The Sideman Cometh

It is simply not in Roy Haynes’s nature to whisper. A conspiratorial Pssst! as sanguine passages hum along, sure; in his most paternal modes, maybe a kiss goodnight. But for the sideman coming home to the Vanguard through March 19, it’s the full palette of shimmering cymbals over an explosive, rhapsodic snare that has seared him into the minds of audiences and the careers of generations of bop and post-bop lyricists.

That’s not to say that Haynes shies from his bass or the toms. He uses them liberally enough: to punctuate his metallic surfaces; to exuberantly join phrases or capriciously split them; or to catapult a star beat from a frontman onto the sidewalkjust to see how it makes it back inside.

After that, it’s right back to his signature snap and cracklethe constant coruscation which, one suddenly realizes, had never dimmed. 

In Haynes’ handswhich incidentally are the only element of his person to suggest he’s old enough to have met Charlie Parkerthis combination of structure and texture is rightfully celebrated for animating big-game performances.

Not just coloring but collaborating, shaping and provoking. Haynes has repeatedly proved himself a big-game catcher to historic names, providing structure, room and the occasional storied cattle prod to everyone from Sarah Vaughan to John Coltrane.

Kegs of ink have been kicked describing how Haynes drives musicians to grow: He evolves rhythms on the fly, keeping them loose enough to breed surprising tensions without allowing anyone to grow lawless in his presence. He’s also put toes into lukewarm fusion waters: The Roy Haynes Trio and 2003′s Love Letters explored Caribbean rhythms, reflecting the leadership of John Scofield, Joshua Redman and (in the trio) Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez.

But those enjoyable and expressive efforts feel as linked to half-century-old Cuban influences as to new-millennium multicultural dogma. Amen to that. While Haynes has lately pushed the bop vernacular as he pushes himself, he exploits and absolutely respects it. In phrasing, construction and repertory, he still drinks deepest from his mentors Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. There is a kindness in that, a constancy amid the silver-alloyed pyrotechnics.

Haynes’s work with Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday betrays the more generous drummer who is running quietly, like anti-virus software, nearly all the time. He is at his most explicitly lyrical when he dips into the American songbook, but there is never chaos in the frameworks he improvises for those in his charge. He pushes his kids, but he protects them, too.

Indeed, if there is anything to betray his age81 this weekit is the hint of a jazz studio system at work, with Haynes as much cheerful paterfamilias as headliner.

Haynes is certainly Puck in his engagement with younger players, but Socrates as well. Audiences may gasp at the electricity erupting from his shoulders, face and drum kit, but the young lions lucky enough to be drafted in his trio, quartet or Fountain of Youth Band can take the body checks.

Fountain of Youth (2004) gives us Haynes interacting magnificently with three rising talents, and if we’re lucky, a benchmark for this week’s expectations. Marcus Strickland on tenor sax gives licks as good as he gets, in patient steps on Greensleeves and long, coherent strands in the stammering Twinkle Trinkle. But with urgent voicings from bassist John Sullivan keeping pace admirably, how much room is there to pave rhythms, and who blinks first?

Martin Bejerano on the piano demonstrates breadth, imagination and control. But when Haynes pushes hard, Bejerano tends to showcase and even defend an idiom rather than develop it fully. He sometimes keeps pouncing when you want him to noodle (or simply breathe), cutting ruminations short in the interest of velocity.

That’s no slam on Bejenaro, whose sure-footed focus helps provide the tonal balance this group needs to stay grounded. Whoever comes to bat with Haynes has to know their pitches, and Strickland, Sullivan and Bejerano do. They were fantastic on Fountain of Youth; look for more signs of growth from them live this week.

Will that take a more charitable pace than this sideman-mentor sometimes seems to allow? Asking a man in his eighties to slow even a bit is a hard one. But Roy Haynes is still so much younger than the rest of us that somehow it only seems fair.

March 15-March 19. Village Vanguard, 178 7th Ave. S. (at Perry St.), 212-255-4037; 9 & 11, $35.