Mark Gross at Twins 9/16/03

by Alan Greenblatt

It seemed like only a matter of time until Mark Gross got around to playing some Coltrane. The alto sax player's performance last Friday night at Twins betrayed more than the usual influence of Coltrane as Gross's solos were filled with long cascading patterns of notes with the occasional blurting emphasis on a note or two that he would tease for a while. Gross has a high, somewhat dry sound and his solos, while not amazingly imaginative, have a good deal of urgency -- you don't feel like he's going to retire on the job.

Gross played Coltrane's "Giant Steps" as part of a long first set of jazz standards (also including "Speak Low," "Pent-Up House," "On Green Dolphin Street," among others). Things got more interesting later on when Gross played original compositions and other tunes from his record "Rhythm of the Sphinx." These betrayed a more global feel for rhythms, mixing up the jazz idiom for the more robust percussion sound we associate with Egypt and North Africa.

That also made for a better use of the drummer, Lee Pearson, who I have to say was one of the most self-indulgent drummers I've heard for a while. His bandmates seemed to enjoy his antics, which included balancing one of his sticks on top of his head so you could better appreciate how much noise he was making with just one stick. I thought he was tedious -- not just overly loud for the small club, drowning out the soloists -- but also selfish in that his climaxes and accents didn't necessarily match the soloist's flow of ideas.

Still, the quartet played with a lot of energy and was rarely dull. It was always good to tune into local pianist Allyn Johnson, who had more wit than Gross in reimagining the main melodic line of a tune and who was always playing some different and interesting figure when you tuned into him.

I had hoped that the U Street location would prove a better home for Twins than its old out of the way haunt on Colorado Avenue, but it seems like the club just gets emptier whenever I go there. Occasionally two or three young people in ballcaps and tight clothes and sweatshirts would walk up the stairs into the club. They would listen to about 12 seconds' worth of playing, realize they were in some alternative, unfamiliar universe, and leave, off to Polly's or wherever.