Indeed, the material performed last night might best be described as jam-band music, with relatively simple classic pop and blues chord progressions replacing the complex, sophisticated harmony of much classic and modern jazz. Such a setting allowed the Trio to keep its melodies tuneful and accessible while still gradually taking its songs into more adventurous harmonic territory.
A good example came early in the set when Hunter laid down, with only a few embellishments, the simple melody of "Cielito Lindo," the famous Mexican Ranchera song over a tight, heavily syncopated funk beat from Kalb. Hunter and Endsley proceeded to trade solos during which, slowly and surely, they incorporated more tonally remote melodic material and rougher and more angular timbres until the song had become at once unrecognizable and grippingly involving, all the while maintaining a toe-tapping groove.
One of the most impressive things about the Trio's leader is that he effectively plays lead, rhythm and bass guitar simultaneously through the use of a seven-string instrument with four strings connected to a guitar amplifier and three to a bass amp. Awesome as Hunter's technique is, his seven-string wizardry functions less as a gimmick than as a necessity of his musical personality, since it allows a musician who, given his on-stage body language, feels his product with the whole of his spirit to control more than one important aspect of the music at once. It was a pure joy to watch him lay down scorching blues riffs while mischievously coloring in his bass lines with odd accents and chromatic intrusions, the music's tension rising and falling dizzyingly as his partners intertwined their respective instruments with his to create a solid, muscular wave of sound.
Those partners, it should be added, were fully worthy of Hunter's energetic, inspirational leadership. Endsley complemented the guitarist's generally more lyrical solos, craftily placing piercing, rhythmic bursts among virtuoso melodic lines and making generous use of a mute (a sound which fit its rock-leaning surroundings surprisingly well) for variety of timbre and atmosphere.
Kalb, meanwhile, was without doubt the most consistently electrifying player to watch as he effortlessly kept up with Hunter's improvisatory cues and maintained a constant, irresistibly danceable groove, all the while swapping moods, rhythms and dynamics at the turn of a hat. His solos, regrettably brief and small in number, were some of the most tasteful, accessible, and rhythmically disciplined that I can remember hearing from a jazz drummer in recent years, yet they never failed to thrill and they always led the band back to the main melody with increased energy and verve for the song's close.
Nonetheless, perhaps the most affecting moment of the concert came when Hunter played a solo rendition of an unnamed and unrecognizable (at least to these relatively non-expert ears) jazz standard, from among selections made by his "99-year-old grandfather," in which he spun heartbreakingly beautiful melodies over rich, shimmering chords that seemed, in their subtle altering of a classic jazz progression, to poignantly yearn for and nostalgically look back to the heyday of Broadway musical writing in the 1920s and 1930s, when such legends as Cole Porter and the Gershwin brothers were constantly cranking out tuneful, sophisticated songs that dazzled audiences with their winning melodies and witty wordplay. The solo performance, coming around the show's halfway mark, encompassed both Hunter's entertaining yet accessible adventurousness and his reverence for the long history that preceded his entrance into the ranks of great jazz musicians.
