Pronounced john-gear-off
Eldar
Djangirov at the Jazz Bakery
in Los Angeles in 2001.
The
playing of Eldar Djangirov
gives you, in addition to
its prodigious skill, a
sense of freshness and
warmth that matches the
freshness and warmth of the
downy cheeks and soft eyes
this 14-year-old phenomenon
from Kansas City brought to
town.
"When I Fall in
Love" was a good
example of this rare quality
in the overtilled valley of
modern jazz. Djangirov
(pronounced, he charitably
advised, john gear off)
skewed the notes of the
theme just slightly, enough
to set up a tantalizing
counterrhythm, three beats
against four beats. Then he
returned to conventional 4/4
and improvised in single
finger phrases, touching the
keys like a feather falling
on them.
The result was
either not quite Bill Evans
or just past Bill Evans, you
couldn't be sure. Anyway, it
was a songlike outcome
comparable to Bill Evans,
just as Djangirov's summer
lightning runs were
comparable to those of Art
Tatum and his swinging block
chord passages were
comparable to those of Oscar
Peterson.
Honest.
The young
gent
certainly knew how to
pick repertoire.
On a night at the Jazz
Bakery in November
2001 it
was "Lester Leaps
In," a simple 1930s
riff by the great tenorman
Lester Young that showed
Eldar knows his way around
the foundation stones.
"Sandu" brought
out another much-loved
jazzman, Clifford Brown, and
here the block chord
passages might have been by
Milt Buckner, the pianist
who started the whole
business with Lionel
Hampton. But when Djangirov
plays block chords he gives
it that light touch of his,
which allows all the notes
in the chord to sound and
feed the ear.
When he ran
across Dizzy Gillespie and
Charlie Parker (which
couldn't have been all that
long ago), what caught his
ear, he said, was how fast
they played. Thereupon he
launched into a slightly
Latin version of
"Groovin' High,' at a
tempo that couldn't have
been much faster. But he
whipped through it so
nonchalantly that it seemed
at times like nothing,
effortless and no trick to
it at all. Not!
The two able
rhythm section veterans
who
accompanied him in his Los
Angeles debut, Bob Maize,
bass; and Paul Kreibach,
drums, were pretty much
required to stay at the top
of their game and did not
throw him any soft pitches,
here or anywhere else.
Charming and poised in a
double breasted dark blue
suit with a figured tie,
Djangirov asked Scott
Joplin's forgiveness for
what he was about to do to
"The Entertainer,"
and here, thankfully, a few
seams showed in a patchwork
arranging effort.
Otherwise,
it would have been hard to
say what jazz worlds are
left for him to conquer.
This guy's a keeper.
