Jack McCray: Wine, food and all that jazz
I made it just in time. The festivities were set to start at 7 p.m. and I was approaching the stage door five minutes before the downbeat.
A meeting I had on Pinckney Street ran late but I managed to quickly get to Marion Square, pick up my credential and go from the still of the evening in the park to the buzzing, kinetic atmosphere inside the tent.
The occasion was the Chef's Party on March 3, opening night of the annual BB&T Wine + Food Festival.
As I got near the door, Randi Weinstein was coming out of it. We hurriedly exchanged salutations. I didn't want to miss a note of the night's music and she had to go change out of her cargo pants and top for attire more befitting her role as the events and logistics manager of the festival.
The tasks she had to perform all day didn't lend themselves to being outfitted in jewelry, party dress and heels. If you didn't know her, she could have been mistaken for a stagehand.
Randi and her husband, Vic, are pals of mine and huge jazz fans. She's responsible for the entertainment at the opening night's festivities. And, once again, she engaged the Quentin Baxter Ensemble to propel the party with its polyrhythmic pronouncements this year.
(For the record, when I saw her later inside, she looked like the belle of the ball.)
The band was a huge hit at last year's party and it delivered a stunning show this time around, too.
You see, Randi is a fierce, hands-on worker. No nonsense. But, she let's people do what she hires them to do. She gives them what they need then gets out of the way. She empowers them.
It's a jazz bandleader's dream.
Quentin took full advantage last year and had the band lay down some jazzy funk that everyone, particularly out-of-towners, talked about the whole time. Some chefs and their workers danced while they cooked. Everybody's head was boppin' and their toes tappin'.
They got another dose this year. A big one.
Here's some of the flavor the band cooked with.
"Invitation" by Paul Webster and Bronislau Kaper; "I Want You" and "The Hippest Cat in Hollywood" by Horace Silver; "Mighty Mighty" and "Getaway" by Earth Wind & Fire; "Time Will Tell" by Bobby Watson; "Bebop" by Dizzy Gillespie; "Congo Man" by Ernest Ranglin; and "Ramblin" by Ornette Coleman.
There's been so much happening on the jazz scene here lately I never got to talk to Quentin about his plans for the festival. There have been more jazz events and projects than you could shake a stick at lately.
It's apparent to me, though, that he and the guys carefully chose this repertoire. I see the hands of all of them in the tunes selected and how they were arranged. Pianist Tommy Gill, baritone saxophonist John Cobb, bassist Kevin Hamilton, trumpeter Charlton Singleton and tenor saxophonist Mark Sterbank are all experienced players with a genuine feel for the music.
Don't get me wrong. I call this music funk because it was prepared and delivered in that way, not because the band abandoned jazz. These guys are too authentic to substitute just anything for jazz simply because it has a heavy backbeat, the trademark of the style called funk.
All the composers are jazz giants, Dizzy and Ornette major innovators.
Sure, Earth Wind & Fire is a pop, soul band. But its founder and artistic director, Maurice White, is a jazz man, having worked with Ramsey Lewis and Sonny Stitt. His funk chops probably came from growing up in Memphis, Tenn. along with Booker T. Jones of the legendary funksters Booker T. and the MG's. Ernest Ranglin is a Jamaican who comes out of a jazz bag with ska and reggae inflections.
Like good chefs, Quentin and the guys make it look easy but there's a lot that makes the "dish" that has your fingers poppin'.
It got really funky in the second set. The band opened with Earth Wind & Fire. They really burned it with "Getaway." By then, the aromas of fine food floated around the room and the wine was flowing freely.
Making jazz and making food have a lot in common. They're alike in that the results come from planning, preparation, implementation and improvisation.
The band's music had the same effect on the patrons as the homemade hot dogs by Craig Deihl of Cypress with all of their Americaness, the simple, exquisiteness of the crab salad by Michelle Weaver of Charleston Grill and he earthiness of the pig ear sandwiches by Sean Brock of Husk.
Yes siree buddy, Randi, festival executive director Angel Postell and Chef's Party co-producers Denise Barto and Mitchell Crosby unleashed another good ol' good one, as Louis Armstrong would have called the party.
Something occurred to me over the weekend as I sat down to write this.
The sight of Randi's transitioning from pre-party phase to party phase is emblematic of how this great music came about last Thursday night.
She did the same thing with the party as she did with the band. She gathered the resources necessary to make it happen, then got out of the way and let people do their thing.
Very jazzy of her.
