V Is for Victory

Frankie V is huge in just about every sense of the word. Physically, personally and emotionally, the trumpet and flugelhorn player exudes an air larger than life. He brought that personality to Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge on Nov. 3, assembling a six-piece band including percussionist Eguie Castrillo and guitarist Bruce Bartlett, in one of Frankie’s three stops in town this year.

While he’s only here infrequently, in a sense, Frankie’s (the “V” stands for Vardaros) return to Cambridge represents a homecoming of sorts. The Long Island native cut his teeth at the Berklee School of Music across the river in Boston, and Ryles has long been a proving and training ground for many Berklee students. Undoubtedly, Frankie has visited before, playing under the lithograph of the venerable Lester Young. This night, Frankie seemed especially welcome, hamming it up with the capacity crowd and coaxing from his sidemen a uniquely smooth jazz-funk sound under Ryles’ sweaty lights.

Frankie confesses that his true love is the trumpet, but he’s parlayed his general largesse into a meaty flugelhorn sound that he alternates with its higher register cousin. Sometimes switching up horns mid-piece, Frankie maintained striking speed and agility with the flugelhorn, showing a dexterity not normally found on the instrument. While finger-crunching runs are usually the trumpet’s domain, Frankie managed to translate those abilities to the flugel while covering Stevie Wonder’s “Another Star” from Songs in the Key of Life. Without Wonder’s voice, the disco-funk classic lost a little of its original melancholy, but Frankie compensated, filling the void with his improvisation. He swayed with complex lyrical overtures, punctuating them with hot runs and fiery licks. As such, his playing strayed alternately between accessible melodies and less approachable harmoninvention. Frankie was definitely more at home with the accessible, and this trait manifested itself in his performance.

In “Another Star,” Frankie put down his trumpet, picked up the microphone and did something uncharacteristic for a jazz performer—he encouraged audience participation. Supported by Castrillo, he urged the audience to sing, recapturing the introduction of Wonder’s original track. The only reason it didn’t seem bizarre was that earlier in the evening, Frankie stepped into the crowd, joking and shaking hands while his rhythm section furiously pounded out Latin beats. The effect was truly surreal. With a radio microphone fitted into the bell of his trumpet, Frankie occasionally broke from conversation to play the melody and then resumed pressing the flesh. Couple this spectacle with Frankie playing from behind the audience while his sound flowed from the speakers in front, and the result was something disorienting (but ultimately welcome). Jazz is already one of the most democratic musical forms in that the artist feeds from the audience’s applause; Frankie just seems to be taking this ideal to the next logical level by making the music more approachable.

But don’t confuse “approachable” for “bland.” Frankie’s playing does border on the conservative side, but in his compositions, the depth of his musical knowledge emerges. The amorphous, ethereal introduction to “Mi Amiga Mi Amore” paid obvious homage to Miles Davis’ landmark album Sketches of Spain, and another self-composed number, “Smooth Ride,” has a lovely and palpably soothing warmth. Frankie always seemed more at home on his own compositions, extracting more complexity from their chord changes than from his various covers. Whether during forays into straight-ahead rock music or the fluid turns of Latin-infused funk, Frankie V has a clearly cultivated melodic sense, but his sidemen don’t always come along for the ride.

Frankie’s guitarist on this particular night, Bruce Bartlett, is a well known commodity in Boston circles. He holds court regularly at Ryles, and in doing so has been elevated to mythic musical status. Whether seamlessly integrating Frankie V’s spontaneous melodies into his own supple chord-building or cheekily paying homage to arena rock in the club’s small confines, Bartlett was the rhythm section rock on which Frankie was able to build great flights of fancy. Pianist Israel Tannenbaum played an almost ironic performance, leaping up and down the keyboard in vertical chords under the effigy of Lester Young, a soloist renowned for his horizontal and compressed playing. Tannenbaum also contributed one of the evening’s more poignant moments, a fractured version of “Happy Birthday” before the band gave it an abbreviated dirty funk treatment. Eguie Castrillo occupied a middle space on the congas, sometimes meshing with the rest of the rhythm section’s ideals, but at other times, seeming almost at odds with drummer Nomar Negron, who played drum set. On “Mi Amiga Mi Amore”, the two traded combative fours (four-bar solo segments); instead of amicably pushing each other to greater creative heights, the same goal was accomplished antagonistically, as if they were attempting to show up one another (for the curious, Castrillo won). The spectacle was out of place for a night where the leader was being so inclusive. Negron also tangibly lacked a sense of subtlety. For the night, funk’s bombast was tempered by the subtlety and nuances of Latin music, but someone forgot to tell the drummer. Negron pounded his way through most pieces, with little regard for the subtle moods being created around him.

Regardless, Frankie V whittled out a fine performance from the rest of his band. He may play on the safe side of neutral, but Frankie makes for a compelling and engaging evening, on or off the stage.

Frankie V

at

Ryles Jazz Club

November 3