Home » Jazz Articles » Live Review » Jeremy Pelt at Dizzy's
Jeremy Pelt at Dizzy's
ByAnd the San Diego club isn't located in the poshest of locales. The downtown renovation here has thus far eluded Seventh Avenue. You step over our less fortunate, slipped-through-the-cracks homeless brethren to gain admission. Add to these less than fortuitous circumstances the fact that the joint was less than half full, and you have the makings for a desultory, let's-get-this-over-with situation for a road-weary quartet. But at exactly eight p.m.showtimeJeremy Pelt and crew took the stage and played as if they'd been blessed with the best of venues, treating the fortunate listeners to a stellar night of jazz.
Jeremy Pelt radiates a quiet professionalism. Dressed in a dark suit, possessed of an erect and rather regal bearing, the trumpeter blew into the show's opener, Charles Mingus's "Weird Nightmare", which is, incidentally, the same song that opens his marvelous new CD, Close to My Heart.
Pelt's trumpet sound was gorgeous from the get-go. Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove and Terrance Blanchard are the names you hear mentioned most often when it comes to pure beauty of tone. The CD and the concert bear out the fact that you've got to add Jeremy Pelt's name to that list.
Dizzy's is a jazz fan's paradise: arrive ten minutes early and you can score stage side seats, eight feet from the musicians.
I wondered going in if Pelt's backing band would be a let down from his top flight accompanists on Close to My Heart. After all, it would be hard to find a finer rhythm section than Mulgrew Millerpiano; Peter Washintonbass; and Lewis Nashdrums. But Danny Gressitt, Josh Ginsberg and Willie Jones IIIpiano, bass, drums, respectively proved themselves more than up to the challenge, with a bit more of and edge and a bite. They exhibited an easy rapport at the end of this West Coast tour, and each of them received a good deal of solo time they used to full effect.
Jeremy and Company played several songs off the new CD, a couple from Pelt's previous disc, Profile (Fresh Sound New Talent, '02) and a few gems I hadn't heard him play before.
The young trumpeter has a rather stoic stage presence, but his horn sound is as emotive as it could be. I've got a hunch that the musician is an emotional guy, and it all comes out of his horn. "502 Blues (Drinkin' and Drivin'), was particularly moving that night, a piece suffusedon record and even more so in concertwith contrition and remorse, melancholy.
Breath-takingly beautiful was Donald Byrd's "It's a Beautiful Evening", with Pelt switching to the richer-toned flugelhorn. And the highlight of the first set: "Sir John", a hard-driving Blue Mitchell tune that the band just smoked, with Willie Jones III's most inspired drum solo of the evening.
The CD, Close to My Heart is a knockout. So was the show that night. I floated out of Dizzy's hugely impressed with Jeremy Pelt's chops and professionalism, his serious musicality, and his first rate backing band. I also walked out with the satisfying knowledge that I'd just had the great good fortune of sitting eight feet from a major new talent for two hours as he worked his magic.
Photo Credit
Jimmy Katz
< Previous
Aiming True, Volume 1
Next >
Jane Ira Bloom
Comments
Tags
Concerts
Jun
28
Fri
Jun
28
Fri
Jun
29
Sat
Jun
29
Sat