JAZZ REVIEWS : LORBER’S DRUMMER STEALS THE SHOW

The most spectacular musical moment in Jeff Lorber’s Beverly Theatre concert Friday night came early and left too soon.

The proceedings had barely gotten under way when Lorber’s drummer, the gifted Bruce Carter, dug into a funk solo that was as creatively articulate as it was hard swinging. Caught up in the momentum of his work, Carter--a very large, rotund man--grabbed a high hat cymbal, ran to the apron of the stage and continued to pound out his rhythms on the cymbal, the floor and virtually everything else within reach.

Suddenly, he disappeared from sight, an apparent misstep taking him off the edge of the stage into the audience. But a second later his hands popped back up into the spotlight, still moving and still swinging, without losing a beat.

A theatrical gesture? Perhaps, but one that worked because of the sheer enthusiasm for music-making that Carter brought to it.

It’s hard to say the same for the rest of the program, which came off suspiciously like a very long promo for Lorber’s current record album.

Recognized as one of the best fusion keyboard players of the last decade, Lorber has moved strongly into rhythm & blues-tinged pop music recently, and it was that style, rather than his keyboard virtuosity, that dominated the evening.

A good half of the set consisted of effective, if rarely outstanding, vocals on such pop chart-oriented songs as “Facts of Love,” “Private Passion” and “Keep On Loving Her” by singers Karyn White and Michael Jeffries.

The instrumentals, notably “Sand Castles” and “Midnight Snack,” were better when Lorber was digging into his still-potent fusion improvisations, and worse when the spotlight turned to saxophonist David Koz, who seemed to equate creativity with striking the proper zoot-suited pose.

By the time the program rolled to an end with a let’s-all-get-down-and-boogie reworking of Sly Stone’s “Dance to the Music,” one was eagerly hoping for another upfront appearance by drummer Carter. Sad to say, it never happened.