The Rob Thorsen Quartet played to an overflowing crowd thanks partly at least to the fact that Rob's daughter's school class was in attendance. This mini-concert presented by the Athenaeum was, unfortunately, the only jazz concert in the series. With Gilbert Castellanos on trumpet, Mike Wofford on piano, Duncan Moore on drums and Rob on bass, the group performed a variety of everything from jazz standards to World Music. The musicianship in general was exquisite and impeccable.
Starting off with Duke Ellington's "Purple Gazelle," a rarely heard Ellington tune, Castellanos mainly carried the ball. His tone is wonderful especially in the low and middle registers. It's refreshing to hear a trumpeter who's not limited to playing above middle C. Castellanos has studied all the jazz masters like Clifford Brown, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie and it shows in his playing. He's well versed in the styles of the great players who have preceded him. He also has a nice bag of tricks such as squeeze tones and trills which he deploys more or less as the situation arises so that they fit naturally into his solos. A very creative player, his playing is getting more relaxed as he matures. His sense of time is almost too perfect which indicates that he must practice a lot with a metronome. It would be nice to hear him loosen up his time sense in his playing although not in his head. A looser sense of time does not have to be sloppy. And I'm not talking about swinging here. Even swinging eighth notes can be metronomic. Odd placements of accents and rhythmic figures as well as a sense of pulsation can open up the time feel of a solo.
"Jitterbug Waltz" featured a nice duet arrangement between piano and bass. Although Mike Wofford's solos were pretty short throughout in the interests of time(the concert only lasted an hour), Mike is the epitome of impeccability. In addition to that, Mike does another thing that I admire very much in a jazz musician. He's adventurous. When you combine those two qualities in one musician you have something very special indeed. Most musicians usually veer toward one pole or the other, but Mike seems to encompass them both.
"Would you?", a Thorsen original, was based on Dizzy Gillespie's tune "Woody 'N You." Dizzy used to base his tunes on the chord changes of other popular tunes, but it escapes me what "Woody 'N You" is based on. Rob's arrangement based on a Chinese folk tune, "In Xinjiang Time," had a very complex time signature. There were some nice piano and bass vamps providing a background for Duncan Moore's drums. Duncan always sounds good in any context. He's a great section man and can stretch out when given a chance. Not just a "tinky boom" accompanist, as musicians such as Paul Desmond (see sidebar) used to favor, he's always doing something interesting behind the soloist.
Rob Thorsen is a consummate musician. He arranges, he composes, he presents, he promotes. His arrangements feature the bass in unusual and pleasant ways. As a soloist he's fleet of finger and has a bag of "special effects" that tend to liven up any concert. I've heard Rob in a lot of "restrained" settings, such as this one where there were a lot of "young ears" to relate to, but he also can stretch out given the right venue.
Although they didn't have time to finish the concert, Gilbert did a nice version of Thelonious Monk's "Ask Me Now," a very pretty ballad and a nice substitute for the overworked "Body and Soul," proving once again that the melody played straight by a trumpeter with a nice tone is half the battle, something that trumpeters such as Jack Sheldon always do in concert.
Even though there was a standing room only crowd, I can't say the concert was sold out because it was free. All in all a pleasant way to spend the lunch hour. The Athenaeum does a good job providing much of the cultural backbone of music and art in San Diego.
