.Live Review: Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke at the Napa Valley Opera House

It was the type of show that you drive home from, only to come through the door, sit down in your living room and wish that you had a recording so you could listen to it all over again. Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke: three jazz legends, all headliners in their own right. What sort of miracle brought them together in a trio? Jack DeJohnette’s 70th birthday, that’s what. “I asked them if they’d like to help me celebrate,” DeJohnette said from the Napa Valley Opera House stage tonight, “and to my surprise, they said yes.”
When you’ve got such artistic heft flying by all at once, it’s hard to keep up. Which, of course, was part of the fun. Clarke’s percussive harmonics to open “Light as a Feather,” with Corea reaching into the piano to dampen the strings. DeJohnette’s horse-clop rhythm to begin “Someday My Prince Will Come,” as if said prince was riding in on a stallion. Corea clapping along with DeJohnette during Joe Henderson’s “Recorda-Me.” All were little easter eggs in a 90-minute set of constant, conscious interplay, full of head-nods, smiles, raised eyebrows and pointing among the three men.
The applause from the audience, who’d already given the trio a warm welcome, continued to increase throughout the night until the set closer, McCoy Tyner’s “Passion Dance.” I’d seen DeJohnette play the same composition with Tyner in 2002, and tonight, 10 years later, he played it with even more fire and propulsion. When it came time for his drum solo, he dedicated five minutes to soloing solely on one ride cymbal—which if you weren’t there sounds indulgent and dull, but was perhaps the most captivating moment of the night.
DeJohnette has just one more show with this dream trio, and then he’s back to playing with his regular band. Those who caught this historic collaboration, either in Napa, Santa Cruz, or at Yoshi’s… they know how lucky they are.