02/12/12

The Jazz Cruise: Hanging around the Crow’s Nest, Jan. 29 - Feb. 5, 2012

Lee Mergner reports from 7-day festival on cruise ship

By Lee Mergner

Since 1999, Anita Berry and her son Michael Lazaroff have been chartering ships to produce a cruise that is totally immersed in jazz from bow to stern. The 2012 Jazz Cruise, following two Smooth Jazz Cruises that sailed the two weeks before, was a huge success, with all the cabins sold out and every one by jazz people. The Jazz Cruise, which programs a wide range of mainstream and acoustic jazz, has a very loyal and dedicated audience who come for the music and the company. Like a festival on the sea, the cruise features live jazz from noon to past midnight each and every day. Artists or groups play at least four different times, so that if you missed, say, Houston Person on Monday at 9 p.m., you can catch him on Thursday at 7 p.m. There certainly were times where you simply could not get a seat to see a particular show, but inevitably you had another chance to see that artist in a different venue or with a less packed audience. Just looking at the schedule, you can see what a programming jigsaw puzzle it is for the producers. In the end, more than 1,800 attendees were treated to more than 100 performances by roughly the same number of musicians, including artists as young as Emmet Cohen or Tommy Igoe and as old as Jimmy Heath or Benny Golson. That is, indeed, quite a festival, on sea or elsewhere. And you didn’t even have to find a place to park or tromp through the mud (sorry, JazzFest in NOLA; we still love you).

Throughout the week, my much better half and I set up a makeshift studio in the “Boardroom” a small meeting room where we taped a succession of interviews with artists (including Kurt Elling, John Pizzarelli, Freddy Cole, Ann Hampton-Callaway, Randy Brecker, Wycliffe Gordon, Jeff Hamilton, Kirk Whalum and more than a dozen more), as well as the cruise organizers Lazaroff and Berry, Berks Jazz Fest Director John Ernesto and producer Todd Barkan, who was onboard to present a jazz film and video series. The interviews will be edited into segments for JT’s Youtube channel as well as for jazztimes.com. We asked artists to talk about their impressions of the cruise, their own jazz and music education and even their first paying gig. Many recalled their first musical payday of as little as $15 as akin to winning the lottery. And, as far as impressions of the cruise, the recurring theme was the sense of camaraderie and community amongst the musicians, who reveled in spending the week together.

The musicians weren't the only ones who dug hanging out with their own kind. The passengers were as pleased to talk jazz with each other as they were to speak to their musical heroes. All week I overheard stories about great shows, albums and encounters. The jazz aficionados aboard seemed to be the biggest fans from their particular town or region, and they literally wore their love for the music on their sleeve, with shirts of every size, shape and style from previous cruises or from their local festival or radio station. It didn’t matter that the median age was somewhere between 70 and deceased; jazz-themed T-shirts reigned supreme, at least during the day. Evening wear was a bit more formal most nights and entirely formal on just one night.

But it’s not what you wear on the Jazz Cruise so much as what or who you know. And these jazz fans know a lot and aren’t shy about sharing it with you. Or with the artists, for that matter. At one point during John Pizzarelli’s show, someone in the audience interrupted Pizzarelli’s between-songs patter to correct him on a fine point about the songwriter Arthur Schwartz and the singer Mel Torme, and after acknowledging the correction, the singer/guitarist jokingly asked, “Did I say it was OK to talk?”

There’s no question that one of the benefits of the cruise for the average jazz fan is that access to talk with the artists, preferably off the bandstand, like at a meal or by the swimming pool or at one of the many bars. I myself was lucky enough to share a breakfast table with the ever loquacious and sometimes ribald Tootie Heath, who treated me to unscripted stories about growing up in Philadelphia. Even if you weren’t fortunate enough to have that sort of exchange, you could take in one of the “Conversations With the Stars” panel sessions, in which the artists told stories about the music, the scene and whatever else came to mind. I only attended one of these panels, but it was a doozy, with the witty and eloquent Benny Golson, who regaled an afternoon crowd with self-deprecating stories of his early years playing with John Coltrane, Art Blakey and other greats. For those who missed that anecdotal session, they could have caught any of Golson’s sets and heard another great story between songs. And Golson brought a top-notch band, featuring Mike LeDonne on piano, Buster Williams on bass and Carl Allen on drums—each a leader in his own right. On one evening, Golson was the subject of a special musical tribute featuring various all-stars from the different groups.

Ask any cruise-goer for their musical highlight and you’re likely to hear widely divergent choices. Jazz is, after all, a short word for a lot of different music and styles. For this somewhat jaded listener, the favorites tended to be artists or performances I had never seen before, and there were a surprisingly large number of those. I guess I need to get out more, or at least widen my choices. Kurt Elling was an artist whom I have seen many times over the years, but seeing him perform a half-dozen very different sets (he tried to not repeat any songs all week) with his working band of Laurence Hobgood, Clark Sommers, Kobie Watkins and John McLean gave me even more regard for his considerable singing and performing talents, and more appreciation for his excellent band. Elling did songs from every era of his now 17-year career and didn’t hesitate to mix up the arrangements and repertoire, letting the air or tempo out of some tunes and speeding others up to a breakneck pace. His command of the stage and spontaneous repartee with the not-the-least-bit-shy audience showed the value of all of those years. He even riffed his way through a few onstage soundchecks. A truly modernist jazz singer, described by JT’s Nate Chinen as “the most influential jazz vocalist of our time,” Elling won over the traditionalists in the crowd.

Elling also found a kindred improvisational spirit in effervescent singer Ann Hampton-Callaway, a Chicago native and Manhattan club regular who sat in with Elling and vice versa throughout the cruise. In her cameos with Elling and in her own sets, Callaway demonstrated her unique gift for making up song lyrics on the spot, and also showed off plenty of traditional jazz singing chops as well, whether scatting or paying tribute to great jazz vocalists of the past. Callaway, often unfairly pigeonholed as a cabaret singer, was a genuine hit among the jazz-purist cruise regulars, and her performances were uniformly packed no matter the time or venue. She even led an impromptu sing-along in the shuttle boat taking passengers to one of the island stops. That’s not the kind of thing you’ll see at Feinstein’s in Manhattan.

Elling and Callaway weren’t the only knock-'em-dead vocalists who impressed. John Pizzarelli performed a mix of obscure standards and clever originals with his working trio of Larry Fuller, Martin Pizzarelli and Anthony Tedesco at various venues and never failed to have the crowd laughing and even singing along on occasion. At other times, he could be seen in back of the room where the venerable Freddy Cole was holding forth at the piano with his seemingly bottomless reservoir of material. In an interview with JT during the cruise, Cole described his current backing trio of Randy Napoleon (guitar), Elias Bailey (bass) and Curtis Boyd (drums) as his best ever, and there is no question that they fit the sublime singer like a glove. Carmen Bradford, best known for her stint with the Count Basie Orchestra, also enthralled crowds with her big voice and swinging arrangements. Finally, Nikki Harris appeared with various All-Stars and showcased her sassy, R&B-influenced style.

A special treat for me was seeing the piano duo of Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes, who played on two majestic grand pianos placed face-to-face on the stage of the theater venue, the Vista Lounge. The two have very different approaches to the piano, but share a keen, sympathetic ear. Unlike some piano duos, which can degenerate into “top this” exchanges, Charlap and Rosnes clearly listen and support each other. It probably has at least a little to do with the fact that they’re married, not that all married couples listen so well. But watching them perform face to face, you really did feel that you were watching two people communicate with each other as intimates with a language all their own. Their repertoire included a mix of originals, standards and even a little Monk, but it was their exquisite touch and phrasing that won the day. Charlap also made several appearances with his longtime bandmates Peter Washington and Kenny Washington, who comprise one of the great piano trios on the contemporary jazz scene.

Drummer Jeff Hamilton’s trio featuring Tamir Hendelman on piano and Christoph Luty on bass played sets with an emphasis on their new album, Red Sparkle, the title a reference to one of Hamilton's first drum sets. The group has been together for more than 10 years, and the result is tight interplay. The Heath Brothers are a perennial favorite on the cruise circuit but they never coast, thanks to the boundless energy of the two brothers as well as the steady and inspired contributions of their underrated bandmembers, pianist Jeb Patton and bassist David Wong.

The fiery Tommy Igoe Sextet, known for its ongoing gig at Birdland in NYC, was a big hit with audiences, who were drawn to the group’s high-energy mash-up of hard bop and Latin. Saxophonist Kirk Whalum is one of the few artists who can perform on both the Smooth Jazz Cruise and the Jazz Cruise. For this week, Whalum played material from his new album, Romance Languages, which revisits the famous collaboration between John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, with Whalum’s brother Kevin handling the vocal chores. Whalum also drew on his own personal affinity for other sax legends such as Hank Crawford and Arnett Cobb, explaining the connection and playing songs in their unique style. Whalum has deep roots in gospel and R&B and is also a first-class improviser with formidable chops, all of which made him a great fit with the Jazz Cruise.

In addition to the performances by the 15 working bands onboard, the cruise featured about two dozen “All-Stars” who play together in various configurations. The complete list is too exhaustive to provide here, but it included Randy Brecker, Don Braden, Anat Cohen, Terell Stafford, Ken Peplowski, Gary Smulyan, Wycliffe Gordon and John Fedchock.

Did I mention the shore excursions at the three stops? No, probably not, because many people don’t even bother to get off the ship, not out of any xenophobia, but rather because they don’t want to miss that set by Houston Person in the Ocean Lounge at 2 p.m. For the record, the ship made stops in Aruba, Curacao and the Bahamas, and some of us did get off for swimming, snorkeling, scuba or shopping.

There is one caveat to going on the cruise. Access to cell phones and Internet is limited and/or expensive. Most folks simply go “off the grid,” which can be a welcome respite from the hyper-connected environment of modern daily life. Imagine seeing dozens of concerts without one cell phone going off and you can see the upside.

Next year’s Jazz Cruise sails Jan. 27 – Feb. 3, 2013, with stops in Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Barths. Among the headliners already booked are Elling, Callaway, New York Voices, Eddie Palmieri-Brian Lynch Jazz Quartet, Gary Burton Quartet, Byron Stripling Quartet, Karrin Allyson, Arturo Sandoval and Joey DeFrancesco Trio. For more information, go to the Jazz Cruise website.