To
Houston Person yesterday at Bruce Eaton's
Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz series at the Albright-Knox,
an indisputably authentic afternoon of straight-ahead tenor work. Person had been through town last summer at the
Pine Grill Reunion but we were out of town and missed him. Looking around the room I'd say that the audiences for the two performances were probably pretty distinct. It would be interesting to compare set lists: Person has a substantial book of standards that probably come as easy to him as breathing, but yesterday's was marred for me, a bit, by two numbers. I never need to hear "The Way We Were" or "Sunny", but I will concede that both were salvaged by some nice piano work. Funny to realize that Person, who is indeed a venerable artist, cut his first side as a leader in 1966. What that tells us, of course, is that 1966 is longer ago than we think of it, but also that traditions in jazz follow their own tributaries. You could listen to Houston Person and think that Sonny Rollins never happened. It's not a knock-- he is just working a different branch of the jazz stream. It's cool to look around that auditorium and realize that everyone there is nodding and tapping in time, and it is even cooler when you see that the artist realizes that he is getting through that way.
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