieces from her newly released Solo (Motema, 2012). She gave Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes” a new bridge, a less straight interpretation than the recorded version; in he rendition of Monk’s “Evidence,” she inserted phrases that seemed classically derived, playfully countering the otherwise angular attack.

 

The second set included a pair from Nuance (Motema, 2009) – a pyrotechnic display from Pinciotti on Sting’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger;” and sheer elegance from all, particularly Avital, on “Ballad of the Sad Young Men." The telepathic interplay of the trio was at the forefront on the Lennon/McCartney classic, “Blackbird,” and Blue Mitchell’s “Funji Mama” closed the night as a calypso featuring a dancing discussion among bass and drums. But no matter the composition or arrangement, Lynne Arriale offered the songful viscosity that bound the three voices together in musical dialogue from start to finish, giving her cohorts plenty of space in which to build their own stories while masterminding the overarching plot and character development. And making it all seem so effortless, so spontaneous…so magical.

 

I could use more such Third Sundays in Davenport.

 

(Reposted from www.jazzink.com)