May 29, 2009

Among the more ebullient moments in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s centennial tribute to Benny Goodman at the Rose Theater on Thursday night, one stood out decisively. It came at the start of the second half and featured not one but four clarinetists — Ken Peplowski, Ted Nash, Victor Goines and the evening’s musical director, Bob Wilber — playing tightly voiced enlargements of Goodman’s frolicsome phrasing.

The effect of this harmonization was crisp and sprightly, even if the device itself skirted jazz-repertory cliché. And when it was time for a round robin of solos, each musician offered his take on a signature style.

They weren’t the only ones. In the first half the venerable Buddy DeFranco attested to the far-reaching influence of Goodman’s instrumental voice.

“His impact was so strong,” Mr. DeFranco said, adding that he and most other jazz clarinetists owed an obvious debt. Then came a musical illustration, in the form of a Goodmanesque sextet romp through “I Surrender, Dear” and “After You’ve Gone.” Mr. DeFranco, 86, played expressively, acknowledging the nature of the role while maintaining his own more boppish identity.

But Goodman’s clarinet playing formed only part of the picture in a program equally devoted to the legacy of his big band. And here the concert showed its clear strengths, as the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra brought power and conviction to some of the swing era’s most durable arrangements. The unforced precision among the saxophone and brass sections was well met by the swinging ease of the rhythm section. A few designated soloists — notably the trumpeters Marcus Printup and Sean Jones, both charismatic in their upper registers — delivered compact, historically appropriate flashes of bravado.  Full Article…