Jazz Reviews : Gerald Wilson’s Homage to Black History Month

Sunday evening at the Wadsworth Theater, Gerald Wilson offered his homage to Black History Month in the form of a program saluting great black jazz composers.

As has long been his custom, he began by taking the 18-man ensemble through an extended workout on a blues, affording solo opportunities to, among others, George Bohanon on trombone, to his own talented son Anthony Wilson on guitar, and to the young ex-Basie alto sax virtuoso Danny House.

Then came the tributes: to John Coltrane (“Equinox,” a lesser Coltrane opus that succeeded only because Wilson’s arrangement made it happen); Miles Davis’ “Milestones,” graced by another buoyant young alto star, Scott Mayo. By the time Carl Randall had completed his somewhat routine treatment of Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady,” you wondered whether Gerald Wilson had forgotten that he himself is a great black composer who deserved a share of the spotlight.

Happily, he moved immediately into his captivating “Blues for Yna Yna,” the perennial band theme that has still not lost its luster, and from there shifted into high gear with a work characteristic of Wilson’s long love affair with the corrida. “Carlos,” dedicated to the matador Carlos Arruza, found the multi-textured Wilson sound in full glory, with the vivid trumpet of Oscar Brashear as its centerpiece.

Wilson, who appears Friday-Saturday at Maria’s Memory Lane in Los Angeles, was preceded by a set by Michael Wolff. Now leading the band on the Arsenio Hall Show, Wolff, a one-time Cannonball Adderley pianist (as is his drummer, Roy McCurdy), turned out to be not only a fluent mainstream-bop pianist but also a comedian whose routines included a blues satire, black and Jewish jokes, and a hilarious put-down of New Age (“Yuppie Muzak”) complete with an imitation of George Winston.

Wolff may not yet be the Victor Borge of jazz, but since he’s young enough to be Borge’s grandson he may well develop along those lines. The supple bassist John B. Williams completed Wolff’s trio, playing upright bass except for one electric interlude.