'I'm
Roy Haynes, Dammit!'
Roy
Haynes at 75.
The
way the band played "Trinkle
Tinkle," the old Monk
tune, sealed the fate of the
crowd that filled the joint
for Roy Haynes, the great
drummer who first visited
Hollywood 50 years ago when
he backed Lester Young.
The way
tenorman Ron Blake sailed
through it, whispering a
tribute here and there to
Monk's tenorman, Charlie
Rouse; the way he punched
out the accents so that they
were unexpected even for the
delighted Haynes, who fired
back his own surprise
salvos; the way they both
got it to sound so joyous
and exalted, yet wise and
sarcastic --- the crowd
drank it all in with gusto
and satisfaction and put the
experience down on a
spreadsheet headed Happy to
Be Your Prisoner.
A local
contingent of admiring
drummers paid deep heed and
loud tribute. A couple might
have been around when
Haynes, now 72, first hit
town with Prez, like the
great studio drummer Lee
Young, Lester's brother. Or maybe they
knew him from his years
behind Sarah Vaughan, or his
recent tour with Chick Corea
and Joshua Redman, or from
his appearances with Miles
Davis, John Coltrane, Stan
Getz, Eric Dolphy, Pat
Metheny, Dizzy Gillespie,
Art Pepper or Horace
Tapscott.
But they
knew he knew just what to
do, and they were right.
Even when he wasn't playing,
as on the beginning of
"Darn That Dream," which
began a cappella, his
presence seemed to raise the
stakes. The ballad became a
feature for the cleanly
sensuous Blake who was
followed, as Haynes rejoined
them, by the bright and
booming pianist Dave
Kikoski, who's played with
Randy Brecker and Al Foster.
They all proceeded, with
Haynes' assistance, to a
higher plane where life
seemed sweeter and smarter
than usual.
Oh,
this was New York sizzle,
all
right, from the guy they
call Snap Crackle. One
rhythm wouldn't suffice.
They gave you two, three,
four of 'em, one on top of
the other, like a shot on
top of a beer behind a
martini, the Manhattan
breakfast food. This
happened on "Summer
Night," the last tune
of his busy opening
set.
With the
able bassist Dwayne Burno
beside them, Haynes and
Kikoski got into some heavy
lifting, the musical muscles
glistening and swelling as
Blake, who's tried this with
Roy Hargrove, Art Farmer and
Jimmy Smith, cavorted more
lyrically than ever with his
soprano saxophone.
When he
and Prez came to town,
Haynes said, the audience
came to see the great
tenorman, "of
course." Haynes was 20.
But he stood up and spoke
out: "I'm Roy Haynes,
dammit!"
He hasn't
changed.
The
guy they call snap crackle.
For
his diamond anniversary
year,
Roy Haynes
brought out a jewel of a
trio. It passed ringingly
through town in June 2000,
on the next to last night of
its world tour.
If ears
could be blinded, Danilo
Perez would have put the
whole population of the
Mint in the dark with
his dazzling piano playing
on "I Hear a
Rhapsody." In this he
was accompanied, or marched
along, by the bassist John
Pattituci, who does not hide
his light under a bushel
either.
And
although Haynes has honed
his intuition against some
of the greatest beboppers
the sport has ever known,
neither of his bandmates
showed a trace of
intimidation.
Indeed, as
the gentlemen of the
ensemble made their way
through such classics of the
genre as "Prelude to a
Kiss" and the
Thelonious Monk variations
on "Sweet Georgia
Brown," it seemed at
times as though Haynes,
known for the unlikely nooks
into which he pops his
shocking little accents, had
met his match in Perez, who
found a great many
unsuspected nooks of his
own.
These were
utilized on his solo number,
"Smoke Gets in Your
Eyes," a set of changes
on which he has taken out a
lease. He whips you through
these richly planted gardens
of harmonic delight, which
go by so fast the mind can
hardly name the blossoms:
One was a stairstepping
passage of chords, each of
which was rendered in
contrary motion, on top of
some polyrhythm or other
that he had recalled from
his days in the Latin bands
of Panama. It was gone in a
couple of bars, but not
forgotten.
"My
God!" said Haynes,
when he had heard this whole
number. But he was by no
means left in a quandary. A
passage he played with the
mallets soon brought out the
hitherto unsuspected tympani
capabilities of the trap
set, and included a stretch
where the mallet sticks
struck the rims of the
various drums and made a
little tune or two. Tuned
rimshots!
Pattituci
leads his own group of
fusioneers around town so he
did not try to upstage his
companions. You must be
something of a rock when all
that virtuosity is pouring
down, and he was.
But when
his turn came to solo, on
"Afro Blue," he
proved encylopedic and just
as urgent as his onstage
peers.
It was a
darling band, hot as you
have any right to expect in
these later days of jazz,
and it was a pity about the
last number, an audience
sing-along on "Oh, How
We Danced (On the Night We
Were Wed).
Haynes
spreads some cheer.
