Snow flurries fight it out with waves of warm breeze. My in-box is brimming with new music. The latest:
Allison Miller and Boom Tic Boom Otis Was a Polar Bear (Royal Potato Family, April 8): Drummer and bandleader Allison Miller speaks her mind clearly and with no apologies. Such was the case in a Huffington Post essay a few years ago in which she wrote: “I am a woman. I am a dyke. I am a tomboy. I play jazz.” She’s just as confident and forthright behind her drum kit at the helm of her Boom Tic Boom ensemble, which boasts an impressive personnel of wide-ranging and distinguished players: Myra Melford (piano), Jenny Scheinman (violin), Kirk Knuffke (cornet), Ben Goldberg (clarinet), Todd Sickafoose (bass).
Miller began writing Otis Was a Polar Bear during the summer of 2014 while touring with singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant. The birth of Miller’s (and her partner, Rachel’s) first child Josie inspired the music on this latest CD. Miller began writing the music while on tour with singer Natalie Merchant and completed the project through a Chamber Music American grant. The 10 original compositions featured on Otis Was a Polar Bear chart an inspirited soundtrack to the beginnings of a new life chapter for Miller and her family.
We’ve reached a moment when it’s far from remarkable that a jazz band is led by a female drummer and is half-populated by stirring women instrumentalists (Melford should be on anyone’s list of essential pianist). When motherhood inspires good jazz. When drummers who compose stirring jazz, about far more than groove, abound. Miller’s Boom-Tic-Boom is proof of all that, and yet it sounds singular, smart, cool and with just the right amount of weirdness. Sort of like how you’d wish your child to turn out. Continue reading “Now Playing (new & forthcoming CDs)”
Einstein Was Right! The Universe Sings—and Swings in Rhythm. (But You Already Knew That.)
I was riding the 3 train to Harlem, heading to an interview with pianist Vijay Iyer about “A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke,” his collaborative suite with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, when I read the following front-page headline in The New York Times:
“Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory.”
Dennis Overbye’s story—the most poetic piece of journalism I’ve come across in the Times in many years—gave the news about sonic evidence of, well, a cosmic rhythm: A “faint rising tone” that, physicists say, “is the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago.”
When I last spent time with Wadada Leo Smith, he was leading a workshop for instrumentalists, during which he’d pulled out an image meant to represent a “black hole.” He wanted to investigate the idea of a black hole through tone and rhythm.
Turns out the scientists working on the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) were up to pretty much the same thing, only using different instruments.
Overbye described this historic discovery as “the last waltz of a pair of black holes.” Continue reading “Einstein Was Right! The Universe Sings—and Swings in Rhythm. (But You Already Knew That.)”
New Orleans Celebrates Danny Barker's Spirit and Influence With a Fest in His Name
Above is a picture of trumpeter Greg Stafford, taken in New Orleans by the wonderful photographer Eric Waters. Stafford was at the French Quarter’s Palm Court Café, playing a few tunes after a truly enlightening panel discussion in the second annual Danny Barker Banjo and Guitar Festival in January.
As I wrote in an earlier post:
Outside New Orleans, the name Danny Barker isn’t all that well known.
Yet talk to a New Orleans musician of any age, who plays in nearly any style, and Mr. Barker—as these players call him—inevitably comes up, in reverent and warm tones, much the way modern-jazz musicians talk about drummer Art Blakey.
Barker’s Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band, which he founded in 1970, late in life, helped launch many careers. No Barker, no Dirty Dozen Brass Band, no Rebirth Brass Band. No Barker, and it’s hard to know what trumpeters including Wynton Marsalis, Nicholas Payton, Leroy Jones and Kermit Ruffins would sound like, just how drummers like Herlin Riley and Shannon Powell might swing.
Yet Barker’s legacy is bigger than that, and just as much about the names we don’t know. His Fairview Baptist band was a training ground for young musicians. For anyone even remotely connected to the city’s indigenous culture, Barker—who played banjo and guitar, sang and wrote songs, and led bands—is the key figure of a brass-band revival at a moment when many felt that tradition slipping away.
At the Palm Court, here are some things Greg Stafford said: Continue reading “New Orleans Celebrates Danny Barker's Spirit and Influence With a Fest in His Name”
Entering Ankhrasmation: Wadada Leo Smith at The New Quorum in New Orleans
In January, I got the chance to return to New Orleans for a focused period of writing and reflection, courtesy of The New Quorum, where I was writer-in-residence within an inaugural residency class. Having unpacked my clothes, I’m now unpacking my notes, interviews and conversations. Here’s the first of a series of posts drawn from that experience.
The New Quorum is an artist residency organization founded and directed by Gianna Chachere, and dedicated to bringing professional musicians and writers from across the globe to New Orleans for meaningful cultural exchange with local and regional artists.
If you’re a musician or writer interested in such an opportunity, now’s the time to go here: Applications for Spring residencies (May 16-June 13) are accepted through March 4.
If you’d lend financial or volunteer support go here now: This innovative program deserves such nurturing.
The night after I settled into my temporary and lovely home on Esplanade Avenue, the living room Christmas tree, which was still up, was dotted with sheet music. This was the first of four workshops for musicians led by composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, followed by an informal house concerts as part of his January residency.
Smith’s music, which is both singular and part of an influential movement connected to Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), demands improvisatory spirit. And, well, those Christmas tree branches worked just fine as music stands.
The music itself was anything but ornamental. Smith’s work employs “rhythm units” and is expressed on paper through “Ankhrasmation.” Smith uses this neologism—formed of “Ankh,” the Egyptian symbol for life, “Ras,” the Ethiopian word for leader, and “Ma”, a universal term for mother—to denote the systemic musical language he has developed over nearly 50 years for, he says, “scoring sound, rhythm and silence, or for scoring improvisation.” Continue reading “Entering Ankhrasmation: Wadada Leo Smith at The New Quorum in New Orleans”
Night Bird Song Sung Soon: Thomas Chapin Documentary
A few years ago, I wrote the following about saxophonist Thomas Chapin in a Wall Street Journal piece:
The standard bird’s-eye view of New York’s jazz scene in the 1980s and ’90s depicts a mainstream revival of 1960s tradition, a wild and woolly downtown, and nothing in between. The truth on the ground was more fluid. There were musicians—some experienced, others on the rise—whose deep knowledge of tradition, engaging manner, exalted skills and adventurous spirit naturally bridged such divides.
Thomas Chapin fit that bill.
But Chapin died of leukemia on Feb. 13, 1998, three weeks shy of his 41st birthday. We’ll never know quite where his music was headed. Still, we can learn more about what gave rise to Chapin’s artistry and what it suggests for the future.
In that regard, I’ve been following the development of Stephanie Castillo’s documentary, “Night Bird Song: The Thomas Chapin Story.” (You can see some of it here.)
Continue reading “Night Bird Song Sung Soon: Thomas Chapin Documentary”
Now Playing (New & Forthcoming Releases)
Charles Lloyd & The Marvels I Long To See You (Blue Note, Jan. 15):
Charles Lloyd’s late-in-life burst of exploratory energy continues with this new band. Bassist Reuben Rogers (here, playing mostly electric bass) and drummer Eric Harland are drawn from Lloyd’s “new quartet,” which is no longer so new but still stunning (and features pianist Jason Moran). The Marvels was born of a 2013 musical encounter at UCLA’s Royce Hall between the saxophonist and flutist Lloyd and guitarist Bill Foristell. Frisell recruited pedal-steel master Greg Leisz. The material ranges from some favorites from Lloyd’s catalog— “Of Course, Of Course,” the title track of his 1965 Columbia album and “La Llorona,” from 2009’s Mirror, among others—and a wide range of other material—Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War,” for instance, and the hymn “Abide With Me.” There are vocals on two tracks, by Willie Nelson and Norah Jones.
Aruán Ortiz Trio Featuring Eric Revis & Gerald Cleaver Hidden Voice (Intakt Records, Feb. 2): Pianist Ortiz leads trio that includes one of New York’s most fascinating drummers, Gerald Cleaver. Ortiz is among a generation of Cuban-born musicians making influential waves on the New York scene. His new CD ends with a classic Cuban tune. Yet otherwise, Ortiz plays experimental jazz that owes to no nation in particular; his clearest lodestar is revealed on the CD’s two Ornette Coleman compositions. Though Ortiz’s work to date has been excellent, this recording represents a major leap in context and substance, and I suspect it will end up on best-of lists at the end of this year.
Two new CDs focus on the drum in very different ways:
Herlin Riley New Direction (Mack Avenue, Feb. 12): Drummer Riley is best known for his work with Wynton Marsalis and, more recently, Ahmad Jamal. Yet he’s much more than an ace sideman. Here’s my strategy whenever I’m in New Orleans: Find out where and when Riley is playing; be there. He is quite simply the best drummer in New Orleans, a city known for its lineage of great trapsmen and rhythm masters. Riley can play the whole drum kit in polyrhythmic splendor or he can establish his authority with just, say, a single detail on cowbell or snare drum. On this, his first album as a leader in a decade, he flashes several takes on the distinct New Orleans “pocket” through various jazz styles.
Dan Weiss Sixteen: Drummers Suite (Pi, Feb. 26): Drummer/composer Dan Weiss used a fascinating concept as the basis for this CD: He built a suite of pieces, each based on a specific set of beats within classic recordings of his favorite jazz drummers (Elvin Jones, Max Roach, and others): His liner notes include footnotes to brief rhythmic passages, some just seconds long (timings noted). Weiss, who plays drums, tabla and contributes “vocal percussion” on some tracks, calls the music an “amalgam of jazz, Indian Music, prog rock, contemporary classical music and other completely idiosyncratic influences” which is a longwinded way of saying that you’ll hear unexpected blends of timbres and textures in music that adheres to nobody’s formula. It helps that Weiss here gathers more than a dozen notable and notably creative players, including singer Jen Shyu, pianist Matt Mitchell and guitarist Miles Okazaki.
At Home With The Morans
I got a chance to sit around the kitchen table at the Harlem home of pianist Jason Moran and singer Alicia Hall Moran, for this interview piece in The Wall Street Journal. The piece was ostensubly pegged to the release of Hall Moran’s debut CD, released on a new imprint the couple established together—a worthy release that celebrates the pure essence of Hall Moran’s voice as it blurs lines between genres and toys with aural textures
But the Journal piece really was a chance to check in on a remarkable couple who absorb and radiate cultural details with remarkable energy and insight, and whose presence in New York recalls a moment when Harlem was full of families that made art out of community and community out of art. I’ve known them both for more than a decade and it’s been inspiring and educational—about music and marriage–to see how husband and wife affect each other’s experience and expression.
When I asked Did you open musical doors for each other? Alicia said this:
Jason took me to hear Cecil Taylor and Henry Threadgill. Those doors needed opening for me. But on a deeper level, he helped me grasp how important each individual instrument and personality is in music.
And Jason told me:
Dating a girl who knew Western classical music inside and out—who felt it—was a new kind of education. She taught me that Alban Berg was as soulful as Duke Ellington. She helped me focus on narrative. As a jazz musician, living life with someone who always demands a story makes you check everything you’re going to play.
And Jason pointed out that Alicia helped him think more deeply about the idea of narrative in his own music. He said:
Jazz instrumentalists once played with a sense of narrative but now that’s mostly not true. And in school they weren’t teaching you how to play a story. Singers always have to tell a story—in English or German or whatever. We instrumentalists don’t, and though there was a generation that said you really have to learn the lyrics, it ain’t really a rule out here for success. So living life with someone who’s always trying to tell a story or who regularly asks ‘What do you mean by that,’ makes you rethink certain things.
That last part didn’t make it into the article, but here’s the complete text: Continue reading “At Home With The Morans”
Welcome to The New Quorum (Back in NOLA)
I’m back New Orleans, where I’m honored to be writer-in-residence with The New Quorum—an artist residency organization dedicated to bringing professional musicians and writers from across the globe to New Orleans for meaningful cultural exchange with local and regional artists.”
Trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith is here, and each meal or conversation in passing with him is much like one of his vast catalog of distinguished compositions—unique, searching, free of convention and yet finely focused. I’m getting answers to questions I’d never even thought to ask. Better yet are the workshops and house concerts Smith has been leading at our house on Esplanade Avenue (more on that soon). The other musicians in residence are no less inspiring: flutist Nicole Mitchell; singer and composer Lisa Harris; and visual artist/vocalist/musician Damon Locks.
Right now, these talented folks and the woman who created this program, Gianna Chachere, are helping me dig more deeply into the tensions between tradition and innovation in New Orleans, and in jazz culture in general.
Here’s a nice piece by Cree McCree that discusses The New Quorum in the context of its predecessor and inspiration in New Orleans, The Quorum. (A documentary on that history can be found here.)
For those of you in New Orleans, we’ll explore that and other themes in a free public discussion on Wednesday, January 13—see below or here. You’ll want to stick around for a solo performance by Wadada Leo Smith to follow the panel discussion. Continue reading “Welcome to The New Quorum (Back in NOLA)”
Wynton Marsalis on Building (and Taking Down) Statues That Honor Racism in New Orleans
I can’t wait to get back to New Orleans, where I’ll be writer-in-residence from Jan. 4-25 through The New Quorum, a non-profit arts organization dedicated to bringing professional musicians and writers from across the globe to New Orleans for meaningful cultural exchange with local and regional artists.
When I get there, Lee Circle will still be Lee Circle. But probably not for long. Assuming the decision withstands a legal challenge, the New Orleans City Council voted earlier this month to remove the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee along with three others of confederate heroes.
As a symbolic act, the move carries real weight. It also raises interesting possibilities. Here’s what Wynton Marsalis wrote in the Times-Picayune website, Nola.com, about the issue: Continue reading “Wynton Marsalis on Building (and Taking Down) Statues That Honor Racism in New Orleans”
Trumpeter Tom Harrell's Music Moves Choreographer Michele Wiles to, Well, Move
From time to time, I invite a guest blogger to fill this space. The last time I ran into Emilie Pons, she had her camera around her neck and she had good things to say about a collaboration between trumpeter Tom Harrell, a uniquely expressive presence in jazz, and choreographer Michele Wiles. Pons asked if I could use some of her photos. I told her to write the short piece you’ll find below.
When choreographer Michele Wiles heard trumpeter Tom Harrell for the first time, she felt touched by his music and compelled to work with him. Wiles then set about creating choreography for her contemporary ballet company, BalletNext, to two Harrell compositions, “Baroque Steps” and “Trances.” In early November, a few months after hearing Harrell lead his band at Manhattan’s Village Vanguard, she presented her intepretations in collaboration with him at New York Live Art Theater. The program, titled “Apogee in 3,” included a third piece—an improvisation for which she responded to the sound of Harrell’s trumpet with her body and he, in turn, to her movements.
“What drew me to Tom’s music is an emotional energy,” Wiles said. “I just felt every note he and his quintet played expresses how I want to dance—with my soul.” Continue reading “Trumpeter Tom Harrell's Music Moves Choreographer Michele Wiles to, Well, Move”