CLARK TERRY, JAMES MOODY AND MARLENA SHAW, Jazz at the Hilton series; Monday evening, 7:30 p.m., April 10; Salt Lake Hilton Seasons Ballroom; one performance only.
It's nice to see good friends get together.
It's nicer still when those friends are legendary jazz stalwarts James Moody, Clark Terry and Marlena Shaw, who can scat like they're speaking a second language.
Near the end of their Monday evening concert together, they put their best scat forward — simultaneously — as the Bill Cunliffe Trio tried as fast as a piano-bass-drums group could to keep up with the ever-widening wake of the saxophonist, trumpeter and singer.
Shaw, equal parts Ella Fitzgerald and Tina Turner, got the night off to a jump-start by surprising a mostly filled Hilton with her energy. In a sequined gown and white jacket, she tapped into jazz old and new with a vivacious spirit that would rival comparable singers half her fiftysomething age.
Drawing from her Count Basie days, Shaw sang a thoroughly entertaining version of "Until I Met You," the much-covered Louis Jordan tune "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby" and the newer "Black Berry Winter," making for only a four-song set before hopping off the stage to make way for Moody . . . perhaps a bit too soon.
The audience was treated to the musician's saxophone and flute playing — even singing with his signature number, "Moody's Mood for Love." His singing isn't exactly admirable, but his delivery is. In his low and sometimes unintelligible vocal stylings, he sang some lines in a woman's voice, yodeled others and, just as the song seemed to be coming to a close, picked up the beat and started to rap.
Moody dabbled in the familiar and peculiar, from Jobim to musings on Nostradamus and Christopher Columbus, but the tug of the heart strings came when he loaned his sax to the classic "Body & Soul." His pitch and tone couldn't have been more perfect, especially when the band stopped playing and allowed him to continue his final solo unaccompanied.
Terry showed up last and was helped onstage. At 80 years old, Terry was one of the first to see jazz take form. But he's not particularly sentimental about his current situation. Settling into his chair, he said, "The Golden Years suck, don't they?" to responsive laughter.
Seated, he offered up some Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald ("Oh Lady Be Good"), the latter containing what was arguably the best scat heard all night.
Moody joined up with him, telling the crowd how Terry had helped him when times were tough. With a wife, a child and 12 cents to his name (literally), Moody got 12 record dates, each paying $50 a night, thanks to Moody.
"He saved our butts," Moody said.
But Moody had to take a final jab at his friend; he said Terry'd left his best, most emotive music at home. The title of the work?
"Take Out Your False Teeth Papa, Mama Want to Clean Your Gums."