JOE LOVANO LEADS A SPECTACULAR FACULTY CONCERT AT TOWSON
A truly stupendous concert happened on Dec. 4th. 2024, at Towson University, led by Joe Lovano, Grammy-award-winning saxophonist, composer, and producer and one of the towering figures of jazz in the 20th and 21st centuries. He had been serving a week-long Murray Jazz Residency with workshops, classes, and concerts. Towson alumnus Bill Murray founded the residency in 2008 to bring internationally acclaimed jazz and improvisation artists to the campus for a full week of engagement alongside the students of Towson University’s Department of Music.
With him on stage were eight other jazz jedi, all Towson jazz faculty – Dave Ballou (trumpet), Jim McFalls (trombone), Jason Rigby (tenor sax; Division Leader of Jazz at Towson U.), John Lee (guitar), Savino Palumbo (piano), Jeff Reed (bass), Mike Kuhl (drums) and Eric Kennedy (drums) – yes! two drummers! Lovano sometimes uses two drummers in his bands and recordings.
The band performed mostly Lovano compositions. Some had a strong groove; others were more freely structured, and even the groove-based tunes had spells of free improvisation, for which Lovano is known.
The frenetic “Topsy Turvy” included a solo by Ballou in which the melody leaped and bounded like antelopes across a savanna. “Our Daily Bread” was sweetly lyrical and prayer-like, true to its name. Lovano’s sax trilled, squeaked, and crooned; Reed’s bass solo was a tender, shadowy soliloquy; and the piano and guitar sang a lovers’ duet. Then Lovano drove the tune up to a high pitch of intensity, eventually bringing it down to a gentle landing like a swan on a still lake.
Perhaps the high point of the evening, for me and for many, was a piano solo by Palumbo on a tune called “Flights of Fancy.” After a quirky, angular opening segment by the four horns, the guitar set a mood fraught with mystery with erratic phrases like sentence fragments. The two drummers ramped up the piece to a Dionysian frenzy, as Lovano’s and McFalls’s instruments spoke in tongues in an overlapping duet.
Then Palumbo began his solo, very loosely in time, further conjuring the mysterious mood with deep, booming left-hand chords while his right hand traced melodic lines in exotic, Middle Eastern scales and then came crashing down with a series of dissonant chords that gave me chills. It was like a wild midnight ride through clouds and storm on the back of some mythical beast.
As the passionate applause to Palumbo’s solo died down, Lovano took over to ease the piece back into its groove, maintaining the sense of the esoteric and wound down the tune to a tranquil ending. Saxophonist Derrick Michaels, who was a fellow student with Palumbo at Towson and has known him for twenty years, wrote on Facebook, “The moment where I wiped tears away was after the deepest possible solo piano excursion from Savino Palumbo. [Lovano] floated back in with his horn with this gorgeous line, and the transition made my hair stand on end and absolutely took my breath away.” He surely spoke for many of us listening. As for Palumbo himself, he had this to say about playing the whole concert: “It was surreal. Comping behind a solo and looking up and remembering it’s Joe Lovano is pretty overwhelming.”
“One for Charlie,” inspired by Charlie Haden, would have made a good soundtrack for a spooky movie, with Lovano weaving a shamanic spell on a clarinet-like instrument called a tárogató, punctuated by plucked bass and various clicking and clacking sounds and shaken bells from the percussionists. The tárogató’s toots and tweets brought the tune into a rapid, anxious rhythm, like small, frightened creatures running through a forest. Likewise, John Coltrane’s “Spiritual” created a spacey mood, with a muted trumpet and tinkling notes on the piano. Then Lovano’s tárogató set up a frisky 6/8 groove, sparking visions of unearthly outer space beings dancing on a five-dimensional astral plane.
The final tune was “Blackwell’s Message.” My title would have been “Dixieland on Acid;” in fact, I could tack on the phrase, “On Acid” to the title of almost any of the tunes. All four horns went blazing on a second-line groove, and all the horns played loud hits like rush hour traffic in Manhattan over the guitar solo. Then Kennedy and Kuhl played a drum duet; Kuhl on the large toms and the bass; Kennedy hitting rims on the snare, with occasional crashing cymbal hits that made me jump out of my seat. As saxophonist Dan Wallace observed, “Thankfully both Eric and Mike are strong listeners and were easily able to make space for each other AND show their own personalities.” Then Lovano introduced each player as the instruments came back in, one by one.
Wallace commented, “Joe Lovano used his experience and love for the music … to push experienced professionals like the Towson jazz faculty into spaces where they were required to do something novel in their approach. The Towson faculty rose to the challenge…and a captivating set of music bloomed.”
Michaels’ post on Facebook called the concert “transcendent” and spoke of how hearing Joe Lovano once play at the Village Vanguard helped him (Michaels) get his musical career back on track after a hiatus in his early 20s. “I feel reborn this morning,” he wrote.
Saxophonist Gregory Thompkins, who was also in the audience, commented: “Joe Lovano’s performance ranged from the true jazz sounds of Coleman Hawkins to Coltrane and Ornette compositions with a world-class jazz faculty from Towson University! A stunning performance by all!”
This assessment was heartily seconded by the audience, with a standing ovation of sustained, rousing applause at the end of this spectacular performance. I had a chance to chat with Bill Murray at the concert. He remarked that it was great to see so many people at the concert and that he and his family are pleased to have been able to support the residency program, now in its 15th year. The Baltimore jazz community is grateful for the support of this excellent jazz program and the extraordinary talent in it.
–by Liz Fixsen
Liz Fixsen is a member of the board of the Baltimore Jazz Alliance. She edits and writes for the newsletter. She is also a semi-professional jazz pianist and vocalist, and a dedicated fan of jazz in Baltimore.