JAZZ REVIEW : An Unusual Pairing Pays Off in Long Beach

The teaming of saxophonist Archie Shepp and bassist Red Callender at Cal State Long Beach’s 25th annual Comparative Literature/Classics spring conference was inspired. However, it isn’t exactly clear by what it was inspired--even after hearing the odd couple’s six-tune offering of “Relaxing at Camarillo: The Music of Charlie Parker.”

Shepp, a playwright and a professor of music at the University of Massachusetts, embraced the music of bebop only after making his name in the free jazz realm. Callender, a bassist who made his recording debut with Louis Armstrong and gave Charles Mingus his first bass lessons, has seen--and done--it all. As a pair, they were a little like an Englishman and an American in conversation--speaking a common language but always divided.

Shepp and Callender opened their concert with a reading of “Confirmation,” a spirited, up-tempo tune from the Parker repertoire. Despite the rather hollow sound created by the lack of drums and piano, the twosome managed to imbue the piece with a solid bop flavor.

Shepp played the tenor saxophone in two distinct, contrasting styles, both defined by range. On the lower end of the scale, he demonstrated a full, rounded sound that was softened by excessive hissing; on the high end, he possessed a thin, reedy tone. His improvisations tended to reflect his tone. During the Duke Ellington ballad “In a Sentimental Mood,” he played soft and lovely, with warm burnished tones in the low register; on “Relaxing at Camarillo,” he jumped into the high end with a series of urgent squeals and whines.

Callender, through it all, played the masterful backup role as he gracefully provided deep, echoing tones that contrasted whatever Shepp was doing.

Unfortunately, Callender’s few solo moments were greatly diminished by Shepp’s intrusive noodling at the piano. Though his piano work was passable on Thelonious Monk’s “ ‘Round Midnight,” it was generally disconcerting, his harmonic voicings in frequent conflict with Callender’s solos and his time not on the mark.

But there were moments to be savored, such as Callender’s rendering of the Ellington piece on the tuba and the duo’s splendid reading of Parker’s “Yardbird Suite.” Like politics, music can indeed make for strange bedfellows.