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Kenny Garrett & Pharoah Sanders
TRANEING IN

It was like 1966 all over again at the Regattabar last Sunday. That was the last of three dates at the club with the Kenny Garrett–Pharoah Sanders quartet. Sanders, now 64, came to the fore in John Coltrane’s last bands from ’65-’67, and he performed on some of that jazz genius’s farthest-out recorded performances, including Ascension, Live in Seattle, and Live in Japan. From those recordings, Sanders gained a reputation for a non-stop, paint-peeling altissimo. But his own work as a leader showed his range in a variety of moods, and these days, he tours as an acknowledged master in his own right. At the Regattabar, he was well served not only by alto-saxophonist Garrett (two decades his junior) but also by the powerhouse rhythm section of pianist Dave Kikowski, bassist Nat Reeves, and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts, those last two from Branford Marsalis’s quartet.

The first set began with Coltrane’s "Lazy Bird," from 1957. After introducing the tune’s up-tempo, boppish line, Kikowski spent extended periods laying out, and with Watts in the drum chair, the kind of duo passages that Coltrane and Elvin Jones were known for was inevitable. It came when Kikowski and then Reeves laid out, leaving the drummer and the older saxophonist to lock into each other, feeding each other rhythmic patterns that morphed and pushed Sanders’s roiling statements in every register. After Sanders, Kikowski solo’d, wisely leaving plenty of space for the piece to air out before he too accelerated, his work climaxing in a series of pummeling double octaves and a more ruminative cadenza. As if it were really necessary, Watts came in with his own solo, understated this time (easier on the bass drum, snares off). The piece was a bit more than a half-hour long.

Garrett’s "Chief Blackwater" (for McCoy Tyner) was nearly as furious, and this time, with Sanders sitting out, the younger saxophonist got to duet with Watts, a one-two rumble of bass drums and tom-toms pushing Garrett into an ecstatic altissimo climax. On the Sinatra ballad "Nancy (with the Laughin’ Face)," Sanders showed subtle control of more delicate effects, alternating a wide vibrato on held tones with rippling double-time ornaments, testifying in falsetto screams, and taking a lovely series of descending trills into the bridge of the tune. Garrett’s closing funk workout, "Wayne’s Thang," was good, clean fun, a kind of chill-out for everything that had come before.

By Jon Garelick

Issue Date: December 3 - 9, 2004
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