Jazz Concert Review: DUETS: DIANNE REEVES, CHUCHO VALDÉS, JOE LOVANO (International Tour at Berklee)

TWO MEN AND A LADY: JAZZ ROYALTY TIMES THREE

Celebrity Series of Boston’s 2023–2024 season is drawing to a close and among the final performances was the excellent Duets, featuring Dianne Reeves (vocals), Chucho Valdés (piano), and Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone).

The evening began with Valdés alone with his grand piano on the stage of the Berklee Performance Center. The former movie palace, renovated in the early 1970s to create an excellent acoustic environment with state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems and a 1200-seat capacity, provided a sense of intimacy as well as an expansive setting for Valdés, to all appearances the consummate jazz pianist in his black beret and loose-fitting jacket. I honestly do not know what he was playing—the set list simply identified this piece as “solo,” and it may be that he was improvising on something he himself had composed (he is a composer), but it sure was interesting to listen to. Cuban-born Valdés is described as the “most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz” with a career stretching over more than sixty years. He has won seven Grammy and six Latin Grammy awards. Born in 1941 (which makes him older than anyone running for president of the United States), he appeared to be at the top of his game.

While Reeves and Lovano (more about them to come), performed on some of the numbers of the evening, Valdés played non-stop through the entire approximately 90 minutes of music. I was glad that my seat allowed me to see his hands—with their incredibly long fingers—as they moved over the keyboard. There were times I would have sworn that I was hearing four hands playing because of the texture and complexity of the sound he produced. Frankly, it was thrilling!

Chucho Valdés, Dianne Reeves, and Joe Lovano (image courtesy of the artists)

After that first solo, Valdés was joined on stage by Berklee School of Music-alum Lovano and his tenor saxophone. Lovano, in a light-colored beret and ten years Valdés’s junior, took the spotlight at times, but for the most part, the two musicians were in conversation. During the periods when Lovano wasn’t playing, he was very much engaged with Valdés, facing the piano and sometimes rubbing his hands together in rhythm to the Valdés’s music as though sending the heat of his own enthusiasm toward his revered colleague. Not that Lovano is any slouch. He has his own Grammy along with 14 nominations and has been named by Downbeat critics and readers for numerous awards, including Musician of the Year and Jazz Album of the Year. He holds the Gary Burton Chair in Jazz Performance at Berklee as well.

Lovano and Valdés performed several pieces together, including Sammy Cahn and McCoy Tyner’s “You Taught My Heart to Sing” and Valdés’s own “Nanu.” Then Lovano left the stage and Valdés performed another solo.

Diane Reeves made her appearance, draped in elegant gray, her hair a cascade of curls, and opened with Victor Young’s “My Foolish Heart.” A seasoned performer who has won five Grammy awards, including Best Jazz Vocal Performance for three consecutive recordings, she was unfazed by the exclamations of what sounded like a baby at the front of the house, she kept singing and commented wryly, “He knows what I’m feeling—yeah, baby, sing it out!” And no wonder the baby had to shout out its approval for what we were all hearing. Reeves’s rich alto ranged from clear to gravelly, descending at times into a rich bass, and rising at others into a soprano. She and Valdés performed a few more numbers, including a traditional Cuban song, “Drume Negrita,” and another Victor Young composition, “Stella by Starlight,” before they were joined by Lovano.

The three of them—vocalist, pianist, and sax player—offered several standards, including João Gilberto’s “Besame Mucho” and Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington’s “Caravan.” Throughout, the musicians were superb, and Reeves’s voice was clear and flowing with enough depth and texture to keep it interesting. I imagined a clear stream of water gliding over a creek bed of weathered river rocks as she sang.   Reeves scatted throughout the program and delighted us all with her mimicry of Lovano’s saxophone on “Stella.”

The encore was Gershwin and Heyward’s “Summertime,” Reeves updating the lyrics with lines like, “Your daddy is rich in spirit and your mama is fine.” From there she segued in a scat and from there a call-and-response with the audience, starting with short song fragments that grew progressively longer until everyone was laughing at the impossibility of echoing her improvised melodic riff. She closed by wishing us all “peace and light” and urged us to take it with us out into the street. Thus buoyed by a series of masterful performances we exited, grateful for the respite of music and the generous presence of these three artists.