Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra/Tribute to Mary Lou Williams

by Alan Greenblatt

More notes from all over: I've probably written about the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra more than any other band in this space. Their concerts are free, after all. The band is always technically proficient but their performances are usually slightly bloodless. They did a great job last week, however, playing compositions and arrangements by Mary Lou Williams.

Williams was a pianist who formulated the sound of the early big band Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy. She also wrote arrangements and tunes for Benny Goodman, notably his great flag-waver "Roll 'em." Her works have an easy rhythm, the different sections skillfully prodding the others along in turn, and this helped add excitement to the SJMO performance.

For once, they blew pretty freely in solos, not trying to simply recreate the original records. (A number of the songs they performed have not been recorded.) Jay Brandford, on clarinet and saxes, was a particularly lustrous and lusty player.

The Kennedy Center crowd went craziest, however, for guest pianist Geri Allen. As I've noted before, Allen is a big talent but has absolutely no sense of self-discipline. She strings together notes and chords in a completely show-offy way that adds up to nothing.

A few days before, I went to the National Archives to hear Michael Palin talk about Hemingway. He would tell stories from the filming of his current travel series and suddenly grips and gaffers and Hemingway hangers-on would turn into characters from old Monty Python skits. Palin is curious and unpretentious and terribly likable. I almost wish I had a TV so I could watch the show.

Meanwhile, I went back to Memphis, but not to Earnestine & Hazel's, alas. The Memphis Symphony Orchestra, like pandering politicians, played all tunes by Jewish composers at a concert on the sloping grounds of Temple Israel. The crowd meeted and greeted with each other, the face-painted kids ran around, and nobody seemed to let the music bother them much on a freakishly pleasant late-spring Memphis afternoon.