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STEVE LACY AND DANILO PÉREZ
MONK MATES


Soprano-saxophonist/composer Steve Lacy and pianist Danilo Pérez make an unlikely pair. Lacy, the jazz avant-garde’s heir to Thelonious Monk, has a flair for lean melodies and wry, deliberately constructed improvisations. Pérez, an effusive, even volatile pianist, has drawn on his Panamanian roots for some of the most adventurous Latin jazz of the past decade. But together they drew inspiration from the very characteristics that make them so different from each other during their first set Saturday night at the Regattabar. Pérez stretched out into the free-jazz idiom he rarely explores. And Lacy heard his endlessly malleable compositions fed back to him through the prism of Latin jazz.

Monk provides the most obvious link between the two: Lacy was a pioneering exponent of Monk’s music in the 1960s, and Pérez’s 1996 Panamonk (Impulse) includes several superior Monk covers. The opening "Monk’s Dream" and the encore "Evidence" showed how each draws from the high priest in his own way. Lacy’s patient note placement and skewed stepwise lines grew out of the compositions. Pérez nudged motifs from the melody in Latin directions and elaborated on tight, dissonant phrases of his own, sometimes using different lines simultaneously.

But the revelations of the set came on Lacy’s tunes. Although Pérez maintained a supportive role, his intimations of Latin music gave these a freshness and vibrancy that a more obvious choice of accompanist wouldn’t have provided. He didn’t overplay the Latin connections — a hint of cha-cha on "The Rent" or a gently rocking montuno vamp on "Longing" was enough to suggest new directions and connections. Lacy also dusted off some of his older and most economical numbers, like the early-’70s "Flakes" and "Deadline," which they rephrased and inflected with Latin touches. On "Flakes" and "Longing," Pérez picked up a phrase from the tune and reworked it with his left hand while he spun out new ideas with his right, giving the austere compositions sensuous, even lyrical interpretations. Lacy’s spontaneous melodies in his "Deadline" solo grew ever more oblique and fanciful, providing one of the highlights of a set that was consistently surprising.

Pérez struggled a couple times; he’s still a journeyman in Lacy’s music. But the duo’s spirit of adventure and Pérez’s fresh perspective far outweighed any hesitation in delivery or minor missteps.

BY ED HAZELL

Issue Date: May 9 - 15, 2003
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