JAZZ REVIEW : KLON’s Blue Note Celebration Has Its Share of Problems

Starting a little late (the promoters were no doubt waiting for a larger crowd that failed to show), the first of three concerts in KLON-FM’s celebration of the Blue Note Records semicentennial got under way at the John Anson Ford Theatre on Sunday afternoon beneath a blazing sun.

Ralph Peterson, the drummer-composer whose quintet played the opening set, displayed an adventurous musicality in his writing, which leans to odd meters (“Monief” was in alternating bars of 5/8 and 7/8), tempos that slow down and speed up, and structures that are asymmetrical, as in the first piece, “Enemy Within.” This was notable mainly for the piano solo by Geri Allen, whose power and sensitivity are the group’s most valuable element.

The most accessible piece was a blues, “Bebopskerony,” with fine work by the cornetist Graham Haynes (son of the drummer Roy Haynes) and saxophonist Greg Osby. Phil Bowler is an admirable bassist, but Peterson’s explosive drumming rendered him inaudible much of the time.

The Blue Note All-Stars was composed of eight musicians who, somewhere along the way (in most cases decades ago), recorded for the label. They played a major and a minor blues, a somewhat ragged ballad medley in which the innovative impulses of trumpeter Charles Tolliver and trombonist Curtis Fuller seem to have been dulled by the heat, and a few bop standards to which pianist Walter Bishop Jr., guitarist Tal Farlow and alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson applied their veteran chops.

James Moody broke it up with his “Moody’s Mood for Love” vocal and was at his creative, pulsating peak on tenor sax.

The concert, in a half-full 1,300-seat theater, ground to a halt when Wayne Shorter’s 5 p.m. set failed to start; his musicians could not be found. Because of a 6 p.m. curfew, his projected hourlong set was, predictably, shorter. At 5:25 he began playing in duo format with pianist Mitch Forman; at 5:30 the bassist and drummer, John Patitucci and Terri Lyne Carrington, were setting up on stage while Shorter’s soprano wailed its way through “Stella by Starlight.”

What there was of the Shorter Quartet had some valuable moments, particularly during his best-known piece, “Footprints,” but it was too little and too late. One can only hope that the next two Sunday concerts, with a strong lineup of names, including Art Blakey, Bobby Hutcherson and Horace Silver, will be better attended and organized.