Jazz and Cuban sounds reign on Saturday night

20th July 2015   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

It’s always great to have a choice in many of life’s decisions — Creole gumbo or won ton soup? Chocolate or vanilla ice cream? Uptown or downtown? This Saturday night, July 25, two excellent musical options include modern jazz at Snug Harbor with saxophonist/clarinetist Victor Goines or Cuban music at the Prime Example with vocalist/guitarist/composer Vanito Brown.

When a musician like Goines returns home, a gig often feels more like a family reunion. It’s been a long time since Goines, who cultivated his musicianship and expertise as an educator here in New Orleans, left his home town first to further his education and then, in 1993, to join the Wynton Marsalis Septet and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He’s presently the director of jazz studies and professor of music at Illinois’ Northwestern University.

Goines is truly a jazz master whose quiet, unpretentious ways belie his power on the horn and the diversity of styles that he delivers on both tenor sax and clarinet. At Snug, Goines, who turns 54 in August, will lead a group of New Orleans musicians — pianist Michael Pellera, bassist Chris Severin and drummer Herlin Riley — with whom he’s performed many, many times through the decades. He and Riley also played and recorded together while members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Marsalis’ bands.

Familiarity often breeds a certain warmth and Goines is certainly at home on the Snug Harbor stage. Beyond standing there as leader, he spent years performing on that very spot blowing with the Ellis Marsalis Quartet. Expect jazz at its best.

Showtimes at Snug Harbor, 626 French­men Street, are 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
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Thursdays are usually the hot nights for special shows at North Broad Street’s Prime Example. This week, however, Saturday night also heats up with the arrival of vocalist/guitarist/composer Vanito Brown. He might remain best known to those hip to Cuban music as an original member of the innovative group Habana Abierto that formed in the early 1990s.

Known to be a high-energy entertainer who offers a taste of humor in his music — his photo suggests that — Vanito will be bringing in his own guitarist with percussion by Cuban-born, New Orleans resident Alexey Marti. That guarantees the rhythms will be spot on hot.

Showtimes at the Prime Example, 1909 N. Broad Street, are 8 pm and 10 pm.
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John Ellis & Double-Wide
Charm
(Parade Light Records)

Saxophonist John Ellis came to New Orleans in the 1990s to study at the University of New Orleans and Loyola University. The North Carolina native didn’t stay long but he made a big impact on this city’s jazz scene and New Orleans made a big impact on him. Though Ellis now lives in New York City, its influence and his connection with the Crescent City and its musicians continues today as heard on Charm, the third CD featuring his band Double-Wide. The name references having both an organ and sousaphone in the group. With the two instruments known for providing bass lines, finding them together is a rarity.

The instrumentation, membership and music on Charm reflects the duality of Ellis’ musical “citizenship.” As always for these projects, he called in sousaphone master Matt Perrine and drummer Jason Marsalis — the New Orleans side of the equation. Coming down for the recording session on Esplanade Avenue were New Yorkers trombonist Alan Ferber and organ/piano/accordion player Gary Varsace, both of whom are highly regarded on the jazz scene. Ellis stands as the central voice and the link between his two worlds.

Immediately it’s apparent that these guys are having fun playing together on an album filled with Ellis’ compositions. Charm begins brightly and with a somewhat old-school New Orleans flavor on “Booker,” a tribute to our own, pianist/composer James Booker. Humor and this city’s musical references are all over “High and Mighty” but none more so during Perrine’s solo. Marsalis shows his stuff on the tune’s staggered rhythms. Here’s some jazz that brings a grin — it’s both silly and studious.

Ellis, who has also recorded straight-up jazz as a leader and worked as a sideman with a number of luminaries including bassist John Patitucci, organist Dr. Lonnie Smith and keyboardist Robert Glasper, shows his affection for traditional New Orleans jazz by switching to the clarinet on the lovely “Horse Won’t Trot.”

Mid-album, things get wilder, more circus-like. “Charm Is Almost Always Sinister” has Ellis seemingly standing, ala a traffic cop, in the middle of a busy street — through all the action, he holds his own. Then the group takes to foreign shores with Varsace moving from organ to accordion.

Ellis and Double-Wide return to the States as the saxophonist opens “Better Angels” all alone. Ferber’s trombone joins him for a warmly contemplative duet. These two horn players are more than just compatible, they are one, throughout the album.

Next up is a funk/jazz number, “Barbed Wire Britches” (ouch!) that’s pure groove. Marsalis demonstrates that it’s possible — even desirable — to funk hard minus the heavy punch. The group then turns to a friendly, swaying blues.

If variety is, as they say, the spice of life, Charm is one peppery album.

This article originally published in the July 20, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.