Don Byron and his Bug Music ensemble played a wonderful concert to a full house in Spaulding Saturday night. Byron, a virtuoso clarinetist and adventurous composer, displayed a wealth of ideas infused with seriousness and humor.
Bug Music is comprised of Uri Caine, piano; Charlie Lewis and James Zollar, trumpets; Bob Debellis, saxophones; Ben Perowsky, drums; Drew Gress, bass; and Byron with his clarinet and also loosely conducting. The group played a wide variety of jazz styles, not limiting themselves to the anticipated early swing music of Duke Ellington, John Kirby and Raymond Scott.
The concert opened "straying from the insect motif," as Byron put it, with a pair John Coltrane compositions, "The Wise One" and "Bessie's Blues."
The band was tight from the onset and the first sounds of Byron's clarinet rose gently, building slowly with the rhythm section into the latin inflected "Wise One."
The first set was the more adventurous of the two, and Byron's composition "Tuskegee Strutter's Ball" displayed his classically influenced techniques. Built upon the Gershwin standard "I Got Rhythm" and abstracted quite a bit, "Tuskegee Strutter's Ball" allowed solo space for all the horns.
The audience was attentive, trying to pick out the various quotations Byron used. Some claimed to hear Stravinsky, Gershwin or a certain American patriotic tune at different points throughout the evening.
Two Duke Ellington tunes in the first set proved delightful. "The Dicty Glide," one of Byron's "all-time favorite pieces of music," was a thoroughly composed piece and contrasted nicely with the playfully subversive piano and clarinet duet in "Blue Bubbles."
The second set of the night showcased the works of bandleaders John Kirby and Raymond Scott. Kirby, as Byron explained, was one of the very few African-American bandleaders who played society functions in the 1920s and 1930s. The Cotton Club may have had black entertainers, but the patronage was certainly not.
Several of the Kirby compositions were referential to 19th century classical composers. "Bounce of the Sugar Plum Fairies" was a swing arrangement of the Tchaikovsky piece, and "Charley's Prelude" was a nod to Frederic "Charlie" Chopin.
The highlight of the set and show, however, was an extended improvisational take on the rather unassuming "Royal Garden Blues." The composition gave way to a Byron solo turning into a raucous duet with drummer, Ben Perowsky.
As he finished, Byron nodded for the trumpeters, Lewis and Zollar to take over. Initially they traded choruses, sliding into one another's space, urgently pushing each other. Debellis took a thrilling solo on alto saxophone, which began as a pretty duet with the bassist Gress, and culminated the more than 20-minute piece.
Though some of the pieces sounded a bit hokey and dated, Bug Music carried them out with precision and style. The group proved to be responsive and tight, and with the exception of Byron's presence being overbearing at times, the music was emotional, intelligently crafted and successful.
