The Michigan Daily-Sunday, March 19, 1978-Page t Tenor sax puissant By ALAN RUBENFELD T HE POWER AND grace of the tenor saxophone regaled the stage of Rackham Auditorium Friday evening as Archie Shepp performed the first of four concerts as part of Eclipse Jazz Shepp, who has performed with numerous jazz greats in a myriad of styles over the past three decades, brought a quartet to Ann Arbor that emphasized a more mainstream style of acoustic jazz. Pianist Art Matthews, bassist Cameron Brown, and drummer Clifford Jarvis provided apt back-up. The tall Shepp struck an imposing figure on the Rackham stage as he leaned toward his receptive audience, playing his tenor sax with drive and resonance. Often, Shepp would blow staccato runs up and down the in- struments' fingerboard. His long solos were filled with flavored riffs, always devoid of repetition. Each im- provisation explored a new aspect of the song's melody, as his back-up unit provided spirited accompaniment. AFTER AN allowed ample Matthews. The opted for short, extended solo, Shepp solo time for pianist keyboard accompanist melodic embellishmen- ts while maintaining the propelling rhythm with his left hand. Shepp slowed down the concert's tempo on "Lush Life" as he blew soft, moody notes into his tenor. The audien- ce felt the human tenderness the song communicated. Then he continued this affectionate ambience with his ex- trapolation of Miles Davis' "Well You Need It." The concert's next few songs gave bassist Brown opportunity to demot-. strate his technical virtuosity as; -he gave rapid-fire bass runs that -he crowd visibly enjoyed. Drummer. Jar- vis provided a consistent, energetc pattern of percussion throughout, while avoiding long, arduous solos. SHEPP ALSO performedrtwo delicate pieces on soprano sqx. Although these pieces were enjoyable, they seemed to lack the spark that- pei- meated the performer's tenor work... Opening the evening was the Barry Harris Trio. Pianist Harris and his group played soft, quiet pieces reminiscent of cocktail music hours, including original works as well as an uptempo version of "I'm in the Modd For Love." Although the trio started slowly.t iy warmed considerably as. their pd4rr- mance continued and the rapport )- ween musicians grew. Harris and drummer Leroy Williams often hni- med softly to their tranquil meloei es and calm riffs. The trio ended their portion of the concert on a high note with a lively rij- dition of Thelonius Monk s "Epistrophy"; the audience loved it. Harris seemed quite touched by the crowd's warm appreciation. Daily Photo by ANDY FREEBERG AC hie She p West brings banjo fever to Ark By ERIC ZORN H EDY WEST delayed her perform- ance at the Ark Friday night until someone supplied her with a fingernail file. The fortyish, dark-haired perfor- mer of old-time music was making sure tlhat all was just right with her hands before treating the audience to her nimble, imaginative frailing and picking. West carried her long-necked Vega five-string banjo on stage and opened the St. Patrick's Day performance with an uptempo "Irish Song from Georgia" in which she demonstrated the wide scope of her instrumental talents. She started out with a free-strumming old- time frail and smoothly switched over to a three-finger picking reminiscent of folk guitar rather than hard-driving bluegrass banjo. Throughout the evening, in the middle of bouncy im- provisational breaks and fill-in licks, she showed unusual combinations of playing styles, including a one-finger frailing which lent a softer tone to con- trast the earlier thrashing of the strings. Indeed, the lively banjo work saved the concert from being a rather average performance of old folk songs. West's singing is very good, but not in- spiring and powerful enough t bring out the strong, clear emotional messages in her music. "The songs readiest available to modern city folk are pop songs," she says. "Sentimen- tal, unreal songs that cheat, that don't honestly describe life." WEST ORGANIZED her performan- ce of these straightforward and realistic tunes loosely around their thematic content. She began with a few love-and-death ballads, then moved in- to parodies of these songs including a wry ballad called "The Rich Irish Lady." Stage presence was a bit of a problem for West since she seemed unwilling to pause between numbers for ex- planatory chats. As the evening progressed, she became increasingly communicative, but the titles of many of her songs were never mentioned;and their historical significance was often underplayed. When Ramblin' Jack' Elliot appeared at the Ark last fall he played half as many songs as West did, but his performance was the finer one. Elliot's lengthy discourses shed new light on his songs and allowed the audience to gain an intimacy with the musician which is possible only in the small and friendly environs of the Ark. West sang some a capella gospel numbers she had learned from her grandmother Lillie Mulkey West back in Georgia. She followed these with some parodies with lyrics like: Amazing Grace, to soothe the taste, The polecat peed in the possum'sfac "You get the idea," she quipped. "These parodies come out of a religious-schizophrenic culture." WEST HERSELF has roots "all over the South," and graduated from North Carolina University in 1958. She has BARRY AVEDON nn mAA/In r classical training in both the flute and piano and recently received a doctoral degree in music from the State Univer- sity of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island, where she presently lives. West spent seven years in London, but currently restricts her traveling to four month-long tours each year. She doesn't have any definite plans for the future, but claims she won't soon set down her banjo. The second set was devoted to songs of work and freedom, with a timely em- phasis on coal miners. "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?" opened the set with a generous sampling of banjo playing. Later she picked up the guitar to accompany a long number describing the life of a coal miner, questioning "Do you think what they're asking is anything un- fair?" She tried out a few English work songs before coming back to a song about steel mill working conditions written by a mill hand named Dave. "He wrote eleven songs, all told, but five of them were to this tune." West told a few more anecdotes during this set, and the thematic unity held things together well. "I think I'm gonna quit soon, so if you wanna hear something, be sure to shout it out," she said while strumming a chord. Consen- sus was for her to perform the only really famous song she has written, "Five Hundred Miles." Her perky, upbeat rendition of this depressing song was in refreshing con- trast to the sombre version we learned in school or hear on our Country Gen- tlemen albums. West took a bow, and came back for a cute but tragic little ditty about the misadventures of a mouse, a bird, and a sausage, all of which did not live happily ever after. * * * AS PART OF their performance at the Ark tonight, the Bread and Puppet Theatre's Word of Mouth Chorus will present three ten-minute Bread and Puppet shows: "Hallelu- jah"; "Chile", a powerful memorial to murdered poet-singer Victor Jara; and "The Story of a Young Man", In ad- dition, there will be brass band music, Sacred Harp singing, renditions of Ap- palachian and British traditional songs, some banjo-fiddle-concertina-recorder tunes, and audience sing-alongs. PEACE CORPS/ VISTA RECRUITERS, at Placement center March 20-22 seeking volunteers in Education, Engineering, Social Work, Health, Law, and Business. In Africa, South America, and all over the U.S.A. Drop by or sing up now for interviews. 0. What does the master of the acoustic bass do for an encore? A. He comes up with the piccolo b ass! 4 n + f i ,1 1 "r . ' Daily Photo by JOHN KNOX ' Hedy West GRADUA lON, ANNOUNCEMENTS First Floor Michigan Union Check Cashing Window Mon-Fri 9:00 am to 12 noon Ron Carter, the inevita- ble poll-winner among jazz bassists, has a genuinely new sound. Piccolo is the title of the first album by Ron's quartet, and the pic- colo bass is the smaller, specially-tuned instru- ment on which he leads his brilliant group through an exciting club perform- ance too big for anything less than a two-record set. . . r i. *.. o- y_*,, T i- 1 . .. . W +w t .. ".... .rt 11 f f 1. / 1 1 i i n k MS. MARY PENCE, S leading AnnArbor Feminist Goes To Washington, D.C.! . the elf gives you a good-bye interview by margareth miller-dial 663-5366 U * In her years in Ann Arbor Mary Pence has given community leadership in an incredible 0 Piccolo (M-55004) -a worthy successor to his first Milestone LP, the highly-acclaimed, string- studded Pastels (M-9073). _~'N_ a Miestone On Milestone Records and Tapes