Extra-fine weather and the promise of a rare set by super-in-demand saxophonist Brian Patneaude’s Quintet invited everybody into a shared great mood Thursday at Jazz on Jay. Maybe especially Patneaude himself. Introducing his band after their first song, he good-naturedly name-checked the Ryder truck whose loud reverse-alarm beeping failed to interrupt the music.
Brian Patneaude
Fans filed into Jay Square, toting chairs, seeking islands of shade or unfurling their own.
Even the clouds seemed to play along. Rotund cumulus orbs eased from the horizon to pass overhead; bassist Jarod Grieco and drummer Danny Whelchel pushed and punched harder than the clouds’ serene passage. Feathery cirrus higher overhead traced complex patterns like the treble-melody makers riding the groove; guitarist Justin Hendricks’s delicate chording launched and coda’d several songs, keyboardist Rob Lindquist’s staccato attack and the leader’s masterly work up front shared the same confident and elegant nonchalance.
They started with an easy flow, relaxed and restrained, and Patneaude turned his players loose to take Don Grolnick’s “Pools” somewhere else. Lindquist’s keys led the way from smooth to funkier, Hendricks and Grieco sped things up and Patneaude followed them at first but then took over to build the riff into a mighty roll.
Rob Lindquist
“Elevation of Love” by the Esbjorn Svensson Trio got there faster; this was the express, smoothing an at-first jittery groove into a unified flow. Then they surged to the altitude and melodic variation that Mike Mainieri sketched in his “Flying Colors.”
Patneaude made this a two-fer, following next with the same composer’s “Self-Portrait.” Here Hendricks’s guitar set a thoughtful mood with lacy chords whose beauty Patneaude rewarded with a nice solo spot for Hendricks’s more assertive statement after his own strong solo. They stretched the coda as if not wanting to let things end.
Patneaude echoed this approach in his own “Unending” (from his “Distance” album). He led all alone to start in subdued fashion before opening things up into a stutter beat everybody explored in questing solos. Grieco really shone here, before Hendricks again decorated the coda with airy chords.
Jarod Grieco
After this original came terrific covers, everybody listening, everybody helping.
In Chick Corea’s sweet ballad “Eternal Child,” they echoed the late pianist-composer’s lyricism with a descending melody that guided everybody’s playing. They even offered a taste of Corea’s Latin approach.
Patneaude told me some days before the show that “it felt like the right time” to play “Lotus Blossom,” a Grolnick composition the recently deceased David Sanborn, a principal Patneaude musical hero and influence, had often played. A generous leader happily sharing solo time with his friends throughout their 95-minute set, Patneaude owned this one himself. He opened it up eloquently after Hendricks’s guitar chords once again set the mood.
Patneaude noted Hendricks had made his appearance on the gig conditional on the quintet playing Pat Metheny’s James Taylor tribute “James,” and so they did, everybody showing the balance Metheny crafted among reverence and playfulness; momentum, muscle and melody. Put on the spot, Hendricks responded really well.
Justin Hendricks
Then Patneaude reached back to his own songbook for “Majority,” with its characteristic stutter beat easing into mellow groove until Whelchel erupted into his only solo of the set before a repeating melodic figure brought everything home.
Danny Whelchel
Jazz on Jay continues Thursday, July 25 with saxophonist Awan Rashad’s Quartet. Rashad is a Patneaude student who’s earned high marks on his own.
Hoke's Jukebox 