It’s the 32nd annual Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. MAGNET’s Mitch Myers translates the action.
Bandleader Don Byron is all about the project. For the past two decades, he’s organized his thinking around the sounds of a wide range of stylists including Raymond Scott, Duke Ellington, Sly Stone, Henry Mancini, Junior Walker and many others. Byron’s most recent effort has been to organize his New Gospel Quintet, a dramatic and jazzy approach to gospel music that’s dedicated to the original gospel innovator, Thomas A. Dorsey.
Opening an early evening performance at the Gesù Theater with a lengthy version of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” Byron established himself as an intuitive musical director who follows his own fierce instincts above all else. The group’s direction became much more obvious when singer D.K. Dyson joined the other musicians onstage. Beginning with the song “Hide Me In The Bosom,” Dyson displayed a strong and dynamic presence, and her powerful vocals provided focus and context to the evening’s proceedings. Although Dyson’s singing was an obvious focal point of the show, Byron’s own clarinet and saxophone work was equally, if not even more, essential.
Byron himself seemed torn between playfulness and seriousness as the show progressed. At one point he cut off Dyson as she was about to begin a song, saying, “No, was ain’t doing that.” And that was that. The band simply changed gears and followed Byron on another long, twisting instrumental journey as he bounced from bass clarinet to clarinet to tenor saxophone. Despite his gruff exterior and autocratic style, Byron was clearly enjoying himself as the group embraced his bold new arrangements of classic gospel fare, like Dorsey’s “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.”
Which reminds me: Back in 1967, Ornette Coleman released a bold, difficult album of him jamming alongside fellow altoist Jackie McLean entitled New & Old Gospel. That disc didn’t have the blatantly religious overtones of Byron’s new project, but the single-mindedness of Byron’s vision is not dissimilar to that of the respected Coleman. So, let’s look forward to the CD release of Byron’s fine group with Dyson, bassist Brad Jones and killer drummer Pheeroan akLaff. It’s all really good stuff, and that’s the gospel truth.
