Jazz Reviews : The Follows Camp Festival--Music Adjusts to Environment

All the elements for an enjoyable jazz event--a beautiful outdoor locale, good sound and solid if not particularly adventurous performances--were present Saturday and Sunday at the Follows Camp Springtime 1988 Jazz Festival.

There was just one thing missing--an audience. On both afternoons at Follows Camp, a community of 200 nestled in the Angeles National Forest north of Azusa, it was a tossup whether the musicians outnumbered the fans.

The most important instruments on Saturday may have been two venerable mainstays of the jazz tradition--the rocks and clothespins required to secure the musicians’ charts. Late arrivals found vocalist Bill Henderson and his quartet waging a good-humored, running battle against the wind.

The musical emphasis fell on the common language of jazz, with the repertoires leaning heavily on standards from the swing and bop eras. The atmosphere was relaxed and informal, epitomized by the high point of Gerald Wiggins’ All Stars set--an extemporaneous, up-tempo blues that featured some sparkling duo interplay between bassist Bob West and drummer Sherman Ferguson.

Ferguson also succinctly put his finger on one ambiance-related problem after vocalist Sandy Graham joined the Wiggins All Stars on stage. As she was introducing “ ‘Round Midnight,” Ferguson quipped, “Put a (night) club over my head so it looks dark.”

Jazz can function in any environment but sometimes it is hard for smoky ballads or moody blues to pack the same evocative punch in broad daylight. Ironically, Graham’s wistful, yearning delivery of “Lazy Afternoon” would have been doubly effective to a nightclub audience conjuring up images of the great outdoors rather than people sitting at picnic tables.

Poncho Sanchez’s Latin jazz group headlined Saturday with a strong performance that weakened only when the 8-piece unit attempted to adapt jazz material like Clifford Brown’s “Daahoud” to its Latin rhythmic pulse. The ensemble heads were imaginative, exciting and skillfully executed but none of the three horn players could match the solo skills of conguero Sanchez and his rhythm section partners.

Sunday, San Francisco-based guitarist Eddie Duran offered a pleasant but uneventful set that was enlivened by the tart reed work of spouse Madaline Duran. Trumpeter Stacy Rowles’ quintet survived an unintentionally patronizing introduction that made far more of the group’s all-female lineup than need be but its low-key set suffered in the outdoor, daylight setting.

The rhythm section swung from the outset but it took a little while for Rowles and front line partner Betty O’Hara (playing an unusual triple of pocket trumpet, valve trombone and double-belled euphonium) to hit their stride. The latter contributed the bluesy highlight “Euphonics” but the group’s most inspiring and adventurous moments came on pianist Liz Kinnon’s “J.J.,” which featured a nicely understated fluegelhorn solo from Rowles.

Gerald Wilson’s 17-piece Orchestra of the ‘80s capped the festival with a workmanlike performance highlighted by Wilson’s arrangements of Miles Davis’ “Milestones” and John Coltrane’s “Equinox.” Saxophonist Jerome Richardson displayed an intriguing penchant for crafting opening statements for his solos that clashed with the arrangement before Richardson steered his playing back into the ensemble fold.