The 11th annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival kicks off tomorrow with a typically packed schedule of diverse sounds, focusing on some of the city’s most important and creative forces while making room for a selective smattering of national and international attractions. In this week’s paper I highlighted a couple of duo performances by Nick Mazzarella & Tomeka Reid and Andrew Cyrille & Bill McHenry, but naturally there’s much more that’s worth your time.
From the Granary by Ben Goldberg Later on Saturday evening trumpeter Jeremy Pelt performs with his strong working band from New York. In January the group dropped a smoldering, hard-driving album called Make Noise! (HighNote) with his young band—pianist Victor Gould, bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Jonathan Barber, and percussionist Jacquelene Acevedo—that presents a group working solidly in mainstream turf, updating the fiery work of 70s titans like Woody Shaw and Freddie Hubbard for the present day. Pelt possesses a big, burnished tone and he rides the enhanced grooves carved out by his propulsive percussionists with ease. On a chill groove track like “Prince” he deftly melds lyric beauty and nonchalant rhythmic acuity, while his Harmon-muted tenderness on “Chateau D’eau” evokes the fragile beauty of early Miles Davis. Below you can check out video of a live performance of the album’s title track from this year’s Montreal Jazz Festival.
