The Blues and Jazz Hit A2

Donaldson catches Festival crowd

Sometimes, the best way to judge a performer's talent or a show's quality is not by listening to the music.

The Lou Donaldson Quartet is a pleasure to watch. The most talented artists all have a certain kind of stage presence. They smile. They joke with each other. They close their eyes. They sing along with their solos. In short, they look like there's nothing they'd rather be doing.

What makes Donaldson stand out, in a sea of other "old masters" and other sax players is the fact that he is almost a musical time warp. Like B.B. King and "Gatemouth" Brown, Donaldson is stylistically alone in jazz today. There is hardly anyone tha

MARGARET MYERS/Daily Lou Donaldson dazzled the crowd at the Bird of Paradise this past weekend.

t can play like he does, and sound convincing. He still plays bebop the way it is meant to be played; that is to say, fast, fluid, athletically and bluesy.

On top of that, Donaldson is an entrancing and whimsical live performer. While some jazz musicians can be aloof, he is engaging and funny. The first tune, "The Best Things In Life Are Free," was given the coda "... if you got some money in your pocket." This song, grouped in with the band's superb cover of Charlie Parker's "Ornithology" and a few other unnamed up tempo numbers, established the high watermark for technique and fluidity.

On the subject of technique and general brilliance, a few words about Donaldson's organist, Dr. Lonnie Smith. Dr. Smith, like his frontman, is one those kinds of players who could play scales for a half an hour and have the audience on their feet. His touch and style are so beguiling and perfect that it almost seems as if he's not really playing. Rather trying to keeping this living instrument from leaping away from the stage into the front row. He's that good. It's not a solo. It's a seance.

Back to the set. Their "God Bless the Child" (sensitively rendered) segued into a hilarious fake blues called "She's A Whiskey Drinkin' Woman" with Donaldson singing about his drunk girlfriend. Despite the combination of the lovely Billie Holiday tune with a gag blues, neither seemed the poorer for it.

Another upon which Donaldson should be commended is his jabs throughout the night at what he refers to "fusion and confusion musicians" or alternately, "folks who can't just play a melody." In a world where jazz musicians are increasingly worried about being avant-garde geniuses and rappers cannibalize the old music with no thought to it is history, Donaldson's stand is refreshing, honest and necessary.

He could not help, I don't think, ending his set with a small piece of some of that funky stuff, the kind of music that defines his later career. I'll put it this way: After Dr. Smith's fine organ solo on the tune, Donaldson looked at the crowd and said "Look out, Maceo. We comin' ta gitcha!" in reference to the funk prince's concurrent set at the Michigan Theater. I don't think there was a single person in the club who didn't believe that Lou couldn't catch him.

09-14-98