Since Arks are built to weather the storm, it's natural that modern Bible geeks have claimed to locate Noah's original craft on Mt. Ararat, and that a version of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra continues to ride the waves 40-some years after the late Horace Tapscott founded it in South L.A.
Damn, it was inspiring to behold the Arkestra's generational continuity -- of tonight's 14 musicians, at least seven can claim multi-decade enlistment. Clean-scalped longtime Ark director and saxist Michael Session slipped around the stage with a faint smile like he knew where the treasure was buried. Tall & powerful Jesse Sharps, serious as the Book of Lamentations in a cheerful African cap, blew with ancient depth on a flute half the size of his hands. Though nearly as tall as Sharps, Derf Reklaw, now gray-haired, was barely visible as he crouched behind Sharps with an assortment of rattles and hand drums. Front and center stood beatific Maia in a flowing dark outfit, either singing with generous lilt or exhaling a crisp sea breeze on her alto flute. Vinny Golia nodded his shocking-white coif as he poured out endless ripples of evenly spaced baritone-sax notes. Entering the fray halfway, an unusually pensive Dwight Trible wove his soaring tenor voice into the tumult. To the right, Trevor Ware leaned into his upright bass and drove the whole retinue with his roundly contoured sub-Saharan riffs. Just from those seven, you could total up around 200 years of Ark service.
Prominent among the younger half was drummer Mekala Session, who locked manfully into the primordial slosh and also acted as master of ceremonies; no longer the shy kid, he showed charismatic confidence and style (pick comb stuck in his mini-'fro, '70s mode). Corbin Jones fulfilled the Ark tradition of big low horns -- Tapscott used as many as four -- on sousaphone. Every one of Generation 2 impressed, but particular notice goes to thin & lofty flugelhornist Chris Williams, who scouted out lyrical yet dangerous lines with a polished, distinctive tone.
Michael Session rapped the lyrics of "Quagmire Manor at 5 A.M.," written by an Ark member way back when but never performed until now, about the overcrowded house in which many of the cohort used to live and rehearse; it folded in just the right humor, warmth and nostalgia. Or not nostalgia but history, because this organization isn't looking backward toward something bygone -- every untamed improvisation leads it further into the future.
Openers Black Nile blew back many a wig as well. Like the Arkestra, the ensemble, led by brothers Aaron and Lawrence Shaw on tenor and bass, forged an extreme harmonic density rarely heard from musicians raised in the post-Trane era. Much of the coloration arrived via two who later joined the Ark forces: Zekkeraya El-Megharbel cutting clean on the difficult trombone (pianist Tapscott's original instrument), and Brian Hargroove creating spacy/spicy atmospheric twinkles on keys. With guitarist Bradford Tidwell periodically kneeling down to process this and that through an array of effects devices, Black Nile sure tripped as well as grooved, and they took us all along on the interstellar bus. If we got scared, all we had to do was gaze upon sweet-voiced Chaynier Joie, with her tiny frame and enormous bramblebush of hair, and glad relaxation would ensue.
Between sets, DJs Mark Maxwell and Jesse Justice kept the party rolling with rhythm-heavy Afro-jazz stretch-outs, so we hardly had leisure to hit the bar, or the patio, where a happy dude was shucking fresh oysters. Too much of a good thing? Nope.
PHOTOS BY DEBI DOORZ.