The promise of Crescent Boogaloo, a small coterie of all-stars at the Jazz Standard, announces itself up front. There’s a lot of room for overlap between the more groove-oriented music of New Orleans (a k a the Crescent City) and the New York-based, 1960s-vintage Latin-soul hybrid known as boogaloo (or bugalú). Put those two styles in contact, with the right ambassadors, and you might have something special.
Dr. Lonnie Smith playing the organ at Jazz Standard.
But the group’s first set on Tuesday night harbored no traces of boogaloo, and the lone funk jam, halfway through, felt Northeastern in origin. For that matter, the two musicians onstage with roots in New Orleans, the alto saxophonist Donald Harrison and the trumpeter Nicholas Payton, often came across like guests at a party.
The host of that party — Dr. Lonnie Smith, a Hammond B-3 organist who appeared some 40 years ago on “Alligator Boogaloo,” a soul-jazz album by the alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson — didn’t seem terribly concerned by these matters. Regardless of what was listed on the club calendar, he was going to do his thing.
Time for some good news then: Dr. Smith is a bold and charismatic stylist, and here he was working with the guitarist Peter Bernstein, an experienced partner, and the drummer Bill Stewart, a quick study with open ears (and a lot of history with Mr. Bernstein). Together as a rhythm section they pushed ahead with purpose and grace.
The set opener was “Good Bait,” a Tadd Dameron tune, and Dr. Smith set the gauge at a medium-easy tempo, the standard gait of mid-Atlantic organ-trio protocol. It was a casual, companionable sound, which partly explained the level of chatter in the room.
Mr. Payton and Mr. Harrison had no problems on this turf or on Sonny Rollins’s “Oleo,” another bebop standard that crisply closed the set. Their more interesting statements, though, involved a modal waltz by Dr. Smith called “Simone.” Mr. Payton explored the theme with measured phrases, exhausting one idea before adopting the next; his solo gave the impression of searching a house, room by room. Mr. Harrison took a more headlong approach, with hard gusts and fast flurries, occasionally zipping through an exotic scale.
Both soloists contributed solid work to the set’s funk centerpiece, a vamp with a bridge, loosely based on “Come Together,” the Lennon-McCartney song. But Dr. Smith didn’t give them much to work with in terms of melody, opting to indulge in some playful vocalization. Eventually both Mr. Payton and Mr. Harrison filed awkwardly off the stage.
Later on, introducing the band, Dr. Smith botched Mr. Harrison’s name. It was an honest mistake, quickly rectified, but it felt offhandedly appropriate. One hopes that Crescent Boogaloo, whatever the misleading handle, finds more collaborative footing this week.
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