Spirited Start to New Orleans Conference

The opening day of the 27th annual International Assn. of Jazz Educators Conference--a huge event attracting nearly 10,000 educators, musicians, record business executives, concert presenters and journalists from around the world--kicked off with the right spirit, in the right city.

What better location to celebrate the international reach of jazz than New Orleans, where it all began and where it continues to be a way of life?

And the city greeted the convention Wednesday with the combination of passion and understanding that could only come from a community that has an intimate and intuitive understanding of the music.

It also made sense that the opening-night concert was a mini-review of current and past streams of New Orleans jazz.

*

Pianist Ellis Marsalis, who has become both eminence grise and paterfamilias for New Orleans music--the former via his influence as an educator, the latter for his parentage of the talented brothers Branford, Wynton, Delfayo and Jason--opened the evening with the New Orleans Community Jazz All Stars.

Among the many talented participants were clarinetists Alvin Baptiste and Michael White, trumpeter Wendell Brunius, saxophonist Harold Baptiste and vocalist Irma Thomas.

It would be unforgivable, of course, to give a jazz concert in New Orleans without veteran clarinetist Pete Fountain, who was present to serve up his familiar romp through the New Orleans style.

And it was appropriate to climax the program, held in the huge ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, with the quintet of trumpeter Nicholas Payton, one of the most gifted of the current young standard-bearers of New Orleans jazz.

Payton’s big, brassy sound and bright declamatory style capped off a century of jazz trumpet--his often ecstatic soloing an echo of the legendary Buddy Bolden.

And his ballad solo on “These Foolish Things” was stunning, a classic example of a young talent rediscovering the beauties of the past.

But Payton’s group also included saxophonist Tim Warfield and pianist Anthony Wonsey, whose exploratory solos, often bursting with envelope-stretching ideas, added a distinctly forward-looking perspective to the performance.

Typically for an association convention, the big ballroom concert only represented the most visible part of the evening’s jazz. At the Hyttops Lounge, in a more casual setting, trombonist Robin Eubanks and his group Mental Images offered their own jazz visions well into the morning hours.

*

And at the House of Blues, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison--like Warfield and Wonsey at the earlier event--used his pliable sound and extraordinary technique to take his improvisations to the outer limits.

But he did so while remaining firmly connected to the blues that are also an essential element in New Orleans musical history.

Harrison was accompanied in the front line of his group by a remarkable trumpeter, 16-year-old Christian Stark, whose spirited, Clifford Brown-influenced style was delivered with startling maturity and imagination.

Stark’s playing--as much as anything heard in the opening events for this massive jazz congress--symbolized the vital roles played by the conference’s most important attendees: the eager young performers who will take their New Orleans experiences back to their home communities.

The International Assn. of Jazz Educators’ Conference continues through Saturday with a massive schedule of performances, panels, workshops and clinics.