Jazz Review : West Coast Party’s a Joyride : Jack McDuff Sets an Exciting Pace That Carries Day 1 of the 5th Annual Event Into the Wee Hours

It didn’t take the fifth annual West Coast Jazz Party long to get into a groove. Seeing to this was organist Jack McDuff, who was at the helm of a Hammond B-3 while taking a quartet of somewhat mutinous musical sailors through slow grooves, funk grooves, shuffle grooves and blues grooves.

It was a great way to end the first night of the three-day event, held at the Irvine Marriott hotel. Actually, the Friday party continued into the wee hours Saturday morning with a jam session in the hotel’s lobby bar.

As the crowd of more than 500 began to thin after 11 p.m., McDuff, aided by his associate of 36 years, saxophonist Red Holloway, continued to grind away on his low-tech, electronic instrument that’s been producing jazzy R&B; for six decades.

If the tunes lost their way at times, if McDuff’s sidemen--Holloway, trumpeter Conte Candoli, guitarist Ron Eschete and drummer Paul Kreibich--seemed momentarily in the dark about the course their captain was setting, it only added to the voyage’s excitement. Somehow, the group always found a way to come ashore together.

Here’s how a typical number unfolded: McDuff, playing alone, would begin to noodle, dropping hints at the tune and the tempo he might play. The other musicians stood by as if trying to guess what he was up to, occasionally smiling as McDuff put the organ through steep climbs, bluesy stalls and precipitous dives. Holloway, who joined McDuff’s trio in 1963 when a young unknown named George Benson was its guitarist, would lean over to Candoli as if to explain where McDuff was headed and both would laugh.

Most often, McDuff was headed into the blues, played at various rhythms and always featuring his twirling, swirling organ runs. His feet, dancing away at the bass pedals, controlled the pace of everything, and numbers often sped up, slowed a notch or took abrupt turns led by the bass lines he tapped out.

Holloway is at his best in this kind of music. His tenor solos were robust, assured affairs, played with a measure of bounce and plenty of bluesy inflection. On alto, Holloway took a more bop-oriented approach, sizzling through long lines, a more sophisticated approach than his down and sometimes dirty tenor play.

Guitarist Eschete often held McDuff’s tempos together with his accompanying chords and his bluesy touches. Kreibich, most often seen as a cool West Coast-style percussionist, proved he can bang out steady R&B; beats with the best jazz drummers.

Candoli, who was also present four hours earlier at the evening’s opening set led by clarinetist-saxophonist Ken Peplowski, seemed more comfortable playing bop than blues, but added some beautiful muted trumpet to one of McDuff’s mid-tempo grooves. The trumpeter’s best work came earlier, when the Peplowski-led sextet explored “What Is This Thing Called Love.”

Peplowski’s enthusiastic play was contrasted nicely by the more airy sound of saxophonist Scott Hamilton, who led a trio with pianist Lynn Seaton and current Basie band drummer Butch Miles. Hamilton, with a sound out of the airy, Lester Young tradition, showed a strong ear for melody. Seaton brought the house down with his scat-accompanied bass solo during “If I Love Again.”

Central Avenue veteran Ernie Andrews, introduced as the world’s “best blues singer,” then delivered a set of ballads and bop that belied the introduction. Andrews never warmed to his material and confounded the crowd (as he has done over the years) with a swing version of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain.”

The late guitar legend George Van Eps was remembered by a string trio consisting of guitarists Eschete (who, like Van Eps, plays a seven-stringed instrument), Dan Faehnle and Frank Potenza. The evening’s most artistically beautiful moments came in duets between pianist Kenny Drew Jr. and flutist Holly Hofmann.

The party was scheduled to continue Saturday and Sunday, with headliner Terry Gibbs and others .