“Set Me Free” Showcases Hal Crook’s Music and Teaching

On Thursday night, Berklee College of Music celebrated the career of Hal Crook, an internationally-known jazz trombonist, a graduate of Berklee, and a professor at the college since 1986. Students and alumni packed into Berklee Performance Center for “The Music of Hal Crook: Set Me Free,” a retirement concert featuring Crook and many of his former students. The performers included Grammy-winning vocalist and bassist Esperanza Spalding, who graduated from Berklee in 2005, and drummer and composer Antonio Sanchez, who graduated in 1997 and recently received a Grammy for his original score for the film “Birdman.” The concert’s first half showcased Crook’s jazz compositions, while the second featured his contemporary music ensemble Behind These Eyes. The earlier part offered a fascinating look into Crook’s varied repertoire and his passion for his instrument, but the next proved less engaging.

Crook’s jazz composition “Set Me Free” was both the program’s namesake and its opening number. The piece brought to the stage many of Crook’s former students, including Spalding, Sanchez, saxophonist Chris Cheek, pianist Leo Genovese, and guitarist Lionel Loueke. The piece explored pattern and repetition, with variations on a theme played by several different instruments at once. Crook opted for a democratic vision of the ensemble, in which all the instruments spoke with equal intensity. While such an approach risked producing a fragmented piece, the skills of the individual musicians brought their instruments into dialogue instead of conflict. Ever the teacher, Crook allowed his former students their own solos. As each individual played his or her part, there was an undeniable effervescence palpable not only in the music—which included a solo meant to be played by hitting the piano with one’s fists—but also in the cheers of the audience. All told, “Set Me Free” provided an excellent example of both the lively experimentation and serious technical demands of Crook’s music.

The next pieces on the program pushed fewer musical boundaries than “Set Me Free” but matched the opener’s excitement. The buoyantly rhythmic “Never Again” featured more cohesiveness in the ensemble, as well as strangely but delightfully twisted guitar lines. “Nothing to Lose” showcased Spalding’s richly expressive bass, which brought back the tension of “Set Me Free” and primed the audience for Spalding’s vocals in the next piece, “Blue Confessions.” “Blue Confessions” retained more familiar jazz elements than the other pieces, almost as if Crook were recognizing the lines without necessarily always coloring within them. Crook himself played the trombone in each of these pieces with impressive skill.

However, Crook’s pop-inflected pieces were less varied than his jazz pieces, making the latter half of the concert feel like one endless song. His contemporary ensemble, Behind These Eyes, began the second part with the energetic, almost frenetic composition sharing their name. The song seemed more a series of musical vignettes than a coherent narrative, characterized by traditional blues sound but also interspersed with a variety of themes, only some of which returned throughout the composition. This lack of unity gave the music a strangely unsettled quality that prevented the piece from reaching a true emotional climax. “What Is Going On” was especially perplexing, as the lyrics felt strangely detached from the music. Crowd-pleasing vocal and instrumental solos punctuated the second half, but overall Behind These Eyes failed to maintain the excitement of the opening jazz numbers.

Nevertheless, the concert successfully showcased both Crook’s endlessly inventive compositions and his own playing. The presence of so many well-known musicians onstage with Crook also testified to his importance as a teacher as well as a composer and performer. Though uneven in quality, the concert offered an engaging tribute to Crook and his influence.

—Staff writer Hanaa J. Masalmeh can be reached at hanaa.masalmeh@thecrimson.com.