(editor’s note – no ex post facto proof for Ted Curson and Nick Brignola)
Gillespie and Hampton at SPAC: ‘Absolutely enthralling’
by Alan Jay Alpern, The Knickerbocker News, July 6, 1976
What do you say when you’ve just seen not one legend, but two, for the first time?
It was just an absolutely enthralling experience. Dizzy Gillespie and Lionel Hampton on stage at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) were brilliant, entertaining and everything one would expect of the best.
Dizzy’s glistening horn was subtle, sweet, dynamic and strong. His between-song repartee was lighthearted at times, but also showed a deep sense of himself as a black man.
The world-renowned jazz trumpeter imparted this bit of personal philosophy to his SPAC audience: “We are all branches of one tree, leaves of one branch and fruit thereof; and with the proper ethnic balance.”
His band featured Rodney Jones, a native of Zaire, on lead guitar, Miami-born bassist Benjamin Franklin “Malcolm X Martin Luther King Paul Robeson” Brown Jr., and a black drummer simply called Mickey from Dublin, Ireland.
Gillespie, who brightened the international music scene in the late 1940s as a pioneer of bop—the forerunner of modern jazz—has lost none of the fine edge on his playing. In fact, his music has grown with the years and his Saturday concert reflected a pleasant blend of the old and new.
Opening numbers such as “Barcelona” and “Omanga,” a tribute to an African friend, highlighted Dizzy’s ability to synthesize his bop trumpet with the texture of today’s jazz. And his older songs, “A Night for Tunisia,” which he claimed was written on the bottom of a garbage can in Schenectady, and the classic “Salt Peanuts” were as fresh and exciting as they must have been more than 20 years ago.
Dizzy’s onstage manner was uniquely unpretentious. One would never accuse him of being “refined”; rather, he recalls the easy-going ways of the early ’50s “beat” clubs, a mood he was able to recreate even in a concert area the size of SPAC.
His humor was distinctly off-beat, and put the youngish audience immediately at ease.
“I could say what a great pleasure it is to be playing here,” the trumpeter said in opening his set, “but the truth of the matter is, right now, it’s a great pleasure to be playing, anywhere.”
Then, saying he would like to start by introducing the band, Gillespie turned around and introduced the guitarist to the drummer, the drummer to the bassist, etc. Good fun.
Hampton, by contrast, was equally in keeping with his roots in the “swing” movement of the 1930s. He was quietly dignified, but no less enthusiastic.
His band, the first I have ever seen dressed in black tie, was extraordinary. They easily moved through such standards as “Sunny Side of the Street,” “Misty,” “I’ve Got Rhythm” and “In the Mood.”
Hampton, himself, although he must be near 70, appears an ageless wonder on his vibes. He shuffles on and off stage as a man of his years, but put those little round hammers in his hands and Hampton turns into a dynamo.
Beautiful melodies bounce off his instrument effortlessly, and the cool Saratoga night drifts on in a melodic rendezvous with times past.
The Post-Star, July 3, 1976
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