Shorter and Hancock Hit Serious Notes

Over its first decade, the Long Beach Jazz Festival, held outdoors at the city’s Rainbow Lagoon Park near the convention center, has become known as the summer’s hardiest jazz party, presenting pop, blues and fusion sounds tailored to the event’s reputation. But at the end of the second day of this year’s three-day-long 10th anniversary, the festival took a chance with something decidedly different.

That gamble came in the form of an acoustic duet between saxophonist Wayne Shorter and pianist Herbie Hancock. Working without bass and drums, the two explored more subtle moods and meters than the Long Beach crowd is accustomed. For those among the nearly 8,000 in attendance who stuck around to hear them Saturday, Hancock and Shorter provided deeper rewards than any other festival act in recent memory.

Near the end of the duo’s closing, 50-minute set, Hancock answered calls for “Rockit” and more of his funk hits by explaining that it was impossible to play such tunes with this instrumentation. “This is naked music,” Shorter added.

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And indeed there were times when the two, especially Shorter, seemed to reveal their very souls with lines and exchanges that went to the heart of the human condition. Whether reexamining Shorter’s now-classic “Footprints” or delving into Michiel Borstlap’s “Memory of Enchantment” (winner of the 1996 Thelonious Monk International Composer’s Competition), the two turned over layers of emotion and intellect seldom displayed at the fun-minded festival.

Shorter was particularly moving during “Aung San Suu Kyi,” his tribute to the Burmese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner. The tune’s pithy, Asian-flavored theme sent the soprano saxophonist off into phrases that suggested impatience, frustration and finally, triumph. Hancock, badly amplified and often lost behind the saxophone, didn’t seem to find his footing until the two closed with Borstlap’s introspective piece.

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That the majority of the crowd chose to leave during the abbreviated performance indicates that the booking may have been unwise. But credit the Long Beach promoters with bringing a first-class touch to their event.

Earlier in the day, the festival presented the tried and true with the more tried performers, some making third, fourth and even fifth festival appearances, ringing truest with the audience.

Trombonist Wayne Henderson and the Jazz Crusaders, with longtime Crusaders saxophonist Wilton Felder, got the crowd on its feet in the late afternoon by bringing on exuberant vocalist Barbara Morrison to sing “Street Life.”

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Vibist Roy Ayers’ appearance was more a vocal affair, with long, tedious versions of “Searchin’ ” and “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” two tunes that have been frequently heard here over the years. Vocalist Dianne Reeves’ homespun originals, presented in fine voice, once again went over big with the Long Beach crowd.

The hopped-up blues of organist Jimmy Smith, featuring strong performances from guitarist Phil Upchurch and saxophonist Herman Riley, seemed vivacious following keyboardist-guitarist Jeff Lorber’s strangely dull set of funk and pop-flavored material.