Jazz Review: Kenny Barron and Stefon Harris at Bucknell University

This is a concert review written for a class I am taking at Bucknell University, taught by the incomparable Phil Haynes. It reviews a concert given by jazz masters Stefon Harris and Kenny Barron on campus; for those of you that do not know, the dazzling, international-caliber jazz performances that take place regularly at Bucknell are the University's and sleepy-Lewisburg's best kept secret. There is the often extraordinary "Janet Weis Cabaret Jazz" series (Of which the Stefon-Barron concert was a member) that takes place the last Wednesday of each month during the semester, and Haynes's always mind-blowing "Jazz at Bucknell" series (first Wednesday of each month) that has featured such innovators as Bill Carrothers, Robin Eubanks, Phil Markowitz and Jane Ira Bloom.

Because I couldn't find any acceptable footage of Kenny Barron and Stefon Harris playing together, I have posted two videos of them each playing separately with their own combos. Take the time to watch them all the way through; I am sure you won't regret it.

Kenny Barron and Stefon Harris
Bucknell University’s Natalie Davis Rooke Recital Hall, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania
Janet Weis Cabaret Jazz Series: October 29, 2008, 8:00

The performance of piano institution Kenny Barron and the young vibraphone virtuoso Stefon Harris at Bucknell University was a startlingly impressive meeting of two jazz giants, a performance expansive in its enormous musical scope and dazzling in its astounding display of musicianship. Amidst the setting of explosive bebop and profound balladry a narrative emerged, a clear image of the passion and exuberance of the youthful Harris contrasting the calm stoicism of the elderly Barron, illustrated by their differing sounds and improvisational styles as well as by their radically different demeanors onstage. Harris is a player who, like the naive protagonist of a John Hughes film, can be said to wear his heart-on-his-sleeve, investing entirely in each grimace, each verbal utterance, and each dramatic and devastating movement of his body as he creates each note, moving in abrupt, violent lunges that contort his whole torso as he plays, perpetually darting from each end of the vibraphone and marimba onstage. His movements are like those of a boxer, a complex series of jabs, jerks and fakes given context by the impassioned twisting of his face and tightening of his eyelids as he pours every ounce of youthful romanticism into each stroke of his mallets, his strong voice echoing his improvisations in pleading, broken tones that quiver as he sings. Young romance incarnate, an all-consuming liquid passion that gushes from his every pore as his heart bleeds and his body aches, his passion Biblical in its desperation. Contrastingly, Barron is a reserved portrait of mature musicianship, playing with a quiet, collected passion only allowed to burst forth under the careful scrutiny and precise allowance of a rational musician. He is no less emotional, but infinitely more controlled, sacrificing the spontaneity and heartbreaking honestly of Harris for the suave sophistication and intellectual clarity of a seasoned musician who can rationalize as well as react. This obvious contrast was evident in this performance even in the way they interacted with the crowd, Barron preferring to deliver the obligatory thank-you’s and introductions with layers of gracious cool and an Ellingtonian dignity, while Harris preferred to amuse, speaking loudly and bombastically, cracking jokes and telling stories with the enthusiasm of a child, and when he felt the sopping streaks of his shirt after the energetic first number and looked to the motherly Janet Weis sitting in the first row, it was with a facetious boyish innocence that he cautiously asked to remove his jacket onstage.

The second tune of the evening, an excruciatingly heartfelt rendition of Sting’s slow waltz “Until...”, was a Harris contribution to the set, a tune he noticeably delighted in introducing with a humorous and candid tale of his own marriage and on which he played beautifully, building his melodic solo with the earthy murmur of the marimba and the shining metallic laughter of the vibraphone, his emotive lines drenched in the bittersweet meaning of his deliberate melodrama. Barron supported the young mallet virtuoso with his characteristic poise and grace, breathing a subtle maturity, a cautious skepticism into the reckless emotion that boiled from Harris’s mallets. If Harris was the youthful lover barring his fragile soul through his rippling melancholy melodies, Barron was the paternal safety net, the warm security of home and family that laid itself out in discrete layers of cushioned harmony below the young man’s soul-searching naiveté. Ultimately, it was Harris who lifted the song to its billowing climax, pushing against and prying at the simple atmospheric melody until it became the moving and transformative piece of music he made of it, but it was Barron who caught him as he collided with that delirious point of desperate creation, harnessing his passion in the midst of that intoxicating power and allowing him to gracefully deflate, laying him gently down with dense piano arpeggios that were simultaneously a grateful congratulation and a grandfatherly reassurance, a solid re-grounding of the dreaming artist in the coolheaded intellectualism and predictable inevitability of the tune. The effect was staggering, a breathtaking illustration of the familial dynamic of the duo, and a moment of musical honesty as profound as it was virtuosic.

The two performed a pleasingly neurotic interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s “Well You Needn’t” as the evening’s encore, a tune that fell neatly into Barron’s legacy of intricate bebop pianism. The duo played with an air of relaxed humor and good-natured teasing that had been lost amid the meaningfulness of the evening, playing the typically Monk-ish head in an exaggeratedly careening fashion that made both men laugh onstage-- Harris with a loud excited giggle and Barron with a reserved smile and a few audible exhalations, both men looking across stage at one another with a shared mischief in their eyes. They soloed with similarly exaggerated quirkiness, Barron percussively striking the keyboard with a single pointed finger in Monk’s oddly charismatic way, and Harris waving his arms haphazardly and striking keys with the intervallic insanity of Monk’s most manic of improvisations. When the two traded fours at the end of the tune before the reentry of the head, it was with the same fiery competition of Rollins and Coltrane on “Tenor Madness”, Harris unraveling chaotic lines of athletic intensity as Barron effortlessly matched his speed and power with assertive sixteenth note runs brushed gracefully from the keys. “Economy of motion, kid,” he said wordlessly with his smile.

Before the playful bop competitiveness of Monk’s tune, however, Barron and Harris closed their intended set with the mournful “Requiem for Milt”, Harris’s achingly poignant epitaph for his idol Milt Jackson. Harris played this simple, understated melody with a dignity and solemnity not seen in the unself-conscious extraversion of the evening’s previous playing, allowing the calloused chime of the vibraphone to ring through the high-ceilinged hall, quivering in cold, metallic layers of grief-- the smooth, masculine sorrow of a dignified man. Barron accompanied with cautious, respectful distance, allowing Harris to maintain the solitary religiosity and personal revelation of the moment. For those few excruciating moments, the young musician stood alone in the center of the stage, head bowed and feet stationary for the first time of the evening, a thoroughly modern musician paying homage to his creative fathers.

The musical relationship between jazz masters Kenny Barron and Stefon Harris is one of intense mutual respect and affection, evidenced in the amusement and delight the elder shows in the exuberant energy of his young protégé, as well as the reverence with which the younger treats his mentor. Their shared performance that Wednesday evening was not one of struggle or of generational competition, but one of incredible sensitivity and musical brotherhood, a sonic snapshot of two extraordinary musicians creating, for a few nocturnal hours, their fleeting collage, their immaterial masterpiece of beautiful sound.