Batiste and Stay Human Band offer thoroughly modern vintage jazz
By Michael J. West
May 9, 2012
History hangs more heavily than the damask on the walls of the opulent Music Room in the
Turkish ambassador’s residence. It was in that room during the swing era that brothers Ahmet
and Nesuhi Ertegun — the then-ambassador’s sons — hosted performances by the prewar jazz
greats, a precursor to their founding of Atlantic Records. Tuesday night the room, full of
business-suited bureaucrats, including at least three veteran legislators and former Homeland
Security secretary Michael Chertoff, came alive again with that vintage jazz vibe, thanks to New
Orleans pianist Jonathan Batiste and his Stay Human Band.
“Vintage” is a tricky notion, as
Batiste and company made
clear. They concocted the
dense, spicy stuff that fuels
New Orleans: pounding
rhythms and lively melodies,
deceptively finessed and firmly
steeped in gospel and the blues.
But the Stay Human ensemble
(alto saxophone, tuba, guitar,
piano, bass and drums) defies
the conventions of any era of
jazz, and the players didn’t
hesitate to use modern
language.
That was especially true of
Batiste; though he pulled blues licks and stomped out grooves with glee on “St. James Infirmary
Blues” and the Spanish tango “Why You Gotta Be Like That,” he also worked in bebop
harmonies and irregular syncopation (helped along by Joe Saylor’s clattering drums) on his
multipart original “Creative” and a unique abstraction of the melody on Scott Joplin’s “The
Entertainer.” The latter was impressive in its moves through these ideas; it featured a Phil Kuehn
bass solo that evolved from ragtime bass walk to contemporary flourishes and a piano coda
consisting of a long transformation of New Orleans’s rollicking “Jelly Roll” groove into
irresistible funk.
The evening included one genuine masterpiece. The band’s version of Leroy Carr’s classic blues
“When the Sun Goes Down” began as a four-way duel between Batiste (on melodica — a
keyboarded harmonica), Saylor (on tambourine), alto saxophonist Eddie Barbash and tubaist
Ibanda Ruhumbika. It then transitioned to a duet for melodica and Marvin Sewell’s ferocious
bottleneck guitar before swelling into a magnificent full-band performance (with Batiste
singing), then passed through moody piano atmospherics and ended on a sweet gospel echo of
the theme. When the explosive applause died down, Batiste explained simply, “Now that was the
blues!”