Trumpet-Playing Candolis Make It All Seem So Easy

Conte Candoli and Pete Candoli, trumpet-playing brothers, have been jazz stars since the ‘40s. But there was no sign of musical wear and tear in their set at Charlie O’s Friday night, delivered to an enthusiastic, packed-house crowd.

Over the years, Conte--at 73, four years younger than his brother--has been primarily identified as an improvising artist, while Pete has been much admired for his dependable work as a lead trumpeter. The Candolis’ dual-horn arrangements on this night, however, made very little distinction between the two, offering plenty of solo space and allowing each to take the lead from time to time.

For the most part, the soloing was brief but to the point, often positioned as back-and-forth passages between the trumpeters, sometimes via exchanges with drummer Larance Marable, occasionally in full choruses. Conte’s efforts were consistently within the framework of the articulate, boppish phrasing that has always characterized his work. But his soloing was never virtuosic for its own sake, always mixing his quick-fingered passages with a strong, innate sense of melody.

Pete Candoli’s impromptus were more riff-oriented. He often popped out briskly sequential phrases, seasoning them with fragments and quotes--often humorous--from other tunes. Less obviously, his contributions also included quietly supportive background figures and well-chosen harmony lines.

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The Candolis also deserve credit for a show that presented considerably more than the typical small jazz group packages of opening and closing themes sandwiching sets of improvisations. Although they stuck with familiar material--the ballads “Willow Weep for Me” and “Lover Man,” Dizzy Gillespie’s boppish “Ow!” and Kenny Dorham’s samba-based “Blue Bossa”--each piece was framed in settings that both enhanced the music and attractively displayed their individual wares.

The John Heard Trio, with Heard on bass, Marable on drums and the versatile Ed Vodicka--who appear every Friday and Saturday at Charlie O’s with varying guest soloists--were a model of rhythm section support, accompanying and soloing with easy professionalism.