Panama Jazz Festival special

Shinihiro Sakaino --- taking Panama by surprise. Photo by Eric Jackson

'Trane's mantle
by Eric Jackson

See, it's like this --- or should I say “hear” rather than “see” --- I grew up knowing the body of work that John Coltrane created, because my mad doctor father had a lot of the records. I “knew” because I had heard it, and so much of the work of 'Trane's fellow cool jazz pioneers Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, and then later heard so much more of that style working at the Ann Arbor summer free concert series and that city's blues and jazz festivals and hanging in the circles that put on those events, to the extent that when I hear cool jazz I recognize it as such. Especially so, as my dad was the sort of person to play cool jazz (or somber classical stuff like Wagner) when in a depressive haze, and cool jazz's contemporary counterpoint bebop (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie et al) when in a manic rage or euphoria --- I learned to distinguish the two, although nobody ever taught me the vocabulary or how to read the notes. But in another sense I don't “know” the difference between cool jazz and bebop the way my father “knew” it, because he was mathematical while I'm literary (his education was in medicine, mine in law) and he understood the math of these musical compositions and I really don't. My “knowledge” is like the honorable justice's take on pornography: he couldn't precisely define it, but he knew it when he saw it. Likewise I know the influences of John Coltrane when I hear them.

Jahaziel Arrocha. Photo by Eric Jackson

When, a couple of years ago, I first heard this 17-year-old kid from among the crummiest of Panama's public schools take the stage at the 2007 Panama Jazz Festival, there was no mistaking it: Jahaziel Arrocha was playing like Coltrane. Give him the right guidance and he'll end up wearing 'Trane's mantle. And when I found out that Arrocha was to be leading the Berklee College of Music's jazz quartet in the first of this year's festival's concerts, I told friends and the people on The Panama News email list that this was an afternoon concert worth catching.

But you don't wear the mantle just by playing the notes, or even that plus assimilating the attitude. Had Coltrane achieved immortality without a Faustian deal, rest assured that he wouldn't be playing today like he played in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Yeah, audiences would insist and he's play that stuff for them, but he would have broken into new territory. That 60s phase in which Coltrane went way out to demonstrate that Bird really didn't have anything on him in that department --- even if that may not have been the motive --- was proof enough of Coltrane's life-long creative curiosity. So Jahaziel Arrocha has no hope to wear 'Trane's mantle until he composes the notes with comparable distinction.

The kid's getting a formal education that will prepare him to do that, if he has it in him. At the end of the 2007 festival Berklee gave him a summer school scholarship, with the promise of a four-year ride if he could learn English sufficiently to pass the TOEFL exam. A teacher, Katherine Soto, took on the job and within a few months had him sufficiently oriented in the idiom to the point that when the time came, he passed the test and got the full scholarship.

But still, how hard will it be to wear 'Trane's mantle? Consider the grand master of Panama's tenor saxophonists, Carlos Garnett. In his decades in New York, he played with just about everybody who was anybody --- the best of the best welcomed him on the stage with themselves. As a band leader Garnett did a lot of his own compositions and cited Coltrane as an influence, something that could readily be discerned without benefit of such comments, just by listening to the music.

Coltrane died in 1967, when the recording industry was at its height in many ways, yet only a few years from its self-destructive plunge into disco. Already, Frank Zappa was making money making fun of record company execs and down among the tracks of a huge-selling Rolling Stones album there was this mean ditty about the Under-Assistant West Coast Promo Man. Garnett the band leader, composer and musician was ready, willing and able to wear 'Trane's mantle, but for whatever reason --- and this reporter has heard several --- the corporate types weren't willing to let him record. Eventually he came back to Panama to play, teach and live his senior years in the sun. We can say that it was this country's gain, but when Garnett wasn't allowed to step into the gap left in the recording scene left by Coltrane it meant not only a setback for Garnett personally but an opportunity denied to Panama.

Now that the record industry as we have known it is on the verge of what looks like a definitive collapse --- one that will not be staved off by obnoxious intellectual property provisions as those embodied in the proposed US-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement and its NAFTA-model cousins --- can we finally say that 'Trane's mantle is a Holy Grail, that variety of intangible that's fading from legend to myth?

Jonathan Pinson. Photo by Eric Jackson

Could be. But then on January 12 at the Ascanio Arosemena Auditorium in Balboa, there was this afternoon concert in which the Berklee jazz quartet, led by sophomore Arrocha, opened the show and Carlos Garnet closed it. Those who would have killed jazz --- in favor of rock by folks with more hair than talent, or the shallow glitz of the disco scene, or the angry rants to the beat of drum machines that's hip hop, or however --- apparently neglected the wooden stake when Coltrane passed.

So did it turn out like I expected?

Well, in part.

Jahaziel Arrocha was wonderful. He's moving right along in his education. But in this band, though he was billed as leader he was arguably first among equals. The argument against that proposition was best provided by Japanese upright bassman Shinichiro Sakaino, who played not only with the Berklee quartet but with Garnett afterwards.

Julian Shore

Yes, just by himself Arrocha made the concert a worthy investment of ten bucks, and drummer Jonathan Pinson and pianist Julian Shore were also stellar, but the main treat here was the opportunity to hear Sakaino.

And Garnett? When he was playing Arrocha sat two seats away from me, and he was the diligent student, paying attention to the grand master's every nuance. The second act started with a prolonged Garnett solo, and then drummer Aníbal De León and Sakaino came on to provide competent backing and some impressive solos of their own. (As I understand it, the other guys in the trio that was scheduled to play with De León couldn't make it, and what we saw was improvised --- most brilliantly --- on little notice.)

Aníbal De León. Photo by Eric Jackson

Wow. I already knew that Garnett is this good. I didn't know him as a scat singer before. He did that well, too.

Did Coltrane sing, too? If he did, that's one facet of his I don't know.

But then, journeyman performances of the canon set forth by John Coltrane don't deck you out in the mantle --- you have to press way beyond that if you're to be found worthy.

Carlos Garnett, the jazz vocalist. Photo by Eric Jackson

And maybe, since all music is both derivative and unique, these references and comparisons to others are unfair. Carlos Garnett is Carlos Garnett, and although he is identifiably of a certain tradition, he is what he is and it's uniquely great.

The Berklee jazz quartet? As an ensemble they could make a living and acquire a following. Individually they all seem on a fast track headed toward apprenticeships with their most distinguished elders and then status as band leaders in their own rights. You don't even get into Berklee unless you're an excellent musician and the school doesn't send you abroad unless you distinguish yourself among the ranks of the highly talented.

As a Jahaziel Arrocha fan I went away satisfied. But the most important thing that I will remember from this concert is that it's the point at which I became a Shinichiro Sakaino fan. This young man has a lifetime of education ahead of him, but right now he's possessed of prodigious powers to amaze.

Garnett in a more familiar role. Photo by José F. Ponce


Sakaino. Photo by José F. Ponce