Chico Freeman at the Kennedy Center 12/13/99

by Alan Greenblatt

Old men of jazz: Chico Freeman, the tenor sax player, was a prominent member of a much heralded "young lions" of jazz group back in the early eighties. Now 50, he still looked robust Monday night at the Kennedy Center. What made him seem like an old man was the way he told long, overly detailed stories that came either to no point or a ridiculously obvious point.

In conversation with Billy Taylor, Freeman let us know about every bass player he'd ever worked with and the plot of every film he scored. In a two and a half hour-plus conversation/performance, they got around to playing maybe seven times.

Freeman boasts a big, bright tone -- high, almost like an alto -- and he's not nearly so discursive as a player as he is talking. The group played a number of standards but a Freeman original, "Like Hearing a Teardrop in the Rain," was particularly effective.

Drummer Winard Harper was a standout, his two solos both witty and tasteful and his accompanying cymbal work subtle.

Three nights later, Abdullah Ibrahim walked onto the same Terrace Theater stage. He did us the favor of never talking at all. He played two long sets of uninterrupted music, 70-minute "suites" that were compilations of different tunes and themes played for a maximum of two minutes each.

Ibrahim is a lovely piano player, and there were moments when he got into African rhythms or snatches of Ellington and Monk that were interesting. But nothing built into anything; the themes didn't much pick up one from the other, and there were long, dull stretches that made the audience fidgety.

Ibrahim is 15 years older than Freeman, but what made his an old man's show was the lack of energy he brought to bear, making the concert feel more like a rehearsal than a performance. Still, there are worse things than listening to a fine player work things out in front of a fairly small crowd.

A couple of Saturday nights ago, I went over to Twins Lounge to hear long-time local trumpet player Webster Young. Young, wearing big aviator glasses at times, mostly mailed in the first set. He lacks the chops now for all the high notes and played in a manner very reminiscent of Miles Davis, limited numbers of notes, with some of his licks lifted directly off of Miles' records.

Sax man Billy Smith arrived late, set up his video camera on a tripod, and took the stage to join in for the second set. The competing horn seemed to energize Young. Once he got warmed up, Smith played pretty well, but his solos never ended as well as they began.

Between solos, Smith sucked on an inhaler. I especially liked it when he would shake his inhaler in time with the beat, laid down by an intelligent trio led by John Kordalewski.