GET HAPPY! Stone, Roberge, McMahon, and Eddy aren’t afraid to educate and amuse. |
Maybe it was when saxophonist Kelly Roberge, instrument in hand, leapt off the Cambridge YMCA Theatre stage in the middle of a performance by the Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra and fled the auditorium — as if in extreme gastro-intestinal distress. Or maybe it was when, playing the role of the “The Chump Killer” with the Infrared Band at the Lily Pad, Roberge chased down a member of the audience — who proceeded to spit water in his eye. Or maybe it was back that night at the Y when he returned to the stage in a rubber monster mask (long hair, skull with bulging eyes) to chase the rest of the orchestra off stage with his squalling. Whatever the quintessential moment, Quartet of Happiness — who play a CD-release show at Scullers on May 18 — have been grabbing my attention.
The Quartet are Roberge, alto-saxophonist Rick Stone, bassist Kendall Eddy, and drummer Austin McMahon. This outfit is roughly seven years old; the members are also part of the Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra. And they’ve been making serious inroads as music educators — but more on that later.
At the Y, they played “So You Think You Can Jazz?” — “America’s favorite jazz reality show,” a routine in which Stone and Roberge “competed” in categories like big-band jazz, bebop, and “funky jazz.” Stone introduced an original called “Dark Signatures” — written “in odd time signatures. It’s very dark and cerebral . . . as I think I am.” He played a beautiful, gently loping ballad, took the horn out of his mouth, and concluded, “Actually, now that I’ve heard it, I don’t think it does use odd time signatures. I’m sorry.”
Over the course of their set, Quartet of Happiness played “Music History” — a three-minute tour from Gregorian chant to classical to minimalism to American jazz and rock. (When a harmony line is added to the polyphonic chant, it becomes “ba-roken” — nyuk, nyuk.) There was also a fiendishly tricky game in which audience members were asked to dial their cell phones based on the 10-note melodies played by the band. (“Winners” got to hear band members’ cell phones ring.)
I might add that Quartet of Happiness are a killer outfit. Their “ii-V7-I Game,” based on classic changes, could pass for the coolest of Lee Konitz/Warne Marsh post-bop, and the rock-beat driven “Let the Monster In” could be a flag-waving avant anthem. And one of Stone’s entries in “So You Think You Can Jazz?” is a beautiful waltz.
The purpose of the theatrical high jinks is two-fold. QoH want to counteract the super-seriousness they find at a lot of jazz concerts. “I don’t like getting bored at jazz concerts, and that happens quite often,” says Roberge. Adds Stone, “Sometimes you go to a concert and the people playing could care less about whether the audience gets it or not.”
