The Modern Jazz Quartet - 35th Anniversary Tour (2005)

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The Modern Jazz Quartet - 35th Anniversary Tour (2005)

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The pleasure of seeing the Modern Jazz Quartet again, in this live concert, will be tinbged with sadness for most viewers. The MJQ axisted from 1952 to 1974, and again from 1981 to 1995. Over the years it took such deep root in the consciousness of jazz fans that, quite irrationally, we believed it and its members were immortal. The past few years have proved us wrong. all four of the gentlemen have left us for ever, the last being Percy Heath, who finally laid down his bass in 2005.
Please take into account that the MJQ has been probably my favorite jazz group all my life when I say this is the most enjoyable jazz concert on DVD I have ever seen. It was expertly taped during a music festival in Freiburg Germany in l987 and memorializes the world’s longest-running jazz combo in great form. They were together for so long that some of us thought they would always be around; yet sadly all four of them have now passed on.
John Lewis was the leader of the MJQ and composed most of the music. He made no bones about strongly appreciating European classical music and especially Bach, and his music is full of classical forms such as fugues. The MJQ epitomized the “chamber jazz” style, and not only in their sound. Lewis insisted from the start that they wear tuxedos and carry themselves onstage as if they were a string quartet. This was criticized by some jazz aficionados but raised the MJQ in the minds of most audiences and got their more serious listening attention. In the 50s and 60s they were right up there with the Dave Brubeck Quartet in popularity.
The camera focuses frequently on Lewis’ right hand work. We see the precise and controlled single-line improvisations he spins out in the upper registers of the piano. The phrase a fan observed about Milt Jackson: “If he ever did once play a non-swinging note, it must have been in private” can certainly apply as well to his bandmate Lewis. We also see the eye contact between Lewis and Jackson at various points in the music. There are many sheets of music manuscript on the piano in front of Lewis for pieces such as the concluding Dubrovnik Suite. There are also a couple of flies plaguing him and walking on the manuscripts like moving whole notes. Ah, the challenges of live performance! There is also a humorous translation problem (or maybe just a hearing problem) on one of the tunes: although correct in the provided note booklet and on the back of the box, the next-to-last tune is identified onscreen with the superimposed title “Backgroove” (Bags’ Groove). Speaking of Bags, it’s great to see him in action, hitting every note with the same precision and care as Lewis does on the piano. His valued contribution to the group is the singing, flowing sound he achieves on the vibes. Ellington’s Rockin’ in Rhythm gets the concert off to a swinging start with a tune probably familiar to most of the audience. The 1987 version of Lewis’ big hit Django is quite different and more exploratory from the many versions I have in my collection. (In fact I once put together a mix tape of 90 minutes of different treatments of Django.) I realized perhaps for the first time that the piece has almost none of the gypsy jazz sound of its dedicatee’s music - it is more of a blues elegy or threnody.

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The Modern Jazz Quartet - 35th Anniversary Tour (2005)

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