CONCERT REVIEW – Evan Christopher, Clarinet Road in Horns for Haiti benefit @ Caffe Lena, 1/4/24

First, Horns for Haiti founder Bill Cole explained why we were at Caffe Lena Thursday; then Evan Christopher and Clarinet Road showed why that was such a fine, fun idea.

The show benefited the non-profit Horns for Haiti which donates, delivers and repairs instruments for young musicians there. In a journey of spirited riffs, thrilling beats and compelling unity, Christopher and his band of area stalwarts linked the music of Haiti to New Orleans – his musical home for 25 years and still his favorite style.

The first of two sets especially simmered with Creole spice; the second celebrated jazz classics; both sets shone brightly in the hands of four masters.

Three are locals: pianist David Gleason, bassist Mike Lawrence and drummer Bob Halek, all with big skills. Gleason and Halek play in Keith Pray’s Big Soul Ensemble, while Gleason and Lawrence play in the Art D’echo Trio. Those two accompanied Christopher in an August trio show at the Cock ’N’ Bull, where Christopher had played with pianist Eli Yamin a few years ago.

Christopher loves playing with pianists. His “Live at Luthier’s” album with New Orleans pianist David Torkanowski and “Louie’s Dream” with Yamin are both delights. So was the open, fluid way Christopher and Gleason fed ideas to each other Thursday, took them further, then tossed them back, a lively symbiosis.

In August at the Cock ’N’ Bull, they were a band in the making, skilled in playing and listening to one another; but little rehearsal – or tentativeness. Thursday, they took things further; both Lawrence and Gleason showed more freedom and fire, and newcomer Halek instantly found Christopher’s distinctive swing and strengthened it.

Christopher led that voyage with his original Caribbean samba “Listen to the One Who Makes the Thunder Roar,” written in sympathetic consolation after Haitian earthquakes. (Haitian Creole title: “Tande Sak Fe Loraj Gwande”) They played hot and tight from the start as Christopher energized the ensemble with smiles and urgings and cued solos by his bandmates with swings of the clarinet. He gave the new guy some spotlight early, swapping fours with Halek in this first number. 

Noting Jelly Roll Morton’s Caribbean ancestry and the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz’s affinity for habanero rhythms, Christopher proved his point again with Morton’s “New Orleans Joys,” slipping in a sly quote of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” When he closed his solo with a zippy glissando, Gleason played one back in instant answer, then flew off from there.

If Christopher was the most intrepid and inventive soloist, he seldom played the only great break in any song. In Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s “Creole Eyes,” Lawrence bowed his bass early in accompaniment, then soloed pizzicato. Born in New Orleans, trained in Paris, Gottschalk died at 40 in Rio de Janeiro, leaving graceful tunes that virtuosos still play, bridging the Caribbean musically long before Morton. 

They celebrated another New Orleanian next, Sidney Bechet, who Christopher said appropriated the melody from Haitian Ludovic Lamothe for a dual-titled tune “Tropical Moon” and “Diane.” Under any title, this was delicious and dynamic, an upbeat romp featuring a piano and clarinet duet that flowed into Christopher’s solo as Halek set up a joyous clatter.

Praising his bandstand compadres for “accepting this mission with uncommon enthusiasm,” Christopher slowed the pace into a sumptuous Haitian lullaby “Lissette,” soft as moonlight through Spanish moss, Halek achieving a delicate feel with sticks rather than a more obvious switch to brushes. Christopher then noted the 101st birthday of Caffe founder Lena Spencer to introduce a Haitian birthday song, built on a peppy march beat. When he switched to the familiar English one, fans sang along.

The second set felt freer, more familiar and, at first, really fast: “Crazy Rhythm” was all flying, zippy riffs. Horses running the Belmont in June won’t race any faster. “Basin Street Blues” (Spencer Williams, made famous of course by Louis Armstrong) relaxed the tempo, but not the complexity. Gleason’s piano echoed Christopher’s melody, then vice versa before Lawrence uncorked a bass solo of eloquent poignance.

Especially in ballads, Christopher proved an expressive sonic sculptor: He shaped both lovely melodies and the individual notes building each phrase; also how the band framed and followed, with his own enthusiasm. Uptempo, he’s energy, inspiration and invitation to fun in the form of fleet melody.

Case in point: Duke Ellington’s “The Mooch” soared high on a breathtaking clarinet call, then united everybody in wild joyous exploration, back to the head. Christopher shaped “Softly As In a Morning Sunrise” (Sigmund Romberg) as a musing tango, with Gleason’s piano making the first clear statement of its familiar tune. 

Both “Lover Come Back to Me” (also Romberg) and “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” (Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields) packed vintage feels, Christopher soft-spoken in the mellow latter classic before handing off the lead to Lawrence’s bass solo over Halek’s quiet brushwork and Gleason’s piano comments.

“Laugh, Clown, Laugh” (Lewis & Young, and Ted Fiorito) closed in dynamic fire, upshifting from a slow, spare start, cozy and coy, before letting it rip.

Before the break, Christopher said as a nerdy musician, he looks to the expiration of copyrights to play songs that are in the public domain. But he arguably stakes a stronger claim to any tune he plays than any stylist around. Many second set tunes were 1928 vintage but they delivered a happy, fresh immediacy.