I went to hear George Coleman at the Jazz Standard last evening with my friend from the Jazz Beats Breast Cancer concert....The Jazz Standard is a new club in NYC and is situated below a very upscale restaurant called "27 Standard"....(In fact I had a drink with my son Jim at the bar of this upscale eatery.since it is located near his apt...He, being an expert on the current "in" drinks ordered me a "Cosmopolitan" ...which was very good) He did not go to hear the jazz..but I digress...

The club is rather large as jazz clubs go and the seating is very comfortable with lots of space between tables which is very unusual...The food is good and much lower in price than the restaurant upstairs.....The acoustics are so so...all in all one frankly gets the feeling of a little sterility from this new venue...

Now for the music: In a word: Terrible. Ppad, if you are in town and are still planning to go...DON'T....the drummmer is George Coleman, Jr and simply put...he can't play..he is an amateur at best and should not be on the stagewith a group that purports to be a top level jazz ensemble. On piano is Harold Mabern who was adequate if not manic and boring..including awful cliches the worst of which was a pass at Bach's "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring". The bassist is Nasser (forgot first name) He has been around...again...adequate but cliches abounded...and as for George Coleman himself and the choice of sic...abominable...I was shocked. They did a sort of New York medely which included "I Love New York"..."New York, New York", "We'll Have Manhattan", "Autumn in New York" and the truly worst..."Harlem Nocturne"..for which Coleman picked up his alto..all the rest of the set was done on tenor.....He had brought out a soprano but did not use it...His playing during the eintire set was for the most part stagnant which went with the choice of music...Only on a very pretty rendition of "You've Changed" did he show glimpses of a Coleman that we expected to hear...and perhaps on one other bebop piece......There was little or no inventiveness by anyone. None of these musicians exhibited any signs of recent growth, in fact, just the opposite Of course the crowd cheered at the end of the set which was sold out as was the second set we were notified...

These performances are obviously geared to a lounge act crowd.. ...because that is exactly what this music was...lounge act jazz...thoughts of Bill Murray on SNL singing "Starwars" came to mind ...an insult to the musical and intellectual inteligence of any jazz audience or musician for that matter...I could not have been more surprised or disappointed....I expected to hear the seminal George Coleman...He looks terrible but that is no matter ...in terms of his music ...he should be ashamed to put that stuff out and pass it off as high level jazz......I intend to write to the club as well.....Had that clap trap been played at the Vanguard, the musicians would have been hooted off of the stage...

Those of you who have read anything that I have previously written on here in terms of reviews, know that if anything I tend to be overly generous...If the cats are cookin, I give them the benefit of what might be perceived by some as nuancical musical mistakes, etc. But here it was just plainly an insult to the intelligence of any jazz listener....One hopes the Jazz Standard will rise to higher heights in future and that George Coleman, Jr.will do some serious woodshedding.