JAZZ REVIEW : Jon Faddis Blows Up a Storm

No, that wasn’t a thunder storm that blew through town Monday. It was the phenomenal trumpeter Jon Faddis, who during his single night at Catalina’s strained the bounds of believability, but never his chops.

Long admired as a protege of Dizzy Gillespie, with whom he still plays now and then, Faddis brought his own quartet from New York to play music from his current Epic album, “Into the Faddisphere.” In the course of a 90-minute set, he touched all bases, often in his anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-an-octave-higher vein, but also in several explorations of his horn’s normal register.

Outstanding in the latter category was “West End Blues,” parts of which were drawn almost note-for-note from a classic 1928 Louis Armstrong record. Renee Rosnes, his Canadian pianist, captured the spirit flawlessly before Faddis took over again from some additional touches that Satchmo himself might have envied. But instead of quitting while he was ahead, Faddis gave an anti-climactic solo to the bass player, James Genus, then began singing a he-and-she vocal in alternating male and falsetto voices that was strictly for laughs. He ultimately brought his horn back for a magnificent finale.

Faddis as a composer is versatile and creative. “Retro Blue” was a quirky item, a blues in form but not in harmonic pattern. “At Long Last” was slow and lyrical, “Sambahia” exotic and “Many Paths to the Top of the Mountain” chaotic. Billy Drummond, the drummer, had more than enough opportunities to display his technique.

Rosnes, looking much too young to have absorbed so many stages in the evolution of jazz piano, acquitted herself like the veteran she is not. But Faddis was the master pilot here--a one-man history of jazz trumpet: he even played Gillespie’s “Dizzy Atmosphere” and Roy Eldridge’s “Little Jazz.” If there are lapses from taste and occasional high note excesses in a Faddis performance, they are a small price to pay for the unique mix of virtuosity and beauty of which he showed himself capable.