| Jazz saxophonist Ernie Krivda |
The timing of the arrival of jazz saxophonist Ernie Krivda’s CD “Blues for Pekar” was impeccable, but
then Krivda and his cohorts The Detroit Connection are in the business of time.
That’s made obvious by the way they swing through the 70-plus minutes of the session.
The timing was so apt, though, because it arrived at the point in a previous years that I’d be looking
forward to the Art Tatum Jazz Heritage Jazz Festival or the jazz party hosted at Murphy’s Place. But
that was a couple years ago. The festival was a victim of the crash of the auto business and its naming
sponsor Chrysler. And Murphy’s is no more, closing a few weeks ago in the wake of the death of co-owner
Joan Russell.
While a recording can never make up for the vibrancy of those live sounds, this CD on the Capri label
(there’s also a live session out on the CIMPol label) serves to remind music lovers of what was created
here and give us some hope all’s not lost.
Krivda is a Cleveland-bred saxophonist, who burst onto the national scene as a soloist with Quincy Jones’
last touring band. But Krivda tired of the New York City scene where he settled briefly, and he returned
to Cleveland where he teaches, composes and blows with the most distinctive saxophone tone in the
business.
The CD is dedicated to another Rust Belt creative genius, writer Harvey Pekar, of “American Splendor”
fame. But the CD just as much celebrates the jazz sound that rose in that long industrial stretch from
Buffalo, N.Y., through Chicago. It’s a tough sound full of the blues brought north by African-Americans
migrating from the South, the swing music that kept the local joints jumping, the harmonies of the
American popular song and, in Krivda’s case, the pungent tunes of Eastern European immigrants who dived
into the melting pot.
| Pianist Claude Black |
All this comes together in bebop, a music that prized skill and virtuosity, as players spin long
serpentine lines. The vivid music on “Blues for Pekar” testifies that there’s still plenty of life and
energy in the music.
This date brings together a crew of veterans who have lived the sound. Krivda learned from the generation
that created it. Pianist Claude Black is a member of that pioneering generation and served as house
pianist at Murphy’s Place. Gonsalves, whose father, Paul, was a star soloist with Duke Ellington’s band,
grew up with it. Bassist Marion Hayden is an inheritor of that tradition, and keeps it alive and vital
as an accompanist, a teacher and with her band Straight Ahead.
On two tracks each the band is joined by two young trumpeters Ohio Sean Jones, who served as the lead
trumpeter for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and Dominick Farinacci, now with a blossoming New
York-based career.
Still as far as they’ve traveled listening to them on “Blues for Pekar” it’s clear they’ve absorbed
plenty of home cooking before heading east.
The leader’s work epitomizes the sound. At once vigorous, even rough in spots, the sense of harmony and
structure is highly sophisticated.
The set of tunes chosen brings out these qualities, prime, but not overdone, examples of the American
songbook, “The End of a Love Affair,” “More Than You Know” and “Darn That Dream,” two jazz standards
“Vase Hot” and “Fried Bananas,” closing with two complementary Krivda originals.
These are the songs these musicians have played in clubs such as Murphy’s Place or Rusty’s, many a night,
new inventions springing forth, a seemingly inexhaustible energy.
Recent events remind us nothing is inexhaustible, but the sounds on “Blues for Pekar” show that jazz is a
renewable resource.
