Anthony Stanco Ensemble enchants audience

AMMAN — Alive, inventive and popular. That’s how Anthony Stanco and his fellow musicians kept jazz last Tuesday night at the concert they gave at Zara Expo in Amman. One should add sophisticated, refined and witty, as other adjectives that also qualify the band’s excellent, first class playing, though these aspects perhaps were subtler to notice. Virtuosity and good taste should not be forgotten either.

From straightforward jazz to more bluesy numbers, the band delivered a flawless performance to a very receptive audience. One must admit that Stanco has the knack to win a crowd. The band leader and master trumpeter knows the meaning, the ins and outs of audience participation and made the listeners sing short riffs in perfect timing, with the band playing along.

Whether it was the refined piano lines, the wonderful harmonies between the trumpet and the saxophone, the stirring drums patterns or the discrete but so essential bass parts, the ensemble managed to play great jazz while securing the audience full attention, non-stop from beginning to end.

They invited Samir Obeida, a young Jordanian violinist who is a member of the National Music Conservatory Orchestra, to join them on stage for a couple of wonderful improvisational blues numbers and to play a well-known Arabic tune from the old Andalusyat, “Lamma Bada Yatathana”, a piece that received a nice bluesy treatment for the occasion, to the audience pure delight.

Half-way through the very entertaining show, Stanco and his partners stepped down from the stage, while still playing, and went for a march all across the theatres just like street musicians do in New Orleans, a city largely considered to be the birthplace of jazz. Another dimension was added here: fun.

Stanco would also put the emphasis on their important role as educators and as ambassadors of the genuine American jazz tradition abroad. Presented by the US embassy in Amman, the group is leading workshops and cultural exchange with local musicians and institutions across country and is performing in Aqaba, Amman and Irbid. It is the quintet’s first tour in the Middle East.