Roy Haynes performing at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola Thursday night.
By NATE CHINENAlmost halfway through the first set at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola on Thursday, the drummer Roy Haynes leaped to his feet. His quartet had just played an irresistible tune, Lyle Mays and Pat Metheny’s “James,” and some scattered cheers arose. “I got to you, finally,” he said, playfully admonishing the crowd.
At 82, Mr. Haynes is jazz royalty, and more than comfortable in the role. Compact, impish and imperious, he has the mien of a natural sovereign. It’s almost strange to think that he spent so much of his career as a sideman, out of the spotlight. Then again, his specialty is the internal dynamic of an ensemble: the combustion and churn at the core.
In recent years Mr. Haynes has been leading various iterations of what he calls the Fountain of Youth band, with musicians many years his junior. His crew this week consists of the alto and soprano saxophonist Jaleel Shaw and the pianist Martin Bejerano, each of whom he has featured on a recent Dreyfus album, and the bassist David Wong.
On one level, the band is theirs as much as his. Mr. Shaw has a strong voice and an acute temperament, especially on alto, and Mr. Bejerano makes the most of a full and fluent style. They both played exceptionally well on the Dave Brubeck ballad “In Your Own Sweet Way,” which also yielded a bass solo happily suggestive of Paul Chambers.
But of course Mr. Haynes was the star, even when he didn’t seem to be trying. His drumming was ingenious, a marriage of chop and flow. Instead of driving the band with his ride cymbal, he kept up a propulsive chatter between his bass drum, hi-hat and snare. It’s a punctuation-heavy approach, and a signature — ages ago, Mr. Haynes earned the nickname Snap Crackle — but somehow it hasn’t hardened into mannerism. It felt fresh.
The same was true of the only drum solo in the set, which gradually advanced from contemplative to furious, with Mr. Haynes using felt-tipped mallets throughout. Because he tunes his three highest toms in a major triad, there was a tonal root as well as a basic pulse. In the end, the effort amounted to a percussive concerto.
It was quickly followed by another Pat Metheny tune, “Question and Answer,” and one of Thelonious Monk’s hairier themes, “Trinkle, Tinkle.” Mr. Haynes could have pointed out that he recorded each song with its composer, but he didn’t. By that point, the audience was sufficiently warmed up, and so was the band.
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