Original image by There Stands the Glass.
Jack DeJohnette’s Zebra startled jazz fans when the unorthodox album was released in 1989. Joined by the iconoclastic trumpeter Lester Bowie, the accomplished drummer experimented with electronic rhythms. An inventive performance by drummer Ted Poor and trumpeter Cuong Vu at Portland’s Jack London Revue on Saturday, March 12, reinforced the validity of the 33-year-old collaboration between DeJohnette and Bowie. About 60 people paid $12 to hear Poor and Vu supplement their primary instruments with keyboards and electronic effects. Still suspect in improvised music in 1989, the alliance of acoustic and synthetic sounds seems entirely natural now. Poor, an unrelenting groove machine, and Vu, one the planet’s most formidable trumpeters, validated their reputations as innovators of a different stripe.