Central Avenue Jazz Festival Celebrates Spirited ‘40s Era

The jazz clubs of Central Avenue may be long gone. But the spirit of the music once played there was alive and well Sunday on the second day of the two-day Central Avenue Jazz Festival.

A mix of musicians, some veterans of the avenue’s heyday in the late ‘40s and others too young to have witnessed the street’s fabled jazz scene, performed on a bandstand erected just north of the restored Dunbar Hotel at 42nd Place, once the heart of the Central Avenue scene, before an estimated crowd of 5,000.

The day’s most nostalgic moments came at its close as saxophonist Buddy Collette led a 17-piece big band in swing and bebop numbers. Encouraged by the crowd, saxophonists and trumpeters sought to outdo one another as they took their solo turns. At one point, a dapper man in a shiny gray suit and dark fedora elicited cheers as he danced to a particularly frantic rhythm in front of the bandstand.

Between tunes, Collette recalled working the now-defunct Down Beat Club that sat on the same block as the Dunbar in the late ‘40s with a band that included bassist Charles Mingus. A piece that he wrote during that period, based on the changes of “I’ll Remember April” (and recorded by Central Avenue veterans Wardell Gray and Art Farmer as “It’s April”), was the set’s most spirited number.

Preceding Colette, pianist Gerald Wiggins’ trio with bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Paul Humphrey bridged the jazz and R&B; worlds with a decidedly soulful set. Wiggins, who once played the Turban Room, which is also now just a memory, delivered in lively fashion on a hard-driving version of “Love for Sale.”

Jazz groups appearing earlier in the day were all led by musicians too young to have figured on the Central Avenue scene. Bassist Nedra Wheeler’s septet mixed African, Middle Eastern and reggae rhythms before Wheeler, playing with only percussionist Melena, stopped the show with her assertive gut-bucket style.

Dwight Trible, a vocalist inspired by Leon Thomas, emphasized the spiritual with his quintet Oasis on Nat Adderley’s “Old Country” and the Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer tune “Out of This World.” Trumpeter Noland Shaheed’s quintet took a more contemporary tack with groove and beat material backed by electric guitar and both acoustic and electric keyboards.