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One Week Until Undead Jazz Fest Takes NYC By the Shoulders

May 2, 2012 by Sharon Mizrahi

From the curators of the Winter Jazz Festival emerges the Undead Jazz Festival, this season’s premier showcase of jazz in most creative and unbridled form. The four-day affair will begin on Wednesday, May 9th in Greenwich Village before proceeding to the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. After another one-night stop in Brooklyn’s grungier venues (termed the “Night of the Living DIY”), an impromptu round-robin at 92Y Tribeca will close the festival on an eccentric note.

WEDNESDAY: Le Poisson Rouge, Kenny’s Castaways, and Sullivan Hall will kick off the festivities in an uncanny line-up of both established and rising musicians. The marathon evening promises to live up to its name, featuring nearly seven non-stop hours of innovation and improvisation – all courtesy of the following select picks (and many more).

Heather Greene & Ursa Minor (6:45pm, LPR)

Positive Catastrophe (8:30pm, SH)                                 

Nate Wooley Quintet with Josh Sinton, Matt Moran, Eivind Opsvik, Harris Eisenstadt (9pm, KC)

Vinicius Cantuaria Sextet (9pm, LPR)

Billy Martin Improv with Shelley Hirsch, Erik Friedlander, and more TBA (9:30, LPR)

Chicago Underground Duo with Rob Mazurek, Chad Taylor (11pm, KC)

Chris Dingman’s Waking Dreams with Loren Stillman, Fabian Almazan, Ike Sturm, and Jared Schonig (11:30, SH)

Gerald Cleaver’s Black Host with Darius Jones, Brandon Seabrook, Cooper-Moore, Pascal Niggenkemper (12:30am, SH)

Ben Perowsky’s Moodswing Orchestra with TK Webb, Danny Blume and Michael Blake (12:30am, LPR)

THURSDAY: If the avant-garde ever had a household name, the circa-1991 outfit Medeski Martin & Wood would be a fierce contender. At the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, the three pioneers will instead be “Medeski Martin & Wood & ?,” first playing as a trio and then regularly punctuating their vibe with new guest artists. Among those special guests are: Marco Benevento, So Percussion, Anthony Coleman, Marcus Rojas, Adam Deitch, Oren Bloedow, Vernon Reid, Charlie Burnham, Chuck Campbell, Miho Hatori, G Calvin Weston, and more.

Photo source: All About Jazz

FRIDAY: Pun aside, ”Night of the Living DIY” sets the humblest yet most intriguing premise: for a $10 suggested donation, artists will perform in the heart of the experimental music scene – inside the warehouses and spaces where new ideas often take flight for the first time. Some noteworthy appearances include (among many):

Jacob Garchik, Miles Okazaki, and Jacob Sacks solos (Seeds)

First Cousins Once Removed with Adam Schatz, Danny Fisher-Lochhead, Jonathan Goldberger, Skye Steele (35 Claver)

Denver General with Kirk Knuffké, Jonathan Goldberger, Jeff Davis; The Four Bags with Brian Drye, Jacob Garchik, Mike McGinnis, Sean Moran (IBeam)

Nate Wooley + The Home Of Easy Credit with Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen & Tom Blancarte (Big Snow Buffalo Lodge)

Travis Sullivan’s Bjorkestra (ShapeShifter Lab)

Photo source: jazz.about.com

SATURDAY: After three nights of roaming the town, 92Y Tribeca will offer some reprieve in its laidback space. But that’s the only reprieve to be seen from the grand finale – the evening’s round-robin is bound to stretch, pull, and perhaps even break some aural boundaries. A diverse group of instrumentalists will swap in and out of the set at random, infusing the air with their own signature kick. These artists include: Mark Helias, Brandon Seabrook, Hilmar Jensson, Allison Miller, Amir Ziv, Mike Pride, Bob Stewart, Cooper Moore, Miles Okazaki, Marika Hughes, John Hollenbeck, Matthew Mottel, Fabian Almazan, and more.

For more details, visit the Undead Jazz Festival website.

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Regina Carter’s ‘Reverse Thread’ Speaks the Language of Catharsis

May 1, 2012 by Sharon Mizrahi

 

Carter (Sissoko, far left) in a 2011 European tour.
Photo credits: Anna Sircova

Regina Carter is a master of the heartsong. Each twist of her violin in Reverse Thread transcends the realm of bittersweet, resonating with soul-meeting power in every humble note. Carter and her band carried the album’s reflections to newfound catharsis live at the Jazz Standard.

Every molecule of air grew tighter and richer in the hands of “N’Teri”, an immersive piece opened by Yacouba Sissoko’s kora plucks. Carter joined his rustic sound with plucks of her own, both musicians cresting and falling as Alvester Garnett tapped on his cymbals. But when the violinist brought out her bow, the mood took vibrant flight. Hearty, expressive, and innately graceful, Carter’s long notes encompassed the late set like an aural embrace. Sissoko echoed the vivacious turn in a solo as fluid as a waterfall, punctuated by Garnett’s earthy drum raindrops.

Will Holshouser, a true aural craftsman.
Photo credit: Anna Sircova

The organic vibe transitioned to “Mandingo Street” (composed by Richard Bona and featured on Carter’s 1999 Rhythms of the Heart). Bassist Chris Lightcap welcomed the work in a solo that took some time to shift into place – but when it did, his spaced phrases urged the band to join in the choppy momentum. Garnett’s sporadic accents also traversed inter-instrumental terrain, through accordionist Will Holshouser’s broken notes and Carter’s vertical scrapes. The latter musician later swapped her bow for a different kind of instrumentation. Carter’s warm vocals – a lyrical counterpart to her enveloping violin – put the two-piece conglomerate to rest, melting with Sissoko’s kora to a comforting whisper.

 “Mwana Talitambula” (in the language Luganda, “the child will never walk”) was one of the most touching collaborations on Reverse Thread, Carter’s take on the Ugandan song inspiring mothers not to fret over their young children. Her patient violin inched forward while Sissoko and Holshouser trailed not too far behind, Lightcap and Garnett stirring further in the distance. The poignant moment, however, came before the work began – in a live-only field recording of a woman singing in Luganda, lacing both hope and sadness into every lullaby lyric.

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At Joe’s Pub, a New Kind of String Quartet

April 27, 2012 by Sharon Mizrahi

Ethel's current members (from left): Ralph Dufallo, Jennifer Choi, Cornelius Dufallo, and Dorothy Lawson.
Photo credit: James Ewing

At Joe’s Pub, the night was all about breaking strings and breaking boundaries. Under the moniker Ethel, cellist Dorothy Lawson, violist Ralph Farris, and violinists Jennifer Choi and Cornelius Dufallo turned the “genteel string quartet” into a fierce aural army, unafraid to snap a few bow strings if so compelled. The latest to sprout from their edgy hands is Heavy, an album that grasps the ears and never quite lets go.

Without a word, all four musicians took the stage, immediately immersing the senses in a pungent velocity. Choi’s quick bow slides swooped into Farris and Dufallo’s intense streams, all three nearing their peak as Lawson urgently tapped at her cello. At a single note’s notice, Ethel stopped in its tracks, met first by stunned silence – and uproarious applause a few seconds later. Once the room wound down, Lawson explained the feisty piece, “Arrival”: “It’s an announcement of what we are.”

Pioneers of the stringed craft.
Photo credit: James Ewing

Ethel expanded upon that announcement on “No Nickel Blues” and “La Citadelle”. Founding band-member Mary Rowell graced the stage as a special guest on the former tune, scraping her bow across the violin to seep out long, stark notes. The surrounding band (also featuring Kenji Bunch as guest violist) flooded the desolate ambience in plucks, taps, and maraca-like notes. Dufallo especially rejuvenated the air with an upbeat, folksy solo that might have elicited some dancing, had it extended longer. Rowell launched into some down-home fiddling of her own, offering a smooth melodic contrast to Bunch and Farris’ percussive plucks.

“La Citadelle” was the evening’s most outspoken work, and one look at the album track list yields no surprise: the composer is dubstep pioneer Raz Masinai. His eclectic brilliance flourished as Choi sped out one bundle of notes after the other, Farris interlacing with needle-thin accents. The scene soon evolved into a synth-rock-jazz hybrid à la Daniel Bernard Roumain.

Ethel did soften its stronghold for a few introspective moments, poignantly in David Lang’s “Wed” and  Mark Stewart’s “To Whom It May Concern: Thank You”. Both pieces were curt and compelling, elegiac yet hopeful, and searing but soothing before skidding to a halt. And it was in these ephemeral and bittersweet interludes that Ethel shone most, delving in, delving out, and striking the deepest of heartstrings along the way.

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Darius Jones Completes His Trilogy With Fierce Book of Mae’bul

April 26, 2012 by Sharon Mizrahi

It’s guaranteed to happen at least once during a Darius Jones performance: the moment you think, “What’s going on?”, the moment you think, “Yes, I get it!”, and the moment you think, “Now what’s going on?” But this elusive motive is what makes the Darius Jones mystique so engrossing. On Book of Mae’bul (Another Kind of Sunrise) – the final piece of Jones’ Man’ish Boy trilogy – the alto saxist unites with bassist Trevor Dunn, pianist Matt Mitchell, and drummer Ches Smith (Chad Taylor played live) to spearhead a new brand of otherworldly momentum.

Darius Jones channels intense passion through the alto sax.
Photo credits: mandatoryattendance.wordpress.com

“My Baby” epitomizes the quartet’s avant-crescendo arc, first unraveling as a lullaby of coaxing slurs and stirs. But twenty-two seconds in, Jones raises hairs with a jarring expulsion in the deepest registers, conjuring the hardiness of a tenor and the bellow of a baritone sax. His pitchy uprisings, controlled yet anarchic around the edges, coax in their own dark way. Mitchell, Dunn and Smith extend Jones’ precedent with voices of their own, spiraling into a distressed and chaotic vortex. The restless climate eases to a sultrier vibe on “You Have Me Seeing Red”, though still grounded in uncanny spirit.

What is most captivating about this quartet, however, lies on the subtler side of the spectrum – in the moments that don’t always come alive on the tangible disc. Cheek-to-cheek with his bass, Dunn seized the air at the Jazz Standard, his penetrating plucks recalling Jones’ sound in organic form. While Mitchell stripped his gregarious style down to rawer parts, Taylor picked up the florid pace in cinematic cymbal swoops.

But when Jones interjected, caught in a body-rippling, closed-eye trance – Dunn, Taylor, and Mitchell equally as immersed – his mystique gave way to a resonant truth: that this group doesn’t simply revel in dissonance or blind ferocity. These four musicians live and breathe each soaring pitch and breathy dip, far exceeding the bounds of experimentalism. Their soulful innovation is a universal language that transcends understanding.

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Steve Wilson’s Soulful Song Still Sings at Jazz Standard

April 23, 2012 by Sharon Mizrahi

Steve Wilson underwent a grand metamorphosis.
Photo courtesy of jazzstandard.net.

How much has changed since Steve Wilson released Soulful Song nine years ago? If his residency with guest Carla Cook at the Jazz Standard was any indication, his fondness for vocal accompaniment is alive and well – but as a player and composer, Wilson grooves with a humbler impetus than the funk of years past. Dubbed the Steve Wilson Super Band, the saxist’s latest configuration is super by all means, featuring contrabassist James Genus of Saturday Night Live fame, Grammy-winning drummer Billy Kilson, and pianist Patrice Rushen, the Grammy Awards’ first female musical director.

Nearly a decade has passed since this record, but Wilson still has that soul.

Wilson’s marathon soprano sax solo on Monk’s “Bright Mississippi” offered his star-studded band the perfect grounds upon which to extrapolate. While Wilson paused to take a breath, Genus took flight, releasing from his cavernous instrument a thick and muscular rhythm. Rushen steered toward a thoughtful vibe, streaming through the melody as cleanly as water. Kilson’s aural fireworks set a powerful counterpoint to her clement style, morphing from a few tentative cymbal taps to a boisterous affair of clangs and thwacks.

The athletic drummer wasn’t all pyrotechnics, providing a light swishing momentum on Wilson’s “Be One”. Wilson eased into the growlingly candlelit ambience too, picking up a fuller-bodied alto sax while Genus coaxed the gentler side of his contrabass. Rushen emerged as queen of the flourishes, punctuating the mood with expressive morsels of piano. And though Carla Cook was scheduled to appear on two nights of the band’s four-day stay, Wilson paid the vocalist homage in her absence, melting in and out of brassy sashays in his own good time.

Kilson channels the power of one-thousand thunderstorms into a humble drum set.
Photo courtesy of Tony Swartz.

The band paid real homage to the days of yonder on Miles Davis’ “Directions”, rekindling their old spark in a slew of sax bursts, keyboard synths, and blasts of contrabass. And it was in this piece that Kilson launched into the most controversial solo of the night. Equal parts bombastic, chaotic, and soul-driven, his unaccompanied affair diverged the audience into two streams: the chair-shaking clappers, and their silent, borderline-offended counterparts. Perhaps understandably so – his explosive intensity is not made to lull the ears at first listen. But the truth remains that on this jam, Kilson was the flame behind the band’s fire, flaring, crashing, and burning with unapologetic fervor.

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At the New School: Eight Musicians, One Stage, Five Unforgettable Moments

April 21, 2012 by Sharon Mizrahi

All the magic happens up there, in the New School's Arnhold Hall.
Photo credits: forgotten-ny.com

Gather a group of jazz musicians into a concert hall, and you’re guaranteed an interesting night. When those musicians are part of the New School’s renowned jazz faculty, that interesting night takes a quirky turn. Randomly selected to perform together in Arnhold Hall with bandleader Andy Milne, the two pianists, two bassists, tenor saxist, trumpeter, and vocalist filled the modest venue with a few standards, faculty originals, a folk tune or two…and five moments that stretched the bounds of instrumentation to creative heights.

5. Standing before a laptop, gong, and drum set, pianist (and percussionist for the night) David Lopato introduced “Shadow of a Bird in Passage”, a Tibetan-inspired interpretation of the soul’s journey to birth. Wielding several metal bowls in hand, bassist (and also impromptu percussionist) Johannes Weidenmueller joined Lopato in crafting an earthy vibe, punctuated by Cecil Bridgewater’s siren-like trumpet. The layering of rustic and sleek textures was surprisingly intuitive, even when Lopato digitally remixed Julie Hardy’s vocals against an organic aural backdrop.

4. As soon as the opening notes of “11211” seeped from the piano, only one thought came to mind: This must be Jay Bianchi’s piece. And Bianchi –hunched over and immersed in the keys – did indeed craft the intense composition. While he pensively pushed forward, Weidenmueller’s upright bass twisted into Alexis Cuadrado’s Latin-tinged electric chords, both bassists infusing the air with a playful edge.

3. Amid the stew of tangents in “The Farmer’s Market” – Milne’s keyboard synths, Bianchi’s acoustic musings, Bridgewater and tenor saxist Arun Luthra’s brassy conversation – one voice stood strident and sensational. Hardy’s voice, that is. Her scatted “do-dah”s recalled the plump sound of a xylophone, especially when dancing across Weidenmueller’s mellower plucks.

2. Lopato, Milne, and Bianchi raised Duke Ellington to the third power in a musical and gymnastic feat on “In a Sentimental Mood”. Alternating as lead pianists, they lent the piece three distinct flavors in a matter of minutes. Lopato dipped in and out of melodic conventions in a warm opener, passing the aural baton onto Milne, who – while Lopato played on his knees to make room on the bench – brought a cooler ambience to the florid affair. Bianchi slipped in after, echoing the warmth and ease of his piano predecessors in a more traditional context.

Weidenmueller proves along with Luthra, Milne, and Cuadrado that percussion hides in the strangest places.
Photo credits: Tory Williams

1. Throughout the evening, the band was vocal about its lack of a drummer and ironic abundance of pianists and bassists – but Luthra transcended the obstacle in his witty, cross-instrumental “Collective”. Saxophone slung over his neck, he jolted right into the improvised jam…though not with his brassy tone. Luthra’s konnakol (a South Indian form of vocal percussion) launched a funky rhythm accented by Milne’s piano string plucks and Cuadrado’s acidic electric bass. Weidenmueller knocked away at his upright bass frame, adding a hollow foil to the pungent mix. And Bianchi summed up the mood in Arnhold Hall as he watched from the stage steps, swinging, twisting, tapping, and grooving to the downright irresistible beat.

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Rob Duguay’s Songevity at The Kitano

April 14, 2012 by Sharon Mizrahi

Rob Duguay and Nadav Snir Zelniker
Photo Credits: Lena Adasheva

Perched in a corner of the intimate Kitano lounge, bassist Rob Duguay’s Songevity was as charming as it was humble. But as soon as the quartet delved into the first few pieces of the evening, Songevity’s charm proved to stem from beyond a down-to-earth stage presence. These four musicians spearheaded the fertile ground between heartland jazz and angular avant-garde, uniting head-bobbing tradition with an ingenuity that makes you go “Hmm…”

Justin Kauflin, deep in musical thought.
Photo credits: Lena Adasheva

After the band was introduced, Abraham Burton gave the real introduction. The tenor sax powerhouse crooned like brassy molasses atop the abstract stir of Duguay’s supple chords and Nadav Snir-Zelniker’s percussive accents. Duguay and Zelniker soon departed from their tangential vibe to follow harmonious suit, the former player wrapping his bass plucks tightly around pianist Justin Kauflin’s warm melody. As if by reflexive force, Burton cinched the Coltrane piece with a roar of saxophone thunder, slurring away at riveting speed.

That riveting speed simmered down to cozy introspection in Duguay’s “Win Some, Blues Some”. As enigmatic in structure as in name, the piece took on the wit of an aural jigsaw puzzle. Burton continued his smooth meanders as Duguay lightly stirred around Zelniker’s cymbal tide – until the tune stopped abruptly, only to restart again in a different direction.

Photo credits: Lena Adasheva

Yet amid Songevity’s eclectic interplay, the most poignant moment of the evening sprouted from roots as humble as the band itself. Accompanied by only a few cymbal wisps and piano notes – and eventually no notes at all – Duguay lapsed into “One Never Knows” as both bassist and vocalist. His sparse chords descended and rose under an innate rhythmic will, as he gently crooned his own poetry to the subtle beat. At once boyishly jaunty and deeply hypnotic, the bassist’s piece touched the heart like a lullaby heard for the first time. Kauflin slipped into a soul-prodding solo thereafter, and the rest of Songevity joined in one by one until the set melted to a close.

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