Soprano Summit - Live at Thatchers (J&M)

Ever ponder the possibility of alternate career courses for your favored musicians? A long while back we had a thread discussing just such divergent realities and recently, in the spirit of that exercise, I got to thinking: What if Steve Lacy had chosen to stick with a career in Dixieland jazz and not switched tracks to the avant-garde via the music of Cecil Taylor and Thelonious Monk? I like to think he would have followed a path similar to that of Kenny Davern. Davern has been a purveyor of trad jazz sensibilities for going on a half century, but his perspective on the idiom are far removed the creaky repertory music of Preservation Hall. He’s regularly welcomed younger, more freewheeling, players into his fold, among them, bassist Greg Cohen on leave from his Masada post. Davern’s most popular and enduring association has been as part of the ensemble Soprano Summit, teaming him with kindred soul Bob Wilbur. The band was a festival favorite in the Seventies and has engaged in recurring reunion tours over the years. This early concert taped in the fall of ’76 documents one of their strongest conclaves. Guitarist Dave Cliff and bassist Peter Ind, two players linked to the Tristano School through collaborations with Warne Marsh, make for sympathetic and intrepid consorts with the horns. Drummer Lennie Hastings keeps the crew moving with an unfaltering sensitivity from behind his kit. The set list is a typical cache of blues and early swing standards with plenty of exuberant blowing room for all involved. The dual vibrato-weighted soprano attack on version of Ellington’s “The Mooche” is as fine a distillation as any of the co-leaders deep rapport. Davern and Lacy shared salient similarities (both initially doubled on soprano and clarinet) and the two even recorded a date together (w/ Steve Swallow & Paul Motian as rhythm) titled, appropriately enough, Unexpected. Lacy is gone, but Davern is still with us, still making tradition-true music that still manages to test and temper parameters.