Ensemble's jazz is easy to access
Some jazz performances are said to be more accessible than others. But at the Wheelock Family Theatre on Thursday the multimedia ensemble JazzArtSigns took the concept to a whole other level, making jazz literally accessible to everyone.
The show opened with audio describer Vince Lombardi offering a detailed verbal picture of the stage layout, which included everything from the placement of the grand piano and the 3-foot-high platforms from which American Sign Language interpreters Jody Steiner and Misha Derissaint and improvisational painter Nancy Ostrovsky would work to the location of the theater exits. It was information the sighted take for granted, and reminded the audience that this would be no ordinary jazz set.
Not that it lacked for excellent jazz. The music began with Lisa Thorson singing splendid versions of Antonio Carlos Jobim's ''Chovendo na Roseira" (''Double Rainbow") and Wayne Shorter's ''Speak No Evil," Cercie Miller taking a fine tenor sax solo on the latter. Doug Johnson filled in capably for Thorson's usual pianist, Tim Ray, with regulars Dave Clark on bass and George Schuller on drums. But Ray was present in a sense as well, as the set's third tune was the antiwar contemplation he and Thorson wrote several years ago, ''Wondering Why."
Through it all, Steiner and Derissaint took turns signing the words Thorson was singing, with captioner Don DePew typing those same words onto monitors on either side of the stage and Lombardi's voice coming in between tunes to sum up recent developments onstage. Those mostly centered on the progress of Ostrovsky's canvas, which as the 90-minute set went along evolved into a colorful, highly impressionistic rendering of all the performers save Clark.
Ostrovsky worked in paint-splattered black pants and top, slapping and smearing bright swaths of acrylic in time to the music. She used her bare hands and assorted tools to paint, and her karate-like dance kicks and expressive face accented the fun she and her cohorts were having.
The music stopped briefly so that Derissaint could perform a wordless sign-language poem by Ella Mae Lentz, backed only by Schuller's drumming. Then Thorson, Steiner, Miller, and Ostrovsky gathered near Ostrovsky's canvas for a brisk run-through of the bebop classic ''Anthropology."
The set closed with ''My Favorite Things," with Thorson supplying examples of her own including New Mexico sunsets, Texas swing, and ''listening to Bird till I think I'll go crazy." Then the performers gathered around Thorson's motorized wheelchair and took a well-deserved bow.
