This week at SF Jazz, we saw some jazzy classical and some classy classical jazz.
On Wednesday we saw the Calder Quartet with Christian McBride, performing Bartok's quartet nos. 1 and 4. The quartet played #1 themselves and it sounded amazing in Miner Auditorium. Then Christian McBride came out and improvised for awhile on his own, which was good as always even if a little incongruous for the program. All five came out for the second half of the show, which featured quartet #4. There are five movements, which were played just by the Calders, but in between each movement the Calders and/or Christian would play an interlude. They were some short early pieces by Bartok called Microcosmos, something by another composer I am spacing, and some improvisations as well. Finally, they all played Bartok' Romanian Dance together. All in all, a really nice program.
Last night, we saw The Cookers, and it is hard to imagine another group with this much jazz history on one stage today: Billy Hart (drums), Cecil McBee (bass), Eddie Henderson (trumpet), David Weiss (trumpet), Billy Harper (tenor sax), Donald Harrison (alto sax), and George Cables (piano). They were on fire from rehearsal (according to SF Jazz folks) through their two sets that totaled almost 2.5 hours. They are playing 11 cities in 14 days to promote their new album, which they pulled from for the second set. The first set had amazing renditions of Cecil McBee's Peace Maker, Billy Harper's Croquet Ballet (originally recorded with Lee Morgan), and a Freddie Hubbard tune. Powerful stuff that had some old timers in the audience fleeing due to high decibel levels and the blast of the trumpets and saxes. I was in the fourth row and leaned in most of the time. As an indication that this was a special night, Bobby Hutcherson was in attendance and stayed and clapped with his oxygen canula in place all the way through the incredible encore, Billy Harper's Priestess (with amazing bass intro by Cecil McBee and drum solo by Billy Hart). Seriously good stuff.