These guys have been around. Tenor sax player Ricky Ford played with Ellington’s band, Charles Mingus, Dannie Richmond, Mal Waldron and Abdullah Ibrahim. Drummer Thurman Barker grew up in Chicago in the 1950s and was a charter member of the AACM, Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He has played with the Art Ensemble’s Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, and Henry Threadgill. Bassist Jerome Harris worked as a sideman to Sonny Rollins, Bobby Previte, Don Byron and Bill Frisell. Pianist John Kordalewski has played with Chico Freeman, Charlie Rouse, Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake.
So the Ricky Ford Quartet was fully equipped to pay tribute to John Coltrane last night at the Bop Shop. Except for one small concern. A pad had come off one of the valves on Ricky’s tenor sax. He looked very worried before the show, and the piano player asked if there was someone in town who could work on his sax. Peggi recommended Carl from Shuffle Music. Every horn player in this town goes to Carl.
Peggi gave Carl a call and put Ricky on the phone. Ricky put some super glue on the pad and made an appointment to see Carl in the morning at ten o’clock. Carl works out of his home now, and Peggi said she could hear Carl’s wife in the background telling him they would not be home on Saturday morning.
The gig went off without a hitch. The band roared through seven Coltrane songs and then two Wayne Shorter tunes and a gorgeous version of the Ellington song “Passion Flower.” I have a 45 of the song by Johnny Hodges that I love. This was something else.
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