Spirit of Love

Trumpeter Jon Faddis, trombonist Slide Hampton and ‘King of Jazz’ Clark Terry contribute to a holiday favorite in Trenton.

By: Daniel Shearer

Photo: John Abbot

Jon Faddis, one of the performers in Bending Towards the Light: A Jazz Nativity at Patriots Theatre at the War Memorial in Trenton, N.J.

   The jazz nativity Bending Towards the Light has come a long way since its premiere nearly 20 years ago at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan.
   Since then, it received stagings on back-to-back holiday seasons at Lincoln Center, stopping at a synagogue on another year. It traveled West for productions in California, and spent time in several Midwest cities. Then, two years ago, it found a new home at the War Memorial in Trenton.
   After a year hiatus, the show will be back in Trenton Dec. 6, once again featuring trombonist Slide Hampton, tap dancer Jimmy Slyde, Afro-Cuban percussionist Candido, and Clark Terry as "The King of Jazz." Trumpeter Jon Faddis will perform as well, along with the Trenton-based Shiloh Baptist Church Gospel Choir, tap dancer Savion Glover, trumpeters Terell Stafford and Ingrid Jensen, and flutist Dave Valentine.
   "It’s not just a concert," says Anne Phillips, a Manhattan resident who wrote Bending Towards the Light with her husband, tenor saxophonist Bob Kindred, and has conducted it on many occasions since 1985, also serving as the show’s producer.
   "It’s fully costumed with theatrical glitz," she says. "It’s a big production, incorporating all the elements with integrity, otherwise all these great players wouldn’t have been in it for all these years."
   Dave Brubeck has been a performer in the show

Photo: Judith Kirtley

Anne Phillips and her husband, Bob Kindred, under the banner for the show’s run at Lincoln Center.

several times over the years. In fact, Mr. Brubeck’s song "God’s Love Made Visible," from his Christmas cantata La Fiesta de la Pesada, is featured prominently toward the end of the evening. Appropriately enough, the tune is written in five — Mr. Brubeck’s hallmark.
   Mr. Kindred wrote the title song, but with the exception of the Lionel Hampton-Benny Goodman composition "Flying Home," the rest of the show is comprised of Ms. Phillips’ original music, along with blistering holiday standards done in the best tradition of jazz. In addition to her role this year as the nativity’s music director and conductor, Ms. Phillips also is a faculty member at New York University, where she teaches voice, coaches and conducts the NYU Jazz Choir.
   When the big band hits "We Three Kings," the kings make their entrance from the back of the hall.
   "Down they come," Ms. Phillips says, "and each one of them takes two choruses. This year it’ll be Slide Hampton first on trombone, and then it goes into stop-time while Jimmy Slyde taps, and then the third scene will be Jon Faddis."
   In addition to his stage role, Mr. Faddis has a personal connection with Bending Towards the Light; he met his wife at a nativity performance in 1993.
   "That was probably the second or third time I’d done it," Mr. Faddis says, calling from his home in Teaneck.
   Currently artist in residence at Purchase College, where he is director of jazz performance, Mr. Faddis worked with the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band for 10 years, doing many shows with the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Band throughout his career. He’s now organizing a new group, the Jon Faddis Orchestra.
   "I go back quite a ways with (the nativity)," Mr. Faddis says. "I think Anne has done a wonderful job in bringing out the spiritual aspect of the music, but in a way that’s not heavy-handed.
   "The show evolves in the improvisational sense, but the music, as I remember, is pretty set in the program. It’s the in-between stuff that gets really exciting as well, the improvisation, the guys stretchin’ out. That’s what gets it going."
   For the first few years of his involvement with the nativity, Mr. Faddis performed alongside legendary mallet man Lionel Hampton. Hired as a member of Mr. Hampton’s band right out of high school, Mr. Faddis moved from Oakland, Calif., to the Big Apple in the early ’70s.
   "The way it ended up, I did get to New York with (Mr. Hampton’s) band," Mr. Faddis says, "and then I did get a chance to meet a lot of my musical heroes, one of whom, Clark Terry, is going to be playing the nativity.
   "I met Clark when I was 17. He was doing a master-class clinic in California, about an hour away from my home. I went and met him, and he said ‘Call me when you get to New York,’ so I did, and he responded. He took me around and introduced me to the guys in ‘The Tonight Show’ and started telling people about this young trumpet player who was with Lionel Hampton’s band who could really play, and the funny thing was, he had never heard me play."
   Mr. Faddis is well known for his high notes. His workable range extends to double-C and above, however he doesn’t consider himself to be a screamer.
   "When I play in the upper register, I like to think that I’m playing music and musical ideas, rather than just playing notes for playing those notes’ sake," he says. "That’s usually what a screamer is considered. I can do that, but I usually don’t."
   During the ’70s, Mr. Faddis remained dedicated to jazz but spent much of his time as a studio musician, recording with Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Billy Joel, the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross, even the Village People. You can hear him playing the high notes on "YMCA." He also performed the trumpet solo on one of the versions of The Cosby Show theme song.
   Mr. Faddis decided to form his own jazz band in the early ’80s, after a friend reminded him of his earlier decree to be out of the studio business by the time he was 30.
   As Mr. Faddis developed his own style, critics and listeners often commented on his ability to mimic cheeky trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, whom he met as a youngster.
   "Dizzy had a fantastic sense of rhythm when he played," Mr. Faddis says. "There are a lot of trumpet players out there who play very linearly, and don’t use rhythm in their improvisation. But Dizzy was always using these tricky rhythms and things like that.
   "Along with his vast harmonic knowledge, it combines to make a style that’s pretty difficult. His articulation was not articulation in a very classical sense, but there are things that he could do, I think during his peak, that are pretty near impossible to do on the trumpet. I know all the trumpet players used to hear him do those things and then just shake their heads: ‘Well, that’s Dizzy.’ For me, that was inspirational, and that’s what I tried to do."
   In Bending Towards the Light, Mr. Faddis and the cast will get a chance to shine in the show’s finale, "Deck the Halls," done as a jam that frequently extends beyond the 20-minute mark.
   As Charles Kuralt noted in his closing narration at Lincoln Center a few years ago, the effect is quite moving: "And so we celebrate the victory of light over darkness, we who are bound together through the spirit of love. And when we go out into the world, we become the doors and windows through which the presence of this love is revealed. Like a radiant light it shines from our eyes, our words, our acts."
   Ms. Phillips notes that light represents hope and faith in many religions.
   "In this case, the light represents the Christ child," she says. "It’s the traditional nativity story, but you don’t have to be a Christian to love it.
   "One of the writers I talked to, after he had heard the CD, called it ‘The Peter and the Wolf of jazz,’ because it really does introduce, at the end, all these different instruments. That’s one of the reasons it’s such an incredible introduction to jazz, for children and the uninitiated."
Bending Towards the Light: a Jazz Nativity takes place at Patriots Theater at the War Memorial, West Lafayette and Barrack streets, Trenton, Dec. 6, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $25.50-$45.50. For information, call (609) 984-8400. For tickets, call (800) 955-5566. On the Web: www.thewarmemorial.com. Jazz Nativity on the Web: www.jazznativity.com