Showing Plenty of Pizazz in New York : A look at the state of jazz after an incomparable week of performances

It is impossible for any out-of-towner to spend a week in New York without drawing the conclusion that jazz in all its ever more diverse forms is thriving.

During the JVC festival that ended last Sunday, no taste was left unsatisfied. On the same evening that found Carnegie Hall packed for the Lionel Hampton-George Benson salute to Benny Goodman, Avery Fisher Hall was filled to capacity for the fusion offerings of Yellowjackets and Steps Ahead. There was not even any sense of competition: three nights later Ray Charles drew his loyal followers at Avery Fisher while Sarah Vaughan and Milt Jackson were attracting a bop-generation audience at Carnegie; meanwhile, a third venue, Alice Tully Hall, presented Geri Allen, Charlie Haden and other ultra-contemporaries in one of a series presented by the Knitting Factory, a downtown avant garde rendezvous.

Well, it may be argued, the festival comes but once a year; what happens during the other 51 weeks?

Plenty.

Consider this: Monday at Carnegie Hall, Duke Ellington’s historic first Carnegie concert in 1943 will be re-created, with an ad hoc orchestra conducted by Maurice Peress. Two nights later the same house will present a revival of George Antheil’s 1927 “Jazz Symphony,” and on Friday it will re-stage the landmark Clef Club concert of 1912, reliving James Reese Europe’s first-ever Carnegie concert of all black music by black musicians. Maybe it’s not all exactly jazz, but it’s part of the family.

Four nights later, the pianist/composer/impresario Dick Hyman will present, at the uptown YMCA, his annual festival--six nights of a ragtime, swing and mainstream. August promises still more delights: an all star celebration, Aug. 8 at Avery Fisher, of the indomitable Benny Carter’s 82nd birthday; around that time Wynton Marsalis will be town for an Alice Tully Hall recital of the music of Jelly Roll Morton.

No other city can lay claim to a comparable sequence of ongoing major events. Nor is this simply a summer phenomenon; if the concerts subside, there is still the jazz nightclub scene, which, according to most witnesses, is no less healthy on a year round basis.

“The clubs are doing amazingly well,” said the festival producer George Wein. “Part of the reason is that some of the big names have been willing to work clubs recently--even Miles Davis and Oscar Peterson. If this means raising the cover charge to $35 to pay the artists, it still works out.”

Lew Tabackin, the tenor saxophonist and flute virtuoso, is a little less sanguine. “I think George is talking about the big rooms like the Blue Note, or long established places such as the Village Vanguard.” Smaller neighborhood clubs such as Birdland (now at 105th and Broadway and unrelated to the famous Broadway room of the 1950s), and new rooms like Indigo Blues, are having a harder time retaining an audience.

It was at Indigo Blues that Tabackin, the main soloist in a superb orchestra led by his wife Toshiko Akiyoshi, was interviewed. This was one of three clubs that currently feature big bands on Monday nights, the others being Sweet Basil, where the late Gill Evans’ orchestra is now led by his son, trumpeter Miles Evans, and the Village Vanguard, where the drummer Mel Lewis still holds the fort. (It looks as though Lewis may have a steady job; he has been here almost every Monday since 1966, when the band was co-led by the late Thad Jones.)

A healthy proportion of the clubs’ business stems from patronage by French, English and of course Japanese fans, some of whom are curious enough to embark on a guided bus tour of Harlem, with the guide offering such wistful comments as “That’s where Smalls Paradise used to be.” The Harlem jazz club scene is all but defunct; pop and rock artists tend to dominate at the Apollo Theatre, long a haven for big bands. Some of those bands, or their stylistic descendants, are still around, playing “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” but the unalterable fact is that the world-famous Savoy Ballroom at 140th St. and Lenox Avenue, the “home of happy feet,” closed its doors 33 years ago.

There has been among some critics a chorus of complaints that the jazz scene today relies too heavily on nostalgia, on tributes to deceased giants. One has only to consider the personnel of the recent festival to realize that this is at beast a half truth.

What might be called the Wynton Marsalis Generation, mostly black musicians in their 20s, shows a respect for tradition but presses forward with fresh variations and all-encompassing concepts. These developments have left no doubt that acoustic music, far from reaching a dead end, has discovered a new beginning.

Repertory groups such as the American Jazz Orchestra, directed by John Lewis, have brought new life to old sounds that have proven timeless; an inspired performance of a masterpiece by Duke Ellington is no more grounded in nostalgia than a “revival” of a work by Stravinsky.

There is a cadre of young musicians who do indeed lean toward re-creations of past glories. Typical is Ken Peplowski, who handled the Benny Goodman parts with consummate finesse at the Goodman tribute concert. He is 31, doubles on tenor sax in a Ben Webster vein, and is finding widespread acceptance.

Loren Schoenberg, 30, who led the band at the Goodman tribute, is building a unique career as bandleader, tenor saxophonist and archivist; his orchestra seems equally adept playing old charts from the Goodman and Ellington libraries or delving into newer original material.

Schoenberg reacts with some asperity to critical comments that his band is all white. “It happens that most of the black musicians who are into this kind of music are older guys who can’t or won’t go on the road, whereas many of the people who have studied Fletcher Henderson and the rest of jazz history are younger white guys. Besides, would you ask Art Blakey why he has an all black band?” (Not the wisest of questions; two of Blakey’s present sidemen are white.)

The racial situation is uneasy and at least partially polarized not only here but abroad. Schoenberg recalled working for the black arranger, Buck Clayton, in a band that happened to be all white. When this proved unacceptable to European bookers, Clayton had to integrate his personnel.

Though the Knitting Factory may produce a few trend setters, Wynton Marsalis is the only new artist to have exerted a profound influence in recent years; yet the critics are constantly on the alert for new discoveries.

One of the Knitting Factory artists, Cassandra Wilson, was referred to by a prominent critic as “the finest jazz singer to come along in a decade.” Almost the identical comment has been made about Dianne Reeves, Diane Schuur and others, and in no case is the statement necessarily true. The rush to judgment in the critical community is excessive, according to George Wein, because “Years ago, almost all the critics missed the bus on bebop, so now they’re afraid not to champion new causes.”

There is, of course, no new Ella Fitzgerald or new Joe Williams, just as there will be no new John Coltrane or new Thelonious Monk. All we can be sure of is that somewhere, without warning, another new and potentially seminal talent will arise, and suddenly, despite all the blasts from the past and all the deadly serious critical disquisitions, jazz will be young and foolish again.