JAZZ REVIEW : Brackeen Has a Way With All That Jazz

When Joanne Brackeen sits down to play the piano, it’s all but impossible to predict what’s going to happen, except to say that the performance will be emphatically jazz-rooted and that it will make for exceptionally rewarding listening.

During her solo recital Friday evening in the cool air of the outdoor amphitheater at the Hyatt Newporter, the New York-based artist--who was filling in for trumpeter Jon Faddis, who had canceled--gave a whirlwind concert that offered touches of jazz piano schools from ‘30s stride to ‘90s free. Mostly, though, the artist explored the post-be-bop, modernistic mode with which she has expressed herself throughout a 30-year career.

Wearing a short, pastel-colored, flower-print skirt with matching top and artsy, tie-at-the-ankle leather sandals, the tall, slender Brackeen played both delicately and powerfully. At times she hit the piano so hard it seemed to shake.

And while she may have offered block chords that pranced a la Erroll Garner, darting lines that had a Tommy Flanagan-ish, dashing elegance and throbbing, McCoy Tyner-like left hand chords that could best be described as thunderous, she melded these elements into an individualistic whole. It wasn’t a smattering of influences that the modest crowd heard, it was a unique artist with a truly distinctive approach.

Her performance, which was co-produced by the Hyatt and radio station KLON-FM (88.1) and which will be broadcast on the station on Thursday at 9 p.m., included such standards as “My Romance” and “In a Sentimental Mood,” the classic blues “Soft Winds,” Sonny Rollins’ “St. Thomas,” and a brace of originals. And though Brackeen fully investigated each tune she played--”Sentimental” was turned every which way--her renditions of her own compositions were particularly evocative and stunning.

“Picasso,” which she announced as inspired by the “life energy” of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, was, if not Brackeen at her most emotive, certainly exemplary of her efforts.

She began the work with a segment of nine hard-hit imposing chords, which she repeated, and which in their impressiveness seemed to represent Picasso’s stunning oeuvre. Then came a catchy, 12-beat bass pattern on top of which she applied chords that had a lighter, lilting quality. The pianist then segued into a section that was ruminative and abstract, which was followed by parallel octaves that were effusive and fun.

These various contrasting passages made it seem as if she were trying to portray Picasso’s different periods and styles with music.

A Spanish flavor underpinned her improvisations here, as she worked in both waltz (3/4) and march (6/8) meters, going from broad, bold chords in the left hand to spinning, curving be-bop lines in the right. Later, she played chords that were so bright they seemed to have headlights on, and others that rumbled like an express train roaring through a station in Manhattan.

A single sparkling note, hit and allowed to ring, began Ellington’s “Sentimental Mood.” Then Brackeen went on a rampage, building a wall of sound with massive chords that careened one into the other. Gradually, melody notes started to emerge from this foment, becoming dots of color like wild flowers growing in the midst of masses of rock. Later, Brackeen offered bluesy phrases and rapid linear squiggles, and concluded with another clamor of chords that eventually gave way to silence.