Grace Notes for a Cause in South-Central

Musicians performing on behalf of worthy causes don’t always respond with worthy performances. And sometimes they do.

There was a bit of both Saturday on the opening day of the seventh annual Jazz at Drew festival, a two-day event designed to benefit the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, which sits across 120th Street from Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center. The day’s headlining act, saxophonist Jackie McLean and guest trumpeter Roy Hargrove with pianist Cedar Walton’s trio, offered superlative performances from Hargrove, Walton, drummer Billy Higgins and bassist Tony Dumas.

But McLean, the alto giant who has a reputation for turning it up in live performance, seemed content to sail calm waters with an even keel while his bandmates created a tempest. He wandered inside the middle range of his instrument with short, sometime terse phrases, making a point here and there but never a fuss.

By contrast, McLean’s front-line partner, 27-year-old trumpet sensation Hargrove, brought more than youthful enthusiasm to his play. Spurred by Walton’s and Dumas’ eminently intelligent accompaniment and a rhythmic gale from drummer Higgins, Hargrove mixed long, narrative lines with sharp accents and inventive riffing into literal solos that only occasionally slipped into lofty hyperbole.

Elsewhere during the day, jazz mingled with pop, reggae and soul. The 19-piece Multi-High School Band directed by Reggie Andrews opened. Poet Kamau Daaood touched the places and people of South-Central’s Leimert Park in impassioned readings backed by sensitive support from vocalist Dwight Trible, pianist Nate Morgan, saxophonist Michael Session and others. Words were again important when rapper Bro. B.A.N.K. worked to the beat provided by trumpeter Carvell Holloway’s Strokely Hip Hop Band.

Drummer Norman Connor’s set featured a strong Freddie Hubbard-inspired performance from trumpeter Rayse Biggs on Herbie Hancock’s “Butterfly,” then slipped into overly stylized pop with singers Ollie Woodson and Jean Carne. Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band mixed Wright’s old soul charts, including “Express Yourself,” with new material of similar style. Oscar Brown Jr. performed his best-known lyrics backed by Wright’s ensemble.

It wasn’t until bandleader H.B. Barnum brought out his Boys on the Hill Big Band near 11 p.m. to play a medley of summer-themed music that mainstream jazz again surfaced.