Kirk Lightsey, the lean, hawk-faced, giant-handed pianist from Detroit via Paris is now 78, but his talent for energising the players around him burns as brightly as ever, and his improvisations (which have paid respect over the years to inspirations from Nat King Cole and Thelonious Monk to Chopin) retain their cogency, colour and impatient elegance.
Lightsey has been co-leading a European quintet with the Austrian trombonist Paul Zauner at the Vortex, and though the gigs’ declared intentions to honour his late sax-star employer Dexter Gordon weren’t borne out by the eventual repertoire of jazz evergreens, the band quickly stirred themselves from respectful homages into elated flat-out jamming.
The opening Latin-jazz glide, and the counterpoint of Zauner’s soft trombone sound and the weightier tenor-sax tone of Klemens Pliem suggested subdued tastefulness, but the gloves soon came off.
Pliem, an agile, Coltrane-inspired performer, was soon swerving through long double-tempo flights, all the more imposingly on an account of In Your Own Sweet Way that had similarly begun in a discreetly melodious murmur. Lightsey uncorked the first of a stream of superb solos – beginning in speculative probings, flaring into outbursts like multiple song-themes rammed together, skimming into fast bebop, baiting drummer Dusan Novakov with rattling chordwork – but his proddings and invitations behind his partners’ contributions was almost as irresistible.
Duke Ellington’s Creole Love Call drew cajoling, wah-wah trombone effects from Zauner, and at least a cursory nod to Dexter Gordon in Pliem’s quoting of the legend’s famous spooky low-toned trill.
Lightsey’s Heaven’s Dance mixed waltzing composure with postbop angularity, the classic Afro Blue stirred the saxophonist to ecstatic ferocity over a throbbing piano vamp, and Ellington’s Mood Indigo brought the best out of the contrast between Zauner’s cavalierly pitched but engagingly expressive tone-bending and Pliem’s controlled power.
It was a straightahead jazz gig that took off – particularly whenever the ageless Kirk Lightsey hit ignition.
