Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove represent three generations of excellence in jazz music. These cats walk on stage and the audience at the Cerritos Center start roaring! I keep expecting to see Roy with a full set of dreds but he chopped them off a while ago for the clean cut of his earlier days. This concert is entitled “Directions in Music” for a reason. You may think that you know where these cats are going to take the music but, believe me, you have no clue.
Next to Herbie’s piano and keyboard was a lap top computer in which he proceeded to open up the show with a side of the music that came from another world. A UFO was definitely landing, but this time, it was an Ultimate Futuristic Opportunity to stretch the music to its elastic maximum. Brecker had an electronic instrument that he would later explain to be a EWI (Electric Wind Instrument) which played a wide array of sounds from Oboes to eastern sounding flutes, to piano chords to old Indian chants to choirs singing to wah wah guitar sounds layering textures and looping each sound to form a newly created composition. Roy was standing there with his trumpet, watching Herbie as he worked his mystical, magical, cacophonic synthesis and the three were ready to get down. Turn your straight ahead ears on low and change the frequency to wide open, sit back and let message be conveyed.
The sound on the stage is wired perfectly. Teri Lynn Carrington was playing the phattest of notes on the bass drums and you could hear them with such clarity. She is sitting in for Brian Blade tonight and her sensuous touch can only come from the hard hitting compassion of a woman. Scott Colley is on bass and he bows the richest sound. The music is very directional and everyone is left with enough space were their voices could be heard with clarity and distinction. When Roy finishes a solo, he rolls out, off to the side of the stage to give way to his fellow musicians the spotlight. He belted of a couple of Freddie quotes before he handed the jazz baton off to Brecker.
Jazz is limitless and tonight the cats are not hanging around the epicenter but, are exploring the galaxies, coming across many bright and shinning stars on their travels. It is almost like they came from another planet, roaming the earth as musical pied pipers in search of intelligent life. From the reaction they got from the audience, they found some here is Cerritos.
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