Concert Review: Tarik Shah Trio @ Jazz on Jay, 07/12/2023

Happy band, happy music, happy (extra-large) crowd: Bassist Tarik Shah led his trio in a very upbeat show Thursday at Jazz on Jay, the seventh of 14 free shows through August. Although driven indoors into Proctors Robb Alley by early rain that would have drenched the electrically vulnerable set-up, the mood was expansive, happy.

Shah led the same trio to close the 2021 Jazz on Jay season, one of few free series that continued despite the pandemic. He also hosts Jazz Sanctuary from 7 to 10 p.m. Wednesdays on WOOC 105.3 FM. Thursday, he placed tunes in jazz history, chiefly his own long track record of achievement bolstered by a questing spirit of lifelong learning.

Before stating this philosophy, Shah cued up “Caravan,” the Juan Tizol jump that Duke Ellington made famous, and that Shah’s trio played as a bossa zip. Luke Franco’s guitar carried the melody, using little sustain with his thin Gibson hollow body. Shah popped bass lines on his electric four-string with his thumb while playing behind Franco, then up-stroked with his fingers in his solo. When fans applauded Shah’s inventive break and a short explosion by drummer Matt Niedbalski, Franco went for it as if asserting, “Those guys got applause; I’m getting some!”

But their balance was never in doubt; essentially, a rhythm section from which anybody could bust a solo. “I like these guys,” grinned Shah afterward. He stayed with electric bass in the similarly Latin bossa-funk “My Funny Valentine,” glancing around to cue shifts and solos by Franco and himself; Niedbalski keeping time.

Explaining this novel approach to familiar tunes, Shah said that while playing with Betty Carter as a 21-year-old, the great singer encouraged him to “do something different with it,” not to follow conventional pathways through songs. This keeps the music growing, he said, and he continues learning from this.

Not didactic at all, this in fact, felt light-hearted as he and Franco divided the melody of Shah’s original “Sunday’s Hardship Blues” into A/B phrases that swung together with confident ease. Shah told us how that grew from a lesson in syncopation with his pianist brother; the lesson failed, but the song still sings.

Shah also cited his long track record after the gentle bossa bounce of “I’m Glad There Was You,” which he knew from his mom’s record collection. When he auditioned for its original singer Gloria Lynne, he surprised the singer by knowing her repertoire inside and out.

Having played with many singers, Shah phrases like one; he lets the music breathe.

Having switched to upright bass a few songs back, Shah faced down trouble with his amp connection and adapted on the fly simply by angling the announcement mic down near its neck. As Shah struggled, Franco took the lead on his original Latin-flavored “Trillium;” the leader recovered in time for a two-part solo, plucked, then bowed.

After some tinkering, Shah stayed with the relocated mic and signaled he was eager to rejoin at full strength in the standard “Alone Together,” swapping fours with Franco,

George Braith’s playful “Boop Bop Bing Bash” (which Shah’d recorded in an earlier guitar trio with Ray Bryant) was all grins and grace, yet another bossa number that grew big wings and that Niedbalski claimed as his own before the coda.

Quincy Jones’s thoughtful melodic “Quintessence” slowed the pace, a blues waltz with Shah hitting a playfully emphatic booming pluck near the end of Franco’s solo, then launching his own strong statement and closing ranks with Franco to bring it home.

In his mentor Ron Burton’s “The Green Veil” (Burton was pianist with Rahsaan Roland Kirk), an easy swing formed from quiet noodling, Niedbalski did his most interesting playing from right within the trio, then Franco closed the tune with an elegant, stunning break.

In the concluding “My Shining Hour,” a typically upbeat swing number, everybody got some; Franco all aglow in his early solo, Shah and Niedebalski bouncing phrases off each other until the leader tapped his head to signal time to wrap it up.

Shah smiled throughout, setting a happy vibe everybody caught, including three different young sections of Proctors Collaborative School of the Arts who were happily vocal in their approval while lunching at the back of Robb Alley.

Jazz on Jay continues Thursday, June 20, with the Tim Olsen Quintet on the Jay Street Marketplace pedestrian mall; rain site is Robb Alley at Proctors.

Even sooner, Music Haven’s second show of the season, by La Banda Morsica from Spain with Maria Zemantauski opening, follows nearby, driven indoors Thursday night by the threat of rain to take refuge on the Proctors stage. And Schenectady’s SummerNight free show and street festival would fill State Street Friday with music by hip-hop giants Arrested Development, DJ Ketchup, and DJ HollyW8D, the reunited homegrown Stockade Kids, as well as popular local acts Grand Central Station, Girl Blue, and Whits End.

Photo Gallery by Rudy Lu