Tbilisi Jazz Festival 2017: Joe Lovano is on a higher plane of artistry … Video

Grammy-winning saxophonist and composer Joe Lovano stands alone at the vanguard of large and small group jazz. His Grammy-nominated symphonic work of Jazz Performance. The Cleveland native fearlessly challenges and pushes his conceptual and thematic ventures in a quest for new modes of artistic expression and new ways to define the jazz idiom.

In Joe Lovano’s Classic Quartet, he will explore the rich history of mainstream jazz through swing and bebop, ever soulful. An active proponent of straight-ahead jazz, notably collaborating with Hank Jones ten years ago, Lovano drives the edges while honoring the structures. In Bruce Lundvall’s words, Joe Lovano is “a giant on his instrument and a full-fledged giant of jazz.”

In Tbilisi 20 year jazz festival 2017, where was played Joe Lovano – saxophone; Lawrence Fields – piano. Peter Slavov – double bass. Otis Brown III – drums. Drummer Otis Brown III, who has served as sideman for Esperanza Spalding, Joe Lovano, Terence Blanchard, Oliver Lake, Somi and others … And the young pianist Lawrence Fields outstripped our hopes, surprised us!!!

Opening 04.11. the saturday night proceedings, Joe Lovano was in the spotlight. Joe Lovano-one of the festival high points and one of the great new jazz groups, period-these unabashedly musicians gave actual premieres tunes by the Tbilisi jazz festival. Are fascinating, fresh tunes in the vast Lovano canon, with that intrigue-harmonic twists and structural rope-a-dope-we love and by the end of the vertiginous rush, it seems this horn battle had gone to only in Tbilisi. Joe Lovano in the capital Georgia brought out his unique Jazz classic quartet, and there was more contemporary musical fight. He is on a higher plane of artistry and attainment of a personal voice at the moment.

This is a rare sunny day after an endless stretch of boredom in the hall of the Tbilisi Event Hall, where allowed Joe Lovano to develop faster. As he says, “If you can have a space where you can play and be creative and create your own environment, you really grow and travel through the music and the community. So I feel really fortunate … I feel so fortunate,” says Lovano, “My dad was really generous, man. When I was a teenager I learned from all those records he had and also from the players that he was playing with at the time, the guys of his generation. He would bring me around to jam sessions and rehearsals, and then eventually when I started to drive I would go to his gigs and have my horn and sit in on the last set. And I studied the tunes that he was playing so I could play with the band”.

Joe Lovano first assembled an ensemble with Hank Jones and George Mraz for the 2004 ballads album I’m All For You (the drummer for that session was Paul Motian). The album was well received, and the quartet returned to the studio in 2005 to record Joyous Encounter, which was released in May 2005.

Simon Sargsyan

Yerevan – Tbilisi – Yerevan