Looking back and looking around: Regina Carter brings jazz violin to IVCI's Laureate Series
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| Regina Carter is among the foremost violinists in jazz. |
A contemporary African piece, introduced with free-floating modernist sonorities from the violinist and her musical partner, Xavier Davis, yielded to an original meditation, including spoken text, titled "Path of Construction." That brought attention to the demolition of African-American communities for freeways linked to interstate highways, thus easing transit from urban centers and often benefiting suburban commuters the most. Inner-city destruction is left in its wake.
That process, begun in the 1960s and carried through to the end of the century, affected many U.S. cities, among them the violinist's hometown of Detroit, where she was born in 1966. "Urban renewal," a watchword of policy in that era, was bitterly called "urban removal." Sometimes new freeways were less the cause than policies privileging new facilities, such as IUPUI in Indianapolis, With the end of segregation, that cast Indiana Avenue into the shadows as a black cultural center.
A historic gem of that community, the Madame Walker Legacy Center, remains to attest to that legacy. "Path of Construction" reflects Carter's longstanding interest in both family history and racial history. She is a musician whose artistic tentacles naturally extend beyond music. With Davis, a sympathetic partner, she folded her political message into an expansive musical statement.
Elsewhere in the concert, her affectionate focus on musical heritage came to the fore. Childhood memories of Hollywood's "The Sound of Music" seem more responsible for her treatment of the song "My Favorite Things" than such jazz gatekeepers as the John Coltrane version. For one thing, she didn't delay the latter part of the tune as the saxophonist did in his landmark 1961 recording so that he could go full-modal. And she kept the sweetness of the original intact, channeling the Julie Andrews manner.
Carter has a secure admiration for melody, as was clear in a couple of oldies she and Davis performed. "Judy" is a little-known Hoagy Carmichael song that Carter linked to the early career of Ella Fitzgerald. At a ballad tempo, the duo's version made a fine companion to a recording of Carmichael singing it. Another such link to an important singer was "I Can't Believe That You're in Love With Me," which Billie Holiday recorded in 1938. Carter and Davis took the tune at a brisk tempo, whose infectious zest was immediate and well-fused in this performance.
The coordinated timing of the duo was further demonstrated by an appealing swinger the saxophonist Johnny Hodges wrote long ago titled "Squatty Roo." It was so appealing that audience handclaps broke out in tempo and continued probably too long during the performance.
Here and elsewhere, Carter displayed precise intonation, deliberately including many teasing portamentos toward a destined pitch. Her vibrato varies expressively. Sometimes there's next to none; elsewhere it's practically throbbing. She spaces out spates of virtuosity judiciously.
There was a good demonstration of her best qualities on a devout journey through Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday," which concluded oddly with a visit to "Danny Boy." Davis' solo amply indicated the influence that early employer Betty Carter (1929-1998) had upon his style: elaborations tended toward the florid and even oddball. Throughout the evening, Davis' often caressing style at the keyboard tended to thicken in some places. He had to find a way through his own underbrush; tangled phrases would sometimes get straightened out in the nick of time. It was both fascinating and mildly troubling.
The set ended with a fresh groove applied to the Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love," just after Carter surveyed the audience to locate concertgoers born in the Sixties, as she was. From first to last, the violinist seemed to enjoy relating to the larger world.
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