Jazz Abate-ment
Victoria Kingham enthuses about the unpretentious Greg Abate quartet at the Hastings Jazz Club.
Greg Abate has been on the American (and international) jazz scene since the 1970s, having spent time playing alto with the Ray Charles band, and many years teaching music and mentoring. He has a long list of collaborative and solo albums. This was the first of a two-week tour of England, with an excellent line-up. The gig consisted of fairly compact numbers and by the end of the evening, as the band merged into one through sheer enjoyment of what they were doing and how they were doing it, I was wishing for more. Abate displayed consummate skill on several Charlie Parker numbers; in the tradition of accomplished bebop players, his solos are littered with deft phrases from other tunes, so Crazeology echoed bits of Let’s Fall in Love; Quasimodo floated a few bars of Glenn Miller’s Starlight. In Abate’s own ‘On The Road’ I heard Softly As In a Morning Sunrise, and in the classic Joe Henderson Recorda-Me it was briefly Summertime.
CREDIT: Greg Abate
The great thing about quality quartets is the lack of written notation, so no music stands distance them from their audience. They know the tunes and they love them, so what they can concentrate on is the end result, the ensemble. Inevitably this brings a band closer to each other, to the music and to the listeners. John Pearce is one of Britain’s most respected pianists, in popular demand over many years, a veteran of admired british jazz bands. His solo on Parker’s Confirmation was especially lyrical, driven by the unfailing work of Alfonso Al Vitale on drums. Vitale showed himself wonderfully in control of both the melody and the rhythm during his solo breaks and throughout the evening. Simon Thorpe’s solid, classic, straight-ahead stand-up bass competed the quartet. Their fourth number, On The Road, was a fast 6/8 written by Abate, the only original composition of the evening, from his 2011 album dedicated to the great Horace Silver.
They worked within a framework which largely pays homage to bebop and hard bop. The essential nature of the jazz genre means that every performance of every composition is necessarily unique yet still allows for endless inventive freshness. Seven years ago, Abate recorded a live album, Kindred Spirits, with the legendary Phil Woods (then regrettably in the final year of his life) and it is easy to hear where Abate’s musical allegiance lies. So it was no surprise that the final number of the evening was the enduring Take Five – a nostalgic experience for me, and my first jazz record – with a coruscating alto break and a surprising, modal finale. A great evening: unpretentious jazz in the best tradition, by fine players.
• More information at: jazzhastings.co.uk/upcoming-gig
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A great article thst informed and inspired. I wish I’d been there.