THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunday, February 22, 1970
Sunay Febuay 2,97
arts festival
Exploding
'Cannon'?
music
Inconsistencies mar Janes
By BERT STRATTON
I expected that after the Can-
nonball Adderley concert last
night, I would have been suffi-
ciently inspired to get out my
saxophone and wake up all my
neighbors.
Luckily for my neighbors,.
Cannonball didn't come on
strong enough for me.
The problem was I was too
psyched up for the concert.
Having, played along to his re-
cord The Best of Cannonball
Adderley yesterday afternoon,
I went to last night's concert ex-
pecting to see him at his best. He
wasn't, though; Cannonball was
far from bad, but he was equal-
ly far from. great.
Yet the most disappointing
:factor was the mixed-up pro-
gramming. The show began with
Adderley's Quintet playing in
front of an abbreviated Univer-
sity orchestra, conducted by
William Fischer.
TIe's the man I knew did
,those pretty lousy arrangements
on Herbie Mann's latest record.
However, it's clear that he's a
lot. more talented than I had
thought. At the present, he's
very involved in composing
Third Stream music - that's
what "they' call the various at-
tempts at combining European
classical music and American
jazz. I suppose there's s o m e -
body somewhere who would call
Fischer a "genius", as for me,~
the best I can work up is "un-
appreciated." The. orchestra
seemed to get in the way of the
Jamming, and when the orches-
tra took the lead, 'the Quintet
looked embarrassingly unoccu-
pied.
I thought everything would
get in gear. when the orchestra
and Fischer finished, leaving
Adderley's.group alone on stage.
They jumped into a funky Joe
Zawinul tune, "Walk Tall," and
things looked good. Joe's elec-
tric piano was coupled with
Cannonball and Nat Adderley's
duets.
About then, Cannonball infor-
ed the audience that the group
had already reached their peak
In the experimental Fischer
number. At least he could have
been more subtle about it! Hell,
I thought they were just getting
wa;med up.
Keeping in line with the fest-
ival nature of the concert, an-
other . celebrity, Alvin Batiste,
was introduced. Nobody had
ever heard.of him_ but Cannon-
:' ball -told us that he is one of
music's best clarinetists. Batiste
had never played with Cannon-
ball's group before, so instead
of stumbling through an ar-
rangment, the musicians decided
to alternate improvised solos.
It was the most interesting
part of the night, Batiste ran
t h'or u gh soie remarkable
changes- proving to the doubt-
ers that the clarinet is more
than a shrilly marching band
instrument. Nat Adderley on
cornet (he's Cannonball's broth-
er), did his "thing," which is
bending notes as he slides up
and down the blues scales. Noth-
ing fantastic, just plain old good.
The rhythm section led by
Zawinul and reinforced by Wal-
ter Booker on bass, and Roy
McCurdy on drums, was respon-
sible for tying the loose ends
together, of which there were
plenty, caused by the impromptu
quality of the song.
Cannonball ran his best solos
in the spontaneous jam as well.
His alto solos were flat, but he
put in a few outstanding licks
on soprano sax-an instrument
which is a monster to play be-
cause it is inherently
tune.
out of
Yes, they played "Mercy,
Mery, Mercy," it's so simple and
clean that it had to be good.
After the song Cannonball said
it was quitting time, but he did
a couple pre-packaged encores
to appease the crowd.
All bitching aside, this week-
end's jazz festival proved some-
thing important. Namely, that
this campus will support good
talent. No more of those crap
rock bands (like the Up and
Head Over Heels) on concert
bills, dig? -Elvin Jones, Freddie
Hubbard, Roland Kirk, and
Pharoah Sanders would all give
their right arms to play a college
gig. Let's see them.
By GARY BALDWIN
Loring J a n e s' performance
Friday night at the Ark was
enjoyable, but still very disap-
pointing.
The evening was enjoyable
because Janes was friendly, and
had an interesting (though
sometimes c o r n y) sense of
humor. Musically one kept ex-
pecting him to break loose, to
come up with one incredible riff
or perfectly done song. The dis-
appointment was that that song
never cane.
Janes is a Detroit folk singer
and guitarist, who taught guitar
to popular local performers
Andy Cohen and Christopher,
De Loach, formerly of Christo-
pher and Sara.
Janes began the evening with
a version of "Cocaine," and fol-
lowed with a couple of light,
humorous songs, one of which
he called "a melodrama audi-
ence participation song." His
personality fit his songs well,
and the audience reacted fav-
orably.
The first serious song that
Janes did was "Land of the Buf-
falo," a traditional song about
the buffalo=skinners in the
American West. In contrast to
the fast rhythms of the first
songs, Janes slowed down to a
creep, 'his voice rather shallow,
lacking the fullness necessary to'
project the tone of the lyrics.
Things picked up again near
the end of the set when Janes
did a talking blues song, written
by John Koerner's brother, Pet-
er. Loring closed the set by do-
ing a dulcimer song (on his gui-
tar), and a song by David Rea
called "Play On Your Harp Lit-
tle David." All three of these
were well performed and seem-
Hetero and homosexual living
plus free parking and no food
contracts
ed consistent with both Janes'
voice and his guitar style.
At the end of the first set I
was left with a fairly good im-
pression of what the rest of
the evening turned out to be:
Janes was likeable, had a nasal,
very plain voice, and was quite
a good guitarist. The disappoint-
,ment came when the perform-
ance seemed to degenerate as
the night went on.
I was at first quite impressed
with Janes' guitar work. He used
his right hand particularly well,
doing some very clean finger
picking. But later in the eve-
ning he became sloppy. He be-
gan to make more mistakes, and
quite noticeably squeak h 1 s
strings, while making c h o r d
changes. It does seem only fair
to say, however, that part of his.
problems were a result of recent
repair work done on his 40 year
old Gibson J-45.
Despite the general looseness
of the second and third sets,
Janes performed some good ma-
terial, "Gonna Getcha With Yer
Britches Down" came off v e r y
well, as did a more serious Jean
Ritchie song. He also did a pass-
able version of "We Need a Lot
More Jesus and a Lot Less Rock
and Roll."
An instrumental marred the
middle of the second set, as
Janes' squeaking during chord
changes became obvious. He al-
so made several mistakes in suc-
cession that nearly broke the
continuity of the song. Again
the contrast that marked much
of the guitar work was there,
for the rest of the difficult
Grand Ole Opry song was well
performed.
Janes' greatest strength was
his ability to do humorous talk-
ing blues. His version of "Dun-
can and Brady" was probably
the best song of the evening.
After spending a year or so
playing with a rock band. Janes
has spent a good portion of the
last year readjusting to the folk
medium. Perhaps many of the
problems Janes incurred were
part of making the adjustment
to performing alone in a quiet
atmosphere, rather than blast-
ing electrical music with a band.
At times, Friday'night, Janes
exhibited the abilities of a fine
musician. At other times, care-
less mistakes detracted from his
performance. If only Janes had
been able to confine his relaxed
attitude to his humor, and not
to his music, the evening would
have. been a total success.
CINM A GUILDB
Feb. 21, 22-Saturday, Sunday
RULES O*F THE G'AME,
dir. JEAN RENOIR (1939)
Renoir's outstanding film mixes farce
and tragedy, in story of a weekend
party at a French Chateau.
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