On a blustery evening at New Orleans Jazz Fest, The Cookers raised temperatures to thermonuclear levels in the WWOZ Jazz Tent. In fact, the brainy, heartfelt American music conjured by this all-star septet tempts me to reach for the "Best of Fest" ribbon with two days left to go at the Fair Grounds.
If you're not a jazz fan, (or a #BAM fan), this blazing band was also the biggest sleeper of the weekend.
Jazz acolytes knew better. Every artist on stage had already led notable bands, recorded widely, and performed with the grandmasters of improvising music.
Talk to most drummers on the Fair Grounds, for example, and they will have a story about Billy Hart: his impeccable time, his dramatic sense and the astounding range of colors he pulls from the kit. Hart added a few new stories at Jazz Fest, whether setting the incantatory mood of the opener with tom-tom rolls and cymbal crashes, or feeding the pulse in a modern waltz.
Mention George Cables to a pianist, and they'll tell you something about his telepathic abilities to support a soloist. On Friday he also embraced the history of his instrument in solos that mixed crashing octaves, trills, gospel chords and keyboard spanning arpeggios: a pan-stylistic feast that was, in the end, pure Cables.
Bassist Cecil McBee once tread the sun with free jazz icon Pharaoh Sanders, and he played musical chess with that master of harmony, Wayne Shorter. One understood why on Friday, as he provided the same services -- and an oceanic pulse -- for a powerful front line of two trumpets and two reeds. McBee also contributed some of the concert's most compelling tunes, including a devastating contemporary blues.
The front line winds were just as distinguished as the rhythm section.
Tenor sax dynamo Billy Harper used to go head-to-head with Lee Morgan. He reprised some of the melodically memorable tunes he wrote for the late-great trumpet brave, including the medium tempo jazz waltz, "Croquet Ballet." Harper's horn dodged through the musical maze like a halfback, muscling the band with a burly, broad-shouldered sound and effective use of expressive distortions.
Eddie Henderson once played trumpet in Herbie Hancock's pioneering electric bands, and he brought the same burnished brass sound to Jazz Fest. This trumpeter can take a wiggy interval and a minor theme and transform it into a cubist poem, complete with bullfight flourishes, speedy runs and dramatic pauses.
The quality didn't fall off with the youngsters in the band.
Craig Handy conjured slippery lines on alto saxophone, reaching deep into the baritone range with expressive honks and articulating cascades of notes in the stratosphere.
Trumpeter David Weiss is a mean improviser, as full-throated as Henderson, but a little tarter in his harmonic choices. That piquant harmonic sense also pervades his smart arrangements for The Cookers. He helped to make a seven-piece band sound like an orchestra. Even in thickly scored sections, he allowed individual voice to shine. (I guess that's why Weiss used to write charts for Abbey Lincoln and Freddie Hubbard).
Put all those elements together and you have much more than an all-star jam. You have a remarkable band at the height of its collective powers.