There are almost as many styles of jazz as there are jazz musicians. Friday night at the KU Jazz Festival in the Lied Center was not for the sweaty, hard bop of steamy nightclubs but for the modern chamber music of concert halls.
Still, both styles have their place in the jazz lexicon and the second night of Kansas University's annual festival offered plenty of opportunity for concentrated, focused listening.
Opening was KU's Jazz Combo 1, comprised of students from the university's jazz studies program, who began with the whispering "Affliction" and ended with a fiery, superb Ornette Coleman cover.
Topping the bill was legendary guitarist John Abercrombie, an artist whose career spans more than three decades. Abercrombie, alternating solid- and hollow-body instruments, delighted the crowd with complex musical passages and a lightning-fast touch.
By not playing with a pick, the guitarist was free to roam, exploring his fretboard like the Jack London of jazz, charting unbroken aural terrain and pushing the sound barrier into new realms. His knowledge of unusual chords was encyclopedic, and his leads were dart-sharp, with occasional bursts of finger tapping thrown in for good measure.
As he played, he nodded, grinned and grimaced red-faced, as if channeling some otherworldly musical force, hearing voices from the planet guitar.
Abercrombie was accompanied by drummer Adam Nussbaum, organist Dan Wall and violinist Mark Feldman. Nussbaum and Wall have backed the guitarist for the better part of 10 years, while Feldman is a recent edition. A good one, too. The violinist was easily able to hold his own against Abercrombie's formidable technique, at times all but overshadowing the guitarist's mighty efforts.
Feldman's spirited forays into sonic outer space were a sight to behold, his full-tilt expeditions a flurry of screaming notes and floating vibratos that sounded like Jimi Hendrix had come back from the dead playing violin.
It was a treat to watch these two seasoned jazz masters trading licks back and forth, duking it out for the sheer pleasure of doing so. Listening might be compared to a game of one-on-one with Michael Jordan hard to keep up but a lot of fun trying.
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