The Chan Centre for the Performing Art may be the most horrendous place for a big band to play at. Just imagine being in a cave with fourteen musicians and that’s kind of what you would hear.
On March 1st, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis dropped by Vancouver Canada. I figured this would be a great chance to see one of the most celebrated jazz musicians in the world so I sucked it up and paid the $85.50 for a ticket (this includes all of those stupid service charges… what is a “convenience charge” ($4.75)? Why do I have to pay a $2.75 order processing fee… and facility fees ($2.25)?). My goodness...
In the program notes it warns us… I mean, tells us that “the performance will be approximately 90 minutes with no intermission”. After reading this I was thinking… this is a bit of a gyp.
The concert started at 8:08. Lo and behold, the concert finished at 9:32… isn’t it amazing how Marsalis could time this so perfectly? There was an encore (small combo) for about 8 minutes… Marsalis blabbed between tunes for about a minute and a half each time… umm… this is a pretty damn short concert… probably about $1 a minute.
The music had some amazing playing (too bad it was all drowned out by the “boomy-ness” of the acoustics of the Chan Centre). There’s a reason why Wynton Marsalis is the leader of the group and his solos, while he was sitting on his bottom, were sensational (I think musicians, especially trumpet players tend to play better when standing up — I guess Marsalis is beyond that concept). Some of the sax solos were pretty uninspiring — you’re bound to hear better stuff in jazz clubs… the one big band trombone solo by Elliot Mason was basically inaudible due to the acoustics. The drummer, Ali Jackson, played well but I found him too polite. I would’ve rather heard something a bit more aggressive — in an Elvin Jones way considering the compositions that they were playing… the arrangements were excellent… they played tunes by Horace Silver, Larry Young, Wayne Shorter, Kenny Dorham, Jackie McLean, etc. I have a feeling these musicians were playing most of this stuff in their sleep.
How satisfied was I with this concert? Not very. I don’t think the musicians were hardly breaking out a sweat… the tunes that they were playing were all from “classic” Bluenote albums from the 60’ which I’ve heard countless times. I think Marsalis screwed up when he mentioned that Wayne Shorter played with the Jazz Messenger until 1963… wasn’t Free For All recorded in ’64? To be honest, I would have rather paid $85.50 towards a bunch of CDs on Amazon… the YouTube videos of this big band have much better sound quality than what I heard at the horrid Chan Centre. At the end of the concert, all of the musicians gave the audience a near 90 degree bow… talk about pseudo caring. Can’t you guys work a little harder for the overpriced ticket that I paid for?
Since The Cellar, what was Vancouver’s only full time jazz club, closed, I’m assuming the only way to see “famous” jazz musicians will be in concert halls. Jazz really is dead in this town… but at least the Vancouver audiences will always stand up at the end of concerts and give those visiting musicians… standing ovations.
