Tanglewood Jazz Review, 9/3-4/99
Dianne Reeves, Kevin Mahogany, Branford Marsalis

by Seth Rogovoy

(LENOX, Mass., Sept. 5, 1999) - A surplus of vocal talent was squandered at Tanglewood on Saturday night, as excessive amplification, unsympathetic arrangements and questionable aesthetic choices variously conspired to undermine performances by singers Dianne Reeves and Kevin Mahogany.

Reeves and Mahogany, who performed separate sets, boast wonderful vocal instruments, with natural talent and skilled technique aplenty. This made it all the more painful to sit through sets that failed to capitalize on their strengths or to showcase their vocal mastery to full effect.

The major culprit in Reeves's case was loudness, plain and simple. Perhaps things sounded better out on the lawn, but the bright, solid spaces of Ozawa Hall were just too active to contain Reeve's amplified pop arrangements. Reeves bassist and keyboardist doubled on acoustic and electric instruments, and her ensemble included a drummer and a percussionist.

The group's arrangements were patterned more on contemporary pop music than traditional jazz, and they relied on the dynamics of rock for the bulk of their emotional impact. In order to fit her own considerable instrument into the mix, Reeves's vocals were turned way up to ear-shattering intensity (perhaps accounting for the steady flow of concertgoers for the exits throughout the show).

As a result, everything was flattened out, and all subtlety and delicacy were lost. This was a shame, for the particular sound Reeves was after, bringing what she twice called "a jazz sensibility" to contemporary, R&B-influenced pop music, was an intriguing one. Even through the din, her explorations of the improvisational possibilities of material including Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" and Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" were compelling. Imagine the late Betty Carter putting her immense talents to the task of interpreting the style and songbook of Sting, and you get an approximate idea of Reeves's result.

Kevin Mahogany, on the other hand, could have used some of the imaginative excess overrunning Reeves's program. The enormous Mahogany produces a sound combining the ballast of Big Joe Williams and the delicacy of Billy Eckstine and Johnny Hartman. Unfortunately, his selection of standards, love ballads and blues were given utterly uninspired arrangements by his journeyman ensemble of piano, bass, drums and electric guitar.

There was a faint nod to Nat "King" Cole in the cool swing of the group, but for the most part the minimal music surrounding Mahogany failed to support his vocals. The whole point of such a band is to give the singer a lift, to punctuate, underline and emphasize, and maybe even to talk back to him. None of this happened, leaving Mahogany to carry the burden in what was more a recital than a jazz concert. This is also why his most successful numbers were the ones which indulged his blues and gospel affinities, styles that come ready-made for voice-centered arrangements.

Branford Marsalis's set on Friday night was equally surprising and disappointing. The celebrity saxophonist and his quartet came out swinging on a bebop burner, "Ode to the Harris Family," which like several of the evening's selections, was more of a workout for pianist Joey Calderazzo than for the leader. That was OK in part because Calderazzo was a fluidly inventive soloist, a small man wrestling a huge piano and pinning it, in contrast to drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts, a huge man who loomed over his drum kit, playing it like a toy.

Then there was Marsalis, equal parts charm and arrogance. He was an entertaining frontman, talking to his audience about his death fixation and tripping off names like "Goethe, Schopenhauer, Chopin, Mozart, Puff Daddy, Biggie Smalls" - the last two being hip-hop stars. "I had a death fixation listening to Celine Dion," he said at one point, "you listen and you want to die."

He won the audience to his side with clever repartee like that, and with som e of his sweeter, sappier melodies on soprano saxophone, which he favored most of the night. The highlight of his concert was "Everything Happens to Me, Not," which combined everything that was good and bad about his show.

Marsalis invited the audience into the piece by way of explaining its inspiration: one part Keith Jarrett, the other Bach's fugues. He explained the piece's strategy, and even demonstrated how the melody would dictate the tempo, how the band would follow along and improvise to wherever the soloist led them. And indeed it was a remarkable bit of ensemble improvisation, especially a section in which the band shifted genres and tempos every other bar: taking it to New Orleans, to 18th-century Germany, to R&B, to bebop, to rock 'n' roll, to the Church, and then back, all on a dime. He even threw in a bit of the Beatles's "Yellow Submarine."

It was charming fun, like Bebop 101, but it was shallow fun, and ultimately it was Marsalis's unwillingness to dig very deep that kept his performance from being truly affecting. He showed a glimpse of his innerness towards the end on "Requiem," but those moments were few and far between. Mostly he played clean and metallic, devoid of emotion and breath, disengaged. By the end, we were still waiting for him to show up. He never did.

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