WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE C9
BY MICHAEL J. WESTJazz, the critic Whitney Balliett
famously said, is “the sound of
surprise.” Some are more surpris-
ing than others — like when the
emcee at Blues Alley announces
“Shannon Gunn’s Firebird Trio,”
and the set turns out to mainly
feature a quintet with piano.
Actually, nobody at t he George-
town club on Monday night
should have been surprised.
Chris Barrick’s vibraphone was
set up onstage for all to see, as
was Mikel Combs’s upright bass.
Hope Udobi’s electronic key-
board stood adjacent to the house
Yamaha grand, ready for him to
hop onto its bench after three
songs with the organ trio (more
on that in a bit). Moreover, if
anyone was surprised, nobody
complained. The quintet did stel-
lar work.
The texture alone gave them a
unique launchpad, the vibes and
piano blending remarkably well
with Gunn’s trombone. She pulls
her instrument away from its
usual dark tones, emphasizing
the fullness of its range and its
ease of motion across that range,
which brought it into rapproche-
ment with the gauzy environs
Barrick and Udobi created on
“What It Takes.” That same full-
ness and versatility also rein-
forced them in the precarious
clutter of “Orange Noise” — and
its clatter, with the trombone
often acting as a second drum to
Norris’s rock-ish drive. The drum-
mer also got off an effective,
suitably noisy solo.
The quintet also allowed Gunn
to show off her writing imagina-
tion. The highlight of the set was
the premiere of a new arrange-
ment for the 19th-century Angli-
can hymn “For the Beauty of the
Earth” — “as you’ve never heard it
before,” she correctly promised.
Traditionally placid and un-
adorned, Gunn’s rendition
sounded like a Carla Bley tune
with its rhythmic motifs and
overlapping colors.
The real surprise of the eve-
ning, however, came at the set’s
beginning, when the Firebird Or-
gan Trio played with no organ.
Udobi set his keyboard to play
as a Fender Rhodes electric piano
during the first three tunes. The
difference was unexpectedly sub-
tle, with the Rhodes sharing the
organ’s long tones and luminous
veneer. Udobi also played it with
organ tendencies, with bebop
language harking back to icons
such as Jimmy Smith, a mix of
both Horace Silver and James
Brown-style funks on “Ms. Chev-
erly” and even some sustained
pedal-point on the opening “Car-
avan.” Still, there’s a certain body,
a gut-length presence especially
in the bass register, that no organ
substitute can provide, even with
prowess like Udobi’s. Inspired
and enjoyable as the set was, that
element was missed.
[email protected]MUSIC REVIEW
Tr ombonist’s trio slides
past the expected set
ASTRID RIECKEN FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTTrombonist Shannon Gunn, pictured in November 2018, brought
fun surprises to Blues Alley on Monday night.
Perry’s death, at 52, is some-
what nominally acknowledged —
a group toast here, a heavy sigh
there — but it’s a chill wind that
nevertheless blows across the
occasion. “We’re not all going to
be here forever,” a drunk To ri
declares. “But we made some-
thing that will be.”
“BH90210” easily locates a
tone of self-mockery; if it could
somehow remain in the slightly
dour, don’t-remind-me mood of
this first episode, it might get to a
deeper, more profound place
than it ever intended: a meta-
commentary on fame, age and
nostalgia. Instead, shenanigans
break out, the dialogue heads for
the ham (to go with the cheese),
and the gang winds up spending
a night in jail.
The ensuing media attention
gives To ri the bright idea to
approach Fox with a can’t-miss
pitch for a reboot of “Beverly
Hills, 9 0210”; the network enthu-
siastically agrees, if and only if
the rest of the cast — including
the elusive Shannen — will come
aboard. The road back to the
Peach Pit, it turns out, is a long
one.
Enlisting a dubious Jennie to
her cause, To ri discovers that her
co-stars have their own demands
— more creative than financial.
They each want a chance to color
outside the lines, reshaping the
tropes that once defined their
characters and pigeonholed the
actors’ careers. (Except in the
case of “Sharknado” s tar Ziering,
who merely wants opportunities
for product placement.) The con-
ceit of “BH90210,” then, is to
keep viewers guessing whether
this project w ill come t ogether or
not.
“What is it that one guy said,
‘You can’t go home again?’ ”
Jennie asks To ri.
“What guy?” Tori asks.
“I don’t know,” Jennie says. “I
only went to a fake high school.”
[email protected]BH902 10 (one hour) premieres
Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Fox.personal setback: Jennie is
working on her third divorce;
To ri, once a reality-show queen,
has run out of reality that’s
worth showing; Jason just lost a
gig directing a superhero TV
show because he punched its
mouthy young star; Brian is a
slightly bored stay-at-home dad
married to a superstar pop sing-
er; Gabrielle, head of the actors
union, just became a grand-
mother but is rather belatedly
realizing she might be a lesbian;
Ian and his trophy wife are in a
constant state of entrepreneurial
self-promotion, hawking a work-
out guide with little success.
Shannen, still the cast mem-
ber no one else likes, beams into
the convention hall Q&A via an
Instagram stream from India,
where she is selflessly rescuing
baby Bengal tigers and generally
saving the planet. She gets a
standing ovation from the audi-
ence; her former co-stars can
only roll their eyes.
None of the above tongue-in-
cheekiness is exactly true, but it
does give the actors — who now
range in age from 46 to 58 — a
playful chance to riff on their
celebrity personas and
post-“90210” epilogues.
The first episode, in fact, verg-
es on one of the smartest por-
trayals of midlife ennui we’re
likely to see this year, save for
FX’s “Better Things” and the
belatedly satisfying final season
of HBO’s “Divorce.” Even if none
of the “90210” actors spend their
nights o n a park b ench (fictional-
ly or otherwise), a viewer can at
least take a moment to appreci-
ate that their career trajectories
aren’t quite what they once
imagined.
“How the hell did we end up
here?” Jennie asks Jason, just
before t hey sneak off together f or
some throwback nookie. “Did
you ever wonder what our lives
would be like if we hadn’t done
that show?”
“Every single day,” he sighs.
TV REVIEW FROM C1
In ‘BH90210,’ original
cast comes together for
a self-aware TV reunion
SHANE HARVEY/FOX
From left, Jason Priestley, Brian Austin Green, Ian Ziering, Gabrielle Carteris and Tori Spelling in Fox’s miniseries “BH90210.”Licensed, Bonded, Insured MHIC 51346, VA 2705048183A, DC 67006785
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