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Music: Doctor blow
Wayne 'The Doctor' Wallace draws jazz blood this weekend at LCT

by Matt Kramer

Earlier this month it was a treat to attend a big crowded house for jazz when the Wayne Shorter Quartet made the Marin Center its only Bay Area destination. This Friday, jazz returns to its more established milieu—the supper club—when trombonist Wayne Wallace brings his quintet to the Larkspur Café Theatre.

Wallace has been well-known in the jazz and R&B/funk spheres of the Bay Area for decades, not solely for performing music, but also for his talents as a composer, arranger, musical director and teacher. One writer reckons that Wallace would be much better known if he were based in New York; luckily for the Bay Area, Wallace (who was born in San Francisco and studied at San Francisco State University) has chosen to remain in his native habitat.

Not that he hasn't traveled elsewhere. Wallace has taught all around the Bay Area—from Stanford to Berkeley's jazz school—but he's also instructed students in West Germany. And he studied for a few years in the 1990s at La Escuela Nacional in Havana, Cuba (this will become apparent whenever you listen to his music). He'd already been steeped in Afro-Latin music before that pilgrimage, serving as Pete Escovedo's musical director and as co-director for John Santos & Machete.

Nicknamed "The Doctor" by Escovedo, Wallace is still a productive practitioner of Latin jazz. In January, Wallace released an ensemble recording titled The Reckless Search for Beauty on his Patois label. Featuring the members of the quintet he's bringing to Larkspur, Reckless also includes the presence of John Santos, a few vocalists and percussion aplenty. The prolific Wallace composed most of Reckless's songs, as he did on his previous offering, Dedication (2006). On Reckless, Wallace's compositions share the spotlight with tunes from Miles Davis, Mongo Santamaria and Bill Withers—whose "Use Me" (as arranged by Wallace) approaches what Bill Summers and Los Hombres Calientes were getting at in their earlier recordings. With Wallace's treatment, the Withers song sizzles with soulful vocals by Kat Parra (and a horn section like Pee Wee Ellis would fuse) and is underscored with Latin piano rhythms and percussion. No wonder the LCT's Web site says, "Come ready to dance" in the synopsis for Wallace's appearance. Another hybrid highlight on the disc is Wallace's "Esta Noche," which blends funk bass and drums with brass up top and down below and the sax settling low with the bass and piano. This one speaks loudly of Wallace's time in Havana.

Wallace, though, is a performer not solely seated in Latin jazz and funk. He's also accomplished in the straight-ahead side of jazz—and has recorded with, toured with and produced recordings for artists from Count Basie to Joe Henderson's Big Band to McCoy Tyner. For an inkling of his talent as an arranger, check out Wallace's version of Tyner's "Some Day" (on Dedication), which floats beautifully on the flute provided by Andrea Brachfeld. Dedication, a tribute to what it takes to survive and succeed as a jazz artist, was Wallace's long-overdue debut as a bandleader. How appropriate that it kicks off with an original, "Blues Image," featuring a tasty timbales solo by longtime Wallace collaborator John Santos. The disc treats Coltrane and Tyner to Wallace's apt arrangements and treats listeners to music that stimulates the body as well as the mind. Hopefully, the music will be just as potent when "The Doctor" makes a house call to Marin Friday night.