Joe Lovano
Gretchen C. Valade Jazz Center
4743 Cass Avenue
Detroit
Thursday, March 26
This will go down as the greatest live jazz set I’ve ever seen.
And it’s not even close.
Joe Lovano is best known as a tenor saxophonist. He’s a spiritual being. Someone who truly absorbs the music and delivers it through his instrument. He’ll serve as the artist-in-residence for this year’s Detroit Jazz Festival, where he’ll offer three unique performances across three days with a supporting cast of musicians working with him.
Every year, the jazz festival offers a preview to the media ahead of the festival. It’s a rare chance to see someone of Joe Lovano’s caliber in front of a small audience inside the Gretchen C. Valade Jazz Center, which is one of the best sounding venues in the city. It’s a simple black box with top notch acoustics right on Wayne State’s campus, funded by the Carhartt heiress who spent a lot of her coin making sure the jazz festival remains the largest free jazz festival in the world.
“Not many people can truly channel Coltrane,” remarked one of the producers of the event.
That gives you a good idea of the high praise I’m heaping up on Lovano and his band.
In fact, Lovano ripped through a take on “Compassion,” from John Coltrane’s 1966 effort “Meditations,” viewed as a spiritual follow-up to “A Love Supreme.” Lovano performed with at least two of the musicians featured alongside Coltrane during this era, including drummer Elvin Jones and pianist McCoy Tyner – yet another feather in the cap for Lovano’s talent.
The way that Lovano moved in and out of these renditions was astonishing. I’ve never seen a jazz musician move with so much purpose and yet surprise, sliding in and out of transitions and solos from his bands with ease and innovation. The band was a revelation -- dubbed Joyous Encounter -- including pianist Leo Geovese and John Menegon on bass (should’ve been louder in the mix).
The drummer, Lamy Istrefi, was one of the best I’ve ever seen (up there in style and force with Deerhoof founding member Greg Saunier). This man absolutely owned his cymbals, creating a sort of melodic static throughout. It was like a hum of percussion.
Lovano will help celebrate 100 years of Coltrane this year at the jazz fest. This was our first taste. You must do everything in your power to catch Lovano and his band open up the 2026 Detroit Jazz Festival with a similar tribute to what I was lucky enough to catch last week.
