Paul Zetter – Not So Many Miles To Go

Our jazz reviewer finds much to be optimistic about at the second Jumpforjazz production.

For jazz lovers, Nguyen Bao Long’s new tribute concert series under his production company Jumpforjazz is an exciting new feature in the music scene. Using an entrepreneurial approach to audience development, production and marketing, Renaissance Man Long is currently the one to watch as jazz continues to expand its fan base in Hanoi.

The second Jumpforjazz production kicked off in the refined interior of the Dong Kinh Hall last Thursday night.  Long has started this series of concerts by paying tribute to great jazz artists as a kind of entertainment-cum-jazz education initiative. The first one featured Charlie Parker and now it was Miles Davis. Whilst Charlie Parker’s bebop was new, it was largely based on harmonies from the blues and great American song book. What Miles started was a simplification of harmony and space illustrated by one of his most famous quotes; ‘Don’t play what’s there – play what’s not there’.

Long has started a series of concerts paying tribute to great jazz artists as a kind of entertainment-cum-jazz education initiative.

And so it was that Nguyen Bao Long and his quartet of Nguyen Tien Manh, piano, Dao Minh Fa, bass and Le Viet Hung, drums, embarked on their tribute concert starting with a song with only two chords, So What, from the holy grail of all jazz albums, Kind Of Blue. It takes a brave group to take on any songs from this landmark recording and fearless Long chose three, So What, All Blues and Blue in Green with varying degrees of success – more on that later.

It takes a brave group to take on any songs from this landmark recording and fearless Long chose three

Next up, the fast and furious Milestones was taken at tempo as drummer Hung, so comfortable with fast beats, took control with a light rhythm that provided just the right amount of momentum without overcrowding the soloists.  Pianist Manh is like a coiled spring at these tempos, using his refined technique to play lightening fast right hand runs. Just when you think he’ll run out of fingers, he magically spirits up another handful to create great excitement – the feeling of driving downhill without brakes – and the audience responded noisily.

Long, whose passion for jazz was evident this evening in his extended and ‘take no prisoners’ solos, was a man on a mission. Solo after solo built in melodic intensity as he demonstrated why he’s at the top of the jazz pile at the moment and why he’s still exploring the potential the saxophone has to aid his self expression. Seven Steps To Heaven from the dawn of Miles’ great quintets of the 1960’s, was taken even faster with Fa holding down a walking bass-line that seemed to defy gravity and Hung keeping the forward momentum going brilliantly. His drum solo at the end of the song was an example of soloing at speed for emotional intensity – not fireworks or artifice. By this time the band and audience were unrestrained with whoops and cheers from the latter and growing passion and risk taking from the former.

…with Fa holding down a walking bass-line that seemed to defy gravity

Guest guitarist Hoang Xuan Tung, then joined the band on stage to interpret songs from Miles’s electric period like Tutu, Human Nature and the steely You’re under Arrest. With a shiny new guitar, flat cap and sunglasses Tung with this faux showmanship could have sullied an otherwise well executed set. But he didn’t – he played beautifully showing a restrained passion in his solos that belied his youthful years. His tone was perfect for the electric Miles period and cut through almost as much as Long’s rasping sax. Wherever Tung plays next I want to be there – I think he’s going to be very special if he sticks to music making and doesn’t get distracted with show making. He certainly stoked the band’s boiler room. When they launched into the complex head arrangement of You’re Under Arrest, everyone played tighter, more together, more focused  – I think Tung was the catalyst. Whatever the reason, Long astounded us all when as the song seemed to be finishing he launched into a solo of soaring emotional rawness as if he was trying to bare his soul (or perhaps re-instate his authority over the group after Tung’s impressive showing).  Accompanied only by Hung’s polyrhythmic beats, we were given four minutes of Long unleashed – his reed must have been close to splitting.

He certainly stoked the band’s boiler room.

But the evening belonged to another more slow cooked song – All Blues – played earlier in the set – and here’s why. If you want to pay tribute to Miles you can’t just replicate his songs you need to interpret his style of music making – and that’s no easy thing for one of the legends of all music of all time.  But with All Blues the band surprised me.  Starting with Fa on the deep G blues vamp, Hung then joined on soft mallets, not sticks, that made his drums seem to talk. Next onto this bed of deep blues, Manh stood up, put a short plank of wood into the piano and started plucking at the strings – making it sound like some kind of cosmic banjo. The groove deepened, the volume stayed constant, the drums extended their vocabulary and the bend in the piano’s plucked strings cut through the soulful ostinato. Onto this swaying rhythm Long stepped up and started exploring the blues scale. Piece by piece, note by note, layer by layer his solo grew in passion. The usual excesses of ramping through the gears too quickly, pointless displays of technique and carbon copying of songs from a different age, were all gone.

The groove deepened, the volume stayed constant, the drums extended their vocabulary and the bend in the piano’s plucked strings cut through

the soulful ostinato.

And so on Le Thai To I heard a Vietnamese jazz quartet find its voice with innovation and most of all with their own musical style, found through a journey into someone else’s – I think Miles would have been happy with that. I hope Long builds on it.

Words and photographs by Paul Zetter

Jumpforjazz on facebook.

Nguyen Bao Long on facebook.

(Note: the photographs in this article were taken at a rehearsal for Parker’s Mood, the first Jumpforjazz production)