POP AND JAZZ REVIEWS : Concord All-Stars Join Forces

Nothing unpredictable happened Saturday when the Concord Jazz All-Stars appeared at the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena. Nothing eventful, either; on the other hand, nothing unpleasant.

Here was an apparently unrehearsed session by seven musicians, most of whom have recorded for the Concord label. Before the program began you knew that the tunes would be mostly old standards, that the solos would lead to eight-bar and four-bar trades, that each half of the show would end with a drum solo by Frank Capp, and that Jack Sheldon would tell his Marcel Marceau joke.

Sheldon’s comedy is not up to the level of his singing, which in turn is not the equal of his trumpet playing. If he had cut out the humor he could have played two or three choruses of “The Shadow of Your Smile” instead of the single, very lyrical chorus he did offer.

Scott Hamilton’s tenor sax, long a symbol of neo-classicism, seldom caught fire. Gary Foster’s alto sax and flute were even less geared to impassioned statements, and Dave Stone’s bass came across with insufficient impact.

That left the evening’s honors to Howard Alden, whose every guitar solo bespoke imagination coupled with originality, and to Jerry Wiggins, a pianist who has never been known to let any band down.

The group’s title seemed like a partial misnomer, since only Hamilton and Alden have been recording regularly for Concord. Essentially, this was an ad-hoc unit in a casual nightclub mode, not ideally suited to a concert recital.