THE METROPOLITAN BOPERA HOUSE
FORMIDABLE
“The Metropolitan Bopera House” was a nickname hung on the Royal Roost (nee the Royal Chicken Roost), a nightclub which graced the New York jazz scene in 1948-49. Located opposite what is now the Warner Theater (then it wsa the Strand) it spearheaded the shift of jaxx from fabled 52nd Street over to Broadway and introduced a change in design as well. Where clubs such as the Three Deuces and the Onyx were long, narrow, street-level affairs with cramped bandstands, the roost was subterranean with an expansive bandstand, a large area of tables and, behind the white of the many tablecloths, a section of chairs. Here one could sit merely by paying the club’s 90 cent admission charge. There was a long bar behind these chairs but one was not required to visit it unless self-motivated.
The Roost’s modern jazz policy, started by promoter Monte Kay with a trial-balloon jam session, quickly graduated to weekend and, then, full-week presentations. Tadd Dameron headed the house band there for 39 weeks. Other bands to play long engagements were Charlie Parker’s quintet and Charlie Ventura’s group. The accent was on bebop and people lined up on Broadway and around the corner in sub-freezing temperatures to hear Parker’s combo or Dizzy Gillespie’s big band.
After the Roost came the Clique, farther up Broadway, between 52nd and 53rd Streets. Then Bop City, on the corner of Broadway and 49th, supplanted the Roost, and the Clique was transformed into Birdland, the longest-lived of them all. However, in retrospect, the first was the best. The Roost remains number one among the type of place it spawned. So it is fitting that the sobriquet has been perpetuated by a group that exemplifies the content and spirit of the music given a wide forum by its namesake.
This is not the first album by the Metropolitan Bopera House. That was Still Comin’ On Up (V.S.O.P. #32) and it brought the group’s music to my attention. Actually I had seen the name listed when MBH was appearing on Sunday nights at Eddie Condon’s on West 54th Street but never had enough curiosity to go down and hear the band in person. Being the bebopper that I am, this seems quite incomprehensible to me now.
Still Comin’ On Up was recorded at Condon’s in 1984-1985 and released in 1986. When I received it in the mail, I played it, thoroughly enjoyed it and gave it some exposure on my KADX (Colorado) record show. When asked to write the notes to this second effort I said yes immediately after listening to the tape. Two things strike me about MBH, both in these albums and on a Monday night at the Blue Note in early February. One is the repertoire. The band plays the acknowledged bop classics such as “Groovin’ High” and “A Night in Tunisia,” but it also picks up on lesser-known material from the ‘50s and ‘60s by writers such Tadd Dameron, Sal Nistico, Joe Zawinul and the men represented here. The second important factor is something Jeff Barr touches on in his comprehensive notes for Still Comin’ On Up. He accurately attributes to MBH “this indefinable quotient that makes bebop turn to liquid fire...To a man,” he continues, “the members of MBH would rather create that soul satisfying feeling when they play than anything else.”
They also bring to this sophisticated music, as much a vehicle for modern expression as when it was revealed by Parker, Gillespie et al in the ‘40s, a sense of the happy-sad duality, rooted in the blues, and its combination of technique and soul, or mind and heart, if you will.
The holdovers from the first album are drummer Danny D’Imperio, the group’s nominal leader; trumpeter John Marshall; alto saxophonist Gary Pribek; and bassist Dave Shapiro. In referring to them I will put into context some of their accomplishments and associations, but for extensive biographical data on the principals I refer you to Jeff Barr’s notes on V.S.O.P. #32.
The only change in personnel is on piano where native New Yorker (February 26, 1958* Tardo Hammer is the present incumbent. After studying piano at age five, clarinet at nine and guitar at 13, he began playing jazz piano in 1973. For three years, from 1975 he took lessons from Sal Mosca.
In 1977 Hammer set up his own loft in Manhattan’s Chelsea district and began to hold jam sessions with other young players. He worked with Warne Marsh in 1978-79 and has since appeared with Charlie Rouse, Johnny Griffin, Harold Ashby, Junior Cook and Bill Hardman, and a s a trio, duo and solo pianist. Tardo also was a member of the big band Al Porcino led in New York in early ’86. His only recording prior to this one, was the Porcino band’s outing featuring Al Cohn on Jazz Mark.
For Formidable the members of MBH came up with eight selections written by two different tenormen, a trumpeter and five pianists. “The Opener” by Hank Mobley, is based on the changes of Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation” and, from its little fanfare figure, preceding the main line, does well as the set’s introductory number. Pribek, remembered for his tenor work with Buddy Rich, is reminiscent, on alto, of the young Sonny Stitt. Gary sings his dipping, darting phrases and seamless double-ups. Marshall, thoughtful and introspective, reminds, in places, of Blue Mitchell, one of his inspirations. Hammer, a true bopper with clear, crispy articulated melodies in the Bud Powell tradition, is the third soloist. All of this is backed by Shapiro’s steadiness and D’Imperio’s strong, dancing pulse.
George Shearing’s “Conception” was reinterpreted by Miles Davis and called “Deception”. This version uses elements from the Davis treatment in the head and also with its use of interludes for the soloists. Marshall, who can be heard on Monday nights at the Vanguard with the Mel Lewis orchestra, brings out his Kenny Dorham influence a bit more here. Pribek is quick and plaintive; and Hammer displays a bopper’s penchant for clever quoting with a snippet of “Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee.”
The horns interweave on “Marc V,” a line by J. R. Monterose on what seems like “Mean to Me.” It first showed up on the tenor player’s album for Blue Note in the ‘50s. Marshall earns some Brownie points; he and Pribek do some riffing from which D’Imperio crackles some breaks, also chipping in with a solo drum bridge as well.
Side A closes with Duke Pearson’s minor key “My Girl Shirl.” Pribek leads off the soloing and there’s a short horn ensemble passage that leads to a mysterioso Marshall. The arrangement of “Shirl” is by trombonist Joe Furst, who was D’Imperio’s roomie when they were on the Buddy DeFranco-led Glenn Miller orchestra in 1970.
Side B opens with the title tune, “Formidable” by Walter Davis Jr. It’s alternation of rhumba and 4/4 time gives it a ight, insouciant quality. Some of the changes sound like “There’ll Never Be Another You” but then Davis’ pattern goes in another direction. Pribek, Marshall and Hammer find a perfect mix of Romanticism and zeitgeist.
On Tommy Flanagan’s augmented blues, “Freight Trane,” first done by Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane, the order is reversed—Hammer, Marshall, Pribek—but the beauty and swing of bebop blues is still there in abundance.
“Contour,” by Kenny Drew, may be remembered by some from its rendition by Donald Byrd and Art Farmer on Two Trumpets. Its unique construction consists of two 16-bar segments and it contains some intriguing harmonic twists and turns. Once again the three soloists display great sensitivity while never forgetting the rhythmic necessities—as if the perceptive Shapiro and extremely tasteful D’Imperio would allow them. All five men play for the tean, even when they are being individuals. You can sense that each enjoys the others’ contributions.
The final number is Donald Byrd’s “Elgy,” done by the trumpeter with Gigi Gryce when the two co-led a group called the Jazz Lab. It’s a “Honeysuckle Rose” derivative with a kinship to Charlie Parker’s “Scrapple From the Apple” but not completely so. Pribek’s tumbling phrases give birth to his next batch with warm logic; Marshall’s flow is equally effective, in its own way; and Hammer is again his bright, straight-ahead (with appropriate pauses) self. He pays around with “If I Love Again” and fashions some Kenny Drew-like runs. Pribek has the last bridge.
When Django Reinhardt visited the United States after World War II, some of the so called “moldy figs” tried to get him to say negative things about Parker and Gillespie. Instead he praised them and their music “Formidable!”
I think he would have said the same about The Metropolitan Bopera House.
-Ira Gitler, 1987
(Swing to Bop, Oxford University Press)
