Jahari Stampley at Jazz Alley

Jahari Stampley
Jazz Alley
Seattle, WA
January 30, 2024

There are certain immutable facts that present themselves to you when engaging with 2023 Herbie Hancock Institute International Competition winner, Jahari Stampley. First, he is a brilliant pianist, with prodigious talent and a commanding presence. Secondly, he is a large personality, with ardent ever-present positivity and a gracious spirit. And lastly, he is a young artist that brings with him more questions than answers as a composer and bandleader.

Pundits will allude to his success in winning prestigious jazz competitions, the Hancock included. No matter what value you place on such things, art by nature is not an entity embellished by competition—quite the opposite, one might ascertain. The fact here is that it makes no difference to a veteran jazz listener who has attended thousands of gigs across decades of time. Show us who you are, and what your vision is musically. You have one recording as a leader, and a respectable effort at that. But jazz music is made in the moment, and in the right moments, jazz performance can be a spiritual awakening in that brief, ninety-minute span.

Opening for the first time at Jazz Alley in Seattle, a historic venue with a forty-six-year history of presenting the best the genre has to offer, Stampley chose to introduce himself in such a way that sounded more like an over-produced game show hook, than an entrance to a respected stage such as Jazz Alley's in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood. It was silly, and easily shrugged off by the slight Tuesday night crowd. The club's Steinway was positioned lid down, fitted with electronics, including pedals that enabled bass. In the act of creating enhancement, Stampley disabled the instrument to respond to the acoustic resonance of his playing without electronics, the mode in which he performed for the better part of the evening. Ah, but back to one more immutable fact—our music needs entertainers, and Stampley is that. The issue is balance here, and he has little to offer at this point. It stood in the way of his extraordinary talent as a pianist, serving as a distraction in uneven intervals.

While playing through the dense harmonies and rhythmic complexities of his debut release, Still Listening (Self-Produced, 2024), it was difficult not to notice the difference between his studio effort and what was happening on the stage. For this tour, he is accompanied by young drummer Miguel Marcel Russell and his mother, D-Erania Stampley on bass, bass keys and alto saxophone. Stampley tended to overplay through virtually the entire ninety-minute set, possibly in response to the limits of his rhythm section. Russell's playing was uneven for the most part, but brilliant when things were clicking. He is a Mike Mitchell comp, employing polyrhythmic sequences within the harmonic labyrinth of Stampley's writing, something difficult to do when the bottom end of the band is severely lagging.

After fifty minutes in which the pianist jogged between quicksilver playing, jovial conversation and a fixation on introducing his band members time and time again, he settled into "Dreams of Time," and thus, the gig was on. It featured fleet articulation, an original spirit and compositional prowess, while employing a tasteful use of mild electronics.

As is common with the current generation of jazz composers, Stampley's music never swings in the traditional sense. There is little connective tissue between his music and post -bop language. The music is harmony and rhythm first, melody as a reactive interpretation within the traditional composition triad. The music has great depth and is highly visible, brought to light well in the studio, and in certain moments of this performance.

"Still Listening," brought the audience to the understanding that while this one performance may not fulfill one's expectations of Stampley's prodigious talents, we will be back, we will be listening as well. The hope here is that he comes to the conclusion that like bandleaders he has played for, he must surround himself with musicians that challenge his great talent. He cannot continue to be tethered by his band's current configuration. We'll be here, waiting and still listening.

Comments