GRAMMY Salute To Jazz honors Blue Note Records and features an evening of inspired musical performances

GRAMMY.com
Bruce Britt

In the anxious moments Tuesday evening before The Recording Academy's sixth annual GRAMMY Salute To Jazz at Club Nokia at L.A. Live in Los Angeles, acclaimed saxophonist Joe Lovano reminisced. He recalled how his late father Tony — an Ohio barber and saxophonist — would play jazz recordings from the legendary Blue Note Records label, including now-iconic sides by Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Smith, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and more. "Blue Note Records was a big foundation in my development," Lovano said. "The music was about the truth."

Now a GRAMMY-winning Blue Note recording artist himself, Lovano joined The Recording Academy and Blue Note labelmates Terence Blanchard, Herbie Hancock and Cassandra Wilson to celebrate the label's epic legacy and its bright future. The gala also saw current Blue Note President Bruce Lundvall accept The Academy's President's Merit Award for the label's achievements and contributions to jazz. The GRAMMY Jazz Ensembles, comprised of North America's finest high school musicians, provided astoundingly mature accompaniment for the evening's performers.

The timing of the tribute could not have been better. This year, Blue Note Records commemorates the 70th anniversary of its founding by the late Alfred Lion, as well as the 25th anniversary of its 1984 re-launch under Lundvall's supervision.

During its postwar heyday, Blue Note blazed new trails in jazz while elevating album graphics and cover art to new creative heights. The label's breakthrough fusion of music, graphics and packaging transformed the ordinary jazz record listening experience into a mesmerizing moment of transcendence.

The question before The Recording Academy was how to bring the Blue Note record listening experience to life in a club setting. Musically, The Academy accomplished that objective by having Blanchard, Hancock, Lovano, and Wilson perform songs honoring the label's past and present. To help pay tribute to Blue Note's aesthetic achievements, high-definition screens flashed photos of famous Blue Note album covers including classics such as John Coltrane's Blue Train, Herbie Hancock's Speak Like A Child, Freddie Hubbard's Ready For Freddie, and Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers' A Night In Tunisia.

The high-resolution projections were the ideal visual complement to some stunning musical performances. Lovano opened the evening with an incandescent reading of his original composition "Bird's Eye View," the saxophonist's soft, fluttering improvisations virtually gliding over the accompaniment of piano, drums and bass. Trumpeter and two-time GRAMMY winner Blanchard provided sobering counterpoint in performing a gorgeous elegy to post-hurricane New Orleans titled "Ashé" (culled from his 2007 Blue Note album, A Tale Of God's Will [A Requiem For Katrina]). Blanchard's performance of the tune demonstrated the concentric influence of the GRAMMY Jazz Ensembles —   "Ashé" is composed by former Ensemble alumnus Aaron Parks.

Demonstrating the more sensual side of Blue Note, Wilson warmed the club with a pair of torch songs. Applying her low, husky voice to the jazz standards "Lover, Come Back To Me" and "Hesitation Blues," the GRAMMY-winning singer all but transformed the sleek Club Nokia into a remote southern dive. Indeed, following Wilson's set, a clearly impressed Natalie Cole effused, "Welcome to juke joint!"

For the evening's musical finale, 12-time GRAMMY winner Hancock served up a set that could only be described as aquatic. Revisiting his popular 1965 tune "Maiden Voyage," Hancock and his teenaged accompanists breathed new life into the bebop ballad, the maestro's liquid piano improvisations underscoring the tune's seafaring theme. Similarly, Hancock's follow-up performance, "Dolphin Dance," seemed to flow through the club like an easy-flowing stream.

Captivating performances aside, Blue Note Records president Bruce Lundvall nearly stole the show with his unexpectedly hilarious acceptance speech. Lundvall recalled his stints at Columbia Records and Elektra Records, peppering the details with childhood memories. (After informing his dad that he wanted to be in the music business when he grew up, Lundvall's father replied, "You have to do one or the other.") Describing the night as a "wonderful moment in my life," Lundvall concluded philosophically, telling the crowd, "Art always precedes commerce, and if you get the art right, the commerce will follow."

In further showcasing their talent, the GRAMMY Jazz Ensembles vocal choir performed a starlight version of the Johnny Mandel ballad "Emily," while the 20-piece Ensemble orchestra followed with a hard-swinging interpretation of Sonny Rollins' "Strode Rode."

“Aren't these musicians wonderful," Hancock said in reference to the GRAMMY Jazz Ensembles. "This is the future."

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