JAZZ REVIEW : PUZZLING JAZZ SERIES AT WILTERN

At best, things were a bit difficult to figure out Friday evening at the Wiltern Theater as “Jazzvisions,” a jazz video series by Jack Lewis and Lorimar-Telepictures, concluded taping with a program promising the “Jazz Souls” of George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” and the Roaring ‘20s as conceived by arranger Bill Potts.

Featuring a 21-man all-star band conducted by composer Johnny Mandel, the program provided plenty of “Porgy and Bess” and nothing of the Roaring ‘20s.

Though the programming of the two-hour concert remains mysterious right down to the countless renditions of “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” an even bigger mystery is what Mandel was doing there. Granted, he introduced the guys in the band, led the band through a couple of dynamic changes and counted off the tunes. But to have one of America’s foremost composers conduct a band that kicks into automatic at the drop of a down beat and not feature any of his music seems a waste.

Potts’ arrangements, written in 1959, the year after Miles Davis and Gil Evans collaborated on the same body of music, were played superbly. There were several outstanding solos by saxophonists Bud Shank, Al Cohn and Pete Christlieb, trumpeters Jack Sheldon, Harry “Sweets” Edison and Jon Faddis and trombonists Jimmy Knepper, J. J. Johnson and Carl Fontana.

Many of the songs from “Porgy and Bess” have become standards, but much of the material is deservedly obscure and failed to come to life in this setting.