Concert Review |

The big story at this year's Jazz Port Townsend — held last weekend in the Fort Worden balloon hangar called McCurdy Pavilion and at several Port Townsend clubs — was the world premiere of a work by Los Angeles composer Bill Holman for reed man Paquito D'Rivera.

The piece lived up to expectations and more at its Saturday afternoon debut. But a plain old-fashioned jam session that night was the festival highlight.

A bebopper's delight, the program featured an ad hoc group of musicians who had been teaching all week at a workshop that preceded the festival. Jokingly called an "8-Piece Sextet" (that ultimately had seven players — go figure), it fell effortlessly into a deep, toe-tapping groove.

The bespectacled, suit-clad drummer Matt Wilson had a lot to do with that, as he set a swingin' pace on Herbie Hancock's soulful shot, "Driftin'." D'Rivera, whose irresistibly silly humor fell somewhere between Dizzy Gillespie and Ricky Ricardo, pulled the crowd to its feet with a sparkling solo on "Corcovado." Trumpeter Terrell Stafford tore the lid off Gillespie's "Tour de Force" and Wilson answered with a solo that cleverly cast his bass drum against fields of silence. Pianist Benny Green rumbled over the edge of the earth into of the ether of pure sound.

Vibraphonist Stefon Harris and the Gerald Clayton Trio opened the Saturday night show with a mesmerizing set of deeply-layered, technically ferocious music that, while abstract, also connected emotionally. A physical player, Harris danced behind his vibes as if he were conjuring music out of the instrument rather than merely striking it.

The Saturday afternoon concert, though not as ecstatic, offered plenty. Holman's cagey, three-part concerto, "Northwest Passage," featured a stunning ballad movement for D'Rivera's silky alto saxophone sailing over the Centrum Faculty All-Star Big Band, conducted by festival artistic director John Clayton, Gerald's father. One gentleman left the pavilion whistling the last theme — a good measure of a new work's success — but "Northwest Passage" was difficult enough that even this crackerjack band gave it only a workmanlike reading.

John Clayton was a warm, welcoming presence as emcee.With an assist from muscular tenor saxophonist Pete Christlieb, the big band also played Clayton's new piece, "Joe Wheeler," which evoked the animated optimism of the late founder of Centrum, the nonprofit that presents the festival. The big band rounded out the program with more Holman works that featured silvery and dissonant crisscrossing melodies.

Sunny Wilkinson, a willowy Michigan vocalist, came across as trying a bit too hard, but had a nice moment on the ballad, "Charlie's Tune." The soulful yet mild tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm playfully tossed in quotes by everyone from Wardell Gray to George Gershwin when he joined Gerald Clayton on an opening set that evoked Miles Davis.

Out in the clubs, beanstalk-tall Christlieb and diminutive baritone saxophone dynamo Gray Smulyan made for a Mutt and Jeff bebop pair at the Public House, and pianist George Cables gave off a light, romantic air of well-being as he rhapsodized such standards as "I Thought About You" and "You Stepped Out of a Dream."

Artistic triumph was mirrored by excellent attendance, with the three pavilion concerts all sellouts or near-sellouts.

Paul de Barros: 206-464-3247 or pdebarros@seattletimes.com