Pine in Manila, jazz in time

With the local jazz scene going through a protracted general malaise like the rest of the country in the run-up to another presidential election, the concert mid-November of British saxophonist Courtney Pine and a retinue of homegrown acts at the Convenarium in Quezon City helped placed a lot of things in their proper perspective: how music transcends borders and all worries about the upcoming electoral exercise can go hang with the next reggae riff on horn or bass.

But maybe the jazz scene of late has not been that lethargic, although that is the impression one gets as it has hardly been given any exposure on local radio, with over 50 percent of the airtime devoted to commercials, endorsements, usap-usap, and seemingly meaningless meanderings of the disc jockey of the moment.

For example, Pine, whom hardly anyone who has listened to rock radio knows from Adam–except if one chanced on a token feature on Crossroads– would fit well as an anti-hero of jazz, despite his being master of improvisation and newfound dynamics. There were several moments during the concert when Pine held his breath so long he may as well have levitated —then again, that is what comes across after witnessing the Jamaican-born sax player hit notes several notches above the ether, the white of his eyes showing, while spreading his arms wide as if he were a plane or UFO about to take off.

The sounds coming out Pine’s sax alternately resembled bellows of cows, a horn of a ship about to leave port, the benign snoring of a roommate out cold, whistle of winds in an approaching typhoon, birds on the wing, the farts, burps, grunts, groans, and other human natural sound effects that only prove the saxophone can be an extension if not a manifestation of the human body.

We figure that Pine’s obsession with reggae and the blues and his wearing jazz on his sleeve like a Theolonious Monk gone mad and perhaps a trifle theological, could make listeners wonder where all the cerebralness of jazz went, because now it has gone bigtime funky. Throughout Pine’s almost two-hour set, variations of similar themes were played up and stretched out.

Pine’s otherworldly antics are a ready counterpoint to the suave, George Benson- and Gabor Szabo-like tonal and atonal chords of guitarist Cameron Pierre, who has a solo CD out in the market called The Other Side of Notting Hill, where one of the guest vocalists is Julliet Roberts.

Many times during the program did Pine share the spotlight with Pierre, whose ringing and rounded notes wove garlands of thoughtfulness around Pine’s angry yet playful runs, in a flurry of arpeggios and andantes, pianissimos and fortissimos. True, Pierre wasn’t very tall, in fact he was sort of self-effacing and downright invisible, but what was left on stage and in the end ringing in the listener’s ears were those weaving and bobbing chords, with equal touches of wistfulness and mean old blues.

Pierre’s contrapelo, Pine was the consummate showman, his swagger trying to measure up to his formidable talent. Or is it genius, that much overused term.

In contrast, the first set featuring homegrown talents, with a smattering of mestizas and mongrels, at first blush verged on the overly long and a bit contrived, as far as jazz goes. For a music form that prides itself in the space it creates for improvisation and self-expression, the local delegation led by bassist Colby de la Calzada came armed to the teeth to prove that Pinoy jazz musicians are world class.

And they are, seeing how Colby has come a long way from his Mother Earth days and the band’s dizzying rendition of Joyce Kilmer’s Trees with Anita Celdran on vocals. We cannot help but recall those RJ parking lot concerts long before it became Radio Bandido, the time when Chinese rock was making inroads on daytime AM radio along with live coverage of the stock market.

Lending awesome support to the Pinoy cause –though, as jazz guitarist Aya Yuson once advised us, never call it Pinoy jazz, it’s just jazz, man–were Lyn Sherman, Mishka Adams, Cooky Chua, Bituin Escalante, Chad Borja, Mon David, Noel Cabangon.

Egay Avenir was nondescript on guitar, and Tots Tolentino cooked up a whirlwind of sound that prefigured the pyrotechnics of Pine later that night.

Indeed where would we all be without this music? At least for one night in November the former capital city was a city of Pine and pine, Pierre and piers, Sherman and shamans. We can’t help but applaud, pump our fists and jump up and down like monkeys following the stage director, because this is the new city, our new capital of impromptu counterpoint slipstream jazz. Such is life circa 2003.