Blowing Away The Blahs

The lights were low and the club was cool.

Tenor sax man Ron Holloway, of Takoma Park, was onstage at Blues Alley, celebrating the release of his first compact disc, "Slanted."

Couples huddled close together in a classic jazz club setting, sipping coffees and beers. But the question remained whether or not stodgy old bureaucratic Washington could loosen up enough to really appreciate this fine jazz master.

The dinner fare of stuffed pork chops, jambalaya and red beans and rice gave the impression that the audience was down to earth, but as the show began, most folk just sat and stared at Holloway with glazed eyes. Some had their arms tightly folded while others rested their chins in hand, like they'd been forced to attend a drunken-driving school.

"This is not one of your industrial towns where people go out and get seriously involved in having a good time," said Keter Betts, the legendary bassist who accompanied Holloway. "I've been playing in Washington since 1947, and the attitude toward the artists has always been, `You've come to D.C., so entertain me.' "

Part of what sometimes appears to be social stuffiness may actually be sticker shock, for going out on the town these days simply costs too much. Add to that the fact that jazz in Washington generally attracts an upscale, manicured, integrated audience - along with a lot of Japanese tourists - and the potential for a deadly lack of spontaneity hovered over Blues Alley like a plume of carcinogenic smoke.

Holloway had his work cut out for him.

"Some people just don't know how they are supposed to act when they hear jazz," said Marshall Keyes, a saxophonist who sat in with Holloway during one of the sets on Monday night. "They think jazz in Washington means, `The Smithsonian presents ...' and that they must sit still with hands folded in their laps."

Then came the moment the audience had been waiting for. Holloway put his gleaming, charcoal black and gold tenor sax to his lips and simply blew the house down.

He opened up the first set with a tune called, "My Shining Hour," which featured a mellow trumpet and sax duet - just a little something to help loosen up the stiff necks out in the audience.

It took a few more minutes, and another sweet number called "Body and Soul," and then some heads started to bob to the beat. Rigid shoulders began to droop just a little and those in GS-13 uniforms actually unbuttoned their collars and loosened their neckties.

Jazz is think and feel music. It is okay to sit back, reflect and ponder, introspectively, on a musical riff. Or feel - spellbound by the creative discipline of an ensemble playing, at once together and apart, all that jazz. Shout out, `Yeah,' for no apparent reason, or grip the edge of a seat to keep from being blown away. With jazz, you never hear the same song played the same way; and what you hear depends as much on how you feel about a song as how the musician feels about playing for you.

Holloway had played "Birks Works" a hundred times, but when he hit it Monday night it sounded as fresh as the day John Birks Gillespie wrote it many years ago.

Indeed, the applause Holloway received was tremendous, and it did not go without notice. "I was thinking, `Gee, if they are responding this strongly so early in the show, and it usually gets better as the night goes on, what are they going to be doing when it's over?' " he said.

Before the show ended, some people had actually started talking back to the musicians, as if they were at some real funky neigh- borhood jazz joint in New York.

One man shouted, "Hurt 'em, Ron," as the ensemble completed an intense, up-tempo rendition of Duke Ellington's "Caravan," which featured one screaming demon of a saxophone solo.

Holloway, who is 40, had brought with him some of the most talented musicians the Washington area had to offer. They included Reuben Brown and George Colligan on piano; Chris Battiston and Tom Williams on trumpet; Aaron Walker and John Zidar on drums; Tommy Cecil and Betts on bass.

There was also Lennie Cuje' on vibes.

The jazz they produced was home-grown and powerful, innovative and energetic. The recording, "Slanted," had been deeply influenced by Dizzy Gillespie, with whom Holloway had traveled the world, Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. As music critic Mike Joyce said of Holloway's rendition of "Take the A-train," "He invites you on board."

Bureaucratic Washington finally cut loose and took the ride, proving that the city, like the musicians that come from here, definitely have soul.

Rusty Hassan, who hosts a jazz show on WDCU-FM, also called Jazz 90, noted that Holloway had not only pulled together a great ensemble for his sets, he also had attracted a beautifully diverse audience that highlighted Washington's greatest strength. "We still have a long way to go to recognize the importance of jazz as not only an American original but as a unifying force in our city," Hassan said.

Holloway's world-class performance had unleashed the redemptive powers of a very special brand of music. People who had come to the club looking world weary and worn out left with smiles on their faces, bouncing to the everlasting beat of jazz.

Copyright 1994 The Washington Post