The 28th Annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival was a groovy hang, the kind of place where a reviewer could get the set list for the performance by Branford Marsalis by simply seeking out the green room afterwards, where Marsalis might verbalize it for him, with commentary.
“We’ve never played out here before, but it’s beautiful,” the 65-year-old saxophonist said. “I’d come here again, with my girlfriend, and spend a week, we could hang out and go to the wineries.”
Plenty of patrons were spending the better part of the festival’s ten days at a few of those nearby wineries and at bars, restaurants, and other spots around the Sonoma County town, listening to a bounty of vocalists, including Cécile McLorin Salvant, Lisa Fischer, Jackie Ryan, Nicolas Bearde, Tiffany Austin, and Lavay Smith. And to an attractive and varietal array of instrumentalists and ensembles, from Charles Lloyd, George Cables, Bobby Watson, and Benny Green to Howard Wiley, Sullivan Fortner, the Jazz Mafia, Brazilian Hamilton de Holanda, and Healdsburg’s own Jazz Choir and Freedom Jazz Choir.
Marsalis’s Friday evening gig was set at the Bacchus Landing collective of wineries. Seated in a courtyard in front of the stage, the mostly older audience seemed the sort whose taste buds would want them sampling the delicious reds and whites along with their jazz. Marcus Shelby, serving the festival as artistic director and peripatetic bass player, took the mike to acknowledge the event’s founder Jessica Felix, as well as Marsalis, “whose music inspired me to pick up the bass and follow this.” He was followed by KCSM Radio DJ Greg Bridges, who reminisced about legendary Bay Area jazz venues and assured that Marsalis “will continue to make sure it’s always swingin’.”
The eldest Marsalis brother had visited the Bay Area regularly and had personally recommended the late fellow saxophonist Andrew Speight to the music faculty at San Francisco State University, where Speight in turn established a residency for Marsalis. At Bacchus, the quartet started with the leader on soprano on “The Mighty Sword.” “It gives us a sense of what the audience wants,” the saxophonist said later about this number by their pianist, Joey Calderazzo. Indeed, it warmed up the early evening hour with a Sonny Rollins-esque energy, everyone in on the joy.
“Conversation Among the Ruins” is also a Calderazzo tune, a ballad, fitting the feel of the cool wind off the vineyards. The pianist’s solo was in the right place but wasn’t particularly innovative, and the piece should have found a place for the emotive standup bass player, Eric Revis. Sweetness was added from both Marsalis’s soprano and avians high above the stage, and Justin Faulkner decorated the delicacy on drums.
Marsalis later described “There Ain’t No Sweet Man Worth the Salt of My Tears” as “just danceable, swinging with a great melody. It just has this happy energy.” Taking up his tenor sax, he gave them a jump blues, transporting them from their bourgie Northern California winery to a Prohibition speakeasy in the Big Easy, powered by Revis’s sassy bass and powdered by Faulkner’s wistful brushes. This seemed to inspire Calderazzo to fanciful fingerings with great left-hand support. Faulkner took an extended solo full of surprises.
“And we followed that with a Keith Jarrett ballad, as a good offset,” Marsalis reflected about “Long as You Know You’re Living Yours.” This was another pastel of slow regard, sparingly illuminated, like the clouds hanging to the north. Sustaining the sentiment on tenor, Marsalis was prettily paced by Faulkner, with Revis meditating lyrically on bass and Calderazzo arpeggiating enchantingly. Marsalis’s own solo evoked the singing-seeking rapture of John Coltrane, whose centenary was commemorated here as elsewhere.
“In the Crease,” a Marsalis original, had everyone feeling the fun. Calderazzo wielded his worth as a combination of alt-chord juggler and propellent percussionist. Displaying their way of working variation within a single number, the sax, bass, and drums recycled a catchy phrase, and were then joined by the piano. Faulkner seemed to presage July 4thpyrotechnics, while the whole ensemble celebrated the joy of Juneteenth.
For a finish, they were joined by veteran vocalist Kurt Elling, who on the previous day had headlined Bacchus with the Marcus Shelby Orchestra and had graced a VIP meet-and-greet. The singer and saxophonist had settled on “As Long as You’re Living” for the surprise appearance, though it took some research to find the charts and the fascinating collection of creatives who’d written the song: Julian Priester, Tommy Turrentine, and Oscar Brown, Jr. In 5/4 time, the merriness moved along from one player to another. The crowd was rightfully pleased.
Afterwards in the green room, where Marsalis was decanting a bottle of delectable Aldina Cabernet Sauvignon, the wisecracking Elling said, “I’m thunderstruck by the level of playing in this band! But I can’t really work under these conditions. However, the wine always helps.”
