Mann kicks off SPAC jazzfest

by Shelley Riley, The Saratogian

The magical flute of Herbie Mann filled the chilly night air at SPAC Friday as the Upstate Jazz Festival, a three-day jam session of jazz greats, got underway.

Mann’s creative genius, which nearly all in the audience already knew about, emerged with the first note in the almost classic “Mississippi Gambler,” a combination of the Eastern sound of the flute plus the African rhythms of the drums.

Armen Halburian stole the number, as he whipped through his “store” of bells, wind chimes, whistles, bird calls and percussion, including the bongos.

If your feet hadn’t already begun to tap to the jungle rhythms and your body hadn’t begun to sway even a little in your seat, Mann’s third number “Turn Me Loose” would have set you going. It did the rest of the rather empty house at SPAC.

Cissy Houston and the Hijackers, three beautiful girls with beautiful voices, provided the vocals for this rock rhythm, which quieted as Mann soloed on flute to the sound of the girls’ syncopated clapping.

The soft and mellow Mann emerged in the fourth number, title unknown. It was the kind of tune which conjured up pictures of lovers dancing close and yet hardly moving at all.

If a twangy electric guitar can be mellow, then “Cricket Dance,” an Eastern type composition, was mellifluous. But the clear favorites were the rock rhythms that he closed the show with. The first, featuring David Newman and Mann on flute, solo and together, began to whip the already excited audience. And when Cissy Houston and the Hijackers returned to sing their current hit, “Hijack,” the audience went wild.

After a standing ovation and the first of two encores, the spectators began piling into the orchestra pit, forming a conga line and dancing wildly. In back two fellows stretched out a blanket and danced with it whirling in circles. The rhythm rocked harder, and the conga liners began to beat their fists and stamp their feet on the apron of the stage and floor. Even after they began dismantling the set-up on the stage, the fans continued to call for more. From back near the ticket booth, it sounded like a herd of elephants ready for a stampede that, fortunately, never occurred.

To say the audience thought Mann and the Family of Mann was great would be a gross understatement.

Not so for the warm-up group, whose first number prompted one listener to remark that the sound was “unmitigated noise.”

Things got progressively better in the next few numbers, but one was painfully aware of how long each number lasted. Not so with the sounds of Mann which were definitely no shorter and possibly longer.

Joe Farrell was at his best on clarinet, though his flute flights were interesting as well. But we were all waiting for the flute of Mann and that made a difference in the way one listened and what one expected.

Victor Lewis’ drum solo was worth listening to and watching as he charged the air with alternating dead silences and sudden bursts of drumming. It was a sound of sticks and skins, not cymbals, that characterized his playing.

The Farrell number that appealed to me most, was “Weathervane,” a Latin rhythm that wasn’t fitled with overtones of jazz and rock.

Closing the jazz festival will be Benny Goodman. The show starts at 8:15 tonight.

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