The Mel Brown Quartet

Straight-ahead, sixties-era jazz is not something easily stumbled upon these days. Especially in Portland, OR where the word jazz can define anything with an overly long guitar solo or a standup bass. One place where the word jazz couldn’t be more accurately used is Jimmy Mak’s. The dimly lit, très classy jazz club on the corner of Everett and NW 10th, has taken everything about the word quite literally as far their décor goes. Unfortunately, the only time they take that approach towards the music is on Wednesday nights, when drumming legend Mel Brown picks up his finest brushes to play three hours of your papa’s jazz. Straight off the page, but played with unsurpassable professionalism, it’s no surprise that Mel Brown, formerly featured drummer for Motown legends, The Supremes and The Temptations, is Jimmy Mak’s weekly artist-in-residence. Tuesday and Thursday you’ll find him with his Septet and B3 Organ group, respectively, playing slightly more rocking, jazz-fusion. Wednesdays, however, solidify Mel-Browns legendary status as a Motown kid cum jazz magician.
Performing with Tony Pacini tickling the ivory, Ed Bennett on standup bass, and fellow artist-in-residence, and Portland jazz staple, Dan Balmer(the Dan Balmer Trio appears every Monday), Mel Brown would blow even the hippest, pork-pie hat wearing jazz cat out of the water. I arrived on Wednesday night to the swift, up-tempo bop, of Clifford Brown’s Daahoud. Typically heard at an extremely, “up,” tempo, Mel held a surprisingly, “down” high hat and snare, four four beat, while Mr. Pacini demonstrated remarkable piano technique. If I wasn’t staring right at him I might have thought there were two piano players. One playing a very complex syncopation of oddly inverted jazz chords, while the other wailed through perfectly accentuated scales and arpeggios that changed keys every two bars. Dan Balmer’s guitar work seemed lazy and uninspired, as he appeared to sigh after taking the solo from the keys. Balmer stuck to a very basic pattern of embellishing the melody, before annihilating any sort of breathing room with a rapid fury of arpeggios.
In between songs, and while playing for that matter, Mel Brown left no doubt that he used to play for the Temptations. Charming the crowd with a quick remark about the tune and a smile that could melt Ghengis Kahn’s heart, Brown introduced Tony Pacini and the group launched into the medium swing of Duke Ellington’s Love you Madly. Bass player Ed Bennett took a rather guitar-esque solo at the end of the solo section, playing at the top of his neck and playing licks that sounded slightly muddy and hurried on his seven foot standup bass. While the bass walked away into the parallel dimension of bass/ guitar solos, Mr. Balmer turned the volume all the way down on his guitar and continued to comp the chords. No one in the crowd could really hear anything but the sound of a pick against strings, and every strum made the overall vibe a little more awkward.
The high point of the night came when Tony Pacini began his original composition, Inside a Silent Tear, with a piano vamp that made me feel a little like I was in a Disney movie. All cheese factors aside, the band eventually came in with a very solid bop groove, and Dan Balmer finally escaped the modal minefield he seemed to be navigating all night. Putting aside the intellectual side of his playing, he approached his solo on this tune, with what felt like real emotion, coming to hair bending climax that sounded slightly reminiscent of a Guns’ and Roses guitar solo. The crowd stared in awe hooting and hollering for the first time all night as Balmer and the band faded out and Pacini brought us back in for the closing credits of The Little Mermaid.