The Apollo Theater is the most renowned music hall on the planet. So to say the recent celebration of “Jimi Hendrix in Harlem” should be added to the best performances to hit that world famous stage is a big deal.
The bar was set extremely high, dating back to 1934, when the jazz singer and Broadway star Adelaide Hall first brought a show-stopping blaze to the stage. From that point on it became the reservoir where talent soared and reputations became revered.
If you haven’t played the Apollo, you need to keep your wishing cap on.
Fishbone, the hard-edged late 1970s Black rock group, served as the evening’s house band. Like Hendrix, they have that funky edge, allowing listeners nowhere to run but smack into the rocket-funk of it all.
The soul rockers included the bassist John Norwood Fisher, vocalist/trumpeter Walter Kibby, trombonist/vocalist/keyboardist Christopher Dowd, guitarist Kendall Jones and vocalist/saxophonist/leader Angelo Moore.
The guitarist Ernie Isley, singer Nona Hendryx and the young 12-year-old guitarist Brandon “Taz” Niederauer joined the blast with Fishbone on a riotous rendition of “If 6 Was 9.”
Most are familiar with the talents of Hendryx and Isley, but the young prodigy Taz invited the audience into his own little rock garden. “Hey, who’s the kid?” someone asked. Put him in that category with the young drummer Kojo Roney and pianist/composer Joey Alexander. Now that would be a frightening trio of youngsters.
At 10 years old Taz played with the Gregg Allman Band and has since hit the scene with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Trombone Shorty, Jon Batiste and Eric Gales. Currently he is on Broadway in the production “School of Rock.”
The vocalists Liv Warfield, Alice Smith and Saul Williams put their twists on tunes such as “I Don’t Know What You Got But It Got Me,” “Dolly Dapper,” “Have Mercy” and “Dancin All Over the World.” The guitarist Gary Lucas was also a high note at the party.
Fishbone raised the flames with an original tune “Psychologically Overtime,” and their fiery version of Curtis Mayfield’s “Freddy’s Dead.” Everyone joined the finale with “Johnnie B. Good,” a Hendrix staple made famous by Chuck Berry.
The concert’s “Hendrix contemporaries and those inspired by his Legacy” arrived on the Apollo stage ready to captivate and invigorate a passionate audience to kiss the sky.
Witnessing the Antoinette Montague Experience allows for a tingling audience baptism in the religion of blues and jazz, as those in the audience declared after her recent appearance at the New York Bahai Center/John Birks Gillespie Auditorium.
For this outing she was accompanied by the other members of her versatile trio, the pianist/composer Danny Mixon and bassist Melissa Slocum, along with a heightened rhythmic swing from Cecilia Coleman’s big band.
The trio opened with “Let the Good Times Roll,” a furious up-tempo fling with Montague’s mid-timbre vocals spicing it up with a burst of blues. Mixon’s pearly keys were pulsating as Slocum stayed deep with a moving melodic beat.
Coleman took the piano seat as her big band eased into the standard “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” Montague wrapped herself in the song’s softness and let the lyrics flow as her own story unfolded with a jaunting soulful swing.
Like Shirley Horn, Etta Jones or Luther Vandross, she can take a well-traveled song and make it her own, as she did with her evening’s repertoire, including “East of the Sun.”
As a commentary on today’s political front, Montague and the trio journeyed into a folk jazz version medley of “If I Had a Hammer” which segued into the civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome,” and then “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round,” as Mixon went into Baptist Church mode with heavy foot-stomping melodies.
Her “Jazz Woman to the Rescue” tribute to children of all ages and dedicated to “super sheroes” included pieces from “A Tisket a Tasket” and Louie Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”
At one point, she ran up the aisle as her colorful dress flowed in the breeze resembling a bright jazz comet. Montague’s name is a household word here in the tristate area and it continues to spread with her international performances.
Randy Weston, the composer, African historian and African jazz griot who keeps the jazz world connected to the roots of the ancestors, is having yet another blessed year (He clarifies with wisdom that each year since his birth has been a blessed year).
He celebrated his 90th birthday April 6. At the beginning of the year he became the Medgar Evers College first inaugural Artist-in-Residence 2016-2017. He will conduct five master classes that recently included the pianists and composers Eddie Palmieri and Muhal Richard Abrams.
These master classes assist Weston in exposing the students to the importance of jazz and its roots in the United States, Africa and the world.
In recognition of Weston’s archives being acquired by Harvard University, a celebration was recently held at the prestigious university last month. Ingrid Monson, Quincy Jones Professor of African-American Music, stated, “The documentation of Weston’s life comes in all forms from his African-American community to the world around him and standing up for what’s right. It is a study in both the cultural history of America in the mid-1950s and the inner workings of a musical master.”
The comprehensive archive contains hundreds of manuscripts, scores, videos, films, photographs and more than 1,000 tape recordings. “Africa is not the geographic area that people occupy,” said Weston. “It is the spirit of our ancestors. So to me, I never left home.”
Earlier last month, for his contribution to the world of jazz and pan-Africanism, Weston was awarded the Legacy Award, along with others that included Hugh Masekela and Brooklyn’s Viola Plummer, activist and owner of Sistas’ Place.
The awards presentation was part of the fourth annual State of Black World Conference (dedicated to the memory of Amiri Baraka) held in Newark, N.J. The honorary chairman of the five-day event was Danny Glover, and it was coordinated by Dr. Ron Daniels, president of Institute of the Black World 21st Century.
Weston’s definitive CD, “The African Nubian Suite,” will be released early 2017. It is the most important music to be released in years from a culturally historical perspective.