Double bills don’t get much better than this.
In a bit of programming kismet, the Symphony Center Presents Jazz season led off with defining quartets linked to still-more-defining saxophonists: Wayne Shorter, who died last year at 89, and Charles Lloyd, who is still very much with us at 86.
Shorter and Lloyd may not have shared stages, but they were — are — kindred questing spirits. Wherever jazz wound over the second half of the 20th century, Shorter, in most cases, was already there: fusion, free improvisation, even opera. Likewise, Lloyd, over the course of his multi-decade career, has traded jazz for the mountains of Big Sur and supporting roles with rock acts like the Beach Boys and The Doors. When Shorter died, Lloyd, in a statement, called him “a fellow explorer of the Inner and Outer Universe.” That just about sums it up.
Shorter may be gone, but bandmates Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade still safeguard his legacy. The most obvious path forward would have been to foreground Shorter’s absence by touring as a trio. (In the past, they have.)
Instead, they invited along Mark Turner, who, just like Shorter, traded off tenor and soprano all set long. That might sound like a lot of pressure, but then, this was no tribute band. The set focused less on Shorter’s ultra-hits — a zany “Witch Hunt” aside — and more on material he honed with the quartet, some of which is documented on the posthumous “Celebration: Vol. 1.” Besides, as had been convention for the quartet long before his passing, Shorter’s originals were so refracted, reimagined and reconfigured as to sound like new tunes, porously flowing from one to the other without break.
Turner didn’t bother trying to play like Shorter, because that wasn’t the point. He still made off as the set’s understated hero, whether leading or supporting. Turner’s clever but coolheaded feints on the bandstand also clearly thrilled his colleagues, who grinningly ricocheted off him.
Pérez assumed the closest thing to a bandleader role all evening, trading between a Yamaha grand and petite keyboard with an electric-guitar howl. Before “Lost,” he even memorably duetted with himself, playing the piano keys with his right hand and plucking its strings with his left.
But what gave this set its lasting glow was its effortless parity. All musicians soloed and supported equally, and sometimes simultaneously. If someone was backing, they were always, always on the move, whether that was Blade’s joyous eruptions behind the kit or Patitucci’s sophisticated chromaticism. At the set’s middle, an especially humbling feat of synchronicity saw the quartet totally break down their tune — a glittering, gorgeous dissolution. But after the destruction, they rebuilt with terraced, modulating chords, like a gospel band at church pushing themselves to the brink. The moment was near-spiritual itself.
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In a parallel to the Shorter legacy quartet’s set, Lloyd’s, after intermission, also put a premium on numbers recently recorded on “The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow” rather than vintage fare — though those still cropped up, like “Dream Weaver” and “Zoltan.”
His crack band was somewhere between the one on “The Sky” album and his usual quartet. Blade, who covers drums on the album, clearly already had his hands full that evening, so Eric Harland, Lloyd’s usual quartet colleague, stepped in and seized a big, multilayered drum solo at set’s middle. Jason Moran was, for this show, supplanted by the bristling pianism of Aaron Parks, who was behind some of the set’s most daring solos. Larry Grenadier held down upright bass with his usual rugged, sagacious eloquence.
Lloyd was a moving contrast to Turner: Where Turner’s tenor was glassy and pensive, Lloyd’s sounded more unfiltered, sanded by decades of experience on the bandstand. His stamina belied his age, starting off with a long-spun fantasy over Parks’ shimmering chords that quickly brought the set to cruising speed. The entire evening was an education in playing outside — Grenadier at one point tossed in a descending whole-tone scale against the rest of the band, and Parks stretched his changes like putty behind the keys.
Later, Lloyd switched to mellow-voiced alto flute in “Booker’s Garden,” roving into a percussive hip hop/R&B feel. At one point, Lloyd set down the flute to rattle a set of shakers under the lid of the piano as Parks pounded out an intense solo. Harland subtly varied his snare groove underneath.
The evening adjourned with “La Llorona” and a pet peeve. Parks took the opening soliloquy on piano, making it a thing of rousing, wailing melancholy. The rest of the band tucked in, with Lloyd arriving last. Spurred by Harland, the band swelled to their breaking point, like lungs reaching capacity. But on the tune’s long exhale — a gradual, thoughtful dying away— applause washed over, then overwrote, the final decay.
It was well-deserved but premature, given the effect the band was going for. Why the hurry? Luckily for us all, Charles Lloyd isn’t going anywhere yet.
Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.
