JAZZ REVIEW : Audience Drum-Struck at Bellson Performance

The nice thing about having a drummer as the leader of the band is that there’s never any doubt about who’s in charge.

When Louis Bellson brought his roaring 16-piece ensemble to the Hyatt Newporter on Friday night, for example, he never once played the traditional bandleader role, standing out in front, smiling toothily, cuing in this sideman. Bellson was seated where he always is, in the center of his players, behind a battery of powerful percussion--the heart and soul, as well as the emotional flash point, of virtually every note of music.

At 68, Bellson has lost none of the fiery, rhythmic excitement and courtly, stylish grace that he displayed in his years with Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and, for decades, as music director for his wife, the late singer Pearl Bailey.

Many of the band’s best pieces--including “My Manne, Shelly,” (a tribute to drummer Shelly Manne) and an atmospheric, multi-section “‘New York Suite”--were written by Bellson. Characteristically, they were filled with bright melodies, crisp rhythms and well-articulated ensemble sections. Bellson clearly can compose as well as he can play.

If the band had a few glitches here and there that reflected a lack of rehearsal opportunities, it had far more moments (“Caravan,” “Cherokee” and “Air Mail Special” among them) in which it not only performed with vigor and precision, but also suggested the emergence of a unique sound.

Bellson could hardly have been better served by his two principal soloists, tenor saxophonist Pete Christlieb and trumpeter/flugelhornist Steve Huffsteter. On two features (“Lover Man” and “We’ll Be Together Again”), Christlieb set aside his sometimes frenetic eighth-note runs in favor of warm-toned, vocal-like readings. Huffsteter ran into a number of problems during an original ballad, but recovered with several typically well-enunciated choruses on both his instruments.

Appropriately, however, the real solo star of the evening was Bellson. His showcase performance on “Caravan” was a practical primer in percussion, exhibiting every kind of snare and tom-tom stroke, cymbal roll and double-footed bass drum playing imaginable. And, despite the remarkable demonstration of technical virtuosity, Bellson constructed a solo that was as musical as it was virtuosic, constantly balancing soft, shimmering sounds with powerful percussive explosions, and unfolding with the logic and connectivity of a set of classical variations.

The only presentation problems in an otherwise delightful program of jazz were due to the failure of the Hyatt Newporter’s sound system to deal with the far-ranging subtleties of big band music. Too often, the lead alto saxophone was buried behind the other instruments in the sax section, and bass and piano could only be properly heard during their solo passages.