By Marilyn Lester****The wall of sound that brass can create in simultaneous play is an experience high on the scale of titanically thrilling. This adrenaline rush is exactly what trumpet masters Jeremy Pelt, Warren Vaché and Joe Magnarelli created in “The Blues Walk,” the opening number of the Jazz in July program, The Melodic Genius of Clifford Brown. It was a buzz that set the tone for the evening, as Bill Charlap, pianist and Jazz in July artistic director, along with his trio members—Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums—delivered a full-bodied couple of hours of prime jazz music. Like a cherry on a sundae, but with a lot more substance, singer Veronica Swift added to the prodigious delights of the evening.
Clifford Brown was a jazz composer and trumpeter born into a highly musical family. His professional output was steeped in the bebop tradition; yet, owing to his early musical education, Brown was also blessed with a mastery of the melodic. The sound of his instrument was, as were his compositions, full of mellifluous invention and lyricism. His warm tone on the trumpet beautifully supported the vocals of the many A-list singers of the day. Tragically, Brown was killed in a car crash at the age of 25 in 1956. Fortunately, his body of music was already bountiful. Two of Brown’s most melodic compositions, “Joy Spring” and “Sandu,” plus the bop-based “Swingin'”and Daahoud,” not only spotlighted the individual trumpet expertise of Pelt, Vaché and Magnarelli, but the terrific chemistry and camaraderie among the three masters. It was a perfect storm of talent that translated into making sweet music with the Bill Charlap Trio.
Jazz singer Veronica Swift, who’s been performing since the age of nine (she just turned 25), has an impressive versatility as well as a rich vocal tone and mastery of phrasing, technique and interpretation. She was in band singer mode for this outing, reflecting the associations Brown had with Helen Merrill, Sarah Vaughn and Dinah Washington primarily. Swift performed a swinging “Lullaby of Birdland,” inserting some accenting scat, and an uptempo “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home to” 
with the lilting trumpet of Vaché. On the finale, a Latin-tempoed rendition of the classic, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” the confident Swift was in the groove, her vocals shining and showing the power to be as much a presence and instrument in itself as the brass.
Instrumentally, “Sweet Clifford,” based on the chord progression of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” was composed as a bon bon for Brown’s friend and musical partner, drummer Max Roach, who liked to play fast. Playing the tune gave the already animated Charlap a full-body workout on the keys, plus an intense five-finger workout for Magnarelli on the trumpet and a grand space for Kenny Washington to display his immense drumming talent in the Roach tradition. “Gerkin for Perkin” presented the other member of Charlap’s trio, bassist Peter Washington, a solo to exercise his wide-ranging creativity. Two jazz standards were handled by Vaché (of whom Charlap said, “When Warren plays a ballad he sings it through his horn”) and Pelt. Vaché proved Charlap’s words true with “Smoke Get in Your Eyes,” while in Pelt’s achingly evocative “What’s New” the feeling of the lyric poured from his trumpet with intense warmth of tone and feeling. His rendition was a stellar example of both musical phrasing and how a single instrument can tell a story as effectively as a vocalist can. Magnarelli’s opportunity to solo on a standard came with “Laura,” a fine choice for his style of play—an almost staccato attack that highlights and dexterously enunciates each note.
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