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september 2013
Interviews
Warren Wolf
Jazz Standard, Sep 19-22
Eric Revis
with Orrin Evans
Ralph Alessi
David Krakauer
Peter Mazza
Scott Healy
Expanded CD Review Section!
Gary
Comprehensive
Directory of
NY Club Concert
& Event Listings
Burton
New Mack Avenue CD: Guided Tour
September 17-22: Blue Note
The Jazz Music Dashboard — Smart Listening Experiences
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Jazz Inside Magazine
ISSN: 2150-3419 (print) • ISSN 2150-3427 (online)
September 2013 – Volume 5, Number 2
Cover Design by Shelly Rhodes
Cover photo and photos on right of Gary Burton
by Eric Nemeyer
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CONTENTS
CLUBS, CONCERTS, EVENTS
15 Calendar of Events, Concerts,
Festivals and Club Performances
28 Clubs & Venue Listings
FEATURES
4 Gary Burton
51 Jazz Birthday Gallery
52 John Zorn (Jazz Birthday Gallery)
53 Patrice Rushen, Lonnie Plaxico
54 Gary Bartz, David Sanchez
55 Buddy Rich, Antonio Hart
56 Sonny Rollins, Peter Bernstein
INTERVIEWS
30 Warren Wolfe
34 Eric Revis
38 Ralph Alessi
42 David Krakauer
45 Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Ben
Jaffe, Creative Director
47 Scott Healey
48 Five Towns College Professors
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September 2013 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
REVIEWS OF RECORDINGS
57 Laura Ainsworth; Albare; Ralph
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Superband; Mark Masters; Pat
Metheny; Wadada Leo Smith; Chip
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Thursday, August 29, 2013 00:57
Magenta
Yellow
Black
Cyan
Feature
Gary Burton
Records, Guided Tour. Could you talk about the
development from initial concept to completed
work of art?
Interview by Eric Nemeyer
Photo by Ken Weiss
JI: So, the last time we spoke you were sitting
back in your easy chair, smoking a cigar and
drinking a glass of wine.
GB: Yes, that was an earlier era [Laughter].
JI: First, I wanted to give you the opportunity to
talk about your new release on Mack Avenue
Gary Burton appears at
The Blue Note, New York, September 17-22
70th Birthday Celebration and his new
Mack Avenue CD: Guided Tour
Visit: www.GaryBurton.com
4
GB: OK. Well this is the group’s second album. We started as a band two years ago essentially just to do one tour just for fun — a few
weeks around Europe. And I discovered that
there was a really terrific group chemistry with
these four musicians. As soon as we got back
home I booked studio time and we made our first
record together, Common Ground, which came
out in 2011. Then we toured and evolved even
more as a group, as a cohesive unit. So it became
obvious that it was time to take things to the next
step and record again, and that’s now coming
out. Now we’ve toured Europe already this year
and we’re touring the U.S. this fall to support the
new record. As with the first one, the focus is
very much on group participation. Everybody in
the group writes — which is not always the case
with bands that you put together. Everyone is
somewhat of an equal participant in the concept
of the group. Sometimes that doesn’t work all
that well because you get disparate visions of
what kind of music people want to do. But in
this case, there seems to be a natural understanding that all four of us kind of agree on about
what makes this particular group sound good,
what kinds of tunes work for this group, and
what kinds of music, and in what direction the
group is pointing. So I was pleased when I saw
the music that people submitted to me to see if I
September 2013  Jazz Inside Magazine  www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
(Continued on page 6)
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Gary Burton
would want to include them on the record. There was plenty of stuff to
choose from and work with. I do this thing usually when I make records
— I pick one but usually two tunes that strongly give me a sense of identity. Then I match all the other tune choices to one of those two tunes.
JI: What are the criteria that you look for in terms of the two tunes that
you were speaking about that help you match to your identity?
GB: Pretty strong character — some songs have a stronger personality
and style to them than others, and when I come across songs that really
speak to me, I say, “OK, this sort of gives me a sense of what the album
should be like, the direction that I want the whole thing to go.” So in this
case, I picked two tunes for Guided Tour, “Caminos” by Antonio
[Sanchez], and “Helena” by Julian [Lage]. Those two pieces I thought
were the most interesting and intriguing to me. So with those two in
mind, I started looking at 20 other songs to choose from, mostly by us
and the band, but a few outsider pieces as well.
JI: How did you find that the music evolved during the touring process?
GB: The music evolves as you play it night after night. I don’t see how
“...when you go away from
practicing for a couple of weeks,
the unconscious tends to still keep
thinking about the things and
processing what’s going on. And
then when you come back to play
it again, suddenly you’ll find that
wow, now I can do this.”
it couldn’t. I’d be amazed if any band said that, “Oh no, we play it exactly the same way.” Little things happen and you think, “Oh, we’ll keep
that in, add that to the intro …” or it turns out a faster tempo actually is
better on this one than the original idea. Little things happen all the time.
JI: Yes. Many years ago, when I first heard your solo on “Chega De
Saudade” on your album Alone At Last – I was completely bowled over
by it and transcribed the solo. As you suggested, clearly if you played it
now 40 years later, it would be entirely a different kind of statement.
GB: Oh yes. Definitely, and especially if you leave a song for a while
and then come back and play it again like you said, years later. You’re
almost certainly going to have a different approach. You will have
changed during those years whether you realize it or not, and you’ll tend
to play the songs differently.
JI: I’m sure everybody who has seriously practiced an instrument has
gone through this: You’ll practice something and you’ll struggle – and
feel like it’s not going anywhere. You feel like you’ve hit a brick
wall. Then you let it go for awhile – spaced practicing versus mass practicing - and suddenly two months, three months later it all magically
comes together. Have you also had that experience?
GB: Oh, you bet. That’s a normal thing. How I can explain that kind of
is that you’re growing and learning as a musician on two levels, consciously and unconsciously. And when you’re practicing there in the
practice room, you’re aware of the conscious repetition gradually mak(Continued on page 8)
6
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Gary Burton
(Continued from page 6)
ing you play better. But at the same time, your
inner player in your unconscious that plays a big
role in how you play, is also learning and processing stuff. And when you go away from practicing for a couple of weeks, the unconscious
tends to still keep thinking about the things and
processing what’s going on. And then when you
come back to play it again, suddenly you’ll find
that wow, now I can do this. The first few times
that happened, I always wondered how is that
possible. And then I came to realize that yes,
there’s stuff going on. In fact, I love taking time
off from playing. When I’m not touring I normally don’t do much practicing. I just wait until
the next tour and I come back fresh and often
playing better on certain pieces than I remember
the last time I was playing.
JI: Yes. That’s a different mindset than the one
we sometimes embrace when starting in music.
I’m sure you’ve had students who believe that if
they’re not playing music and thinking music
24/7, that they somehow feel like life is coming
to an end …. And that that could result in any
number of apocalyptic, end of the world experiences — like making the mistake of plowing
through the second ending of a piece of music or
something, or that in a day or so all of your accumulated abilities over the years will disappear.
Like so many, I’ve been guilty of this mindset
too when I was starting out.
GB: Right. Well I was always intrigued by some
quotes from professional players. Instead of
practicing the piece, I would sometimes just sit
and look at the music and imagine it, and do that
several times without the physical playing
part. And then when I did try to play it the next
time, I could play it much easier, giving my
mind a chance to process the notes and visualize
how I wanted it to sound and so on. I remember
reading that about a famous violinist named Fritz
Kreisler in some interview article about 50 years
ago when I was a kid. I thought OK, there’s
some other stuff going on besides just going over
and over this piece.
JI: One of my favorite motivational speakers,
Bob Proctor, advises to think in pictures.
GB: Yes. That’s how you communicate with the
unconscious. It doesn’t speak language. It communicates through images.
JI: Yes, exactly. I want to just go back for one
second to your new album Guided Tour. What
were some of the noteworthy concepts that you
might have discussed with the sidemen - Scott
Colley, Julian Lage, Antonio Sanchez?
GB: He pronounces it “Läge.”
JI: Lage. I’ve actually interviewed him last year,
and I keep making that mistake in pronunciation.
GB: I always tell people think "garage" like
that. It’s one of those names that no one can
guess what it is. That’s the last thing you’d think
of is Lage.
JI: I ought to have picked up on the pronunciation as when I was a kid in the New York school
system, they were still teaching phonics—and
doing it very effectively. They got rid of it at
some point – maybe when the Director of Education there realized that if he politicked it out of
the system, he could make a zillion dollars by
starting a business and selling something like
Hooked on Phonics, once it was out of the
school curriculum.
GB: [Laughter] I guess. Anyway, it’s a Portuguese name in Julian’s case.
JI: OK.
GB: But I’m sorry, now, what was the question?
JI: So I wanted to ask you if there were some
noteworthy concepts that you might have discussed with the sidemen in preparation for or
during the recording.
GB: Well, one of the things that emerged with
the first record was that we liked having kind of
a mix of different kinds of influences. You’ll
8
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Gary Burton
notice in Guided Tour, some pieces have sort of
a Spanish tint, and quite a few of the pieces have
odd time signatures or in 7/4 or 5/4 or whatever. And we stayed away from more predictable
typical standard tune kind of harmony, progressions and styles of writing. We sort of have
found kind of an original niche, that it was a mix
of culture influences, that it seems to be part of
our identity as a group.
JI: Yes, I heard the “Rhythm changes” kind of
piece that Antonio wrote has three additional
measures at the end, lending an off balance quality to it.
GB: Things like that. And this happens to be a
group that is very strong on handling odd time
signature moments, odd meters, odd tune structures, complicated harmony progressions, all
this, the kind of thing that is a challenge for any
player. But this particular group, everybody
seems to be really quite adept at handling these
kinds of complexities. And you know if it
sounds like you’re struggling to play these kinds
of things, then it doesn’t work because then the
performance doesn’t feel comfortable and relaxed. If you’re going to play these complex
pieces, you have to be able to play them and
make them sound like you’re perfectly at ease
when you play them. Both on the first record and
the new record, that’s something I’m proud
of. Antonio is incredible with handling time
signatures and different feels and different tune
structures and so on. And Julian and I are pretty
adept at out of the ordinary chord sequences, and
kind of make it look easy.
JI: Well, you’ve been playing with Julian [Lage]
for quite some time and obviously you’ve developed a simpatico of understanding together. Talk
about your association with him and how that
relationship developed.
GB: Sure. Well it’s kind of a funny story in that
I saw him when he was twelve years old playing
on a television show. He was in a group of kids
that had a segment on the Grammy telecast back
in whatever year it was. And he was with another four or five kids and it was a little medley
of pieces to promote music education. The whole
segment lasted like five minutes. And Julian
played all of 20 seconds or something, a solo on
some blues head or something. And I was struck
by how natural and musical he sounded for a
little kid. And I thought about it for two or three
days, couldn’t stop thinking about it. And I finally called up people I know at the Grammy
office and said OK, who was the kid on guitar. And they gave me his name and where he
lived. So I called him up and talked with him
and his parents. Found out that they lived near an
event I was going to be doing a month later. Do
you know what the TED conferences are?
JI: Yes, sure.
scheduled to make a presentation that year and
was trying to think of a theme or something to
talk about for my 20 minutes on stage. And I got
the idea to bring Julian and play with him because I thought that would be pretty interesting
to see a talented kid playing with me, and try to
talk about what it’s like to be a precocious artist
and performer, and what the future holds for
someone like Julian and so on. In fact, Herbie
Hancock sat in with us as well. He was there that
year as well. Anyway, Julian even more impressed me when I got the chance to play with
him. He was just terrific. So I started finding
gigs that we could play together, low key things,
a concert here, a date there. He and his father
would fly out to wherever it was. We’d play a
gig in Pennsylvania somewhere or whatever, and
kind of just kept in touch. And when he was 15,
he sent me a demo tape and I was very impressed with his playing and with the tunes. I
called him up and said well who wrote all these
songs? There’s a tango at the beginning that I
thought is really clever. Who wrote that? He said
oh, I wrote all of them. No kidding. I never knew
prodigy kids to also write. That usually comes
later. So I figured it was time to make a record
with Julian. And I did our first record together in
I’m going to say 2005, before Concord. And
then a couple of years later I decided it was time
to start a band. I was leaving Berklee at that
point and had more free time, and I wanted to do
something with Julian. So I worked it out with
his teachers that he could take quite a bit of time
off from school, as long as he managed to keep
up with his work. So we started touring the US,
Europe, Japan, all over for the next several
years, made another record. The first of the records with him was called Generations for obvious reasons. And then the second one, by then I
had formed this band of all students and myself,
Julian and three Berklee grads. So I called it the
Next Generation band. We did that until 2009 I
think it was when Chick and I decided to devote
a year and a half to celebrating our 35th anniversary. And I disbanded the group and started touring with Chick for that lengthy period of time.
Julian went off to college. So it was time to reunite after I sort of wrapped things up with
Chick, and Julian was finishing at Berklee. And
my manager asked me. “What do you want to do
now? Do you want to put a band together again
of some kind or what?” And I thought well, I
wouldn’t mind reconnecting with Julian. I feel
like we still have a lot of mileage remaining in
our collaboration. And I’d been playing with
Antonio [Sanchez] some with Pat [Metheny]
when and I toured with him a few years
ago. And I knew Scott Colley as well. He plays a
lot with Antonio. It seemed like a logical
choice. So that’s how the current quartet sort of
came together. And like I said, originally it was
just to do one tour. That’s when I discovered
how well we played together and that sort of
encouraged—from all of us, we all wanted to
keep going.
JI: Well it seems like from listening to the album and my being familiar with your playing
and what you’ve done, I’m sure things came
GB: Well I used to go every year and I often
was a presenter about music things. And I was
10
together really easily. All the attitudes resonate
and all the music resonates as well.
GB: Yes, well I think we all have a really tremendous respect for each other is one thing. And
it’s a real mutual admiration society in this
band. And it meant a lot to me that Antonio and
Scott and Julian, all three work with a lot of
different groups and different bands and different players. They are at this point all very active
as we sort of call them hired guns. They’re in
constant demand. And yet, everybody in the
group said this is something that we want to
make a special commitment to. And anytime you
can put dates together we want to do them. And
that has made it possible to keep the group together.
JI: When you were doing that year and half with
Chick Corea, in celebration of the 35th anniversary of Crystal Silence, how did that music
evolve during that tour? What were some of your
experiences given the separation between the
initial collaboration and 35 years later?
GB: Well, Chick and I have this unusual thing
with our collaboration which is that we play
every year. We’ve never skipped a year. We’re
now at 41. When we got to 35 we said well,
that’s kind of a significant number. Let’s put out
a new record of some kind and kind of actually
go back and re-record some of the earlier pieces
that we’ve done over past records, and then do a
world tour. That was the initial plan, and we had
a great offer from Australia. Two symphony
orchestras combined their resources and said
how about you guys coming down and we’ll
setup performances in Perth and Sydney with
our two separate orchestras and pay you enough
money to commission writing parts for symphony orchestra and so on. So we had a year
advanced notice and we picked the songs and
worked on the writing. Chick and his collaborator Tim Garland and we went to Australia. So
one disc of that two disc record is in fact us with
the Sydney Symphony which turned out to be a
terrific project. They were a great orchestra and
we were very pleased. We did four concerts and
recorded the four concerts there. They have their
own studio in the Sydney Opera House. And
they made us a great deal which is we’ll record
all the concerts and if you decide not to use them
we’ll only charge you like a token thousand
dollars or something. And if you decide to use
them, then you’ll have to pay a bit more. So
compared to what it would have cost us to do
here in the States, which would have been prohibitive, this was a great opportunity and we
were really pleased with how it came out. We
did all together — I don’t know numerically how
many concerts, but it was kind of a world
tour. We did all of Asia and Europe and the
states and so on over a year and a half. So the
second CD in the package was a live concert in
Norway. We recorded every concert we did on
the tour and that one turned out to be just one of
those nights where everything went well. It was
like a magical evening. In fact, it was a smallish
hall so the sound was especially good and we did
two concerts back to back that had been sold
out. So we even had a choice of which version of
12
some of the songs to include. That project, that
recording and that year of touring was the first
time that we had actually kind of taken a look at
where we had come in 35 years — and we
looked back at all the material we had introduced
and played over the years, and gave us a chance
to do new versions. There were some new songs
as well but we also re-recorded a lot of the earlier songs that we liked.
JI: One of my favorite songs that you recorded
was “Bud Powell.” I think it was on an ECM
album around 1979 or 80 or 81.
GB: Yes. I love that. We still play it. There are a
handful of songs that we’ve continued to play
year after year on the gigs so that they’re just
sort of fun. Inevitably they end up in the repertoire somewhere. And that’s one that we still do
to this day.
JI: When I was finishing my graduate work in
music at one of the influential institutions of
higher learning, Chick was visiting as a guest
artist. He told us that he had composed this new
tune, and it was called “Bud Powell” So we got a
preview I guess at that point.
GB: [Laughter] Yes, well he wrote it for our
duo, and then later he used it as the basis for an
all Bud Powell project. He put a quintet together
reminiscent of the bee bop band that Bud played
in and then did all these songs written by Bud
Powell including Chick’s tribute to Bud which
was that song. So it’s one of my favorite records
of all the hundreds that Chick has made.
JI: Yes, mine too. I really like that album. What
are the challenges that you experience when
you’re playing in a duo setting - which of course
leaves you not only more exposed, but you have
a lot more responsibility?
GB: There is that, but on the other hand in some
ways it’s easier if you have a strong rapport with
the person you’re playing with because you
don’t have to interact with as many different
people. With a band, it’s like panel discussion. You’ve got four people each contributing. Ideas are bouncing around all over the place
and you have to kind of keep everything figured
out. With a duo it’s more like having a one on
one conversation with a good friend. It’s more
focused. And in the case of me and Chick, gosh
we’ve been playing together for so long that it’s
just so easy. We’re so used to each other’s way
of phrasing and way of interpreting songs and
time feel and so on that we can, even if we haven’t seen each other for nearly a year, we don’t
even rehearse before the next tour. We just have
an extra-long sound check before the first concert and we’re ready to roll. It’s a real kind of
amazing thing that we have which is I’m sure the
reason we’ve stayed together this many years.
The rapport that we have is just off the
charts. And I’ve had good rapport with lots of
musicians over the years and I’m sure Chick has
too. But something happens with the two of us
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Sunday, September 1
 Klezmer Brunch: Pedro Giraudo Sextet at City Winery,
11:00 AM. 155 Varick St.
 Ben Healy 3 at Garage, 11:30 AM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Dave Pietro Quartet at Blue Note, 12:30 and 2:30 PM.
131 W. 3rd St.
 Emily Braden 3 at North Square Lounge, 12:30 and
2:00 PM. 103 Waverly Place.
 John Merrill 3 at Smalls, 4:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Nadje Hoordhuis 5 at Saint Peter's Church, 5:00 PM.
619 Lexington Avenue.
 Noel Brennan at Caffe Vivaldi, 6:00 PM. 32 Jones St.
 Frank Gratkowski/ Thomas Heberer at Downtown
Music Gallery, 6:00 PM. Free. 13 Monroe Street.
 Trio da Paz at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30 and 9:30
PM. 10 Columbus Circle #5.
 Bill Wurtzel, Eats on Lex, 7PM. 1055 Lexington Ave.
 Mingus Big Band at Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30 PM.
116 E. 27th St.
 Milton Suggs at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Ed Cherry Band with Pat Bianchi at Iridium, 8:00 and
10PM. 1650 Broadway.
 Roy Ayers at Blue Note, 8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd
 Fred Frith, Annie Lewandowski, and Theresa Wong at
The Stone, 8:00 and 10PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Marianne Solivan and Her Hot Five at Swing 46, 8:30
PM. 349 W. 46th St.
 Lauren Lee/ Charley Sabatino Duo at Somethin' Jazz,
9PM. Third floor, 212 E. 52nd St.
 Secret Architecture,t Caffe Vivaldi, 9:30 PM. 32 Jones.
 Jimmy Bosch at Gonzalez y Gonzalez, 9:30 and 11:30
PM. 192 Mercer St.
 Afro Mantra at Garage, 11PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Jonathan Lefcoski 3 at Smalls, 12:00 AM. 183 W. 10th
Monday, September 2
 Dominic Drwal 3 at The Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129
MacDougal St.
15
 Champian Fulton at Eats on Lex, 7PM. 1055 Lexington.
 Howard Williams Jazz Orch, Garage, 7PM. 99 7th Ave S.
 Ross Kratter 5 with special guest Randy Johnston at
Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. Third floor, 212 E. 52nd St.
 Konrad Paszkudzki 3 at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30
and 9:30 PM. 10 Columbus Circle #5.
116 E. 27th St.
 Peter Bernstein at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Michelle Carr and Mark Whitfield CD Release Party at
Blue Note, 8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Tony Jefferson 3 with Paul Meyers at The Bar Next
Door, 8:30 and 10:30 PM. 129 MacDougal St.
 David Amram and Company at Cornelia Street Cafe,
8:30 PM. 29 Cornelia St.
 Justin Lees 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
Tuesday, September 3
 Yvonnick Prene 4 at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Abe Ovadia, Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129 MacDougal
St.
 Keith Franklin 4 at Witherspoon Grill, 6:30 PM. 57
Witherspoon St., Princeton NJ.
 Freddy Cole 4 at 54 Below, 7:00 and 9PM. Lower level,
254 W. 54th St.
 Dave Pietro's New York-Tokyo Connection at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. Third floor, 212 E. 52nd St.
 Tarbaby featuring Oliver Lake, Orrin Evans, and
Nasheet Waits at Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30 PM. 116
E. 27th St.
 Gadi Lehavi 3 with Jorge Roeder and Richie Barshay
at Blue Note, 8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Larry Ochs 5 with Nate Wooley and Ken Filiano at The
Stone, 8PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Jack Jeffers and the New York Classics at Zinc Bar,
8:00 and 10PM. 82 W. 3rd St.
 Pete Zimmer, Bar Next Door, 8:30 PM. 129 MacDougal
 Arturo O'Farrill 3 at Birdland, 8:30 and 11PM. 315 W.
44th
 Jeff “Tain” Watts 4 at Village Vanguard, 8:30 and 10:30
PM. 178 7th Ave. S.
 Dawn of Midi CD Release Party with special guest
Mark Dresser at (Le) Poisson Rouge, 9:30 PM. 158
Bleecker
 Kyoko Oyobe 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Jake Goldbas Group at Dizzy's After Hours, 11:30 PM.
10 Columbus Circle #5.
Wednesday, September 4
 Barbara Carroll at Saint Peter's Church, 1PM. 619
Lexington Ave.
 Tony Jefferson Quartet at Garage, 6PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Chase Baird, Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129 MacDougal
 Bucky Pizzarelli at Shanghai Jazz, 7PM. 24 Main St.,
Madison NJ.
 Roger Davidson at Caffe Vivaldi, 7:15 PM. 32 Jones St.
 J. D. Walter with Orrin Evans and Nasheet Waits at
Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30 PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Eric Harland: Voyager at Blue Note, 8:00 and 10:30 PM.
131 W. 3rd St.
 Papo Vazquez' Pirates Troubadours at Iridium, 8:00
and 10PM. 1650 Broadway.
 Ms. Blu's 4 at Kitano, 8:00 and 10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Rosanna Vitro-Music of Clare Fischer at New Brunswick Hyatt, 8PM. 2 Albany St., New Brunswick NJ.
 Valery Ponomarev Big Band at Zinc Bar, 8:00 PM. Jam
Session following concert. 82 W. 3rd St.
44th
 Hillary Gardner at Caffe Vivaldi, 8:30 PM. 32 Jones St.
PM. 178 7th Ave. S.
 Craig Yaremko Organ 3 with special guest Vic Juris at
Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. Third floor, 212 E. 52nd St.
 Joe Alterman 3 at Caffe Vivaldi, 9:30 PM. 32 Jones St.
 Eric Revis 4 at Smalls, 9:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Pedro Giraudo 6 at Terraza 7, 9:30 PM. 40-19 Gleane
St., Elmhurst, Queens.
 Larry Ochs 5 with Nate Wooley and Ken Filiano at The
 Nat Janoff 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Jaz Sawyer's NYC 4 at Smalls, 12:00 AM. 183 W. 10th St
Thursday, September 5
 Champian Fulton 4 at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Aleksi Glick 3 at The Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129
MacDougal St.
 Steve Elmer 3 at Cleopatra's Needle, 7PM. 2485 Bdway.
 Chris O'Leary Band at The Falcon, 7PM. 1348 Route
9W, Marlboro NY.
 Dom Salvador 6 at Metropolitan Room, 7PM. 34 W. 22nd
 QC New Ensemble with special guest Howard Brofsky
at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. Third floor, 212 E. 52nd St.
 Cassandra Wilson at Blue Note, 8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131
W. 3rd St.
 Chiemi Nakai 3 at Kitano, 8:00 and 10PM. 66 Park
 Mario Castro 5 at Makeda, 8PM. 338 George St., New
Brunswick NJ.
 Mark Cocheo 3 at The Bar Next Door, 8:30 and 10:30
PM. 129 MacDougal St.
44th
16
PM. 178 7th Ave. S.
 Zamba 2 Samba at Bar Chord, 9PM. 1008 Cortelyou Rd.,
Brooklyn.
 New Mastersounds at Brooklyn Bowl, 9PM. 61 Wythe
Ave., Brooklyn.
 Miss Ida Blue at Edison Rum House, 9PM. 228 W. 47th
 Eric Doob, Jazz Gallery, 9PM. Fifth floor, 1160 Broadway.
 Wilson “Chembo” Corniel at Nuyorican Poets Cafe,
9PM. 236 E. 3rd St.
 Baby Soda Jazz Band at Radegast Hall, 9PM. 113 N. 3rd
St., Brooklyn.
 Zach Mama's Motherhood Band at Somethin' Jazz,
 Rebeca Vallejo, Terraza 7, 9PM. 40-19 Gleane St.,
Queens.
 Alex Diaz y Son de la Calle at Gonzalez y Gonzalez,
9:30 and 11:30 PM. 192 Mercer St.
 Eric Revis 4 at Smalls, 9:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Chris Speed, Barbes, 10PM. 376 9th St., Brooklyn.
 Adam Larson 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Jose Conde at Barbes, 10PM. 376 9th St., Brooklyn.
 Clifton Anderson Group at Smalls, 10:30 PM. 183 W.
10th
 Peruvian Night: FESTEJATION with Edward Perez at
Terraza 7, 10:30 PM. 40-19 Gleane St., Queens.
 Kevin Dorn at Garage, 10:45 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Will Mac Quartet at Somethin' Jazz, 11PM. Third floor,
212 E. 52nd St.
 Oli Rockberger at Blue Note, 12:30 AM. 131 W. 3rd St.
Saturday, September 7
 Paul Hubbell's Generation Gap at Outdoor Stage,
Castle Inn, 12:00 PM. 20 Delaware Ave., Delaware Water
Gap PA.
 Larry Newcomb 4 at Garage, 12:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 James Stewart at Candlelight Lounge, 3:30 PM. 24
Passaic St., Trenton NJ.
 Jorge Luis Pacheco, Drom, 6PM, 8:30 PM. 85 Ave A.
 Clarice Assad and Friends at Outdoor Stage, Castle
Inn, 7PM. 20 Delaware Ave., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Alexis Cole at Metropolitan Room, 7PM. 34 W. 22nd St.
 Orrin Evans 5 with Ralph Alessi and Greg Osby at
Jazz Standard, 7:30, 9:30, and 11:30 PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Ralph Lalama Bop Juice, Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th
 Vitor Gonçalves and Regional de NY at Barbes, 8PM.
376 9th St., Brooklyn.
W. 3rd St.
 Satchmo Mannan Quartet at Cleopatra's Needle, 8PM.
2485 Bdwy.
Friday, September 6
 Guy Mintus 3 at Garage, 6:15 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Matt King 3 at Shanghai Jazz, 6:30 and 8:30 PM. 24
Main St., Madison NJ.
 Ken Simon 4 at Cleopatra's Needle, 7PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Expansions: The Dave Liebman Group at The Falcon,
7PM. 1348 Rt. 9W, Marlboro NY.
 Emily Wolf Project at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. Third floor,
212 E. 52nd St.
 Monday Blues Jazz Orchestrra at Westminster Choir
College, 7PM. 101 Walnut Lane, Princeton NJ.
 Gilad Hekselman at The Bar Next Door, 7:30, 9:30, and
11:30 PM. 129 MacDougal St.
 Scot Neumann Trio at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Trio of Oz featuring Omar Hakim and Rachel Z. at
SubCulture, 7:30 PM. Lower level, 45 Bleecker St.
 Bianco Martinis at Alor Cafe, 8PM. 2110 Richmond Rd.,
Staten Island.
 Ben Holmes Quartet with Curtis Hasselbring at Barbes, 8PM. 376 9th St., Brooklyn.
W. 3rd St.
 Marianne Solivan 4 with Xavier Davis at Deer Head Inn,
8PM. 5 Main St,, Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Ed Palermo Big Band with special guest Napoleon
Murphy Brock Plays the Music of Frank Zappa at
Iridium, 8:00 and 10PM. 1650 Broadway.
 Trio M: Myra Melford/ Mark Dresser/ Matt Wilson at
Kitano, 8:00 and 10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Arturo O'Farrill 3 at Birdland, 8:30, 11 PM. 315 W. 44th
St.
PM. 178 7th Ave. S..
 Chris Lightcap and Bigmouth featuring Tony Malaby
and Gerald Cleaver at Cornelia Street Cafe, 9:00 and
 David Virelles at Jazz Gallery, 9:00 and 10:30 PM. Fifth
floor, 1160 Broadway.
 Reine Sophie at Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Michael Feinberg's Elvin Jones Project featuring Billy
Drummond, Peter Bernstein, and Dayna Stephens at
Drom, 9:30 PM. 85 Avenue A.
 Rosie 151 and the Red Hook Ramblers at Edison Rum
House, 9:30 PM. 228 W. 47th St.
 Ron Sunshine and His Orchestra at Swing 46, 9:30 PM.
349 W. 46th St.
 African Jazz: Source with Abdoulaye Diabate at Zinc
Bar, 9:30 PM, 11PM, and 12:30 AM. 82 W. 3rd St.
17
 'Celebration of the Arts' Cats at Deer Head Inn, 8PM. 5
Main St., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Ed Palermo Big Band with special guest Napoleon
Murphy Brock Plays the Music of Frank Zappa at
 Eric Comstock/ Barbara Fasano 4 at Kitano, 8:00 and
10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Sandy Sasso at The Mill, 8PM. 101 Old Mill Rd., Spring
Lake Heights, NJ.
 Mike Rood Communion at Shapeshifter Lab, 8:15 PM.
18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
44th St.
PM. 178 7th Ave. S.
 Chris Lightcap and Bigmouth featuring Tony Malaby
and Gerald Cleaver at Cornelia Street Cafe, 9:00 and
 Clifton Anderson Group at Smalls, 10:30 PM. 183 W.
10th
 Peter Valera and the Jump Blues Band at Garage,
10:45 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Brett Sandler 3 at Somethin' Jazz, 11PM. Third floor,
212 E. 52nd St.
Sunday, September 8
September 2013
All Shows on Tuesdays at 8PM
September 10: Cecilia Coleman Big Band
September 17: Russ Kassof Orchestra
with Catherine Dupuis
September 24: Mike Longo 3 - Oscar Peterson Tribute
October 1: Dave Chamberlain and Band of Bones
18
 Jazz Mass: A Celebration of Spirit at Outdoor Stage,
Castle Inn, 10:00 AM. Free. 20 Delaware Ave., Delaware
Water Gap PA.
 Klezmer Brunch: Ben Holmes/ Patrick Farrell/ Sveta
Kundish at City Winery, 11:00 AM. 155 Varick St.
 Lou Caputo 4 at Garage, 11:30 AM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Nanny Assis' Bossa Nova 3 at SOB's, 12:00, 12:30,
2:00, and 2:30 PM. 204 Varick St.
 Kate Davis at Blue Note, 12:30 and 2:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd
 Bill Goodwin 4 + 1 at Outdoor Stage, Castle Inn, 12:30
PM. 20 Delaware Ave., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Roz Corral/ Eddie Monteiro 2 at North Square Lounge,
12:30 and 2:00 PM. 103 Waverly Place.
 Dave Lantz 3 at Outdoor Stage, Castle Inn, 1:30 PM. 20
Delaware Ave., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Houston Person 4 at Monmouth County Library, 2:00
PM. Free. 125 Symmes Drive, Manalapan NJ.
 Skip and Dan Wilkins 4 at Outdoor Stage, Castle Inn,
3:30 PM. 20 Delaware Ave., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Denice Givens Band at The Oar, 4:00 PM. 264 West
Ave., Patchogue NY.
 Bill Cunliffe 3 at Puffin Cultural Forum, 4:00 PM. 20
Puffin Way, Teaneck NJ.
 John Merrill 3 at Smalls, 4:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Kalunga at St. Peter's Church, 5PM. 619 Lexington Ave.
 Joshua Davis' Love Salad at Somethin' Jazz, 5:00 PM.
Third floor, 212 E. 52nd St.
 Organik Vibe 3 + 1 featuring Dave Samuels and Joel
Frahm at Outdoor Stage, Castle Inn, 5:30 PM. 20 Delaware Ave., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Noel Brennan at Caffe Vivaldi, 6:00 PM. 32 Jones St.
 Daniel Ori at Caffe Vivaldi, 7PM. 32 Jones St.
 Jim Silverstein and Paul Meyers at Eats on Lex, 7PM.
1055 Lexington Ave.
 Lee Delray, Falcon, 7PM. 1348 Route 9W, Marlboro NY.
 Glenda del E's Q Ban Mixology featuring Lew Soloff
and Craig Handy at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. Third floor,
212 E. 52nd St.
 Zen for Primates at Outdoor Stage, Castle Inn, 7:30
PM. 20 Delaware Ave., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Orrin Evans 5 with Ralph Alessi and Greg Osby at
Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30 PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Lezlie Harrison at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Cassandra Wilson, Blue Note, 8PM 10:30PM. 131 W. 3rd
 Colliding Galaxies: aStridd at Shapeshifter Lab, 8PM.
18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 John Campo at Caffe Vivaldi, 8:15 PM. 32 Jones St.
 Swingadelic at Swing 46, 8:15 PM. 349 W. 46th St.
PM. 178 7th Ave. S.
 Celebration of the Arts Jam at Deer Head Inn, 9PM. 5
 Colliding Galaxies: Jeremy DeJesus 6 at Shapeshifter
Lab, 9PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Tangolando featuring Victor Prieto at Somethin' Jazz,
 Phyllis Chen Toy Piano Recital at Joe's Pub, 9:30 PM.
425 Lafayette St.
 The Bailsmen at The Wayland, 9:30 PM. 700 E. 9th St.
 Mario Castro 5 + Strings at Shapeshifter Lab, 10PM. 18
Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Mayu Saeki 3 at Garage, 11PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
Monday, September 9
 Joe Breidenstine 5 at Shrine, 6:00 PM. 2271 7th Ave.
 Matt Heister, Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129 MacDougal
St.
 Silver Arrow Band at Drom, 7PM. 85 Avenue A.
 Tom Dempsey and Tim Ferguson at Eats on Lex, 7PM.
1055 Lexington Ave.
 Lou Caputo Not So Big Band, Garage, 7PM. 99 7th Av.
S.
 Michelle Walker at Zinc Bar, 7PM. 82 W. 3rd St.
 Ed Polcer with The Midiri Brothers at Peter Jay Sharp
Theater, Symphony Space, 7:15 PM. 2537 Broadway.
 Romantic Moods for Lovers featuring Michael
Mwenso, Brianna Thomas, and Charenee Wade at
Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30 and 9:30 PM. 10 Columbus
Circle #5.
 Mingus Orchestra at Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30 PM.
116 E. 27th St.
 Noah Haidu 3 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Tomas Doncker CD Release Party at Blue Note, 8:00
and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Jones Jones featuring Larry Ochs and Mark Dresser at
The Stone, 8PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Dorian Devins 3 at The Bar Next Door, 8:30 and 10:30
 Mauricio DeSouza 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Robert Edwards 4 at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Kevin Wang 3 at The Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129
MacDougal St.
 Bob Smith and Tommy Pass at Amici Milano, 7PM. 600
Chestnut Ave., Trenton NJ.
 Robbie Fulks and Jenny Scheinman at Barbes, 7PM.
376 9th St., Brooklyn.
 Liz Wagener at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. Third floor, 212 E.
52nd St.
 Drum Fest! Featuring Joe Saylor and Bryan Carter at
Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30 and 9:30 PM. 10 Columbus
Circle #5.
 Dave Stryker's Blue to the Bone at Jazz Standard, 7:30
and 9:30 PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Joe Sample and the Creole Big Band at Blue Note,
8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Pearl Studios Big Band, Iridium, 8PM. 1650 Broadway.
 Tribute to Little Walter with Billy Boy Arnold, Anson
Funderburgh, and others at B. B. King Blues Club,
8PM. 237 W. 42nd St.
 Cecilia Coleman Big Band at New York City Baha'i
Center, 8:00 and 9:30 PM. 53 E. 11th St.
 Todd Clouser and A Love Electric CD Release Party at
Shapeshifter Lab, 8:15 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Samir Zarif 3 at The Bar Next Door, 8:30 and 10:30 PM.
129 MacDougal St.
 Dave Liebman 4 at Birdland, 8:30 and 11PM. 315 W.
44th
 Jocelyn Medina, Cornelia St Cafe, 8:30 PM. 29 Cornelia
 Dave King/ Billy Peterson/ Bill Carrothers at Village
Vanguard, 8:30 and 10:30 PM. 178 7th Ave. S.
 Angelica Sanchez at Korzo, 9PM. 667 5th Ave., Brooklyn.
 Yehonatan Cohen 4 at Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. Third floor,
212 E. 52nd St.
 Secret Architecture, Caffe Vivaldi, 9:30 PM. 32 Jones St
 Jerome Langlois and Sylvain Leroux at Shapeshifter
Lab, 9:30 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Hiromi Suda at Cornelia Street Cafe, 10PM. 29 Cornelia
 New York Gypsy All Stars at Drom, 10PM. 85 Avenue A.
 Peter Evans 3 featuring Robert Dick and David Taylor
at The Stone, 10PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Chris Beck 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 John O'Gallagher 4 at Korzo, 10:30 PM. 667 5th Ave.,
Brooklyn.
 Anderson Brothers 4 at Saint Peter's Church, 1PM.
619 Lexington Ave.
 Caleb Curtis/ Chris Pattishall 2 at Cornelia Street Cafe,
 Marc Devine 3 at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th. Ave. S.
 Brian Krock, Bar Next Dr, 6:30 PM. 129 MacDougal St.
 Stephan Crump's Rosetta 3 at The Falcon, 7PM. 1348
Route 9W, Marlboro NY.
 Nicki Parrott 3 with Warren Vache at Shanghai Jazz,
7PM. 24 Main St., Madison NJ.
 Morrie Louden at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Milton Suggs 3 at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30 PM. 10
Columbus Circle #5.
 New Dimensions in Latin Jazz: A Cuban Drum Series
with Miguelo Valdes at Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30
PM. 116 E. 27th St.
8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Tribute to Little Walter with Billy Boy Arnold, Anson
Funderburgh, and others at Bridge Street Live, 8PM.
41 Bridge St., Collinsville CT.
 Sharel Cassity 5 featuring Freddie Hendrix and Cyrus
Chestnut at Iridium, 8:00 and 10PM. 1650 Broadway.
 Adam Larson 4 at Kitano, 8:00 and 10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Music for Small,
Medium, and Massive – Trumpet Compositions by
John Zorn, Butch Morris, and Henry Brant at Roulette,
8PM. 509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn.
 Pulverize the Sound with Peter Evans at The Stone,
8:00 and 10PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 The Heart of Jazz 9/11 Concert at Sugar Bar, 8PM.
Artists TBA. 254 W. 72nd St.
 Atsushi Ouchi 3 at Tomi Jazz, 8PM. 239 E. 53rd St.
 Coelacanth featuring Daniel Levin and Gerald Cleaver
at Shapeshifter Lab, 8:15 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Bklyn.
 Dave Liebman 4 at Birdland, 8:30 and 11PM. 315 W.
44th
 Cyrille Aimee and the Surreal Band at Bubble Lounge,
8:30 PM. 228 W. Broadway #1.
 Mina Yu Project at Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. 212 E. 52nd
 Charles Turner 3 at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 9:30 PM.
 Stephen Gauci's THUNK!: Performing Compositions
of Thelonious Monk at Shapeshifter Lab, 9:30 PM. 18
 David Berkman Group at Smalls, 9:30 PM. 183 W. 10th
 Dmitri Baevski 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Alex Hoffman 4 at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Mike Robinson, Bar Next Dr, 6:30 PM. 129 MacDougal
 Champian Fulton, Cleopatra's Needle, 7PM. 2485
Bdwy.
 Luiz Ebert/ Fidel Cuellar Project at Somethin' Jazz,
7PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Pete Muller at Caffe Vivaldi, 7:30 PM. 32 Jones St.
 Louis Hayes' Jazz Communicators at Dizzy's Club
Coca Cola, 7:30 and 9PM. 10 Columbus Circle #5.
 Lionel Loueke, Jazz Standard, 7:30, 9:30 PM, 116 E.
27th
8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Judy Niemack 4 at Kitano, 8:00 and 10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Dave Stryker 4 at Makeda, 8PM. 338 George St., New
Brunswick NJ.
 Mickey Freeman 4 at Maxfield's on Main, 8PM. 713
Main St., Boonton NJ.
 Zebulon 3 with Peter Evans and John Hebert at The
 Cuddle Magic at Shapeshifter Lab, 8:15 PM. 18 Whitwell
Place, Brooklyn.
 Jorge Sylvester's 'Imagination' 3 at The Bar Next Door,
8:30 and 10:30 PM. 129 MacDougal St.
 Dave Liebman Big Band. Birdland, 8:30. 315 W 44th
 Kevin Hays/ Bill Stewart 2 at Jazz Gallery, 9:00 and
10:30 PM. 5th floor, 1160 Broadway.
 Michael Blake Band Plays the Music of John Lurie at
Cornelia Street Cafe, 9:00 and 10:30 PM. 29 Cornelia St.
 Andrew Beals and the Saxtet at Somethin' Jazz, 9PM.
212 E. 52nd St.
 Mimi Jones, Symphony Space, 9PM. 2537 Broadway.
 Emily Asher's Garden Party at Edison Rum House,
9:30 PM. 228 W. 47th St.
 La Evidencia at Gonzalez y Gonzalez, 9:30 and 11:30
PM. 192 Mercer St.
 Steve Bernstein and Sex Mob at Shapeshifter Lab,
9:30 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 David Berkman at Smalls, 9:30 PM. 183 West 10th
 Peter Evans and Joe McPhee at The Stone, 10PM.
Corner of 2nd Street and Ave C.
 Chris Carroll 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
Friday, September 13
 Victor Wooten at Shapeshifter Lab, 6:00 PM. Workshop
6PM; performance 7:30 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Bryan Carter 3 at Garage, 6:15 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Dan Furman 3 at Cleopatra's Needle, 7PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Erin McClelland Band with Adam Niewood at Deer
Head Inn, 7PM. 5 Main St., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Ted Daniel and the King Oliver Project at BeanRunner
Cafe, 7:30 PM. Free. 201 South Division St., Peekskill NY.
 Lionel Loueke 3 at Jazz Standard, 7:30, 9:30, and 11:30
PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Lauren Sevian 4 at Palace Theater, 7:30 PM. 199 E.
Main St., Waterbury CT.
 Sean Smith 4 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Sarah King and the Smoke Rings at Barbes, 8PM. 376
9th St., Brooklyn.
 Abe Ovadia Organ 3, Bitter End, 8PM. 147 Bleecker St.
8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 John Scofield Uberjam Band, Andy Hess at Infinity
Music Hall, 8PM. 20 Greenwoods Rd W., Norfolk CT.
 Stanley Jordan 3 at Iridium, 8:00 and 10PM. 1650
Broadway.
 Frank Kimbrough 4 with Steve Wilson and Lewis Nash
at Kitano, 8:00 and 10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Peter Evans 5 at The Stone, 8:00 and 10PM. Corner of
2nd St. and Ave C.
 Guillermo Brown and Thiefs at Shapeshifter Lab, 8:15
PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Dave Liebman Big Band at Birdland, 8:30 and 11PM.
315 W. 44th St.
 Gerald Cleaver and Black Host at Firehouse 12, 8:30
and 10PM. 45 Crown St., New Haven CT.
19
 Funk That at Harvest Bistro, 8:30 PM. 252 Schraalenburgh Rd., Closter NJ.
 Crispian Cioe and Cracked Ice with special guest
James Montgomery at Bridge Street Live, 9PM. 41
Bridge St., Collinsville CT.
 Jaclyn Rose CD Release Party at Drom, 9PM. 85 Ave A.
 Fabian Almazan at Jazz Gallery, 9:00 and 10:30 PM. 5th
 Mark Dresser 5 with Marty Ehrlich and Denman Maroney: CD Release Party at Cornelia Street Cafe, 9:00
and 10:30 PM. 29 Cornelia St.
 Emily Wolf Project at Pianos, 9PM. 158 Ludlow St.
 Kathleen Potton at Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. 212 E. 52nd
 African Jazz: Kaïssa at Zinc Bar, 9PM, 10:30 PM, and
12:00 AM. 82 W. 3rd St.
 Maya Nova 2 at Caffe Vivaldi, 9:30 PM. 32 Jones St.
 Smith and 9th Ward at Edison Rum House, 9:30 PM.
228 W. 47th St.
 George Cole: Gypsy Jazz and Uptown Swing at Jalopy
Theatre and Music School, 10PM. 315 Columbia St.,
Brooklyn.
 Mike Rodriguez 5 at Smalls, 10:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Jason Prover and the Sneak Thievery Orchestra at
Garage, 10:45 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Willie Villegas y Entre Amigos at Gonzalez y Gonzalez,
11:30 PM and 1:30 AM. 192 Mercer St.
 Ty Stephens at Blue Note, 12:30 AM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Daniela Schaechter Trio at Garage, 12:00 PM. 99 7th
Ave.
 George Cole Guitar Workshop: Gypsy Jazz Guitar for
Beginners at Jalopy Theatre and Music School, 12:00
PM. 315 Columbia St., Brooklyn.
 Funktion 11 at Monument Square, 1PM. Free. Corner of
George St. and Livingston Ave., New Brunswick NJ.
 New Brunswick District Jazz Band at Monument
Square, 2:15 PM. Free. Corner of George St. and
Livingston Ave., New Brunswick NJ.
 Joel Harrison/ Anupam Shobhakar 5 at Shepard Park,
2:30 PM. Free. Canada St., Lake George NY.
 Mimi Jones Band at Monument Square, 2:45 PM. Free.
Corner of George St., New Brunswick NJ.
 Vince Ector at Candlelight Lounge, 3:30 PM. 24 Passaic
St., Trenton NJ.
 Adam Larson 3 at The Bar Next Door, 7:30, 9:30, and
 Bob DeVos Organ 3 at Memorial Hall, Cathedral of the
Woods, 7:30 PM. 100 Stokes Rd., Medford Lakes NJ.
 Lionel Loueke 3 at Jazz Standard, 7:30, 9:30, and 11:30
PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Chris Byars 4 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
“It is the highest form of
self-respect to admit our errors
and mistakes and make amends for
them. To make a mistake is only an
error in judgment, but to adhere to it
when it is discovered shows
infirmity of character.”
-- Dale Turner
20
 Armengot 4 at Cleopatra's Needle, 8PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Matt Mitchell and Ches Smith at Greenwich House
Music School, 8PM. 46 Barrow St.
 Stanley Jordan, Iridium, 8:00 and 10PM. 1650 Bdway.
 Bob Smith Organ 3 at Joe's Mill Hill Saloon, 8PM. 300
S. Broad St., Trenton NJ.
 Frank Kimbrough 4 with Steve Wilson and Lewis Nash
at Kitano, 8:00 and 10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 The Deftet at The Mill, 8PM. 101 Old Mill Rd., Spring
Lake Heights, NJ.
 Singers Over Manhattan: John Pizzarelli with special
guest Jane Monheit at Quick Center for the Arts, 8PM.
1073 North Benson Rd., Fairfield CT.
 Marine Futin at Shrine, 8PM. 2271 7th Ave.
 Peter Evans, Stone, 8PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: RPE Duo – Interactive
Electronics and Trumpet at Village Zendo, 8PM. 588
Broadway, Suite 1108.
 Shilpa Ray at Shapeshifter Lab, 8:15 PM. 18 Whitwell
Place, Brooklyn.
 Dave Liebman Big Band at Birdland, 8:30 and 11PM.
315 W. 44th St.
 John Sinton Solo Saxophone at I Beam Music Studio,
8:30 PM. 168 7th Street, Brooklyn.
 Watchdog Blues Band at Ramsey Country Club, 8:30
PM. 105 Lakeside Dr., Ramsey NJ.
 Fabian Almazan at Jazz Gallery, 9:00 and 10:30 PM. 5th
 Stephan Crump's Rosetta Trio: CD Release Party at
Cornelia Street Cafe, 9:00 and 10:30 PM. 29 Cornelia St.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Douglas Detrick 4 at
Village Zendo, 9PM. 588 Broadway, Suite 1108.
 Mike Rodriguez 5 at Smalls, 9:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Daylight Blues Band at Garage, 10:45 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 La Tematik at Gonzalez y Gonzalez, 11:30 PM and 1:30
AM. 192 Mercer St.
 Isaac Darche at Metropolitan Room, 11:30 PM. 34 W.
22nd St.
 Makaya McCraven with special guest Alecia Chakour
at Blue Note, 12:30 AM. 131 W. 3rd St.
Sunday, September 15
 Alex Layne 3 at Garage, 11:30 AM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Christian Howes and Southern Exposure at Shepard
Park, 1PM. Free. Canada St., Lake George NY.
 Michael Dease at Main Stage, Somerset County Courthouse Green, 1PM. Free. East Main St., Somerville NJ.
 Alan Dale and the New Legacy Jazz Band at Palmer
Square, 1:15 PM. Free. 40 Nassau St., Princeton NJ.
 Jazz House Kids at Front Steps, Somerset County
Courthouse, 2:00 PM. Free. 20 North Bridge St., Somerville NJ.
 Charanee Wade at Main Stage, Somerset County
Courthouse Green, 2:20 PM. Free. East Main St.,
Somerville NJ.
 Mark Shane 3 with Holli Ross at Palmer Square, 2:30
PM. Free. 40 Nassau St., Princeton NJ.
 Ben Williams and Sound Effect at Shepard Park, 2:30
PM. Free. Canada St., Lake George NY.
Courthouse, 3:20 PM. Free. 20 N Bridge, Somerville NJ.
 Donald Harrison at Main Stage, Somerset County
Courthouse Green, 3:40 PM. Free. East Main St.,
Somerville NJ.
 Bucky Pizzarelli 4 at Palmer Square, 3:45 PM. Free. 40
Nassau St., Princeton NJ.
 Dave Liebman Big Band at Shepard Park, 4:15 PM.
Free. Canada St., Lake George NY.
 Stuart Isacoff 3 at Smalls, 4:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
Courthouse, 4:40 PM. 20 N. Bridge St., Somerville NJ.
 Walt Bibinger Solo Guitar at Deer Head Inn, 5:00 PM. 5
 Ike Strum and Evergreen at Saint Peter's Church, 5:00
PM. 619 Lexington Ave.
 Bria Skonberg 6 at Palmer Square, 5:00 PM. Free. 40
Nassau St., Princeton NJ.
 Christian McBride, Main Stage, Somerset County
Courthouse Green, 5PM. E. Main St., Somerville NJ.
 Daniel Carter/ Nicolas Letman-Burtinovich at Downtown Music Gallery, 6:00 PM. Free. 13 Monroe St.
 Jack Wilkins and Carl Berry at Eats on Lex, 7PM. 1055
Lexington Ave.
 Mesada Marathon: 12 Groups Perform Selections from
John Zorn's Book of Angels at Skirball Center for the
Performing Arts, NYU, 7PM. Artists include Cyro Baptista, Joey Baron, Uri Caine, Jerome Harris, Marc
Ribot, Jamie Saft, Secret Chiefs 3, Kenny Wollesen,
and many others. 566 LaGuardia Place.
 Joseph Jarman with John Ehlis Ensemble and special
guest Thurman Barker at Shapeshifter Lab, 7PM. 18
 Bob Bennett 4 at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Miguel Zeñon and the Rhythm Collective with special
guest Crosswalk Anarchy at The Falcon, 7PM. 1348
Route 9W, Marlboro NY.
 Lionel Loueke 3 at Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30 PM.
116 E. 27th St.
 Ray Gallon 3 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Chad McCullough 4
with Chad Lefkowitz-Brown at Douglass Street Music
Collective, 8PM. 295 Douglass St., Brooklyn.
 Stanley Jordan, Iridium, 8 and 10PM. 1650 Broadway.
 Rocket Science with Peter Evans, Evan Parker, and
Craig Taborn at The Stone, 8:00 and 10PM. Corner of
2nd St. and Ave C.
 Niels Vincentz 3 with Billy Hart at Cornelia Street Cafe,
 Vanessa Trouble with Red Hot Swing at Swing 46, 8:30
PM. 349 W. 46th St.
Vanguard, 8:30 and 10:30 PM. 178 7th Avenue South.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Laura Kahle 3 with
Jeff “Tain” Watts at Douglass Street Music Collective,
9PM. 295 Douglass St., Brooklyn.
 Lifetime Visions Dojo Band featuring Jessica Jones
and Michel Gentile at Shapeshifter Lab, 9:30 PM. 18
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: David Smith, Douglass Street Music Collective, 10:30 PM. 295 Douglass
St., Brooklyn.
 Abe Ovadia 3 at Garage, 11PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Charles Owens 4 at Smalls, 11:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
Monday, September 16
 Berklee Global Jazz Ambassadors at Dizzy's Club
Coca Cola, 6:00 and 9:30 PM. 10 Columbus Circle #5.
 Jenny Scheinman's Mischief & Mayhem featuring Nels
Cline and Jim Black at (Le) Poisson Rouge, 6:00 PM.
158 Bleecker St.
 Tom Finn 3, The Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129 MacDougal
 Hendrik Meurkens and Misha Tsiganov at Eats on Lex,
7PM. 1055 Lexington Ave.
 Howard Williams Jazz Orchestra at Garage, 7PM. 99 7th
Ave. S.
 Kay Matsuwaka at Zinc Bar, 7PM. 82 W. 3rd St.
116 E. 27th St.
 Jazz Memorial for Michael Canterino at Saint Peter's
Church, 7:30 PM. 619 Lexington Ave.
 Carol Morgan 4 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
thursday, september 19 @ 8 pm
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
109 Cheese & Wine Evening of Art, Wine and Jazz: Join us in the lobby at 7:15pm
for free wine and cheese tastings and Reception with New Orleans’ Artist Ken Kenan.
Whether working on projects with My Morning Jacket or performing with Trombone
Shorty, The Edge or a number of any other musical icons, Preservation Hall has managed
to remain current even though they are a band seeped in history!
Saturday, October 12
Leo Kottke
Patrizio Buanne
Join us in the lobby at 7:15pm
for free wine and cheese tastings
and an artist reception! Enthralling listeners with his smooth,
graceful and defining voice,
international singing sensation
and Italian heartthrob Patrizio.
This legendary acoustic guitar
virtuoso blends folk, jazz and
blues influences into his own
signature style!
Saturday, October 19
Thursday, November 7
Neil Sedaka
Bettye LaVette
With Guest Karen Jacobsen
The history of Rock N’ Roll
would be incomplete without
the innumerable contributions
of Neil Sedaka! Tickets include
open bar and hors d’oeuvres in
the lobby at 6:45pm.
Join us in the lobby at 7:15pm
for free wine and cheese tastings
and artist reception. Fifty years
in show business deserves
celebration! Grammy-nominee
and veteran jazz artist LaVette is
finally gaining superstar status.
Friday, November 8
Sunday, December 8
Steve MarchTormé
Linda Eder
Holiday Show
The “Star Search” alum
and Drama Desk Award
nominee will delight audiences
with a concert of popular
standards and holiday favorites!
Singer-songwriter Steve (son of
Legend Mel Tormé) performs
classic standards, original songs
and shares personal stories from
his never boring life.
80 East Ridge, Ridgefield, CT
203.438.5795 • www.ridgefieldplayhouse.org
 Jesse Fischer and Soul Cycle at Blue Note, 8:00 and
10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Marianne Faithfull with special guest Marc Ribot at
City Winery, 8PM. 155 Varick St.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Matt Holman and The
Tenth Muse at Douglass Street Music Collective, 8PM.
295 Douglass St., Brooklyn.
 Stanley Jordan at Iridium, 8:00 and 10PM. 1650 Bdwy
 Lainie Cook 3 at The Bar Next Door, 8:30 and 10:30 PM.
129 MacDougal St.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Lina Allemano Quartet
at Douglass Street Music Collective, 9PM. 295 Douglass St., Brooklyn.
 Paul Carlon Project: A Tribute to Billy Strayhorn at
Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. 3rd floor, 212 E. 52nd St.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: The Westerlies Brass
Quintet at Douglass Street Music Collective, 10:30 PM.
295 Douglass St., Brooklyn.
 Kenny Shanker 4 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Carla Innerfield and Chris Coogan: The Music of
George and Ira Gershwin at Weill Art Gallery, 92nd
Street Y, 2:00 PM. Corner of 92nd St. and Lexington Ave.
 Randy Johnston 3 at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Andrew Van Tassel 3 at The Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM.
129 MacDougal St.
 Joe Locke Group at 54 Below, 7:00 and 9PM. Lower
level, 254 W. 54th St.
 Oliver Lake Big Band: Birthday Celebration at Dizzy's
Club Coca Cola, 7:30 and 9:30 PM. 10 Columbus Cir #5.
 Miguel Zenón Rhythm Collective at Jazz Standard,
7:30 and 9:30 PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Gary Burton 4 with special guest Arturo Sandoval at
 Juilliard Jazz 4 featuring Ron Blake, Frank Kimbrough,
Ron Carter, and Carl Allen at Peter Jay Sharp Theater,
Juilliard School, 8PM. 60 Lincoln Center Plaza.
 Russ Kassoff Orchestra with Catherine Dupuis at New
York City Baha'i Center, 8:00 and 9:30 PM. 53 E. 11th St.
 Rocket Science with Peter Evans, Evan Parker, and
Craig Taborn at The Stone, 8:00 and 10PM. Corner of
2nd St. and Ave C.
 Alan Ferber Big Band CD Release Party at
Shapeshifter Lab, 8:15 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Hendrik Meurkens 3 at The Bar Next Door, 8:30 and
 Coltrane Revisited featuring Steve Kuhn, Eric Alexander, Andrew Cyrille, Mark Turner, and Lonnie Plaxico
at Birdland, 8:30 and 11PM. 315 W. 44th St.
 Bill Charlap 3 with Peter Washington and Kenny
Washington at Village Vanguard, 8:30 and 10:30 PM.
178 7th Ave. S.
 Paul Francis 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Joe Alterman 3 at LentSpace, Hudson Square Connection, 1PM. Corner of Varick and Canal Sts.
 Sandy Stewart and Bill Charlap at Saint Peter's
Church, 1PM. 619 Lexington Ave.
 Anderson Brothers at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Enrico Solano 3 at Shrine, 6:00 PM. 2271 7th Ave.
 Andy Bey Solo at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30 and
9:30 PM. 10 Columbus Circle #5.
 Miguel Zenón Rhythm Collective at Jazz Standard,
7:30 and 9:30 PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Gary Burton 4 with special guest Arturo Sandoval at
 Shemekia Copeland at Iridium, 8PM. 1650 Broadway.
 Akemi Yamada 4 with Helio Alves at Kitano, 8:00 and
10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Diana Tuffin Group at New Brunswick Hyatt, 8PM. 2
Albany St., New Brunswick NJ.
 Evan Parker Duos featuring in turns John Escreet,
22
John Hebert, and Tyshawn Sorey at The Stone, 8PM.
Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
178 7th Ave. S.
 Seamus Blake Group at Smalls, 9:30 PM. 183 W. 10th
 Evan Parker 4 featuring John Escreet, John Hebert,
and Tyshawn Sorey at The Stone, 10PM. Corner of 2nd
St. and Ave C.
 Nobuki Tekamen 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Rick Stone 3 at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Chris Washburne and the SYOTOS Band at South
Bronx NeON, 6:00 PM. 198 E. 161st St., Bronx.
 Jeff McLaughlin 3 at The Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129
MacDougal St.
 Lluis Capdevilla, Cleopatra's Needle, 7PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Eric Wollman and Persons of Interest at Somethin'
Jazz, 7PM. 3rd floor, 212 East 52nd St.
 Marcus Roberts 3 at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30 and
 Warren Wolf and the Wolfpack featuring Aaron Goldberg at Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30 PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Gary Burton 4 with special guest Terence Blanchard at
 Shemekia Copeland at Iridium, 8PM. 1650 Broadway.
 Anita Wardell and Perez at Kitano, 8/10PM. 66 Park Av
 Ahmad Jamal and Wynton Marsalis at Rose Theater,
Lincoln Center, 8PM. 33 W. 60th St.
 Stafford Hunter 4 at Makeda, 8PM. 338 George St., New
Brunswick NJ.
 Swingadelic at Pilsener Haus, 8PM. 1422 Grand St.,
Hoboken NJ.
 Fred Frith's Gravity with special guest Aaron Novik's
Thorny Brocky, Roulette, 8PM. 509 Atlantic Av., Brooklyn.
 Rafael Martini 6 at Shapeshifter Lab, 8:15 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Lage Lund. Bar Next Dr, 8:30, 10:30PM. 129 MacDougal
 Sara Serpa at Cornelia Str Cafe, 8:30 PM. 29 Cornelia
 Flying Nutrinos at Swing 46, 8:30 PM. 349 W. 46th St.
 Bill Charlap, Peter Washington, Kenny Washington at
Village Vanguard, 8:30 and 10:30 PM. 178 7th Ave. S.
 New York Gypsy Fest: New York Gypsy All Stars at
Drom, 9PM. 85 Avenue A.
 Vitor Gonçalves, Jazz Gallery, 9PM. 1160 Broadway.
 Yuko Yakamura with Florencia Gonzalez: CD Release
Party at Gershwin Hotel, 9PM. 7 E. 27th St.
 Grand Street Stompers at Edison Rum House, 9:30
PM. 228 W. 47th St.
 Jared Gold Quartet: Brazil on the B3 at Shapeshifter
Lab, 9:30 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Mat Mainieri/ Lucien Ban/ Evan Parker at The Stone,
10PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Adam Rongo 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Sandro Albert Group at Jazz Gallery, 10:30 PM. 5th
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Discussion, Demo by
Trumpet Maker Josh Landress at J. Landress Brass
Showroom, 12PM. Free; Fifth floor, 153 W. 36th St.
 Joonsam Lee 3 at Garage, 6:15 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Clifton Anderson with Jonas Kulhammer at Shanghai
Jazz, 6:30 and 8:30 PM. 24 Main St., Madison NJ.
 Film Screening: She Must Be Seeing Things, score by
John Zorn, Anthology Film Archives, 7PM. 32 2nd Ave.
 Rudi Mwongozi at Cleopatra's Needle, 7PM. 2485
Bdwy.
 Bill Frisell: Gershwin and Beyond at The Allen Room,
Lincoln Center, 7:00 and 9:30 PM. 140 W. 65th St.
 Dusty Micale at Salt Creek Grille, 7PM. 1 Rockingham
Row, Princeton NJ.
 Connie Crothers and Jessica Jones CD Release Party
at Shapeshifter Lab, 7PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Brenda Earle 4 at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Dave Stryker 3 at The Bar Next Door, 7:30, 9:30, and
 Sarah Partridge 4 at Maxfield's on Main, 7:30 PM. 713
Main St., Boonton NJ.
 Joshua Breakstone 3 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th
 Gary Burton 4 with special guest Terence Blanchard at
 Shemekia Copeland at Iridium, 8PM, 10PM. 1650 Bdwy.
 Wycliffe Gordon 5 at Kitano, 8:00 and 10PM. 66 Park
 Swing with Simone featuring Swingadelic at Montclair
Women's Club, 8PM. 82 Union Ave., Montclair NJ.
 Fred Frith's Gravity with special guest Dominique
Leone Band at Roulette, 8PM. 509 Atlantic, Brooklyn.
 Patricia Kaass Sings Edith Piaf at Town Hall, 8PM. 123
W. 43rd St.
 Bob DeVos Organ 4 at Trumpets, 8:00 and 10PM. 6
Depot Square, Montclair NJ.
 La Excelencia at SOB's, 8:00 and 10PM. 204 Varick St.
 Brandon Saunders 5 featuring Warren Wolf at Jazz
966, 8:15 and 10:15 PM. 966 Fulton St., Brooklyn.
 Coltrane Revisited at Birdland, 8:30 and 11PM. 315 W.
44th St.
 Bill Charlap, Peter Washington, Kenny Washington at
Village Vanguard, 8:30 and 10:30 PM. 178 7th Ave. S.
 Alexis Cuadrado Group CD Release Party featuring
Claudia Acuña at Jazz Gallery, 9:00 and 10:30 PM. 5th
 Hush Point with John McNeil at Cornelia Street Cafe,
9:00 and 10:30 PM. 29 Cornelia St.
 Yasuno Katsuki and New York Bakery Connection at
Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. 3rd floor, 212 E. 52nd St.
 African Jazz: Kofo the Wonderman at Zinc Bar, 9PM,
10:30 PM, and 12:00 AM. 82 W. 3rd St.
 Film Screening: S&M – A collection of short sexy films
with scores by John Zorn at Anthology Film Archives,
9:15 PM. 32 2nd Ave.
 Rosie 151 and the Red Hook Ramblers at Edison Rum
House, 9:30 PM. 228 W. 47th St.
 Ron Sunshine and His Orchestra at Swing 46, 9:30 PM.
349 W. 46th St.
 Rodney Green Group at Smalls, 10:30 PM. 183 W. 10th
 Kevin Dorn at Garage, 10:45 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Mind Open at Somethin' Jazz, 11PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Ralph Irizarry and SonCafe at Gonzalez y Gonzalez,
 Rafael Rosa, Metropolitan Room, 11:30 PM. 34 W. 22nd
 Christian Scott at Blue Note, 12:30 AM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Ben Monder 3 at The Bar Next Door, 7:30, 9:30, and
 Dave Kardas, Club Groove, 7:30 PM. 125 MacDougal St.
 Matthew Shipp at SubCulture, 7:30 and 10PM. Lower
level, 45 Bleecker St.
 Tad Shull 4 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 John Zorn and the Essential Cinema Ensemble perform live Zorn's score to Oz: The Tin Woodman's
Dream and other films at Anthology Film Archives,
8PM. 32 2nd Ave.
 Gary Burton 4 with special guest Larry Coryell at Blue
Note, 8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Addison Groove Project at Brooklyn Bowl, 8PM. 61
Wythe Ave., Brooklyn.
 Justin Lees 4 at Cleopatra's Needle, 8PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Shemekia Copeland, Iridium, 8PM, 10PM. 1650 Bdway.
 Wycliffe Gordon 5 at Kitano, 8:00, 10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Anthony and the Blue Tiger Band at The Mill, 8PM. 101
Old Mill Rd., Spring Lake Heights, NJ.
 Roy Assaf 3 at Puffin Cultural Forum, 8PM. 20 Puffin
Way, Teaneck NJ.
 Florencia Gonzalez' Candombe Project at Shrine, 8PM.
2271 7th Ave.
 John Scofield's Uberjam Band featuring Eric Hess at
South Orange Performing Arts Center, 8PM. One
SOPAC Way, South Orange NJ.
 Milford Graves and Evan Parker at The Stone, 8PM.
Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Yuko Ito Group with Michika Fukumori at Tomi Jazz,
8PM. 239 E. 53rd St.
 Coltrane Revisited, Birdland, 8:30, 11PM. 315 W. 44th
178 7th Ave. S.
 Michael Packer 3 at Grille Stone Restaurant, 9PM. 2377
Route 22, Scotch Plains NJ.
 Alexis Cuadrado Group CD Release Party featuring
Claudia Acuña at Jazz Gallery, 9:00 and 10:30 PM. 5th
 Comin' Home Baby: A Tribute to John Coltrane featuring Kenny Gates and Odean Pope at Sistas' Place,
9:00 and 10:30 PM. 456 Nostrand Ave., Brooklyn.
 Crescent City Maulers, Swing 46, 9:30 PM. 349 W. 46th
 Afro Groove Collective at Shrine, 10PM. 2271 7th Ave.
 Larry Newcomb 4 at Garage, 12:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Film Screening: Nobel Prizewinner, with score by
John Zorn at Anthology Film Arch, 3:00 PM. 32 2nd Ave.
 Film Screening: Animation, scores by John Zorn,
Anthology Film Archives, 5:00 PM. 32 2nd Ave.
 Jay Leonhart at Birdland, 6:00 PM. 315 W. 44th St.
 Mark Marino 3 at Garage, 6:15 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Chris Bergson, Falcon, 7PM. 1348 Rt 9W, Marlboro NY.
 Bill Frisell: Gershwin and Beyond at The Allen Room,
Lincoln Center, 7:00 and 9:30 PM. 140 W. 65th St.
23
 The Pookestra at Shapeshifter Lab, 10:30 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Rodney Green Group at Smalls, 10:30 PM. 183 W. 10th
 Helio Alves and The Brazilian Trio at Cornelia Street
Cafe, 10:30 PM. 29 Cornelia St.
 Peter Valera and the Jump Blues Band at Garage,
10:45 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Charlie Rosen's Broadway Big Band at 54 Below,
11PM. Lower level, 254 W. 54th St.
 Joseph Howell Jazz 4 at Somethin' Jazz, 11PM. 212 E.
52nd St.
 Jenny Hill and Liquid Horn at Blue Note, 12:30 AM. 131
W. 3rd St.
 Saints of Swing featuring Miss Rene Bailey at The
Falcon, 10:00 AM. 1348 Route 9W, Marlboro NY.
 Iris Ornig 4 at Garage, 11:30 AM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Andrea Tierra, Blue Note, 12:30, 2:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Marilyn Kleinberg 3 with Pasquale Grasso at North
Square Lounge, 12:30 and 2:00 PM. 103 Waverly Place.
 Film Screening: Mechanics of the Brain and The Last
Supper, with scores by John Zorn at Anthology Film
Archives, 3:00 PM. 32 2nd Ave.
 Monday Blues Jazz Orchestra at German American
Society of Trenton, 3:00 PM. 215 Uncle Pete's Rd.,
Trenton NJ.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Conversation with
Ted Daniel, St. Peter's Church, 3:30 PM. 619 Lexington
 John Zorn Discusses His Film Music, Interviewed by
Andrew Lampert and Jed Rapfogel at Anthology Film
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Hugh Ragin and
Trumpeters at Saint Peter's Church, 5:00 PM. 619
Lexington Ave.
 New York Gypsy Fest: Screening of the Film Brasslands, plus live performance by Frank London and
The Klezmer Brass All Stars at Drom, 6:30 PM. Film at
6:30 PM; concert at 8PM. 85 Avenue A.
 Joe Alterman at Eats on Lex, 7PM. 1055 Lexington Ave.
 Kenny Werner at The Falcon, 7PM. 1348 Route 9W,
Marlboro NY.
 Hamiet Bluiett at Gallerie Zürcher, 7PM. 33 Bleecker St.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Hugh Ragin with Lew
Soloff, David Amram, and others at Saint Peter's
Church, 7PM. 619 Lexington Ave.
 Marcus Roberts Trio at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30
and 9:30 PM. 10 Columbus Circle #5.
 John Chin 3 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 John Zorn and the Essential Cinema Ensemble perform live Zorn's score to Un Chant d'Amour and other
films at Anthology Film Archives, 8PM. 32 2nd Ave.
 Gary Burton 4 with special guest Larry Coryell at Blue
Note, 8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Ryan Cohan / Motema Records CD Release Party at
 John Scofield Uberjam Band featuring Eric Hess at B.
B. King Blues Club, 8PM. 237 W. 42nd St.
 Jeremiah Cymerman/ Nate Wooley/ Evan Parker at The
 Bill Charlap 3, Peter Washington, Kenny Washington
at Village Vanguard, 8:30 and 10:30 PM. 178 7th Ave. S.
 Sheryl Bailey 4 at Fat Cat, 9PM. 75 Christopher St.
 Tulio Araujo/ Sergio Krakowski Duo at Cornelia Street
Cafe, 10PM. 29 Cornelia St.
 Solos and Duos: Ned Rothenberg and Evan Parker at
The Stone, 10PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Yvonnick Prene 3 at The Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129
MacDougal St.
24
 Cliff Korman Ensemble with special guest Billy
Drewes: at (Le) Poisson Rouge, 6:30 PM. 158 Bleecker
 Film Screening: Workingman's Death, score by John
Zorn, Anthology Film Archives, 6:45 PM. 32 2nd Ave.
 John Zorn Performs His Composition The Hermetic
Organ at St. Paul's Chapel,Columbia University, 7PM.
Free. 2960 Broadway.
 Tom Dempsey and Tim Ferguson at Eats on Lex, 7PM.
1055 Lexington Ave.
 Cecilia Coleman Big Band, Garage, 7PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Festival of New Trumpet Music: Dave Douglas 5/6
featuring Heather Masse, St. Peter's Church, 7PM. 619
Lexington Ave.
 Natalia Bernal 4 at Zinc Bar, 7PM. 82 W. 3rd St.
 Coltrane Tribute: My Favorite Things featuring Marcus
Strickland Quartet at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30 and
116 E. 27th St.
 Film Screening: She Must Be Seeing Things, score by
John Zorn, Anthology Film Arch., 9:15 PM. 32 2nd Ave.
 Dred Scott 3 at Smalls, 9:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Alicia Olatuja at Blue Note, 8PM, 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd
 Roberto Fonseca at Highline Ballroom, 8PM. 431 W.
16th St.
 Sonia Szajnberg 3 at The Bar Next Door, 8:30 and
 Joe LaTona 3 at Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Animal Crackers featuring Kenny Werner at Smalls,
10PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Lee Konitz/ Dan Tepfer 2 at SubCulture, 10PM. Lower
 Will Terrill 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Al Marino 5 at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Paul Jones 3 at The Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129 MacDougal St.
 Gadi Lehavi at Blue Note, 6:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Film Screening: Protocols of Zion, with score by John
Zorn at Anthology Film Archives, 6:45 PM. 32 2nd Ave.
 Bob Smith and Tommy Pass at Amici Milano, 7PM. 600
Chestnut Ave., Trenton NJ.
 Jeron White 3 at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Yosvany Terry 5 at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30 and
 Ralph Alessi Baida 4 with Jason Moran at Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30 PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Taylor Eigsti Birthday Celebration at SubCulture, 7:30
PM. Lower level, 45 Bleecker St.
 Chick Corea and The Vigil at Blue Note, 8:00 and 10:30
PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Jazzanova Live featuring Paul Randolph at B. B. King
Blues Club, 8PM. 237 West 42nd St.
 Music Lab Project at Kitano, 8PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Mike Longo 3: A Tribute to Oscar Peterson at New
York City Baha'i Center, 8:00 and 9:30 PM. 53 E. 11th St.
 Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Orchestra Performs
Works by Taylor Ho Bynum, Anthony Braxton, Ingrid
Laubrock, Mark Taylor, Roulette, 8PM. 509 Atlantic
Ave., Brooklyn.
 David Krakauer's Acoustic Klezmer Quartet at The
Stone, 8:00 and 10PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Jon Irbagon 3 at The Bar Next Door, 8:30 and 10:30
 Bud Powell Birthday Celebration featuring Tim
Hagans, Greg Osby, Matt Wilson, Dan Tepfer, and
Lonnie Plaxico at Birdland, 8:30, 11PM. 315 W. 44th St.
 Film Screening: Workingman's Death, score by John
 Kazuhiro Thujo at Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Ayelet Rose at Shapeshifter Lab, 9:30 PM. 18 Whitwell
Place, Brooklyn.
 New York Gypsy All Stars at Drom, 10PM. 85 Avenue A.
 Austin Walker 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Cyrille Aimee at Smalls, 10:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Frank Perowsky Big Band at Saint Peter's Church,
1PM. 619 Lexington Ave.
 Dre Barnes Project at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Nick Finzer 3 at The Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129 MacDougal St.
 Gadi Lehavi at Blue Note, 6:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Karl Berger Improv Orch, Shapeshifter Lab, Workshop
7PM; concert 8:15 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Bklyn.
 Alva Anderson 4 at Trattoria Neo Bar and Grill, 7PM.
Reservations recommended. 15-01 149th St., Queens.
 Yosvany Terry 5 at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30 and
 Ralph Alessi Baida 4 with Jason Moran at Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30 PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Aaron Goldberg at SubCulture, 7:30 PM. Lower level, 45
Bleecker St.
PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Hillary Gardenr 5 at Kitano, 8PM, 10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 John Zorn and Orchestra Perform Kol Nidre, Orchestra Variations, and other pieces at Miller Theatre,
Columbia University, 8PM. 2960 Broadway at 116th St.
 Chris Jonas with special guest Jonathan Finlayson
Perform Works of Chris Jonas and Steve Lehman at
Roulette, 8PM. 509 Atlantic Ave., Bklyn.
 David Krakauer Plays John Zorn: Selections from The
Book of Angels at The Stone, 8:00 and 10PM. Corner of
2nd St. and Ave C.
 Norm Hathaway Big Band at Winery at St. George,
8PM. 1715 E. Main St., Mohegan Lake NY.
Lonnie Plaxico at Birdland, 8:30, 11PM. 315 W. 44th St.
 Florian Hofner Group at Cornelia Street Cafe, 8:30 PM.
29 Cornelia St.
 Sullivan Fortner Group at Smalls, 9:30 PM. 183 W. 10th
 Gerald Clayton at SubCulture, 10PM. Lower level, 45
Bleecker St.
 Adam Larson 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Enrico Solano 4 at Somethin' Jazz, 11PM. 212 E. 52nd
 Nick Moran 3 at Garage, 6:00 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Erbium at Shrine, 6:00 PM. 2271 7th Ave.
 Adam O'Farrill, Bar Next Dr, 6:30 PM. 129 MacDougal
 Masami Ishikawa, Cleopatra's Needle, 7PM. 2485
Bdwy.
 Jim Campilongo 3 at The Falcon, 7PM. 1348 Route 9W,
Marlboro NY.
 Mary Foster Conklin at Metropolitan Room, 7PM. 34 W.
22nd St.
 Blues in Space at Shrine, 7PM. 2271 7th Ave.
 Joe Sanders, Gerald Clayton and Joe Hutchinson at
Dizzy's Club, 7:30 and 9:30 PM. 10 Columbus Circle #5.
 Vinicius Cantuária 5 at Jazz Standard, 7:30 and 9:30
PM. 116 E. 27th St.
 Tom Dempsey 3 CD Release Party at Little Theater,
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, 7:30 PM. 31-10
Thomson Ave., Queens.
 Gerald Clayton at SubCulture, 7:30 and 10PM. Lower
 Gary Burton 4 at Jorgensen Center for the Performing
Arts, University of Connecticut, 7:30 PM. Unit 3104,
2132 Hillside Road, Storrs CT.
 Chick Corea, Blue Note, 8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W. 3rd
 Martha Lorin 5 with James Weidman and Harvie S at
Kitano, 8:00 and 10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 John Zorn: Chamber Music Marathon at Miller Theatre,
Columbia University, 8PM. 2960 Broadway at 116th St.
 Larry Ochs and Don Robinson at Greenwich House
Music School, 8PM. 46 Barrow St.
 Shirazette Tinnin 4 at Makeda, 8PM. 338 George St.,
New Brunswick NJ.
 Muhal Richard Abrams Solo and Ensemble: Premiering His Work Dialogue Social at Roulette, 8PM. 509
Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn.
 Stratospheerius at Shrine, 8PM. 2271 7th Ave.
 Ancestral Groove w/David Krakauer and Jerome Harris at The Stone, 8:00 and 10PM. Corner of 2nd St. and
Ave C.
 Michael Formanek Big Band at Shapeshifter Lab, 8:15
and 9:30 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 DUO with Howard Alden and Warren Vache at The Bar
Next Door, 8:30 and 10:30 PM. 129 MacDougal St.
 Bud Powell Birthday Celebration at Birdland, 8:30 and
11PM. 315 W. 44th St.
 Willy Salsa Night at Harvest Bistro, 8:30 PM. 252
Schraalenburgh Road, Closter NJ.
at Village Vanguard, 8:30 and 10:30 PM. 178 7th Ave. S..
 Peter Evans at Jazz Gallery, 9:00 and 10:30 PM. 5th
 Willie Martinez y La Familia 6 at Nuyorican Poets Cafe,
9PM. 236 E. 3rd Street.
 Harlem Stride 3 at Edison Rum House, 9:30 PM. 228 W.
47th Street.
 Sullivan Fortner Group at Smalls, 9:30 PM. 183 W. 10th
 Andy Milne Theory at Shrine, 10PM. 2271 7th Ave.
 Sammy Miller 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave.S.
 João Martins 4 at Somethin' Jazz, 11PM. 212 E. 52nd
St.
 Kendra Shank 4 with Frank Kimbrough at 55 Bar, 6:00
and 7:45 PM. 55 Christopher St.
 Baby Soda Jazz Band at Pera Mediterranean Midtown,
6:00 PM. 303 Madison Ave.
 Fukushi Tainaka 3 at Garage, 6:15 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Denton Darien 3 at Cleopatra's Needle, 7PM. 2485
Bdwy.
 Bill Goodwin w/James Weidman, Deer Head Inn, 7PM.
5 Main St., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Cyrile Aimee, Falcon, 7PM. 1348 Rt 9W, Marlboro NY.
 Mary Foster Conklin: Life Is a Bitch – The Songs of
Fran Landesman at Metropolitan Rm, 7PM. 34 W. 22nd
 Vocal Summit at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Paul Meyers' World on a String 3 at The Bar Next Door,
7:30, 9:30, and 11:30 PM. 129 MacDougal St.
 Helen Sung 6 at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, 7:30 and 9:30
PM. 116 East 27th Street.
 Tardo Hammer 3 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 West 10th St
PM. 131 West 3rd Street.
 John Zorn: Game Pieces at Miller Theatre, Columbia
University, 8PM. 2960 Broadway at 116th Street.
 Alexis P. Suter Band, Iridium, 8 & 10PM. 1650 Broadway.
 Aaron Parks 3 at Kitano, 8:00 and 10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Ben E. King and Friends at B. B. King Blues Club,
8PM. 237 W. 42nd St.
 Marine Futin at Silvana, 8PM. 300 W. 116th St.
 David Krakauer / Kathleen Tagg 2, special guest Will
Holshouser, The Stone, 8PM, 10PM. 2nd St. & Ave C.
 Danny Mixon Quartet at Jazz 966, 8:15 and 10:15 PM.
966 Fulton St., Brooklyn.
Lonnie Plaxico at Birdland, 8:30 and 11PM. 315 W. 44th
St.
 Barry Altschul featuring Jon Irbagon at Cornelia Street
Cafe, 9:00 and 10:30 PM. 29 Cornelia St.
 Melissa Aldana 3 at Jazz Gallery, 9:00 and 10:30 PM.
Fifth floor, 1160 Broadway.
 Somethin' Vocal with the Matt Baker Trio at Somethin'
Jazz, 9PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 African Jazz: Martino Atangana and African Blue Note
at Zinc Bar, 9PM, 10:30 PM, and 12:00 AM. 82 W. 3rd St.
 Gabriel Alegria 6 at Drom, 9:30 PM. 85 Avenue A.
 Jook Joint Shufflers at Edison Rum House, 9:30 PM.
228 W. 47th St.
 George Gee Orch at Swing 46, 9:30 PM. 349 W. 46th St.
 Kneebody at SubCulture, 10PM. Lower level, 45
Bleecker
 Jean-Michel Pilc 3 featuring Billy Hart at Smalls, 10:30
PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Hot House at Garage, 10:45 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Nicholas Biello's NB4tet at Somethin' Jazz, 11PM. 212
E. 52nd St.
 Sonora Nuyorkina at Gonzalez y Gonzalez, 11:30 PM
and 1:30 AM. 192 Mercer St.
 Adrian Hibbs at Blue Note, 12:30 AM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 John Zorn – A Museum-Wide Celebration at Metropolitan Museum of Art, 10:00 AM. Free with museum admission. Performances in twelve separate galleries throughout the day; artists include Bill Frisell, Milford Graves,
Mike Patton, Kenny Wollesen, and others. 1000 5th Ave.
 Marsha Heydt and the Project of Love at Garage, 12:00
PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Film Screening: Protocols of Zion, with score by John
 Joanna Pascale at Candlelight Lounge, 3:30 PM. 24
Passaic St., Trenton NJ.
 Film Screening: Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the
Darkness, with score by John Zorn at Anthology Film
 Benny Benack 4 at Garage, 6:15 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Kevin Hildebrandt 3 at Delta's Restaurant, 6:30 PM. 19
Dennis St., New Brunswick NJ.
 Alan Broadbent at Deer Head Inn, 7PM. 5 Main St.,
Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Mary Foster Conklin: Life Is a Bitch – The Songs of
Fran Landesman at Metropolitan Room, 7PM. 34 W.
22nd St.
 Craig Hartley 3 at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
 Freddie Bryant's Kaleidoscope 3 at The Bar Next Door,
7:30, 9:30, and 11:30 PM. 129 MacDougal St.
 Don Friedman 3 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Larry Newcomb, Cleopatra's Needle, 8PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Alexis P. Suter Band, Iridium, 8 & 10PM. 1650 Broadway.
 Bill Goodwin 4: CD Release Party at Kitano, 8:00 and
10PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Kevin Hildebrandt 3 at The Mill, 8PM. 101 Old Mill Rd.,
Spring Lake Heights, NJ.
 Jack Wilkins 3: A Tribute to Johnny Smith at Puffin
Cultural Forum, 8PM. 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck NJ.
 Kneebody at Shapeshifter Lab, 8:00 and 9:30 PM. 18
 David Krakauer 2/3: Improvisations at The Stone, 8:00
and 10PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Dianne Reeves at Tarrytown Music Hall, 8PM. 13 Main
St., Tarrytown NY.
Hagans, Greg Osby, Birdland, 8:30 and 11PM. 315 W.
44th St.
 The Brazil Show featuring Sambadá at SOB's, 8:30 and
10:45 PM. 204 Varick St.
 Bill Charlap w/Peter Washington, Kenny Washington
 Lucio Menegon at I Beam Music Studio, 9PM. 168 7th
St., Brooklyn.
 Benefit Concert for Dayna Stephens at Jazz Gallery,
9:00 and 10:30 PM. Artists include Dayna Stephens, Joe
Lovano, Donny McCaslin, Mark Turner, Pascal LeBouef, Linda Oh, Aaron Parks, and others. 5th floor,
1160 Bdway.
 Terri Davis at Sistas' Place, 9:00 and 10:30 PM. 456
Nostrand Ave., Brooklyn.
 Brust/ Horowitz 5 at Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. 212 E. 52nd
 Sub-Verse at I Beam Music Studio, 9:30 PM. 168 7th St.,
Brooklyn.
 Double Down – Rat Pack Swing at Swing 46, 9:30 PM.
349 W. 46th St.
 Jean-Michel Pilc 3 featuring Billy Hart at Smalls, 10:30
PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Akiko Tsuruga 3 at Garage, 10:45 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 New York Gypsy Fest: Youngblood Brass Band at
Drom, 11PM. 85 Avenue A.
 Cristian Mendoza 4 at Somethin' Jazz, 11PM. 212 E.
52nd St.
 Willie Villegas y Entre Amigos at Gonzalez y Gonzalez,
 The Flowdown at Blue Note, 12:30 AM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Erik Lawrence 4 featuring Pete Levin at The Falcon,
10:00 AM. 1348 Route 9W, Marlboro NY.
 Klezmer Brunch: Paul Shapiro Ribs & Brisket Review
at City Winery, 11:00 AM. 155 Varick St.
 Todd Marcus 4 at Garage, 11:30 AM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Joe Alterman 3 at Blue Note, 12:30 and 2:30 PM. 131 W.
3rd St.
 Brian Duggan 3 at Martha Clara Vineyards, 1PM. 6025
Sound Ave., Riverhead NY.
 Kerry Kearny's Blues Show at BobbiQue, 2:00 PM. 70
W. Main St., Patchogue NY.
 Steven Kroon Latin Jazz 6 with special guest Lillias
White at Emmanuel Baptist Church, 3:00 PM. 279
Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn.
 Vic Juris and Bob DeVos at Seligmann Center for the
Arts, 3:00 PM. 23 White Oak Dr., Sugar Loaf NY.
 Falkner Evans Group at Smalls, 4:30 PM. 183 W. 10th
St.
 Heidi Bryer at Deer Head Inn, 5:00 PM. 5 Main St.,
Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Eric Person, St. Peter's Church, 5PM. 619 Lexington
Ave.
 Sheryl Bailey and Harvie S at Eats on Lex, 7PM. 1055
Lexington Ave.
 Jean-Michel Pilc 3 with Boris Kozlov and Billy Hart at
The Falcon, 7PM. 1348 Route 9W, Marlboro NY.
 John Zorn: The Song Project at (Le) Poisson Rouge,
7PM. Various Artists. 158 Bleecker St.
 Lance Houston at Somethin' Jazz, 7PM. 212 E. 52nd St.
PM. 116 E. 27th St.
“Freedom is the right
to tell people what they
do not want to hear.”
- George Orwell
25
REGULAR GIGS
Mondays (9/2, 9/9, 9/16, 9/23, 9/30)
“A system of morality
which is based on relative
emotional values is a mere
illusion, a thoroughly vulgar
conception which has nothing
sound in it and nothing true.”
- Socrates
 Ehud Asherie Group at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Anthony Strong at SubCulture, 7:30 and 10PM. Lower
PM. 131 W. 3rd St.
 Papo Vazquez' Pirates Troubadours at Iridium, 8:00
and 10PM. 1650 Broadway.
 David Krakauer with Strings at The Stone, 8:00 and
10PM. Corner of 2nd St. and Ave C.
 Jack Kerouac, The Florida-New York Connection:
Readings of Kerouac Accompanied by the David
Amram Quintet at Cornelia Street Cafe, 8:30 PM. 29
Cornelia St.
 Vanessa Trouble with Red Hot Swing at Swing 46, 8:30
PM. 349 W. 46th St.
178 7th Ave. S.
 Yuhan Su Group at Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. 212 E. 52nd
St.
 John Zorn's Moonchild – Templars: In Sacred Blood
at (Le) Poisson Rouge, 10:30 PM. Artists include Mike
Patton, John Medeski, Joey Baron, and Trevor Dunn.
158 Bleecker St.
 Dave Kain Group at Garage, 11PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Tom Csatari 3 at The Bar Next Door, 6:30 PM. 129
MacDougal St.
 Jaron Eames and Sharp Radway at Eats on Lex, 7PM.
1055 Lexington Ave.
 Kyle Athayde Big Band at Garage, 7PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
 Jazz Memorial for Harold “Stumpy” Cromer at Saint
Peter's Church, 7PM. 619 Lexington Ave.
 Arlee Leonard at Zinc Bar, 7PM. 82 W. 3rd St.
 Dear Head Inn Jazz Orchestra at Deer Head Inn, 7:30
PM. 5 Main St., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Michele Rosewoman New Yor-Uba 30th Anniversary
featuring Oliver Lake, Freddie Hendrix, Howard Johnson, and Pedrito Martinez at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola,
7:30 and 9:30 PM. 10 Columbus Circle #5.
116 E. 27th St.
 Randy Ingram 3 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Sean Smith 4 at Blue Note, 8:00 and 10:30 PM. 131 W.
3rd
 Wet Ink Ensemble and Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic
Ensemble featuring George Lewis and Ikue Mori at
Roulette, 8PM. 509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn.
 Brianna Thomas 3 at The Bar Next Door, 8:30 and
 Dori Levine at Somethin' Jazz, 9PM. 3rd floor, 212 East
52nd St.
 Tivon Pennicott 4 at Smalls, 10PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Sam Decker 3 at Garage, 10:30 PM. 99 7th Ave. S.
Visit www.JazzNewswire.com
26
 Earl Rose at Bemelmans' Bar, Hotel Carlyle, 5:30 PM.
35 E. 76th St.
 Joel Perry 3 at Parkwood Diner, 6:45 PM. 1958 Springfield Ave., Maplewood NJ.
 Kat Gang with Joe Young at Arcane Bistro, 7PM. 111
Ave C.
 Grove St Stompers at Arthur's Tavern, 7PM. 57 Grove
 Leah Gough-Cooper/ Noah MacNeil 2 at La Flor Restaurant, 7PM. 53-02 Roosevelt Ave., Queens.
 Brain Cloud at Barbes, 7PM. 376 9th St., Brooklyn.
 Tatsuya Nakamura at Manhattan Inn, 7:30 PM. 632
Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn.
 Blue Vipers of Brooklyn at Chez Oskar, 8PM. 211
DeKalb Ave., Brooklyn.
 Iris Ornig Jam Session at Kitano, 8PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Ken Fowser 5 (except 9/2) at Sandi Pointe Coastal
Bistro, 8PM. 908 Shore Road, Somers Point NJ.
 Matt Garrison (except 9/2 and 9/16) at Shapeshifter
Lab, 8:15 and 9:30 PM. 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn.
 Gelber and Manning at Circa Tabac, 8:30 PM. 32 Watts
 Ray Abrams Big Band at Swing 46, 8:30 PM. 349 W.
46th St.
 Vanguard Jazz Orchestra at Village Vanguard, 8:30 and
10:30 PM. 178 7th Ave. S.
 Woody Allen and the Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz
Band (except 9/2) at Cafe Carlyle, 8:45 PM. 35 E. 76th St.
 Earl Rose 3 at Bemelmans' Bar, Hotel Carlyle, 9PM. 35
E. 76th St.
 Chicha Libre at Barbes, 9:30 PM. 376 9th St., Brooklyn.
 Dioris Alexander at Gonzalez y Gonzalez, 9:30 and
11:30 PM. 192 Mercer St.
 Cole Ramstad and the Chinatown All Stars at Apotheke, 10PM. 9 Doyers St.
 Jam Session at Cleopatra's Needle, 10PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Terry Waldo and His Rum House Jass Band at Edison
Rum House, 10PM. 228 W. 47th St.
 Ari Hoenig Group (except 9/23 and 9/30) at Smalls,
10PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Oz Noy Twisted Blues Band with Ron Oswanski at The
Bitter End, 10:30 PM. 147 Bleecker St.
 Ron Affif 3 (except 9/2) at Zinc Bar, 11PM. 82 W. 3rd
 Richie Cannata Jam Session at The Bitter End, 11:45
PM. 147 Bleecker St.
 Spencer Murphy at Smalls, 12:30 AM. 183 W. 10th St.
Tuesdays (9/3, 9/10, 9/17, 9/24)
35 E. 76th St.
 Al Olivier at Bernards Inn, 6:30 PM. 27 Mine Brook Rd.,
Bernardsville NJ.
 Melody Federer at Zinc Bar, 6:30 PM. 82 W. 3rd St.
 Yuichi Hirakawa House Band at Arthur's Tavern, 7PM.
57 Grove St.
 Blue Vipers of Brooklyn at Bar Tabac, 7PM. 128 Smith
St., Brooklyn.
 Mark Sganga and Larry D'Albero at Bayou, 7PM. 1072
Bay St., Staten Island.
 Kat Gang: Beauty and the Beat (except 9/17) at Metropolitan Room, 7PM. 34 W. 22nd St.
 Jo Shornikow at Manhattan Inn, 7:30 PM. 632 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn.
 Spike Wilner 3 at Smalls, 7:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Marc Devine 3 at Cleopatra's Needle, 8PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Michael Cabe (except 9/24) at Kitano, 8PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Blues Jam Session at 76 House, 8:30 PM. 110 Main St.,
Tappan NY.
 Pedrito Martinez Band at Guantanamera, 8:30 PM. 939
8th Ave.
 Dandy Wellington and His Band at Hotel Chantelle,
8:30 PM. 92 Ludlow St.
 George Gee Swing Orchestra at Swing 46, 8:30 PM.
349 W. 46th St.
 Slavic Soul Party at Barbes, 9PM. 376 9th St., Brooklyn.
 Chris Gillespie 3 at Bemelmans' Bar, Hotel Carlyle,
9:30 PM. 35 E. 76th St.
 Annie Ross at Metropolitan Room, 9:30 PM. 34 W. 22nd
 Jam Session at Tumulty's Pub, 9:30 PM. 361 George
St., New Brunswick NJ.
 Jam Session at Cleopatra's Needle, 10PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Smalls Legacy Band (except 9/24) at Smalls, 10PM. 183
W. 10th St.
 Joe McGinty at Manhattan Inn, 10:30 PM. 632 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn.
 Candy Shop Boys at Sleep No More, McKittrick Hotel,
10:30 PM. 530 W. 27th St.
 Traditional Jazz Jam Session with Mona's Hot 4 at
Mona's, 11PM. 224 Avenue B.
 Orrin Evans' Evolution Jam Session at Zinc Bar,
11PM. 82 W. 3rd St.
 Kyle Poole and Friends at Smalls, 12:30 AM. 183 W.
10th
Wednesdays (9/4, 9/11, 9/18, 9/25)
 Louis Armstrong Centennial Band at Birdland, 5:30
PM. 315 W. 44th St.
35 E. 76th St.
 Mark Sganga Solo Guitar at Solari's, 6:00 PM. 61 River
St., Hackensack NJ.
 Steve Salerno at Bernards Inn, 6:30 PM. 27 Mine Brook
Rd., Bernardsville NJ.
 Eve Silber at Arthur's Tavern, 7PM. 57 Grove St.
 Les Kurtz 3 at Cleopatra's Needle, 7PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Leah Gough-Cooper/ Noah MacNeil 2 at La Flor Restaurant, 7PM. 53-02 Roosevelt Ave., Queens.
 Joel Forrester at Manhattan Inn, 7PM. 632 Manhattan
Ave., Brooklyn.
 Courtney Graf at Millesime, 7PM. 92 Madison Ave.
 Fatum Brothers at Nu Hotel, 7PM. 85 Smith St., Brooklyn.
 Blue Vipers of Brooklyn at Pera Mediterranean Soho,
7PM. 54 Thompson St.
 K. T. Sullivan and Larry Woodard Remember Mabel
Mercer and Bobby Short (except 9/25) at Laurie Beechman Theatre, West Bank Cafe, 7PM. 407 W. 42nd St.
 Jason Marshall Organ 3 at American Legion Post
#398, 7:30 PM. 248 W. 132nd St.
 Avalon Jazz Band at Apotheke, 8PM. 9 Doyers St.
 Sarah King and the Smoke Rings at Chez Oskar, 8PM.
211 DeKalb Ave., Brooklyn.
 Tim Lekan Jam Session at Sandi Pointe Coastal Bistro, 8PM. 908 Shore Rd., Somers Point NJ.
 Jonathan Kreisberg 3 at The Bar Next Door, 8:30 and
 Michael Aranella and His Dreamland Orchestra at
Clover Club, 8:30 PM. 210 Smith St., Brooklyn.
 Pedrito Martinez at Guantanamera, 8:30 PM. 939 8th
Ave.
“If a nation
values anything more
than freedom, it will lose its
freedom, and the irony of it is that
if it is comfort or money that it
values more, it will lose
that too.”
- W. Somerset Maugham
 Dandy Wellington and His Band at Penthouse 808,
Ravel Hotel, 8:30 PM. 8-08 Queens Plaza South,
Queens.
 Stan Rubin Orchestra at Swing 46, 8:30 PM. 349 W. 46th
 Kat Gang at The Rose Club, Plaza Hotel, 9PM. Corner
of 5th Ave. and Central Park South.
9:30 PM. 35 E. 76th St.
 Mandingo Ambassadors at Barbes, 10PM. 376 9th St.,
Brooklyn.
 Jam with Joonsam Lee 3 at Cleopatra's Needle, 11:30
PM. 2485 Bdwy.
Thursdays (9/5, 9/12, 9/19, 9/26)
35 E. 76th St.
 Sam Raderman/ Luc Decker Jam Session at Smalls,
5:30 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 John Bianculli at Bernards Inn, 6:30 PM. 27 Mine Brook
Rd., Bernardsville NJ.
 Gil Lewis 3 at Cap'N Cat Clam Bar, 6:30 PM. 3111
Delsea Dr., Franklinville NJ.
 Eri Yamamoto 3 at Arthur's Tavern, 7PM. 57 Grove St.
 Curtis Lundy Jam Session at Phoebe's Place, 7:30 PM.
445 Cedar Lane, Teaneck NJ.
 Bill Goodwin and Friends at Deer Head Inn, 8PM. 5
 Pedrito Martinez Band at Guantanamera, 8:30 PM. 939
8th Ave.
 Lauren Henderson 3 at Millesime, 8PM. 92 Madison
Ave.
 Lapis Luna at The Rose Club, Plaza Hotel, 8:30 PM.
Corner of 5th Ave. and Central Park South.
 Felix and the Cats (except 9/19) at Swing 46, 8:30 PM.
349 W. 46th St.
 Jam Session at Deer Head Inn, 9PM. 5 Main St., Delaware Water Gap PA.
 Nicole Zuraitis with Dandy Wellington and His Band at
Ella Lounge, 9PM. 9 Avenue A.
 Greezy Greens at Cafe Moto, 9:30 PM. 394 Broadway,
Brooklyn.
9:30 PM. 35 E. 76th St.
 Sweet Georgia Brown with Off the Hook at Arthur's
Tavern, 10PM. 57 Grove St.
 Jam w/Kazu, Cleopatra's Needle, 11:30 PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Roman Diaz and His Percussion Ensemble at Zinc Bar,
12:00 PM. 82 W. 3rd St.
Fridays (9/6, 9/13, 9/20, 9/27)
 Pasquale Grasso Jam Session at Smalls, 4:00 PM. 183
W. 10th St.
 Crooked 3 at Barbes, 5:00 PM. 376 9th St., Brooklyn.
 Birdland Big Band at Birdland, 5:00 PM. 315 W. 44th St.
 Rob Mosci at Bemelmans' Bar, Hotel Carlyle, 5:30 PM.
35 E. 76th St.
 George Fitzsimmons at Bernards Inn, 7PM. 27 Mine
Brook Rd., Bernardsville NJ.
 Eri Yamamoto at Arthur's Tavern, 7PM. 57 Grove St.
 Smokin' Billy Slater at Manhattan Inn, 8PM. 632 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn.
 Lauren Henderson 3 at Millesime, 8PM. 92 Madison
Ave.
 Gerardo Contino y Sus Habañeros at Guantanamera,
8:30 PM. 939 8th Ave.
 Day One Trio at Prime and Beyond, 9PM. 90 E. 10th St.
9:30 PM. 35 E. 76th St.
 Sweet Georgia Brown with Off the Hook at Arthur's
 Jam with Joanna Sternberg at Cleopatra's Needle,
12:30 AM. 2485 Bdwy.
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Saturdays (9/7, 9/14, 9/21, 9/28)
 Richard Pardon and Guests at DiWine Bar, 11:00 AM.
41-15 31st Ave., Queens.
 Dandy Wellington and His Band at Hotel Chantelle,
 Tommy Keys at Baiting Hollow Farm Vineyard, 12:00
PM. 2114 Sound Ave., Baiting Hollow, Long Island.
 New York Jazz Academy Big Band Workshop and
Vocal Jazz Workshop (except 9/7) at Saint Peter's
Church, 12:00 PM. 619 Lexington Ave.
 Dwayne Clemons 5 at Smalls, 4:00 PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Rob Mosci at Bemelmans' Bar, Hotel Carlyle, 5:30 PM.
35 E. 76th St.
 Eri Yamamoto 3 at Arthur's Tavern, 7PM. 57 Grove St.
 Murray Hill and The Candy Shop Boys at Duane Park,
8PM. 308 Bowery.
 Avalon Jazz Band at Matisse, 8PM. 924 2nd Ave.
 Gerardo Contino y Sus Habañeros at Guantanamera,
8:30 PM. 939 8th Ave.
 Day One 3 at Prime and Beyond, 9PM. 90 E. 10th St.
9:30 PM. 35 E. 76th St.
 Marianni at Zinc Bar, 9:30 PM, 11PM, and 12:30 AM. 82
W. 3rd St.
 Alyson Williams with Arthur's House Band at Arthur's
 Jam with Jesse Simpson at Cleopatra's Needle, 12:00
AM. 2485 Bdwy.
Sundays (9/1, 9/8, 9/15, 9/22, 9/29)
 Richard Padron and Guests at DiWine Bar, 11:00 AM.
41-15 31st Ave., Queens.
 Tony Middleton 3 at Kitano, 11AM, 1PM. 66 Park Ave.
 Avalon Jazz Band at The Lambs Club, 11:00 AM. 132
W. 44th St.
 Dandy Wellington and His Band at The Astor Room,
11:30 AM. 34-12 36th St., Queens.
 Ryo Sasaki and Nial Djuliarso at One If by Land, Two If
by Sea, 11:30 AM. 17 Barrow St.
 Baby Soda Jazz Band at Tribeca Grand Hotel, 11:30
AM. 2 6th Ave.
 Mary Alouette and The Bailsmen at Hotel Chantelle,
 Emily Wolf at Millesime, 12:00 PM. 92 Madison Ave.
 Mark Sganga, Beso, 12:30 PM. 11 Schuyler, Staten Isl.
 Bob Kindred 3 at Cafe Loup, 12:30 PM. 105 W. 13th St.
 Blue Skys 3 at Dauphin Grille, Berkeley Oceanfront
Hotel, 1PM. 1401 Ocean Ave., Asbury Park NJ.
 Vocal Masterclass with Marion Cowings at Smalls,
1PM. 183 W. 10th St.
 Koran Agan 3 at Radegast Hall, 1:30 PM. 113 N. 3rd St.,
Brooklyn.
 TJ's Lazy Sunday Blues Jam (except 9/15) at 78 Below,
2:00 PM. 380 Columbus Ave.
 Milkman and Sons at Henry Public, 3:00 PM. 329 Henry
St., Brooklyn.
 Keith Ingham, Cleopatra's Needle, 4PM. 2485 Bdwy.
35 E. 76th St.
 Jam Session, Lu Reid at Shrine, 5:00 PM. 2271 7th Ave.
 John Hart, Cyrille Aimee on 9/8, 9/25, and 9/22;
Amanda Green on 9/29) at Birdland, 6PM. 315 W. 44th
 George Gee Swing Orchestra at John Brown Smokehouse, 6:00 PM. 10-43 44th Drive, Queens.
 Junior Mance 3 at Cafe Loup, 6:30 PM. 105 W. 13th St.
 David Coss 4 (except 9/1), Garage, 6:30 PM. 99 7th Ave.
 Creole Cooking Jazz Band at Arthur's Tavern, 7PM. 57
Grove St.
 Jam Session at American Legion Post #398, 7:30 PM.
248 W. 132nd St.
 Peter Mazza 3 at The Bar Next Door, 8:00 and 10PM.
129 MacDougal St.
 Forroteria at Millesime, 8PM. 92 Madison Ave.
 Juan Carlos Formel y Su Son Radical at Guantanamera, 8:30 PM. 939 8th Ave.
 Stephane Wrembel at Barbes, 9PM. 376 9th St., Bklyn.
 Arturo O'Farrill's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra at Birdland, 9:00 and 11PM. 315 W. 44th St.
 Levi Barcourt 3 at Bemelmans' Bar, Hotel Carlyle,
9PM. 35 E. 76th St.
 Jam with Michika Fukumori 3 at Cleopatra's Needle,
9PM. 2485 Bdwy.
 Baby Soda Jazz Band (except 9/1) at St. Mazie, 9:30
PM. 345 Grand St., Brooklyn.
 John Benitez Jam Session at Terraza 7, 9:30 PM. 40-19
Gleane St., Queens.
 Stew Cutler and Friends at Arthur's Tavern, 10PM. 57
Grove St.
 Johnny O'Neal at Smalls, 10PM. 183 W. 10th St.

27
Clubs, Venues & Jazz Resources
55 Bar, 55 Christopher St. (betw 6th & 7th Ave.), 212-929-9883,
www.55bar.com
92nd St Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128
212.415.5500, www.92ndsty.org
Aaron Davis Hall, City College of NY, Convent Ave., 212-6506900, www.aarondavishall.org
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, Broadway & 65th St., 212-8755050, www.lincolncenter.org/default.asp
Allen Room, Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broadway
and 60th, 5th floor, 212-258-9800, www.lincolncenter.org/
default.asp
American Museum of Natural History, 81st St. &
Central Park W., 212-769-5100, www.amnh.org
Arthur’s Tavern, 57 Grove St., 212-675-6879 or 917-301-8759,
www.arthurstavernnyc.com
Arts Maplewood, P.O. Box 383, Maplewood, NJ 07040; 973378-2133, www.artsmaplewood.org
Avery Fischer Hall, Lincoln Center, Columbus Ave. & 65th St.,
212-875-5030, www.lincolncenter.org
Backroom at Freddie’s, 485 Dean St. (at 6th Ave.), Brooklyn,
NY, 718-622-7035, www.freddysbackroom.com
BAM Café, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, NY, 718-636-4100,
www.bam.org
Bar 4, 7 Ave and 15th, Brooklyn NY 11215, 718-832-9800,
www.Bar4.net
Langham Place, Fifth Avenue, 400 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10018, 212-613-8738,
http://www.langhamplacehotels.com
Barbes, 376 9th St. (corner of 6th Ave.), Park Slope, Brooklyn,
718-965-9177, www.barbesbrooklyn.com
Barge Music, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, 718-624-2083,
www.bargemusic.org
B.B. King’s Blues Bar, 237 W. 42nd St., 212-997-4144,
www.bbkingblues.com
Beacon Theatre, 74th St. & Broadway, 212-496-7070
Bickford Theatre, on Columbia Turnpike @ Normandy Heights
Road, east of downtown Morristown. 973-744-2600
Birdland, 315 W. 44th St., 212-581-3080
Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St., 212-475-8592,
www.bluenotejazz.com/newyork
Bluestone Bar & Grill, 117 Columbia St., Brooklyn, NY, 718403-7450, www.bluestonebarngrill.com
Bourbon St Bar and Grille, 346 W. 46th St, NY, 10036,
212-245-2030, [email protected],
[email protected]
Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery (at Bleecker), 212-614-0505,
www.bowerypoetry.com
Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza, 2nd Fl, Brooklyn,
NY, 718-230-2100, www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org
Buttonwood Tree Performing Arts & Cultural Center, 605
Main St., Middletown, CT. 860-347-4957, www.buttonwood.org.
Café Carlyle, 35 E. 76th St., 212-570-7189, www.thecarlyle.com
Café Loup, 105 W. 13th St. (West Village) , between Sixth and
Seventh Aves., 212-255-4746
Cafe Mozart, 308 Mamaroneck Ave., Mamaroneck, NY
Café St. Bart’s, 109 E. 50th St. (at Park Ave.), 212-888-2664,
www.cafestbarts.com
Caffe Vivaldi, 32 Jones St, NYC; www.caffevivaldi.com
Candlelight Lounge, 24 Passaic St, Trenton. 609-695-9612.
Carnegie Club, 156 W. 56th St., 212-957-9676,
www.hospitalityholdings.com
Carnegie Hall, 7th Av & 57th, 212-247-7800,
www.carnegiehall.org
Casa Dante, 737 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, NJ,
www.casadante.com
Chico’s House Of Jazz, In Shoppes at the Arcade, 631 Lake
Ave., Asbury Park, 732-774-5299
City Winery, 155 Varick St. Bet. Vandam & Spring St., 212608-0555. www.citywinery.com
Cleopatra’s Needle, 2485 Bdwy (betw 92nd & 93rd),
212-769-6969, www.cleopatrasneedleny.com
Copeland’s, 547 W. 145th St. (at Bdwy), 212-234-2356
Cornelia St Café, 29 Cornelia St., 212-989-9319, www.
corneliaStcafe.com
Creole Café, 2167 Third Ave (at 118th), 212-876-8838.
Crossroads at Garwood, 78 North Ave., Garwood, NJ 07027,
908-232-5666
Crossroads – 78 North Avenue, Garwood, NJ
Cutting Room, 19 W. 24th St, Tel: 212-691-1900,
www.thecuttingroomnyc.com
Destino, 891 First Ave. & 50th St., 212-751-0700
Detour, 349 E. 13th St. (betw 1st & 2nd Ave.), 212-533-6212,
www.jazzatdetour.com
Division St Grill, 26 North Division St, Peekskill, NY,
914-739-6380, www.divisionStgrill.com
Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, Broadway at 60th St., 5th Floor, 212258-9595, www.jalc.com
DROM, 85 Avenue A, New York, 212-777-1157,
www.dromnyc.com/
28
The Ear Inn, 326 Spring St., NY, 212-226-9060,
www.earinn.com
El Museo Del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Ave (at 104th St.), Tel: 212831-7272, Fax: 212-831-7927, www.elmuseo.org
The Encore, 266 W. 47th St., 212-221-3960,
www.theencorenyc.com
The Falcon, 1348 Rt. 9W, Marlboro, NY., 845) 236-7970,
Fat Cat, 75 Christopher St. (at &th Ave.), 212-675-7369,
www.fatcatjazz.com
Five Spot, 459 Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 718-852-0202,
www.fivespotsoulfood.com
Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Blvd., Flushing, NY,
718-463-7700 x222, www.flushingtownhall.org
For My Sweet, 1103 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 718-857-1427
Frank’s Cocktail Lounge, 660 Fulton St. (at Lafayette), Brooklyn, NY, 718-625-9339, www.frankscocktaillounge.com
Galapagos, 70 N. 6th St., Brooklyn, NY, 718-782-5188,
www.galapagosartspace.com
Garage Restaurant and Café, 99 Seventh Ave. (betw 4th and
Bleecker), 212-645-0600, www.garagerest.com
Garden Café, 4961 Broadway, by 207th St., New York, 10034,
212-544-9480
Ginny’s Supper Club, 310 Malcolm X Boulevard Manhattan,
NY 10027, 212-792-9001, http://redroosterharlem.com/ginnys/
Glen Rock Inn, 222 Rock Road, Glen Rock, NJ, (201) 445-2362,
www.glenrockinn.com
Greenwich Village Bistro, 13 Carmine St., 212-206-9777,
www.greenwichvillagebistro.com
Harlem Tea Room, 1793A Madison Ave., 212-348-3471,
www.harlemtearoom.com
Hat City Kitchen, 459 Valley St, Orange. 862-252-9147.
www.hatcitykitchen.com
Havana Central West End, 2911 Broadway/114th St), NYC,
212-662-8830, www.havanacentral.com
Hibiscus Restaurant, 270 S. St, Morristown, NJ, 973-359-0200,
www.hibiscusrestaurantnj.com
Highline Ballroom, 431 West 16th St (between 9th & 10th Ave.
www.highlineballroom.com, 212-414-4314.
Hopewell Valley Bistro, 15 East Broad St, Hopewell, NJ 08525,
609-466-9889, www.hopewellvalleybistro.com
Hyatt New Brunswick, 2 Albany St., New Brunswick, NJ
IBeam Music Studio, 168 7th St., Brooklyn, ibeambrooklyn.com
Iridium, 1650 Broadway, 212-582-2121, iridiumjazzclub.com
Jazz 966, 966 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY, 718-638-6910
Jazz at Lincoln Center, 33 W. 60th St., 212-258-9800,
www.jalc.org
Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th St., 5th Floor
Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Reservations: 212-258-9595
Rose Theater, Tickets: 212-721-6500
The Allen Room, Tickets: 212-721-6500
Jazz Gallery, 1160 Broadway, New York, NY 10001
Phone: (212) 242-1063, www.jazzgallery.org
The Jazz Spot, 375 Kosciuszko St. (enter at 179 Marcus Garvey
Blvd.), Brooklyn, NY, 718-453-7825, www.thejazz.8m.com
Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232,
www.jazzstandard.net
Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St & Astor Pl.,
212-539-8778, www.joespub.com
John Birks Gillespie Auditorium (see Baha’i Center)
Jules Bistro, 65 St. Marks Place, Tel: 212-477-5560, Fax: 212420-0998, www.julesbistro.com
Kasser Theater, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair State College,
Montclair, 973-655-4000, www.montclair.edu/arts/
performancefacilities/alexanderkasser.html
Key Club, 58 Park Place, Newark, NJ, (973) 799-0306,
www.keyclubnj.com
Kitano Hotel, 66 Park Ave., 212-885-7119. www.kitano.com
Knickerbocker Bar & Grill, 33 University Pl., 212-228-8490,
www.knickerbockerbarandgrill.com
The Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St., Tel: 212-219-3132,
www.knittingfactory.com
La Famiglia Sorrento, 631 Central Ave, Westfield, NJ, 07090,
908-232-2642, www.lafamigliasorrento.com
La Lanterna (Bar Next Door at La Lanterna), 129 MacDougal
St, New York, 212-529-5945, www.lalanternarcaffe.com
Le Grand Dakar Cafe, 285 Grand Ave, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn,
http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/le-grand-dakar/
Le Madeleine, 403 W. 43rd St. (betw 9th & 10th Ave.), New
York, New York, 212-246-2993, www.lemadeleine.com
Lenox Lounge, 288 Lenox Ave. (above 124th St.), 212-4270253, www.lenoxlounge.com
Les Gallery Clemente Soto Velez, 107 Suffolk St. (at Rivington
St.), 212-260-4080
Live @ The Falcon, 1348 Route 9W, Marlboro, NY 12542,
Living Room, 154 Ludlow St. (betw Rivington & Stanton),
212-533-7235, www.livingroomny.com
The Local 269, 269 E. Houston St. (corner of Suffolk St.), NYC
Makor, 35 W. 67th St. (at Columbus Ave.), 212-601-1000,
www.makor.org
Lounge Zen, 254 DeGraw Ave, Teaneck, NJ, (201) 692-8585,
www.lounge-zen.com
Makeda, George St., New Brunswick. NJ, www.nbjp.org
Maxwell’s, 1039 Washington St, Hoboken, NJ, 201-653-1703,
www.maxwellsnj.com
McCarter Theater, 91 University Pl., Princeton, 609-258-2787,
www.mccarter.org
Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufman Center, 129 W. 67th St. (betw
Broadway & Amsterdam), 212-501-3330, www.ekcc.org/
merkin.htm
Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd St New York City, NY
10012, 212-206-0440,
Mirelle’s, 170 Post Ave., Westbury, NY, 516-338-4933
Mixed Notes Café, 333 Elmont Rd., Elmont, NY (Queens area),
516-328-2233, www.mixednotescafe.com
Montauk Club, 25 Eighth Ave., Brooklyn, NY, 718-638-0800,
www.montaukclub.com
Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave. (between
103rd & 104th St.), 212-534-1672, www.mcny.org
Musicians’ Local 802, 332 W. 48th St., 718-468-7376 or
860-231-0663
Newark Museum, 49 Washington St, Newark, New Jersey
07102-3176, 973-596-6550, www.newarkmuseum.org
New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St., Newark, NJ,
07102, 973-642-8989, www.njpac.org
New School Performance Space, 55 W. 13th St., 5th Floor
(betw 5th & 6th Ave.), 212-229-5896, www.newschool.edu.
New School University-Tishman Auditorium, 66 W. 12th St.,
1st Floor, Room 106, 212-229-5488, www.newschool.edu
New York City Baha’i Center, 53 E. 11th St. (betw Broadway
& University), 212-222-5159, www.bahainyc.org
Night of the Cookers, 767 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY, Tel: 718797-1197, Fax: 718-797-0975
North Square Lounge, 103 Waverly Pl. (at MacDougal St.),
212-254-1200, www.northsquarejazz.com
Novita Bistro & Lounge, 25 New St, Metuchen.
Nublu, 62 Ave. C (betw 4th & 5th St.), 212-979-9925,
www.nublu.net
Nuyorican Poet’s Café, 236 E. 3rd St. (betw Ave. B & C), 212505-8183, www.nuyorican.org
Oak Room at The Algonquin Hotel, 59 W. 44th St. (betw 5th
and 6th Ave.), 212-840-6800, www.thealgonquin.net
Oceana Restaurant, 120 West 49th St, New York, NY 10020
212-759-5941, www.oceanarestaurant.com
Opia, 130 East 57th St, New York, NY 10022, 212-688-3939
www.opiarestaurant.com
Orchid, 765 Sixth Ave. (betw 25th & 26th St.), 212-206-9928
Palazzo Restaurant, 11 South Fullerton Avenue, Montclair. 973746-6778. www.palazzonj.com
Pigalle, 790 8th Ave. 212-489-2233. www.pigallenyc.com
Priory Restaurant & Jazz Club: 223 W Market St., Newark, NJ
07103, 973-639-7885
Private Place, 29 S. Center St, South Orange, NJ, 973-675-6620
www.privateplacelounge.com
Proper Café, 217-01 Linden Blvd., Queens, 718-341-2233
Prospect Park Bandshell, 9th St. & Prospect Park W., Brooklyn,
NY, 718-768-0855
Prospect Wine Bar & Bistro, 16 Prospect St. Westfield, NJ,
908-232-7320, www.16prospect.com, www.cjayrecords.com
Red Eye Grill, 890 Seventh Ave. (at 56th St.), 212-541-9000,
www.redeyegrill.com
Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge, parallel to Main St.,
Ridgefield, CT; ridgefieldplayhouse.org, 203-438-5795
Rockwood Music Hall, 196 Allen St, New York, NY 10002
212-477-4155
Rose Center (American Museum of Natural History), 81st St.
(Central Park W. & Columbus), 212-769-5100, amnh.org/rose
Rose Hall, 33 W. 60th St., 212-258-9800, www.jalc.org
Rosendale Café, 434 Main St., PO Box 436, Rosendale, NY
12472, 845-658-9048, www.rosendalecafe.com
Rubin Museum of Art - “Harlem in the Himalayas”, 150 W.
17th St. 212-620-5000. www.rmanyc.org
Rustik, 471 DeKalb Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 347-406-9700, www.
rustikrestaurant.com
Shapeshifter Lab, 18 Whitwell Pl, Brooklyn, 646-820-9452.
www.shapeshifterlab.com
St. Mark’s Church, 131 10th St. (at 2nd Ave.), 212-674-6377
St. Nick’s Pub, 773 St. Nicholas Av (at 149th), 212-283-9728
St. Peter’s Church, 619 Lexington (at 54th), 212-935-2200,
www.saintpeters.org
Salon at Rue 57, 60 W. 57th St, 212-307-5656, www.rue57.com
Sasa’s Lounge, 924 Columbus Ave, Between 105th & 106th St.
NY, NY 10025, 212-865-5159,
www.sasasloungenyc.yolasite.com
Savoy Grill, 60 Park Place, Newark, NJ 07102, 973-286-1700
Schomburg Center, 515 Malcolm X Blvd., 212-491-2200,
www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html
Session Bistro. 245 Maywood Avenue, Maywood. 201-8807810.
Shanghai Jazz, 24 Main St., Madison, NJ, 973-822-2899,
www.shanghaijazz.com
ShapeShifter Lab, 18 Whitwell Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11215
www.shapeshifterlab.com
Showman’s, 375 W. 125th St., 212-864-8941
Sidewalk Café, 94 Ave. A, 212-473-7373
Silver Spoon, 124 Main St., Cold Spring, NY 10516, 845-2652525, www.silverspooncoldpspring.com
Sista’s Place, 456 Nostrand Ave. (at Jefferson Ave.), Brooklyn,
NY, 718-398-1766, www.sistasplace.org
Skippers Plane St Pub, 304 University Ave. Newark NJ, 973733-9300, www.skippersplaneStpub.com
Smalls Jazz Club, 183 W. 10th St. (at 7th Ave.), 212-929-7565,
www.SmallsJazzClub.com
Smith’s Bar, 701 8th Ave, New York, 212-246-3268
Sofia’s Restaurant - Club Cache’ [downstairs], Edison Hotel,
221 W. 46th St. (between Broadway & 8th Ave), 212-719-5799
Somethin’ Jazz Club, 212 E. 52nd St., NY 10022, 212-371-7657
Sophie’s Bistro, 700 Hamilton St., Somerset. www.nbjp.org
South Gate Restaurant & Bar, 154 Central Park South, 212484-5120, www.154southgate.com
South Orange Performing Arts Center, One SOPAC
Way, South Orange, NJ 07079, sopacnow.org, 973-313-2787
South St Seaport, 207 Front St., 212-748-8600,
www.southstseaport.org.
Spoken Words Café, 266 4th Av, Brooklyn, 718-596-3923
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, 165 W. 65th St., 10th Floor,
212-721-6500, www.lincolncenter.org
The Stone, Ave. C & 2nd St., www.thestonenyc.com
Sugar Bar, 254 W. 72nd St, 212-579-0222, sugarbarnyc.com
Swing 46, 349 W. 46th St.(betw 8th & 9th Ave.),
212-262-9554, www.swing46.com
Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, Tel: 212-864-1414, Fax:
212- 932-3228, www.symphonyspace.org
Tea Lounge, 837 Union St. (betw 6th & 7th Ave), Park Slope,
Broooklyn, 718-789-2762, www.tealoungeNY.com
Terra Blues, 149 Bleecker St. (betw Thompson & LaGuardia),
212-777-7776, www.terrablues.com
Theatre Row, 410 W. 42nd, 212-714-2442, www.theatrerow.org
Tito Puente’s Restaurant and Cabaret, 64 City Island Avenue,
City Island, Bronx, 718-885-3200, titopuentesrestaurant.com
Tomi Jazz, 239 E. 53rd St., lower level. 646-497-1254,
www.tomijazz.com
Tonic, 107 Norfolk St. (betw Delancey & Rivington), Tel: 212358-7501, Fax: 212-358-1237, tonicnyc.com
Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St., 212-997-1003
Trash Bar, 256 Grand St. 718-599-1000. www.thetrashbar.com
Triad Theater, 158 W. 72nd St. (betw Broadway & Columbus
Ave.), 212-362-2590, www.triadnyc.com
Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers St, 10007,
[email protected], www.tribecapac.org
Trumpets, 6 Depot Square, Montclair, NJ, 973-744-2600, www.
trumpetsjazz.com
Tumulty’s Pub, 361 George St., New Brunswick
Turning Point Cafe, 468 Piermont Ave. Piermont, N.Y. 10968
(845) 359-1089, http://www.turningpointcafe.com/
Village Vanguard, 178 7th Ave S., 212-255-4037,
www.villagevanguard.net
Vision Festival, 212-696-6681, [email protected],
www.visionfestival.org
Watchung Arts Center, 18 Stirling Rd, Watchung, NJ 07069,
908-753-0190, www.watchungarts.org
Watercolor Café, 2094 Boston Post Road, Larchmont, NY
10538, 914-834-2213, www.watercolorcafe.net
Weill Receital Hall at Carnegie Hall, 57th & 7th Ave,
212-247-7800
Williamsburg Music Center, 367 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn,
NY 11211, (718) 384-1654 www.wmcjazz.org
Zankel Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, 212-247-7800
Zebulon, 258 Wythe St., Brooklyn, NY, 11211, 718-218-6934,
www.zebuloncafeconcert.com
Zinc Bar, 82 West 3rd St.
RECORD STORES
Barnes & Noble, 1960 Broadway, at 67th St, 212-595-6859
Colony Music Center, 1619 Broadway. 212-265-2050,
www.colonymusic.com
Downtown Music Gallery, 13 Monroe St, New York, NY
10002, (212) 473-0043, www.downtownmusicgallery.com
J&R Music World, 13 Monroe St, 212-238-9000, www,jr.com
Jazz Record Center, 236 W. 26th St., Room 804,
212-675-4480, www.jazzrecordcenter.com
Norman’s Sound & Vision, 555 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn,
New York 11211
Princeton Record Exchange, 20 South Tulane St, Princeton,
NJ 08542, 609-921-0881, www.prex.com
Rainbow Music 2002 Ltd., 130 1st Ave (between 7th & St.
Marks Pl.), 212-505-1774
Scotti’s Records, 351 Springfield Ave, Summit, NJ, 07901,
908-277-3893, www.scotticd.com
MUSIC STORES
Manny’s Music, 156 W. 48th St. (betw. 6th and 7th Ave),
212-819-0576, Fax: 212-391-9250, www.mannysmusic.com
Drummers World, Inc., 151 W. 46th St., NY, NY 10036, 212840-3057, 212-391-1185, www.drummersworld.com
Roberto’s Woodwind & Brass, 149 West 46th St. NY, NY
10036, 646-366-0240, Repair Shop: 212-391-1315; 212-8407224, www.robertoswoodwind.com
Rod Baltimore Intl Woodwind & Brass, 168 W. 48 St. New
York, NY 10036, 212-302-5893
Sam Ash, 333 W 34th St, New York, NY 10001
Phone: (212) 719-2299 www.samash.com
Sadowsky Guitars Ltd, 2107 41st Avenue 4th Floor, Long
Island City, NY 11101, 718-433-1990. www.sadowsky.com
Steve Maxwell Vintage Drums, 723 7th Ave, 3rd Floor, New
York, NY 10019, 212-730-8138, www.maxwelldrums.com
SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, CONSERVATORIES
92nd St Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128
212.415.5500; www.92ndsty.org
Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory of Music, 42-76 Main St.,
Flushing, NY, Tel: 718-461-8910, Fax: 718-886-2450
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, 58 Seventh Ave., Brooklyn,
NY, 718-622-3300, www.brooklynconservatory.com
City College of NY-Jazz Program, 212-650-5411,
Columbia University, 2960 Broadway, 10027
Drummers Collective, 541 6th Ave, New York, NY 10011,
212-741-0091, www.thecoll.com
Five Towns College, 305 N. Service Rd., 516-424-7000, ext.163,
Dix Hills, NY
Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow St., Tel: 212-2424770, Fax: 212-366-9621, www.greenwichhouse.org
Juilliard School of Music, 60 Lincoln Ctr, 212-799-5000
LaGuardia Community College/CUNI, 31-10 Thomson Ave.,
Long Island City, 718-482-5151
Lincoln Center — Jazz At Lincoln Center, 140 W. 65th St.,
10023, 212-258-9816, 212-258-9900
Long Island University — Brooklyn Campus, Dept. of Music,
University Plaza, Brooklyn, 718-488-1051, 718-488-1372
Manhattan School of Music, 120 Claremont Ave., 10027,
212-749-2805, 2802, 212-749-3025
New Jersey City University, 2039 Kennedy Blvd., Jersey City,
NJ 07305, 888-441-6528
New School, 55 W. 13th St., 212-229-5896, 212-229-8936
New York University-Jazz/Contemporary Music Studies, 35
West 4th St. Room#777, 212-998-5446, 212-995-4043
New York Jazz Academy, (718) 426-0633
www.NYJazzAcademy.com
Princeton University-Dept. of Music, Woolworth Center Musical Studies, Princeton, NJ, 609-258-4241, 609-258-6793
Queens College — Copland School of Music, City University
of NY, Flushing, 718-997-3800
Rutgers Univ. at New Brunswick, Jazz Studies, Douglass
Campus, PO Box 270, New Brunswick, NJ, 908-932-9302
Rutgers University Institute of Jazz Studies, 185 University
Avenue, Newark NJ 07102, 973-353-5595
newarkwww.rutgers.edu/IJS/index1.html
SUNY Purchase, 735 Anderson Hill Rd., Purchase, NY
914-251-6300, 914-251-6314
William Paterson University Jazz Studies Program, 300 Pompton Rd, Wayne, NJ, 973-720-2320
RADIO
WBGO 88.3 FM, 54 Park Pl, Newark, NJ 07102, Tel: 973-6248880, Fax: 973-824-8888, www.wbgo.org
WCWP, LIU/C.W. Post Campus
WFDU, http://alpha.fdu.edu/wfdu/wfdufm/index2.html
WKCR 89.9, Columbia University, 2920 Broadway
Mailcode 2612, New York, NY 10027, Listener Line: (212) 8549920, www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr, [email protected]
One Great Song, Hosted by Jay Harris, www.wmnr.org (at 6 on
Saturdays, and at www.tribecaradio.net at 11AM Sundays and
again on Monday and Thursday nights at 11PM.)
Lenore Raphael’s JazzSpot, www.purejazzradio.com.
PERFORMING GROUPS
Westchester Jazz Orchestra, Emily Tabin, Director, PO Box
506, Chappaqua, NY 10514, 914-861-9100,
www.westjazzorch.org
ADDITIONAL JAZZ RESOURCES
Big Apple Jazz, www.bigapplejazz.com, 718-606-8442,
[email protected]
Louis Armstrong House, 34-56 107th St, Corona, NY 11368,
718-997-3670, www.satchmo.net
Institute of Jazz Studies, John Cotton Dana Library, RutgersUniv, 185 University Av, Newark, NJ, 07102, 973-353-5595
Jazzmobile, Inc., 154 West 127th St, 10027, 212-866-4900,
www.jazzmobile.org
Jazz Museum in Harlem, 104 E. 126th St., 212-348-8300,
www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org
Jazz Foundation of America, 322 W. 48th St. 10036,
212-245-3999, www.jazzfoundation.org
New Jersey Jazz Society, 1-800-303-NJJS, www.njjs.org
New York Blues & Jazz Society, www.NYBluesandJazz.org
Rubin Museum, 150 W. 17th St, New York, NY,
212-620-5000 ex 344, www.rmanyc.org.
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29
Interview
not a musician. But she’s actually teaching herself how to play piano now. She’s retired also.
JI: Did she teach as well?
Warren Wolf
Interview by Eric Nemeyer
Hear Warren Wolf
Thursday-Sunday, September 19-22
7:30pm & 9:30pm (plus 11:30 pm Sat. only)
Jazz Standard | 116 E. 27th St., New York City
www.JazzStandard.com | www.warrenwolfmusic.com
JI: How did your experiences in the academic
settings at Peabody and at Berklee, from which
you earned degrees, support or challenge your
artistic efforts and income-producing pursuits
during those periods?
WW: Peabody. I didn’t go to the conservatory.
It was more preparatory. I went there from the
ages of 5 until 13. So I really can’t talk about
that one so much.
JI: Were your parents pushing you to go there?
WW: Oh, yes. My parents are a big part of
that. I’ve been playing music since I was three
years old. My father is retired now but he was a
history teacher for the Baltimore City public
school system. He taught U.S. and World History. But on the side, he was also a musician. He
had a local band around town and they would do
a few gigs. I’ve grown up watching him practice. My dad’s name is Warren Wolf Senior. He
plays drums and vibraphone and piano too. So
JI: How did your experiences in the academic
world support or challenge your artistic pursuits
and performance work you might have been
scheduling at the same time?
WW: I can give two examples — kind of. At my
high school — Baltimore School for the Performing Arts, one of the top high schools in the
country — we did a lot of classical music training. Jazz music was more of an elective. I really
didn’t understand what all the classical training
was doing for me until a later age. Jumping to
college, at Berklee, everything is laid out for
you. They tell you what to do — ear training and
harmony, song writing classes and all of that
other stuff. I knew I wanted to play. Did any of
that stuff necessarily help me? I would say to a
certain degree, yes. But for the most part, my
true lessons came from being out Friday and
Saturday nights at the club — learning from the
guys that were better than me and just picking up
pointers from them. I’m not saying I actually sat
down and practiced with them. The great thing
for me is that I have perfect pitch. So I can hear
what they’re doing and just go ahead and play it
right back. If the piano player happens to play a
minor seven flat five chord and goes straight to a
major or change it to a minor the next time, I can
hear all of that stuff. So my true lesson was on
the bandstand like you were saying. School
helped me in terms of writing music — because
“… for the most part, my true lessons
came from being out Friday and Saturday
nights at the club — learning from the guys
that were better than me and just picking up
pointers from them. I’m not saying I actually
sat down and practiced with them.”
he started teaching me at the young age of
three. I was practicing five days per week, 90
minutes per day with him. Then on Saturday
mornings I would go to the Peabody Preparatory
and I would take lessons with a guy who was a
former member of the Baltimore Symphony—
Leo LePage. The great thing about Leo was not
only that he was a classical musician, but he was
a jazz drummer in the Boston area back in the
day. I honestly used to think the guy was Buddy
Rich because they kind of looked like each
other. My parents were definitely pushing me on
for that.
30
when I first got to Berklee I wasn’t that great at
writing music at all.
JI: Do your mother or your father have perfect
pitch?
WW: Oh, no. My father has kind of developed
it. I don’t know how he did it. He has good relative pitch. Now that he’s retired he likes to write
out charts. It takes him a little while to do it. Me,
I’m just like dead on — and it’s not just like one
note. I can hear up to about five to six notes at
one time — and I’m very quick at it. My mom is
WW: No, no, no. She worked at the Baltimore
Gas and Electric Company. She was a supervisor
there for about 25 to 30 years. So both of my
parents retired around the age of 60. They just
live a life of playing music together [Laughter].
JI: Do you have brothers and sisters who play
too?
WW: I have two older sisters. I’m the youngest. My sister in the middle used to play violin in
elementary school. That didn’t last. Now, she’s
just singing a lot around Baltimore / Washington
with a few local groups. She’s out there doing
wedding gigs and stuff like that. I have three
children. They live in Boston with their
mom. My youngest son might start playing
drums at some point; and my daughter is a hell
of a singer. She’s 13, so I’m curious to see where
she’s going to go with it. The last artistic person
in my family is my current wife. She’s a ballet
dancer.
JI: When you come back to Baltimore after
being on tour, what kinds of playing opportunities are there?
WW: Well there’s definitely a down period. I’ve
been on the road, period, since almost 2004—not
just with Chris [McBride], but with a lot of other
people too. Chris McBride came into play
around June, 2009. But when people in this area
— Baltimore and Washington, DC — start seeing that I’m never here, Thursday through Sunday … or if they call and I just keep saying “I’m
sorry I can’t make it, I’m out of town,” people
will just stop calling after a while. They assume
that you’re out of town all the time. I have to
kind of put it out there — hey, I am home, call
me for some work. I very much enjoy playing
locally just as much as I do playing internationally.
JI: For how long are you usually out on the road
touring?
WW: It depends. I’ve kind of paid attention to
my schedule. It seems like every year there’s
always at least one month, I’m not saying one
whole month but if you just add up all the days,
there’s always about a month, maybe a month
and a half where I’m home. The rest of the time,
the majority of the time I’m always out. And that
doesn’t mean on the road. I just might be out
around Baltimore/DC doing some type of
work. Surprisingly this summer, I was actually
home a lot which I’m not used to. But this fall,
all the way until January, I’ll be pretty much
gone a lot.
JI: What do you do on the road when you’re not
performing?
WW: It depends. It depends on where we’re
traveling. Sometimes there will be early
here I am. This is Warren Wolf. I’m a bad cat. I
can play my tail off. So that was the objective
with the first record. The second record, the
Wolfgang is still showing that I can play but it’s
showing who Warren Wolf is as a composer.
Warren Wolfe
flights. We tend to get into the hotel and for the
most part, I’ll sleep, I’ll read or I’ll go exercise. I’m a big fan of staying in the gym. I have
to. My wife is a personal trainer so she’s always
staying on me about staying in shape.
JI: She’ll have you doing ballet pretty soon.
WW: I don’t think so.
JI: Talk about some of the mentors musically
that you’ve had who have shared some words of
wisdom or provided some guidance with you
that has made an impact on your artistry and
your character.
WW: One thing that I’m always hearing from
everyone is to just keep playing, keep playing,
keep playing. Some of the people who have been
a significant part of my musical life are Christian
McBride and Mulgrew Miller. Mulgrew was one
of the first people to take me out on the
road. The first person was saxophonist Tim Warfield back in 2003. Then Mulgrew took me on a
tour to Japan with his group Wingspan. He gave
me a call two days after Tim called me. While
we were in Japan, Mulgrew introduced me to a
guy named Hiro Yamashita. He was a record
producer. Through that deal I did two records.
We recorded the records in New York. So the
first record that came out was Incredible Jazz
Vibes. That record featured myself with Mulgrew, Kendrick Scott on drums and Vicente
Archer on bass. The second record we did was
titled Black Wolf. That record featured Mulgrew
Miller, Jeff “Tain” Watts and Rodney Whitaker
on bass. So Mulgrew was definitely a big help
for me. He was that way for many people. So
when he passed about a month or two ago, it was
a big shock for everybody. He was very soft
spoken. He would always say, “Warren, just
keep playing. The music will take care of you as
long as you take care of the music.” He meant a
lot to me. Christian gave me my first world experience. We’ve been everywhere. I’ve been
touring with him for five years. It was through
him that I got the Mack Avenue deal. I can also
include Tia Fuller in that category too. I’ve
worked with Tia for a little bit — actually playing drums not vibes. Even though I recorded
vibes on her CD, I played drums on her band.
JI: What kind of directions or suggestions did
Mack Avenue Records provide as you prepared
to record your albums?
WW: None. I tried to model my records after
Christian’s because I like what he did. With his
first record, he was getting into it. When he went
to Number Two Express, he recorded with a
whole bunch of jazz all stars. What I tried to do
with my first record was what any jazz artist
should do on their first record — basically, come
out and play. Don’t try to get too fancy by showing all of your original compositions and things
like that. I wanted to show that I can play and
32
JI: What did the record label in Japan want you
do?
WW: The Japanese are very specific on hearing
standards for the most part. You can do a few of
your originals but what they like is to hear standards. So for each record I would probably do
about six standards — and I didn’t rearrange
anything. I just kind of just played it straight
down. That stuff is really powerful in Japan—
just play the tune the way it is and they love you
forever.
JI: Were you able to record those albums pretty
quickly, in one or two takes per song?
WW: Pretty much. The second record for the
Japanese label we did in one day because we had
a pretty good rehearsal. So it was just a matter of
going in and just putting it down on tape.
JI: What vibraphone are you playing?
WW: I’m not endorsed with anybody. The
model that I prefer is a Musser M55. I own a
Musser ProVibe but the one negative part about
it — and I really can’t tell it that much — is that
it’s tuned to A-442 [rather than A440], and that
kind of sticks out sometimes when you’re playing a ballad. Generally I like to play Mussers.
JI: I still enjoy playing the very first set I
bought, the Deagan 592 Commander. The bars
are slightly narrower than the Musser in the
lower fifth, from F up to middle C, and A is
tuned to 440.
WW: I’ll have to check that out.
JI: Deagan was actually making a four octave
set of vibes in the 1970s and then they stopped.
Hal Trommer, who was one of the most knowledgeable people there told me that they had
stopped making the instrument because of problems with getting the bars from F down to low C
to sound good and resonate pleasingly. I think I
still have the Deagan catalog with Terry Gibbs
on the cover that pictures their four octave vibraphone. What mallets are you using?
WW: Kind of going back and forth. I’ve been
using mallets by this woman named Susan Albright. I’ve been using her mallets—which are
modeled after Milt Jackson’s. They have that
real big fat ball? Lately I’ve been trying out a lot
of Mike Balter’s sticks. He’s been sending me
all of these prototypes sticks, trying to make sure
that those are right. I think Susan uses the bamboo [rattan] because her sticks never break.
JI: Are you working with two or four mallets?
WW: No, I’m traditionally two all the time. But
there are certain times I use four — only for
color purposes, and depending on what pianist
I’m playing with.
JI: What is your approach to practicing now?
WW: Nowadays a lot of my practicing really is
kind of just running through scales for the most
part — making sure I’m very accurate in nailing
each note, and getting my timing down. Timing
is a very big thing for me. This is one of the
things my dad used to do with me when I was
younger. He would take his stick and hit the side
of a chair and make sure I was always dead on
with time. I’m also working on freshening up on
a lot of 2-5-1’s and things like that. A lot of
times when I’m practicing, I practice freely. I’m
not practicing things necessarily in time. I can
pick any song. Let’s say “Satin Doll.” I’ll play
through the song as if there’s no time behind me.
I’m just flowing through the song and playing
through all the changes — it’s just not in
time. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no
wrong note when it comes to improvising. It’s
just all a matter of how you resolve it.
JI: What are some of the sources of inspiration
and processes you experience when composing?
WW: Well for me it starts with the rhythm—
since I’m very much a drummer. It doesn’t necessarily have to be swing, because there are so
many types of rhythms that we can use in jazz. A
lot of my influences come from stories. I have to
be influenced by something — for instance, my
wife. I have four songs already because of things
that she and I have talked about, or things that
she’s done that’s made me compose a song. One
of the songs on the record is because of her. It’s
called “Annoyance.” Now it’s funny. When
people hear that title they’re like,
“Annoyance? Wait a minute. You married a girl
and she annoyed you?” But it’s really not like
that. There’s a big story behind that. Anyway, I
can’t sit at the piano and just start writing for the
most part. I have to have something that’s gone
on in my life that would make me want to write.
JI: What do you do to decompress when you’re
not on the road and you’re not sleeping?
WW: Man, I’m a homebody. I can relax just
lifting weights and running. That’s when I can
think and think about the future. I try to run four
miles per day and then I do a lot of heavy weight
lifting. I like going to a football game, hanging
out with the guys, going out to get something to
eat, sitting back and watching a movie.
JI: What have you discovered in your travels?
WW: Japan is honestly one of my favorite
places. I just love it over there. It’s kind of like a
bigger New York. It’s amazing just to go around
and check out other people’s cultures and see
how they live, try out different foods, talk to
certain people, see what life is like for them.
JI: What have you learned about business from
your experiences in the music business?
WW: One thing I’ve definitely learned is that
Warren Wolfe
it’s not all about just music. It’s not all about
what you sound like and what you can bring to
the stage musically. There’s so much behind it. I
can name plenty of conversations that I’ve had
with my manager where we’re talking about
clothes. You’ve got to get your image
right. You’ve got to learn how to talk to the people, engage your audience and things like
that. With an agent, you have to make sure you
get the percentages right depending on what they
want to take. You have to stay on the phone with
your manager, make sure this is set up right for
your ride, or make sure everything is set up
when you go on tour, your hotel, the money,
rental cars, food, buyouts. There are just a whole
bunch of things. It can be a headache at
times. You have to trust whoever you’re working
with because there are a lot of snakes out
here. People will get a manager and an agent and
they’ll say, “Ah, I’m good now. I can sit back
now.” I’m like, don’t do that.
JI: How do you maintain your humility in the
face of the high visibility?
WW: You mean how do I stay humble, basically?
JI: Yes.
about that you’d like to discuss?
WW: For me, it’s just a matter of just being
humble. I’m no Hollywood star. I don’t need the
whole special treatment and things like that. Just
because I’m on a big stage and I’m playing music, I’m still no better than the next person. I
might be better musically than somebody else.
But, I just try to treat people nicely and just go
on about my business. I try not to gossip, even
WW: The only thing that’s coming up, something that’s major is I’ve joined the SF Jazz Collective. I start touring with them in October. So
that’s going to be a lot of fun. There have only
been three vibists in there — Bobby Hutcherson,
Stefon Harris, and now myself. This will be the
group’s ten year anniversary so we won’t be
composing anything this year. We’ll be playing
“What I tried to do with my first record was
what any jazz artist should do on their first
record — basically, come out and play. Don’t
try to get too fancy by showing all of your
original compositions and things like that. I
wanted to show that I can play and here I am.”
though I do sometimes [Laughter]. I’m very
guilty of that one. But I’m just a cool dude. I
stay very humble. You don’t want to be big
headed and say, “I’m the baddest cat out here
and I can do this and I can do that.” That will get
you nowhere.
music from the past ten years. Besides that, there
isn’t much else to say besides playing with SF
Jazz, Chris McBride, Aaron Diehl and just trying
to get my band out even more.

JI: Are there things that I haven’t prompted you
Scott Healy
Hearing early Louis Armstrong, and listening
critically to what these young guys were doing in
the 20’s, in their 20’s was mind-blowing. Discovering New Orleans polyphonic music got me
into that tradition, but also gave me an appreciation for everything from blues and boogie, to the
Chicago and Kansas City groove, to the roots of
rock n roll, to the polyphonic sound of Ornette
and the “New Thing”. And then I “rediscovered”
Duke Ellington. He was so multi-faceted, and his
long and productive career gave us such a variety of music that it’s a study unto itself, and
exists in parallel to the swing-bop-post bop continuum which we all know. That lead me into
learning music not just from Ellington and Strayhorn, but also lead me back to mainstream swing
music, then to Sun Ra and progressive and free
players who suddenly jumped off into the stratosphere. All these great players informed my
playing and my writing, and it’s only because I
had to teach, relearn, and in some cases learn for
the first time, great jazz from all eras.
JI: What kinds of advice, suggestions, words of
wisdom have you received from a teacher or
mentor that has influenced your artistry and or
life perspectives?
SH: Playing on TV and with rock stars taught
me the importance of playing “a show”, communicating directly with an audience with no preTo Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880
tense, and without expectations. I’ve found that
good teachers and mentors don’t really teach you
anything, but they guide you in the right direction. Ray Wright would never tell me what to do,
just see what I’ve done and tell me other options
I had, what opportunities I may have missed. He
did give me the most important piece of advise
I’ve ever gotten, which it that a writer must respect his players. They’re the ones who make
your music happen. They’re the ones you should
be writing for. That’s a lesson I learned from
Ray, and from Ellington, and one I think of
every time I pick up a pencil. Also, if someone
tells you that you’re rushing, go home and practice! As a player, the best piece of advice I’ve
ever gotten is to do your homework. Show up
knowing the music so well that you could teach
a class on this guy’s tune. So, with the proper
amount of humility, preparedness, good attitude
and ability you’ll do well. Plus, in order to be in
the right place at the right time, you have to be
somewhere, so don’t say “no” to anything. You
never know what wedding will lead to a 20-year
gig on TV.
JI: Could you discuss the jazz artists and or
recordings that most influenced your interest in
this wide-ranging improvised music?
SH: Recently it’s been course Duke Ellington,
Sun Ra, George Russell, Gil Evans, Bob Brookmeyer—before it was the great free jazz that was
happening in NYC in the 1980’s, and when I
was starting out it was the usual, Chick, Monk,
Trane, Miles, and all the pianists, but probably
mostly Herbie Hancock. He built so many
bridges between styles and eras of music, including electronic jazz, and gave us what seem like
half of our modern jazz harmonies. I think that
Bill Evans’ musical vision is tremendously underrated, the progressive ideas like modal playing come directly from Bill. Billy Strayhorn?
Recently a huge influence. But I listen to everything, not just jazz, and I know that other players
and writers I know also have many influences,
so many in fact that’s it hard even to list them
all.
JI: Is there anything you’d like to promote or
discuss that I haven’t prompted
you about?
SH: I’d love to promote my record, “Hudson
City Suite” by the Scott Healy Ensemble. It’s
nine original works for 11-piece ensemble,
woven together thematically into a 56-minute
suite. I was thinking a lot about Ellington when I
wrote this music, but it’s not in a classic jazz
style. I was definitely thinking about Ellington’s
process, and the way he wrote “about something”. This is something I’d never done in my
writing, and working on this piece over time
opened my head up, I think it changed my perspective about the composing process. I formed
a record label to distribute and market this and
some
of
my
other
releases—
HudsonCityRecords.com. However, I’m trying
not to become too consumed with marketing,
social networking and the record business, so I
can spend more time writing, practicing, and
gigging.

33
Interview
Eric Revis
Interview by Jerry Gordon
Photos by Emra Islek
Hear Eric Revis
with Tarbaby - Tuesday September 3,
with Orrin Evans - Friday-Sunday, September 6-9
Shows at 7:30 PM and 9:30 PM
www.JazzStandard.com
JI: Eric, it’s a pleasure to speak with you. Before we get started, I must establish right off the
bat that I think your latest album, City Of Asylum, is one of the best albums of the year!
ER: Thank you very much.
JI: Orrin Evans and The Likemind Collective–of
which you are a member–is appearing at the Jazz
Standard from September 3rd through September 8th in different configurations. Could you
tell me us, what is the Likemind Collective?
ER: The Likemind Collective is basically a
group of musical friends, compatriots, people
with similar visions who decided to establish a
collective in order to move forward as a group. It
provides us certain opportunities as we are all
working together.
JI: Who are the members of The Likemind Collective?
ER: Right now it’s myself, Orrin, Nasheet Waits
and JD Walter. There will be others, because it’s
a group of us that work together that have this
“like-minded” thing, a blatant reference to the
name of the Collective, but it really is appropriate.
JI: Tarbaby is one of the parts of The Likemind
Collective. Could you tell me about Tarbaby and
its history?
ER: Tarbaby is Orrin, Nasheet, and myself.
We’ve been playing together for almost twenty
years now in different configurations. Nasheet
and I started playing together in the early nineties. Orrin and I started playing together in the
mid-nineties. Orrin and Nasheet have been playing together for a while. And we did a record–a
trio record–for Orrin, Blessed Ones. That was
our first foray into working together as a trio.
We did some work after that, and we continued
to share this camaraderie on and off the bandstand. And we finally decided: “Hey man, we
really need to do something with this group,”
and that’s how Tarbaby came about. Tarbaby is
really a pleasure. To have history with people,
it’s really a very good situation.
34
JI: The new Tarbaby CD, Ballad of Sam Langford, released in the last couple of months, is
tremendous. How many CDs has Tarbaby recorded?
ER: This is our third release, and we have one in
the can that will come out. We may delay the
release a little bit as we did another recording in
tribute to Franz Fanon that will come out on
another label. That’s also in the can, but the
Ballad of Sam Langford is our third release.
JI: Both Oliver Lake and Ambrose Akinmusire
are on the Tarbaby CD. How did that come
about?
ER: Actually, Nasheet was really instrumental
in getting Oliver into the fold. For our second
record, The End of Fear, he had suggested
Oliver, and he goes back with Oliver a ways. His
father played with Oliver. They recorded to-
gether several times. And all of us were admirers
of Oliver, and Nasheet said: “Hey, why don’t we
try to get him for this?” At that point, we’d established that we were the core of Tarbaby.
Tarbaby was going to be the trio of us, and we
would get these special guests, and Oliver was
the first name to come up and he was gracious
enough to come onboard. And it’s been great. I
mean there’s definitely respect and an affinity
for him and what he represents.
JI: Both he and Ambrose just fit right in as if
you guys have been playing together forever.
ER: Yeah. We had an opportunity to go to
Spain, and we had decided to do some quintet
stuff, and so we contacted Ambrose and it really
fell right into place. When we got to Spain we
did one rehearsal, and it was like: “This is very
cool.” So, after that tour, we made plans to re-
cally and professionally, this seems like a good
move for all of us.
cord and from that came the record.
JI: Where did you meet Orrin?
ER: I met Orrin in New York. I got to New
York in the early nineties. Orrin came around, I
guess, around the mid-nineties. And you know,
young jazz musicians start running into each
other. You start playing together here and there.
But we didn’t really start playing together consistently until maybe the latter part of the nineties. The three of us — Nasheet, Orrin, and myself–did a tour with the Japanese trumpeter Tomonao Hara, and that kind of solidified us as a
unit.
JI: Also, a part of The Likemind Collective is
JD Walter, a vocalist with seven albums on his
resume. How did he become a part of this?
ER: Well, JD has always been around and very
supportive, and he was kind of recognized as
being in the fold. His relationship with Orrin
goes back to Philadelphia days, before JD moved
to New York. I knew JD for years, but had never
had the opportunity to work with him until we
did his new record, One Step Away and I was
brought aboard and asked to co-produce.
JI: What goals does The Collective have artistically and financially, if that is an appropriate
question?
ER: Artistically, it provides the framework to
continue to work together and enjoy the affinity
that we have for each other’s artistry. With that
comes opportunities like the six days at the Jazz
Standard. There are some non-profit things that
we’re exploring, and we just continue to work on
the projects that we’ve been doing. Financially,
moving in numbers is always a good thing, so
we can present things as a collective and, hopefully, it will pan out and enable us to do festivals
as The Collective, which will feature different
acts, and things like this. It is an acknowledgment of moving in numbers and moving in tandem with people that are on the same page as
you, which is often not the case. And so, artisti-
JI: You also played a role in Orrin’s latest CD,
…It Was Beauty along with three other bassists:
Ben Wolfe, Luques Curtis, and Alex Claffy.
ER: Yes, that was released in late May on CrissCross.
JI: So, how is the six day run at the Jazz Standard going to work? It’s starting off on Sept. 3
with Tarbaby with Oliver Lake. Then JD Walter
on September 4th with Orrin, Nasheet, Luques
Curtis, and guitarist Marvin Sewell. Where are
you?
ER: I’m not really sure. I know that Karriem is a
veritable Renaissance man in terms of music.
He’s got his irons in the fire of the hip-hop
world. He does a lot of producing there. He’s
also started doing gigs on his own. He’s also the
drummer for Diana Krall and I’m not sure how
often she gets to New York.
JI: On September sixth, you will be celebrating
the release of …It Was Beauty as well as City Of
Asylum which was by the Eric Revis Trio and
released on Clean Feed Records. Tell us about
that CD. Who joins you on City Of Asylum?
ER: It’s Kris Davis on piano and the inimitable
Andrew Cyrille on drums. I had been playing,
albeit briefly, in Bill McHenry’s band with An-
“It’s the whole Br’er Rabbit thing …
Tarbaby was somewhat of a pariah.
The way that we approach music is
sometimes discounted or frowned upon.
Not embraced. The emphasis in music
today often tends to be on retro things ....
We perform music that is very heartfelt.”
ER: Unfortunately, because of a scheduling
conflict, I won’t be playing with JD or Orrin on
the 4th and 5th, I’m going to be presenting this
new group I have at Smalls for a couple nights,
and then I will join for Orrin’s trio and then the
quintet stuff.
JI: So September 5th & 6th will be the Orrin
Evans Trio with Karriem Riggins on drums. The
advertising says this is his first New York City
jazz appearance in over two years. Why is that?
Do you have any idea?
drew, and having been a huge fan of his for a
number of years, that was just a great thing. And
over the past few years, I’ve been checking out
Kris’s music, and in my mind I could hear the
musical interaction that could happen between
the three of us and I called both of them up. Andrew was amenable, and Kris was very much
into it. We got into the studio and started playing, and my wildest dreams were met and then
some. It was one of the most musically empathetic situations I ever encountered. It was just
instantaneous. We started and it was like this
Tarbaby
Nasheet Waits, Orrin Evans, Eric Revis
35
pressive. I mean it was a show! It was Oliver and
Sonya Sanchez and the Flying Wallendas
amongst all these writers from all over the
world. It was just a beautiful experience. And I
love the name.
Eric Revis
door opened up and everything was possible. It
was welcomed on all sides; it was really, really a
beautiful experience. And so we did Winter Fest
this past January, and the same thing. And then
we did a gig recently at the Vision Festival a
couple months ago. Same thing. It’s really amazing to find, not only individuals that you can
have this kind of dialogue with, but that the collective dialogue is a platform to truly express
yourself. And to want to support these people
expressing themselves, and it is all being done
extemporaneously and in the moment. It’s really,
really nice.
JI: Back to this quintet that will be performing
on the 7th and 8th: Orrin Evans, Greg Osby,
Ralph Alessi, Donald Edwards, Eric Revis. Will
that be all compositions from Orrin’s latest album?
ER: I have no idea, but with that lineup, man,
you can’t go wrong.
JI: The whole group is going to have to be part
of the collective after that.
JI: Why did you guys come up with the name
Tarbaby?
ER: It’s the whole Br’er Rabbit thing. Nobody
wanted to hug the Tarbaby. Tarbaby was somewhat of a pariah. The way that we approach
music is sometimes discounted or frowned upon.
Not embraced. The emphasis in music today
often tends to be on retro things. Some music is
just down to math, or so ephemeral that it’s gotten away from the essence of the music. We
perform music that is very heartfelt. Nobody
wants to hug the Tarbaby. We’re not the
Tarbaby, jazz is the Tarbaby! I think that the
elements that we hold true to jazz, we embody.
And nobody wants to embrace that, or it seems
that very few do.
ER: It is. Yeah. I just want to listen.
JI: I like the name. Look out, it’s Tarbaby! Why
JI: The compositions on the CD are very different. How long did you work on those compositions, and were there many rehearsals?
ER: To tell you the truth, there are only three
formal compositions on the record. There’s my
tune “Question”. There’s the Monk tune
“Gallop’s Gallop”, and then the Keith Jarrett
tune “Prayer”. The rest of them were like: ‘Let’s
roll,” and that’s what you got.
JI: This is your fourth album under your leadership, correct?
“As much as I loved New Orleans, I wanted to
grow, so I packed up in my car and drove to
New York in hopes of getting into Betty’s
program. And serendipitously, she needed a
bass player and I guess she liked what she
heard and I joined the band.”
ER: Yes.
JI: Is it difficult to balance your own career
while being a part of a collective?
is the new CD called Ballad of Sam Langford?
Who is Sam Langford?
ER: I had put together the Eleven Eleven band
with Jason Moran, Nasheet, and Ken Vandermark and we had done a few gigs in New York
when we were contacted by the Lubiana Festival
in Slovenia to play there. That’s where I met
Pedro Costa, who’s the owner of the label and he
was very excited about the band. He released our
CD Parallax.
ER: Yes, it is. I mean not only the collective, but
also I’ve been playing with Branford Marsalis
for sixteen years, and I’ve recently been doing
some stuff with guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel. And
so, the whole goal is to get everything in, and
I’ve been lucky enough to play with people that I
really like. So, the goal is to not forsake any of
that, but to put more emphasis on the path that
I’m establishing, so that’s what I want to do.
Then again, I just bought a house, so it’s like the
phone rings, it pays, I’m there, you know? But
there will come a point in time where the juggling will have to stop.
ER: I’ve got this fascination with the history of
boxing I love boxing. Just like with music, I like
to go back further and further and read about
guys like Joe Gans and of course Jack Johnson.
And Sam Langford came up. Sam Langford was
known as “the Boston Tarbaby”. I was like:
“Wow!” 156 pounds. Fought as a heavyweight.
Was an incredibly dangerous man, but his nickname was the Boston Tarbaby.
JI: He has good taste, I’ll tell you that.
JI: Tell us more about the collective.
ER: He’s got a vision. It’s really refreshing to
have someone out here who’s all about the music.
ER: Like I said before, it’s more of an acknowledgement of our camaraderie and enables us to
better promote ourselves and explore avenues
and opportunities that might otherwise not be
available. Quite frankly, the name Tarbaby has
presented some issues for us, as the reason that
we came up with that name has been totally
misconstrued. It comes off to some as being
really controversial or racially motivated, and it
wasn’t that at all. And so, really having a collective that has breadth and has all of these different
acts, separate yet conjoined. My stuff is totally
different from JD’s stuff. It’s totally different
from Orrin’s stuff. But us moving collectively,
it’s something we’re exploring, and we think it
will be advantageous.
ER: I was always very much into music, some
of my first memories were going around the
corner to the record store with my mother. And
she would buy her stuff and then she would let
me buy, so I was buying the Jackson Five. You
know, 45’s.
JI: Are they are all on Clean Feed Records?
ER: No, the last two are on Clean Feed. The first
two, I put out myself.
JI: How did label Clean Feed, located in Lisbon,
Portugal get this project?
JI: Why is the new CD called City of Asylum?
ER: City of Asylum is a non-profit organization
that I learned about through Oliver Lake. Oliver
has had a relationship with City of Asylum Pittsburgh, which is an organization that provides
sanctuary to writers from all over the world that
are persecuted because of their writings. They
have bought a block of property in Pittsburgh,
bought houses, renovated them, and these writers
can come and just write and just be. I went there
to play for their fundraiser concert which they
have every year, and it was tremendously im36
JI: You were born in LA in 1967. Who influenced you? What caused you to become a bassist?
“The higher we soar,
the smaller we appear
to those who cannot fly.”
- Friedrich
Nietzsche on page 37)
(Continued
“Our greatest
happiness does not depend
on the condition of life in which
chance has placed us, but is always
the result of a good conscience, good
health, occupation, and freedom
in all just pursuits.”
- Thomas Jefferson
JI: What was she buying?
ER: Comparable stuff, but you know, older.
Aretha Franklin. Smoky Robinson. Marvin
Gaye. At some point, one of my uncles was dating this woman that worked at a record store,
and so got a pile of records that my parents didn’t listen to. Wes Montgomery records. Just all
this stuff. And I was fascinated. I got a record
player when I was like six, and that was kind of
like a little refuge for me. I would just go in and
just check out all these records — and became
interested. At first, I thought I wanted to play
guitar, and took lessons. For some reason, the
low part of the guitar — the bottom four notes
— really resonated with me. All the rest of the
stuff was just: “Eh.” And the guitar teacher suggested to my parents, “You know, you may want
to see about getting a bass for him, because it
really seems to be his thing.” My parents were
supportive, it grew from there.
JI: Who was your next important teacher, and
what moved you on to what would become a
great jazz career?
ER: I ended up moving to live with my grandparents in San Antonio, Texas, and I graduated
from high school there, and also played tuba and
baritone horn and the trombone there. After high
school graduation, I went off to Southern University. But after a while. I went back to San
Antonio, and just started just gigging on the
electric bass. I got a gig at the Holiday Inn on the
River Walk in San Antonio and there was a musician there — a guitar player — who had spent
a lot of time in Japan. He was a record collector
and he started bringing me records and lending
me all kinds of things. It’d be like Last Exit, The
Prestige Miles. Some Henry Threadgill and then
he just kept, you know, “Take these home. Record them. Take them home.” And the music
started really sticking.
JI: Here, kid, go listen to this Sonny Sharrock
record.
ER: Definitely. And so, I was playing in that
band, twenty years old, and I’m playing in rock
bands, and hardcore bands and fusion bands. But
Sonny Sharrock, I was like: “Wow, this is bad!”
I loved it. And then, the music of the Miles
bands really kicked in for me. The thunderbolt
hit, and I made the switch to double bass and
really made a concerted effort to study. But in
San Antonio, there were no bass players who did
what I wanted to do, so it was about getting
whatever video I could get, whatever pictures of
Paul Chambers or Wilber Ware I could get to see
how they set up their action, how they did this
and how they did that. Then Delfeayo Marsalis
had come through town with his band, I met
him, and it was like: “Yo, man, my father has
this program at the University of New Orleans.”
I told him that I was really interested in studying
more. He said, “You know, you should try. You
should apply and go down there,” and I went. I
was in New Orleans a couple years and really,
really learned a lot. There was a bunch of musicians down there at that point, and a lot of young
musicians. You know, Nicholas Payton, Mark
Turner, Brian Blade — all these guys were down
there. Peter Martin. So, I played with them,
every day, coffee houses, morning to night.
When my money ran out for school, Peter Martin, who had previously played with Betty
Carter, had told me about this program that she
had started — The Jazz Ahead Program — and
said, “Man, you should try to get into that.” So I
sent her a tape. As much as I loved New Orleans,
I wanted to grow, so I packed up in my car and
drove to New York in hopes of getting into
Betty’s program. And serendipitously, she
needed a bass player and I guess she liked what
she heard and I joined the band.
JI: Who else was in the band at that time?
ER: It was Jacky Terrason, piano and Will Terrell, drummer. And when Jackie left, Xavier
Davis.
JI: How many years were you in her band?
ER: It was like the latter part of ‘92 through ‘95
— something like that. So, two and a half years.
old Iridium at the Empire Hotel. The advantage
of that gig was, one, you got Frank Foster and,
two, they had a big pot of food backstage. I don’t
know what it was, man, but those were the selling points of the gig. Branford had come down
to that gig a couple of times, and Russell had
referred me to him and he called me up to play.
He was doing the Buckshot LeFonque project
and hired me. After that, he decided to re-form
the quartet and he asked me to join along with
Kenny Kirkland and Tain.
JI: And you have continued to record with and
tour with Branford ever since?
ER: Yeah, it’s family.
JI: Branford, by the way, remarked that your
bass work “is the sound of doom. Big. Thick.
Percussive.” How did you feel about that quote?
Whenever I see a picture of you, you’re smiling.
I don’t see the doom.
ER: Yeah, there’s quite a bit of doom, I’ve been
told! I’m very much like the quote. I think it’s
somewhat accurate. (Laughs)
JI: Do you keep the doom hidden in a certain
part of your brain or what?
ER: No, I don’t. I always had a proclivity for
more percussive things, I have more of an attack
on the instrument. I remember a comment by
Betty Carter where she said, “Every note that
you play, you play like your life depends on it.”
And I responded: “You know why? Because it
does.” Betty was known to be really hard on her
musicians, and she was, but every day I thank
her for different things I learned from her.
JI: Okay. What recording projects are you working on now?
JI: Where did you go after Betty?
ER: You know, living in New York, delving
into the whole scene, Smalls has just started up,
and was playing there all the time. I played with
Billy Harper, Lionel Hampton. Did some gigs
with Louis Hayes. Just working, you know? The
first band that I joined after Betty I think was
Billy Harper’s band. I got some of that Capra
Black! And that was a great band, because it had
Newman Baker in it and Eddie Henderson. It
was great. I played in George Cables’ group with
Gary Bartz. I played in Winard Harper’s band. I
was doing a lot of things with people that were
starting to get acknowledged, the new guys coming up. Russell Gunn, Sherman Irby. Through
Russell Gun’s record, I met Branford.
JI: Oh, I figured you met him through Ellis Marsalis.
ER: The new record is a chordless quarte, and it
will be with Bill McHenry, Darius Jones, Chad
Taylor, and myself. No piano. No guitar. It’s just
two horns, bass, and drums.
JI: And what is the name of that band?
ER: It doesn’t really have a name. Maybe the
Eric Revis Quartet, or just the Quartet. I don’t
know, I haven’t even thought about it. The working title for the record is In Memory of Things
Yet Seen.
JI: Anything else you’d like to say?
ER: No, just encourage everyone to come out
and see “the Collective”, September 3-8 at the
Jazz Standard.
JI: Thank you, Eric.
ER: Oh no, never knew him. I had met Wynton
down there once, but I didn’t know Branford.

JI: So, what year did you meet Branford?
ER: I met Branford in ‘96. Branford’s ex-wife
had a big band, the Tess Marsalis big band, conducted by Frank Foster. So, that was one of
those gigs where she had a weekly thing at the
Visit
www.JazzNewswire.com
37
Interview
RA: Well, they’re great
musicians, they’re great
improvisers, they have
amazing ears, they’re very,
very creative, they’re very
musical, and this band has
played together since 2002,
although infrequently. But
the first time we played it
felt like we had been playing for years and it has
always been that way. They process music very
quickly without rehearsal and make it their own,
right on the spot.
Ralph Alessi
Hear Ralph Alessi
Tuesday-Wednesday, September 24-25
Shows at 7:30 PM and 9:30 PM
www.JazzStandard.com | www.RalphAlessi.com
JI: You will be performing at the Jazz Standard
for two shows nightly on September 24 and 25,
celebrating the release of Baida, your first album
for ECM Records. Congratulations on the signing, and for this recording, which in my opinion,
is one of the greatest albums of the year. How
did the relationship with ECM Records come
about?
RA: Well, someone at ECM saw me at the Jazz
Standard in 2010 and really loved the gig. They
mentioned it to Manfred (Manfred Eicher, founder of ECM Records). And out of the blue, I got
an email about a year ago saying Manfred wants
to record the band.
JI: How is it that this band came together in
2002? Was it for an album or for a performance?
RA: It was for an album, it was for a record of
mine called This Against That
JI: So this was your dream team at the time?
RA: Well, the bulk of the record was with
Nasheet, Drew, and David Gilmore and Don
Byron, and then I decided that I wanted to record
a few tracks of the record, just as a quartet with
Jason and Nasheet and Drew. Yes, I definitely
wanted to record with those particular guys, it
was an opportunity to do that.
RA: Well, that record was my fourth for CAM
JAZZ, my second as a leader. I first met Ermanno Basso, who I guess is the A&R guy at
CAM JAZZ, through Scott Colley. I made two
JI: His performance on this CD is really brilliant.
“when you get that combination of people that
can read but also have amazing ears and a
fearlessness in their approach and creativity,
then you have the best of both words.”
RA: Happily, yes.
JI: The band sounds so tight, it sounds like they
had been preparing for this album for years, but
each musician is so popular on their own and so
busy, I know that couldn’t be the case.
38
RA: Well, I think that part of it is nowadays
people are better at reading music, which doesn’t
tell the story, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re
going to be a great improviser, but I think when
you get that combination of people that can read
but also have amazing ears and a fearlessness in
their approach and creativity, then you have the
best of both words. You have people that can
deal with some music that isn’t in their ears, that
they’re reading, but they quickly get it into their
ears. So I think people, more so now than back
in the day, have the tools to be able to do that.
And in a lot of ways it’s out of necessity, people
just have less time. Things move faster and not
just in New York, I think that’s pretty common.
JI: Where did you meet Drew?
RA: I met Drew while playing with Uri Caine. I
had briefly met him before, but that was the first
time I played with him and that was around
2000.
JI: What about Nasheet?
JI: You recorded another terrific album for an
Italian label recently, a fine duo album with Fred
Hersch, Only Many. What’s your overseas connection?
JI: Will the band who appears on the new ECM
CD—Jason Moran, Drew Gress, and Nasheet
Waits — be the same band that appears at the
Jazz Standard with you?
JI: Why is that?
JI: How did you know Jason?
RA: Jason I met by playing with Steve Coleman,
so I met him on a Steve Coleman record date.
We saw each other in passing a few times and
played with Steve live a couple times and for
obvious reasons, I just loved the way he played.
His sensibilities were very similar to mine.
records with Scott’s bands for that label, and that
was the introduction. The quartet on Baida recorded a CD for CAM called Cognitive Distance, that was in 2010.
little, if any, rehearsing. That just has become
part of the way things are done nowadays, with
some exceptions. I guess it’s just a faster pace
these days in this culture.
RA: It’s pretty beautiful playing by Jason, absolutely.
JI: It’s hard to believe that he did not prepare for
days for this date with some of the things that he
did on Baida.
RA: The band’s preparation for this record was
one gig in June at the Jazz Gallery and we rehearsed right before that gig, which ended up
being a bit of a rehearsal for the record. We rehearsed one month before the record. We did the
record in October. Yeah, it’s pretty astounding
what Jason and everybody did. It’s an amazing
community of musicians in New York and
nowadays, musicians that are able to play the
hell out of the music very quickly with very
RA: Nasheet, I met him around the same time,
maybe the year before, playing with Fred
Hersch.
JI: I think this band features some of the greatest
musicians in jazz today, it’s an all-star band.
RA: Well, as we keep losing these great musicians, like Cedar Walton passed away and it
seems like almost every day we’re losing somebody and I guess that’s the next generation to be
at the forefront and continue this wonderful tradition of making music in this way. So I agree,
these are the guys now. They’re part of this great
community of musicians that live in New York.
JI: The New York Times said the tone of your
trumpet has a “rounded luminescence like the
moon in full phase.”
RA: I think that’s Nate Chinen.
JI: That’s a brilliant quote because it’s true. That
really does describe your sound. It’s bright, it’s
full, it shimmers. How did you develop your
sound?
RA: Well, I guess it’s a—can you hold just a
second?
JI: Yes.
RA: My two-and-a-half year old is knocking at
the door, just a second. [Pause]
RA: Okay!
JI: Well, the baby sounded cute, at least it was-
different way and I just had so much fun that it
became very clear to me that there was no way
that I could not continue that, and so I really had
to move to New York.
Ralph Alessi
n’t a crying child, it was a happy child.
JI: What was it like having Charlie Haden as
one of your instructors?
RA: Well, the crying was happening about 15
minutes ago, so you missed that. Yeah. So
sound?
JI: Yes, how did you develop that sound? Your
sound is very unique.
RA: Well, for a long time my focus was as a
classical trumpet player, so I guess I have that
infrastructure to my sound but when I really
started committing to being an improviser, I
think that’s when I started to be a little more
active in how I wanted to shape the sound. What
I decided was to accept that part of me that had
this kind of classical past and not necessarily
suppress it, but then try to color it and make it
more expressive and just basically be, yeah, be
more active in how I was using that sound. You
know, it’s gone through some changes over the
years, but I would say in the last 10 years or so, I
think I’ve gotten a little more control over it, so
I’m able to make it do the things I want it to do
more so now than before.
JI: Did you perform with classical ensembles
before recording as a jazz artist?
RA: Sure, yeah, I was doing some of that. When
I was in college, that was the first part of my
college, which went through several different
changes because I went to different schools, but
the first part of it I was definitely a classical
trumpet major, so I was doing a fair amount of
playing in orchestras and brass groups and things
like that. When I moved to New York I was still
doing some of that here and there, but I don’t do
much of it now outside of the times when I play
with Uri Caine, who will play music from classical composers, from time to time..
JI: Why did you change your direction and
switch to jazz?
RA: Well, when I ended up at California Institute of the Arts, that’s when I started to have a
different type of experience improvising. It
really became something, I don’t know, almost
spiritual in a certain way, and I did much more
improvising than I had done before.
JI: Why did that happen? What created that
experience?
RA: Well, it was the students, the teachers, the
spirit of the school, because it’s an art school.
And I would have to say a big part of that was
playing in Charlie Haden’s ensemble and playing Ornette Coleman’s music and playing these
kind of freely-improvised things that I had never
experienced before. It was also the students
there, too, just playing with them and some of
those students were a little older than me, and
experienced in playing music in a more spontaneous way. So I just started making music in a
40
RA: We got to play with him all the time and it
was a pretty amazing experience just to be close
to that sound and see him every week and play
with him, literally play with him.
JI: Weren’t there classical majors who steered
clear of Charlie Haden because he was jazz?
RA: Well, Cal Arts is a different type of school.
When I first got to Cal Arts, I still considered
myself a classical player and by the time I left,
that’s when I knew that my focus was going to
be about improvising and playing creative music
and being more a part of the creative process,
composing and all those types of things so it
really became clear to me that I had to continue
doing that.
JI: When listening to you, I find I don’t hear
bebop or that your music came out of bebop and
I guess I now understand why.
RA: Well, actually my first exposure to jazz was
playing Clifford Brown transcriptions, so I actually might not sound like it, but I’m actually
pretty rooted in jazz. I grew up playing and listening to jazz standards and continue doing that.
JI: So that was a part of your youth then, playing jazz trumpet early?
RA: Yeah, yeah. Even when my focus was on
classical music, I listened to a lot of jazz and I
was kind of doing it in the wings and didn’t
really have the confidence to do it in a way
where I thought I should be doing it. So it took
me a while to feel like that was really what I
should be doing, took me a while to develop that
confidence.
JI: You’ve been so busy lately and so creative,
would you say that everything is coming together for you now as a jazz musician, even
though you’ve been one for a long time? Are
you busier now than ever?
RA: I’m pretty busy. It kind of goes in waves, in
some ways I was playing more as a sideman
years ago. I’m kind of glad that I’m not as busy,
but cumulatively, yeah, I’m probably as busy as
I’ve ever been when you just talk about being a
sideman, being a leader, being a teacher — I
teach at both NYU and this semester, I’ll be
starting at NEC — and then as I mentioned, I
have a little one running around and I’m also a
husband, so it’s a full plate. But in terms of
what’s going on with my career, yeah, I feel like
this is a nice moment and I’m trying to make the
most out of it. I feel very lucky to be making a
record on ECM and I hope to make more.
JI: How was Manfred Eicher’s presence in the
studio? How did his presence affect the re-
cording process?
RA: Well, I think he sensed that we had a really
nice flow with the music and he was pretty much
encouraging us to keep going forward and didn’t
really intervene other than to give support and
say whether or not he felt like we got a good
take on something. That was the first time I
worked with him before. So as soon as we
started to play, I think he knew that this was
going to be a quick session. So there really wasn’t that much for him to do until we got to the
mix and that’s when he really shaped the sound
of the record, like he always does. I really appreciated the way he was in the studio because
things moved forward quickly and smoothly and
that’s the way I like to do records. After working
with him and then what I’ve heard from friends
of mine who’ve worked with him, I think he
prefers when musicians are ready to play and
there isn’t a lot of wasting time and that’s the
way the session went.
JI: With your sound and your concept, this is the
perfect ECM record. Open, expansive, lots of
improvisation but a very solid record.
RA: Well, after being a part of an ECM record
years ago, not as a leader but as a sideman, I
always wanted to have an opportunity to do a
record for ECM as a leader. That record was
done in 1996. It took a while, but I was pretty
ecstatic to find out that I was going to make a
record for ECM!
JI: That’s great. How did you come up with the
name of the CD?
RA: The name, which is pronounced Bye-da, is
my daughter’s pronunciation for her blanket.
I’ve kept a little list, at the suggestion of my
wife, of her little mispronunciations, which are
so cool and cute and funny. So that was one that,
I don’t know, I just liked the sound of it and
that’s how the title came to be.
JI: Well, you’ve memorialized that word for the
rest of your daughter’s life.
RA: Those words and those things, you kind of
want them to keep going with those as long as
possible because then when they grow up, you’re
kind of saying goodbye to something. So yeah,
she still calls her blanket her “baida.”
JI: Another excellent track on your CD is titled
“Chuck Barris.” Why?
RA: Why not? I’m a product of the ‘70s and I
have such a special place in my heart for all
things associated with the ‘70s and even the
‘80s. But I don’t know, how many people can
you refer to that created the Dating Game, the
Gong Show, and was a hit man for the CIA? You
know, why not? [Laughs]
JI: I’ll tell you, when you hear his name, you
have to smile.
RA: That’s right. What an amazing life. If it was
up to me, I would probably title all my records
with references to the ‘70s, I love the ‘70s.
JI: Another composition you wrote was for your
mother, Maria Lydia.
RA: Yeah, I have been. I’m actually going to
meet with Manfred when he’s in town, so I think
we’re going to meet around that time and I definitely have an idea for a next record, going to
run it by him. I’d like to do something with a trio
of trumpet, piano, and drums.
Mike’s things, they kind of sound similar to that
because it’s some of the same players are going
to be playing.
JI: I know you are also appearing September 7th
and 8th at the Jazz Standard with the Orrin Evans Quintet. What a band that’s going to be: you,
Greg Osby, Orrin on piano, Eric Revis on bass,
Donald Edwards on drums. Have you known
those guys for a while?
RA: It’s Loren Stillman, Oscar Noriega, Chris
Speed, Brian Settles, Tim Berne, Dave Ballou,
myself, Shane Endsley, Jonathan Finlayson,
Alan Ferber, Jacob Garchik, Ben Gerstein, Jeff
Nelson, Patricia Franceschy—who was a student
of mine actually at NYU, she’s a vibraphonist
and she’s been playing with John Hollenbeck
and getting out there and playing more and
more—Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis, and Tomas
JI: Can you tell me some of the names of the
players in the Mike Formanek band?
RA: Yeah.
JI: A beautiful song.
RA: Thanks. Yes, Lydia was her middle name
and that tune had a working title of No. 13,
something like that, and she actually got to hear
the music before she passed away. She really
liked that track very much, so that’s why I
named it that.
JI: It’s beautiful. Who was your favorite trumpeter growing up?
RA: Well, like I said, Clifford Brown, and then
from there, you know, as a trumpet player, and
probably the same thing for anybody that plays
an instrument, you kind of go from one player to
another, so that’s what I started off with and then
it went from there.
JI: How about your favorite classical composer?
RA: Oh, well, I was going to say that’s easy, but
I would have to give you two, Stravinsky and
Morton Feldman.
JI: Your favorite trumpet player performing
Stravinsky?
RA: Well, I think I met Orrin in passing maybe
once. Eric Revis I met in passing, Greg Osby
“I’m a product of the ‘70s and I have
such a special place in my heart for
all things associated with the ‘70s and
even the ‘80s. But I don’t know, how
many people can you refer to that
created the Dating Game, the Gong
Show, and was a hit man for the CIA?”
RA: Well, I got to study with an amazing classical trumpet player named Armando Ghitalla.
That was my first year in college, I went to the
University of Michigan and by that time he was
retired from the Boston Symphony. There’s an
amazing version of The Soldier’s Tale with Armando Ghitalla playing trumpet and John Gielgud is narrating and he sounds amazing the way
he plays it and I think all classical trumpet players know that and he plays these parts so lightly
like a flute. It’s just really exceptional, he was an
amazing player.
I’ve played with a couple times, so I’m really
looking forward to that gig. You get a little older
and it’s really easy to just continue to play with
the same people and I have no problems with
that, but it’s a treat when you get to play with
new people, people you haven’t really played
with and great ones at that. I was really pleasantly surprised because it’s not that common to
get asked to do something when you’re not naturally in a circle of players. So basically that’s
going to be playing the first time with everybody.
JI: What about your favorite jazz album?
JI: That should make that performance that
much more special.
RA: Favorite jazz album? Oh, wow, that’s impossible. I loved Blue Train when I was young, I
still think it’s great.
JI: Are you a big fan of Lee Morgan?
RA: Well, yeah, I mean, he plays so great on
that record and then recently I got this Andrew
Hill record that both Lee Morgan and Woody
Shaw are on, I believe, and Lee Morgan plays
great on that. Sometimes you disconnect a little
bit with certain players and then you come back
and hear them in a different way. When I heard
him recently, I was hearing things I didn’t hear
before, I always thought he was a great player,
but there were definitely some additional layers
that I wasn’t hearing at first.
JI: Have you started thinking of your next CD
yet?
RA: Absolutely. In fact, that whole month is
going to be really nice between the Baida record
release and I’m also playing in a big band led by
Michael Formanek, which is really going to be
nice with an amazing band. I think possibly that
trio that I just mentioned, is maybe going to play
in Europe at the end of the month.
JI: What about some of your other activities?
RA: I do lead this organization called School for
Improvisational Music which is a non-profit I
established about 12 years ago. We’ve been
presenting workshops, mostly in New York, and
that involves amazing and great teachers. We’ve
done a couple of big band concerts the last couple years and it’s really cool doing big band
music with people who don’t play in big bands
that much. So we’ve done that project and then
Fujiwara. So it’s a great band, and playing big
band music at that, so I think it’ll be really interesting.
JI: Do you want to say anything more about
your organization? Here’s a chance to pitch it.
RA: The original idea was that we would eventually become a school and we haven’t done that
and we probably never will, but we have done
these workshops, we’ve probably done it about
30 times, mostly in New York and in other countries. What are we trying to do? I don’t know.
We’re not even necessarily trying to do anything, I think it’s just more the belief that if you
get interested musicians and you get the right
teachers who like to teach and you put them in a
room, it takes care of itself. So the people that
teach at these workshops have the ability to talk
about something that arguably you can’t really
talk about and are really good at that and in their
own way. It’s a workshop just to expand on the
idea of what improvisation is and what composition is and what music is. It’s rooted in jazz, but
it’s not just specific to jazz in terms of what
we’re doing. I guess overall it’s really an emphasis on spontaneous composition. The website is
SchoolforImprov.org.
JI: Great, Ralph. I’ll see you at the Jazz Standard. Thank you!

41
Interview
David Krakauer
(Photo, courtesy, artist)
JI: David, you are one of the most influential
practitioners of Klezmer music and Jewishinfused jazz in the world. How did this all begin?
was the Bechet records, it started from
there.
DK: Well, I grew up in NY in a musical family;
my late mother was a violinist and she said I
should play the clarinet and the flute because she
thought I was way too old to play the violin. And
I think she wanted me to have my own identity,
not just follow in her footsteps, which I think
was a wise decision. So I started to play the
clarinet in public school, at P.S. 6.
JI: What happened
next?
JI: Don’t you think that a lot of Jewish kids at
the time wound up playing the clarinet because
of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw?
DK: I’m not sure. I think a lot of Jewish kids
played the piano, played the violin. We didn’t
have too many trombone players! Anyway, in
my family there was a lot of interest in culture
and music but my parents certainly did not push
me towards Klezmer. I don’t even think they
knew what Klezmer was. I certainly didn’t. I had
no exposure to that at all. But when I was 11, I
got this recording by Sidney Bechet, this great
RCA Victor vintage LP that had a whole collection from 1932-1941, which was the golden age
of Bechet. And then the first notes I heard, the
first track, was “I Thought I Heard Buddy
Bolden Say” with Jelly Roll Morton singing, and
then Bechet’s soprano came ringing out. Of
course, I discovered on that recording that he
was also an amazing clarinet player. Many people don’t know that his clarinet-playing is absolutely unique and was a big influence on everybody that followed him. Of course he was in the
shadow of Louis Armstrong until he moved to
France, and in the last 10 years of his life he
became a multi-millionaire, a celebrity, and sold
many, many records. He finally got the recognition he had been craving.
JI: So when you were experiencing this musical
revelation having been turned on to Sidney Bechet, did you have anyone to share that knowledge with?
DK: I did have my teacher, Joel Press, who divides his time between Boston and NY, and ran
daily sessions out of his house in Newton to the
extent that the young jazz musicians of Boston
called his place “The Institute” because he was
inviting people to come in and jam every day.
He had this ridiculously huge record collection.
He would turn people on to stuff. A lot of young
jazz musicians today tell me, “Oh yeah, I was
listening to some old jazz, some Miles Davis.”
I’m like, “What? You don’t know jackshit.” Jazz
is so vast, there’s so much to know. For me, it
42
DK: I went to The
High School of Music
and Art which at that
time was located on
West 135th in a very
glamorous location.
They called it “The
Castle on the Hill”. I
met Anthony Coleman there and joined
his band while in high
school in 1970 or
1971. We were playing everything from Jelly
Roll Morton to Thelonious Monk. Monk was
still alive at that time. And we were inspired also
by the free jazz of Ornette Coleman. I went to
see Ornette and Don Cherry during that period at
the Prince Street loft. I was seeing Mingus, I was
seeing Duke Ellington live at the Rainbow Grill.
They used to play around Christmastime and
then there was one moment when the lights went
out and a tap dancer came out and Duke started
striding. I saw Jo Jones of the old Count Basie
Band perform the most amazing drum solo I ever
saw. it might have even been “Lester Leaps In”
or “I've Got Rhythm”. It was an up-tempo song
and then he did this incredible solo and when he
got to the top, to the climax, he hit the air so
there was this silence and he leered at the audience and then he was up at like 95 of level of
intensity. He hit the air and there was this second
of electricity and silence. Minds were blown,
and then he amped it up to 135. Just bam! You
know? I had never seen anything like this! These
are great memories of NY at that time. We were
all neighbors in NY but still, the city was sort of
separate and we weren't exactly rubbing elbows
but it was an incredible time. And at the High
School of Music and Art, we were every socioeconomic group, every race, every ethnicity,
everybody was there all together, so I was always traveling all over NYC to play with classmates and others. I played music from the South
Bronx to East NY.
JI: Who else was in your high school class
whose name we would recognize besides Anthony Coleman?
DK: There was Nat Adderley Jr. and Hilton
Ruiz. They were a little before me but the vibe
was still resonating. Ray Chew was one of our
classmates. Don Byron was a year younger than
me. In fact, years later Anthony Coleman put
together a project with me and Don Byron and
Marty Erlich as the crazy clarinet section and
Guy Klucevsek was playing accordion. There
were some other crazy people and that was cool.
JI: So you're running all over NY as a highschool kid playing jazz. Did you go to college?
DK: I went to Sarah Lawrence College and I
spent a year at the Paris Conservatory. During
this time, I sort of had a crisis of confidence
about jazz. I wasn’t sure that I could really create
a personal voice so I got scared. I stopped playing jazz pretty much although I would go and do
some experimental stuff with my good friend
Anthony. He created this punk band and we
played at CBGBs in the late 70s or early 80s. I
abandoned jazz, I abandoned improvising music,
except for these little forays here and there. I was
kind of quietly experimenting with weird sounds
and trying to get crazy sounds out of my instrument and playing with the overtone series the
way Coltrane plays with overtones. I finished up
Sarah Lawrence and got a Master’s at Juilliard.
And when I got out of school, I was working and
playing a lot of contemporary music. I had the
chance to meet interesting composers like John
Cage, Milton Babbitt. I was really into classical
music. I was in a woodwind quintet that won the
Naumburg Chamber Music Award. I went to the
Marlboro Music Festival for a couple of summers and did the Marlboro tours. I was doing all
sorts of things. I won an award called the Concert Artist Guild Award as a soloist. Basically, I
was making a career primarily as a chamber
musician in classical music during the eighties.
And it wasn’t until my early 30s when I realized,
“Wow, I threw the baby out with the bathwater!”
I wanted to make improvisation more a part of
my life again, I wanted to get back to that.
JI: Why did this happen? Here you were a successful classical musician and you realized you
wanted to start improvising like you had back in
high school?
DK: During the mid-80s I felt this pull. I started
to go to these concerts that the Ethnic Folk Arts
Center was putting on, including a lot of music
featuring the clarinet. I saw the Halkias Family
from Greece, Ivo Papasov from Bulgaria. I knew
Bechet and other great jazz clarinetists but suddenly I’m now listening to the way people
played in the Balkans and Bulgaria, in Greece, in
Albania. This started to open up my mind and I
was fascinated with music from Eastern Europe
and then it dawned on me, “Wow, this is really
the music of my heritage, too, the music of my
roots.” I began to think of my grandmother and
think about where she came from, a little town in
Belarus and her thick Yiddish speech. I started to
listen to Klezmer music. It sounded just like
Yiddish, a musical version of Yiddish!
JI: I knew your Bubby was going to come into
this story somewhere.
DK: Well, that was the spark, that was the connection, that was the thread. Then, through
chance meetings I met some people who were
actively performing Klezmer music. In fact, I
was living on 80th and Broadway at the time and
there was a little Klezmer band that played in
front of Zabars, so it was right outside my window. And I would hear this music wafting up
and I was like, “Wow, that’s Klezmer music.
Nice!”
JI: You had to hear Jewish music as a child to
hook into it the way you did.
DK: To be honest, I didn’t. My very first exposure to Jewish music was the linguistic inflection
of my grandmother. Just something about how
people spoke and how people would shrug their
shoulders. It was a pure body language thing and
linguistic-–it was so profoundly around me in
some weird way. But then when I heard the music, it was a shock of recognition. It was very
weird. It’s like as if you’re African-American
and you grow up with parents who grew up in
the Black church and gospel and maybe they left
that community but still, even if you’re growing
up in Brooklyn, some other part as far away as
the Deep South is still there. It’s still imprinted
in the way people speak, in terms, a phrase. People say Yiddish-isms all the time in common
NY-speech. People say, “Be well–zie gezunt.”
Plus as a kid, I grew up listening to Lenny Bruce
records, who used a huge amount of Yiddish.
Maybe that contributed!
JI: You got a lot of your Jewish stuff from
Lenny Bruce, very nice!
DK: I think that was definitely coming in there. I
totally related to him, my God. He made me
laugh so hard as a kid!
JI: Who was that Klezmer band that was playing
outside your window that made you realize how
much you enjoyed that music?
DK: The band was called Klezmaydlakh because it was an all-women’s band, but then they
started bringing men into the band. That was
actually the band I ended up joining because I
ran into the accordion player on the 104 bus on
Broadway and she said, “We’re looking for a
clarinet player,” and she was thinking, “This guy
is an established professional, he’ll recommend a
student or a friend”. The words came out of my
mouth like I was hypnotized, and I said, “I’d like
to try.” I started playing with that band. Then
about 8 months later, word got around that there
was this guy who could really play the clarinet
and was playing Klezmer music, and the Klezmatics asked me to join. So I went to Europe
with the Klezmatics around 1988 or 1989. There
was a first Klezmer revival in the mid-70s with
people like Kapelye and the Klezmorim and
Brave Old World, Joel Rubin, Michael Alpert,
Henry Sapoznik. And then by the mid-80s, people were thinking this kind of music died out a
little bit and we were thinking we were just playing for fun; in that first band I was just trying to
figure things out, learn more about being Jewish
and connecting with my Judaism a little bit more
because I was really pretty much disconnected
from it. And when I joined the Klezmatics there
was this attitude we-were-just-doing-it-for-funbut-it’s-cool but then we started playing playing
at the old Knitting Factory on Houston St. We’re
playing super amplified, plugged in plus very
irreverent, almost punk-vibe Klezmer. We get to
Europe playing a festival in Berlin and there’s a
thousand young people screaming, yelling, dancing, partying–Europeans, non-Jewish, German
Europeans and they were partying and going
trane, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, James
Brown, Fred Wesley, and all the modern/
contemporary classical music I was doing, multiphonics and experimental sounds and put that
into a big soup that became my sound, my voice.
JI: Does the music and your performances eventually make you and others in this Klezmer renaissance more reverent or more aware of Judaism?
DK: Well, Yes. I think I was never religious and
I’m never going to be religious. I think that happens at a young age. But I certainly feel that
getting into this connected me with the Jewish
community, which is such a difficult thing to
talk about because it is so scattered and so diverse.
JI: Tell us about your residency from September
24th to September 29th at The Stone.
DK: John Zorn has booked many of his friends
and people in his circle to do residencies at the
Stone. I met John Zorn in 1992 with the Kristallnacht project. He asked me to come and play for
his piece Kristallnacht at the Art Project in Munich and we recorded it. This was the first time
the radical Jewish culture concept was unveiled.
Then Zorn, a couple years later said: “I am forming this new label called Tzadik and do you want
to make a record under your own name?” I said
“yes,” I hadn’t done that yet. This was 1994.
JI: How did he John Zorn hear about you?
“My very first exposure to Jewish music was
the linguistic inflection of my grandmother.
Just something about how people spoke and
how people would shrug their shoulders.
It was a pure body language thing and
linguistic-–it was so profoundly around me
in some weird way. But then when I heard
the music, it was a shock of recognition.”
crazy. We were starting to see a new chapter for
this music, and sure enough, the beginning of a
second Klezmer revival. Interestingly enough, it
came at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall
and the opening up of Eastern Europe. It was
with the Klezmatics that I started to develop my
own sound. The whole reason I left jazz was this
fear of not being able to have an identifiable
sound, a personal sound. And then somehow
through Klezmer, maybe because of my family
tie-in, it came at a moment for me in life where I
was ready for big changes in every way. I was
able to take all these influences of Bechet, Col-
DK: I don’t know! Perhaps he heard the Klezmatics in the late 80’s when we were playing at
the old Knitting Factory. The first Klezmatics
record I was on was Rhythm & Jews in 1990; he
may have known that record. I had heard Zorn in
the late 70’s, probably with Cobra thing, and
again with Anthony Coleman wandering around
New York City and we stopped in the Squat
Theater. There was this guy with a bunch of
musicians and they were doing all this freaky
stuff and there were like 10 people in the audience. Anthony Coleman prophetically said that
43
David Krakauer
this guy was going to be huge. But basically in
1992 he called me and said “I want you to do
this project”. And subsequently he invited me to
do the very first CD for his Radical Jewish Culture Series, my Klezmer Madness! CD. I did 2
CDs on Tzadik and then he wanted me to do a
couple of tracks on Bar Kohkba, and most recently I did songs from the Book of Angels. I
actually just contacted him and I said: “Hey, I
really want to do some of your pieces”, and he
said “That’s great”, and he sent me over 10 or 12
from the Book of Angels and I selected 8 that I
thought would work for my band. So we did
Pruflas–The Book of Angels CD for Tzadik.
JI: It’s a great CD. When I listen to that CD and
hear the music I think that these are age-old
melodies from Lithuania, yet they came out of
the brain of John Zorn. I understand that his
Book of Angels has 300 compositions. How
fleshed out are they when they are presented to
you?
DK: They are lead sheets with melodies and
chords and then I arranged those. I found my
own take on each of those songs and brought it
to my band, the amazing musicians I play with. I
gave them general guidelines and then they do
what they do. They brought great ideas to the
table too … That’s how I work, I work with
creative people: Jerome Harris on bass, Sheryl
Bailey on guitar, Michael Sarin on drums, and a
guy that goes by the nom de plum of Keepalive
on sampler.
JI: It is great to watch Jerome Harris sing in
Hebrew. It gives me hope for the world when I
see people who I respect as Jazz musicians doing
something different and being so enthusiastic
about it.
basically my band unplugged. There is no electric guitar, and there is no sampler. So it’s basically a mix of traditional compositions done in
my own way, plus my own pieces which give
my quirky take on Klezmer. The second night
will feature Ancestral Groove, which is the name
of my current band. This would be with sampler,
same musicians as I told you earlier, sampler,
bass, drums, and electric guitar. The evening is
called Krakauer Plays Zorn, featuring my arrangements of pieces specially selected by John
Zorn from the Book of Angels. Thursday night
again features Ancestral Groove, performing a
mixture of traditional tunes with a little bit of
Zorn repertoire, and then my own compositions.
Some of my compositions are sampler-based/
groove-based, hard-hitting pieces. A couple of
them are from my collaboration with the Montreal producer Socalled, but then there are others
that Keepalive and I have developed. Friday
night will be a duo with South African pianist
Kathleen Tagg. We’re going to do some classical
music and mix in some stuff with electronics
from composers who have written pieces for us.
Saturday evening will feature duo and trio improvisations with the former cellist of the
Kronos Quartet, Jeff Zeigler, and the wonderful
soprano Helga Davis. She’s been doing performances of Einstein On The Beach, and an opera
written for her by Paola Prestini, Oceanic
Verses. Also performing will be Todd Reynolds,
who is an incredible violinist and electronics
wizard. It is going to be a very interesting night.
Sunday night is Krakauer with strings, an all star
string section with Cornelius Dufallo, the former
violinist from Ethel, Abigale Reisman (violin)
Margaret Dyer (viola) and Jeff Zeigler once
again. The centerpiece for this performance will
be the great composition by Osvaldo Golijov, the
“Dream and Prayers of Isaac the Blind”, Which I
recorded with the Kronos Quartet back in 1996.
So, excluding Abraham Incorporated, it’s a
pretty comprehensive view, a large section of my
musical activities.
DK: Well, Jerome is really one of the great people out there. He is so open to everything. I have
sought out open musicians my whole career and
sometimes somebody gets recommended and
they come into the band and they are just
grumpy, have a bad attitude, locked in their own
thing, and they last one tour and they are done. I
can’t deal with it. There has to be a big openness
to play this music. I love working with open
musicians who are willing to try a lot of different
things.
JI: And yes, you had a big hit with Abraham
Incorporated, and a funk/Klezmer version of
Hava Nagila. In fact, it went to number 7 on the
Billboard charts, I believe. Are you going to be
doing more work with Fred Wesley?
JI: So, once John Zorn presented you with these
lead sheets, did he have any more input in the
music? Or was it like: “Here it is, take it away.”
JI: Now, that album came out on your own label
called…
DK: We have a tour in November in Europe.
Fred Wesley, of course, is just an amazing,
amazing person and the Abraham Incorporated
adventure continues to be a lovely, wonderful
thing to do.
cordings on Label Bleu in France. How did that
happen?
DK: Basically, the French writer Alex Dutille of
Jazzman Magazine started writing about me in
1998 after listening to the Tzadik records; he
was fascinated by the whole radical Jewish culture movement. He started writing about me. I
got invited to the jazz festival in Amiens at the
Maison de la Culture. I gave like 4 hours of interviews in French, played a show, and that night
I had an agent and I had an affiliation with the
wonderful Label Bleu. Michel Aurier is great–
the founder of the label. Then I had a special on
in 2000 on Arte–that was the French-German
television network, the arts channel and that was
huge for me. I would say France plays the biggest role in my career. I go about 6 times a year,
I speak fluent French and so it's all good.
JI: Tell us about your project I have read about,
The Big Picture.
DK: The Big Picture is basically recorded, we
just have a couple more tweaks. I got together a
great band with Greg Cole on bass, Jim Black on
Drums, Jenny Scheinman on violin, Adam
Rogers on guitar, and Rob Burger on keyboards,
so we got a killer band together. We took iconic
music from iconic films, boiled it down to a
small sextet so we brought the intimacy and
playfulness to the music. Then, if you go through
that repertoire, you realize: “Oh, all of this music
relates to Judaism”! Whether it’d be music from
“The Pianist”, “Sophie’s Choice”, Wilkommen
from “Cabaret”. Then there is music from
Woody Allen. I did a version of “Body and
Soul” from “Radio Days”, and then Kathleen
Tagg arranged Prokofiev’s “Love of Three Oranges” for a kind of “village band” sound, which
is from “Love and Death”. Then Sidney Bechet’s
“Si Tu Vois Ma Mère” from “Midnight in
Paris”, which, of course, opens and closes the
movie's amazing soundtrack. This is going to be
a whole show with visuals but the visuals are not
just going to be film clips, it's going to be a creative film that refers to the movies and gets the
vibe of the movies and underscores the emotional intensity of the music. It will open at the
Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Holocaust museum down at Battery Park in January-February.
DK: I actually should hit the road now. Take
good care.
JI: Thank you, David.


DK: Table Pounding Records.
DK: That’s what he did, “Here it is, take it
away.” But he is an encouraging force and very
helpful.
JI: What can we expect from your six days at
The Stone. You are using a different group every
night.
DK: On Sept. 24th, Tuesday night, we’ll be
doing the acoustic Klezmer quartet, which is
44
JI: How did you come up with that name for
your record label?
DK: Well, Table Pounding! I thought of the
Hasidim, singing nigunim and pounding the
table as they got drunker and drunker, you
know…
JI: You’ve also issued two tremendous re-
“When you choose
your friends, don’t be
short-changed by
choosing personality
over character.”
- W. Somerset Maugham
Interview
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Interview with Ben Jaffe, Musical Director, by Joe Patitucci
Hear Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Thursday September 19
Ridgefield Playhouse
80 East Ridge, Ridgefield, CT | 203-438-5795
www.RidgefieldPlayhouse.org | www.PreservationHall.com
JI: First, let’s talk about the new release by Preservation Hall Jazz Band, That’s It, which celebrates the band’s 50th Anniversary. Could you
discuss the development of this recording from
initial concept to completed work of art?
PHJB: Last year we celebrated our 50th Anniversary. I spent a better part of the last year ingrained in Preservation Hall’s history. It became
more and more clear to me that to remain true to
our musical tradition, we needed to contribute
back to it.
re-interpretation of the melody with added notes
or a different rhythm. New Orleans Jazz existed
before there were solos! Often times, New Orleans Bands will improvise as an ensemble all
together and all at once. It’s like being on a basketball team and knowing where you’re supposed to be and where all of your team mates are
supposed to be. Sometimes they are there, other
times, he may have been blocked and you need
to go to plan b.... nothing can ever take the place
of knowing the language of music
JI: Why do you believe that it is essential for
younger or emerging jazz musicians to learn this
music, rather than starting their understandings
with bebop, which emerged in the 1940s, or with
an even narrower window beginning with someone like with John Coltrane?
PHJB: That’s a loaded question!!! It sounds
more like a statement. I believe everyone should
learn everything from Jelly Roll Morton, King
Oliver, Bunk Johnson and before through everything today. Early New Orleans Jazz is often
over looked in the academic world. But not in
New Orleans!! It simply makes our job that
much more important. There would be no Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk,
Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Charles
Mingus and on and on, if it weren’t for New
Orleans Jazz. They knew it, but that was a long
time ago. And a lot of New Orleans Jazz history
never made it to the history books. It’s a complicated history and a lot of it is not documented or
recorded.
JI: What do you find are the things with which
audiences of Preservation Hall Jazz Band most
resonate?
PHJB: They can dance to our music. Kids love
to dance. Let them dance.
JI: What are the both the advantages that Preservation Hall Jazz Band has as a performing ensemble, and the challenges that it faces in this
dynamic and fast changing music business and
world of entertainment?
JI: What are some of the noteworthy concepts
that Preservation Hall Jazz Band embodies that
are unique compared to other bands and stylists
in this expansive genre known as jazz.
PHJB: The obvious is: we have tuba’s in our
band!!! What that really leads me to say is, we
are directly connected to the early pioneers of
jazz. You can draw a direct line from the members of our band back to the earliest days of jazz.
What we play is what we grew up listening to.
It’s what our fathers played.
JI: What kinds of depth of musical skills and
vocabulary are essential for band members to
possess to authentically express the repertoire of
Preservation Hall Jazz Band - which is so integrally connected to Early Jazz / Dixieland or
New Orleans Jazz?
PHJB: We play New Orleans music. We never
use the term “"dix.....” to describe our tradition.
The term is considered offensive in New Orleans. In terms of skills, it’s very important to be
from New Orleans!! I don’t know how else to
teach or learn our traditions? You have to have it
in your DNA. It’s so much more than just notes
on a page.
JI: How does a depth and diversity of understanding and expertise with the repertoire that
Preservation Hall Jazz Band performs provide a
strong foundation for playing melodies and developing motivic improvisations?
PHJB: Melody and rhythm are everything. Soloists use the melody and harmony as a road map
to build their solos around. Early improvisation
relied very heavily on a deep understanding of
the melody. Sometimes solos would simply be a
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Preservation Hall
PHJB: We face a bunch of challenges. Keeping
up with our audience. Reaching new audiences.
And the most important challenge is keeping our
traditions alive for the next generation of New
Orleans Musicians
JI: How has the developing technology strengthened or challenged Preservation Hall Jazz Band
and its artistic pursuits in the 50 years since its
inception?
“we are directly connected
to the early pioneers of jazz.
You can draw a direct line
from the members of our
band back to the earliest
days of jazz.”
PHJB: Making music and recording music and
reaching people with your music is completely
different than it was five, ten years ago. We have
the potential to reach the entire wired planet
now. That blows my mind. Just the possibility
blows my mind. As far as making music, technology has allowed us to record and perform a
and broadcast in ways that were unimaginable to
my fathers generation.
“Melody and rhythm are everything. Early improvisation
relied very heavily on a deep understanding of the
melody. Sometimes solos would simply be a reinterpretation of the melody with added notes…”
JI: What if any are the educational activities in
which Preservation Hall Jazz Band is involved?
nature in your extensive travels and business
experience in the music world?
PHJB: There is an educational aspect to everything we do. We do specific outreach/
educational workshops/performances. It’s incredibly rewarding to see young kids getting
down to jazz. It’s one of the great joys of doing
what we do. In New Orleans. We host field trips
to Preservation Hall throughout the school year.
Also, we have a Preservation Hall Junior Jazz
Band that is comprised of 12 middle/high school
age students that meet regularly at Preservation
Hall. We mentor the students and teach classes.
PHJB: People are the same where ever you go.
They want to be happy. What’s amazing to me is
when we play for people who’ve never heard of
us before and they go wild. That means our music touches something universal.
JI: Ashley Montague spoke about the value of
maturing in our childlike qualities rather than
our adult qualities - to avoid psychosclerosis and
other drawbacks. Could you reflect on that idea
as it pertains to PJBH currently and over its history?
PHJB: No doubt in my mind music is the key to
youth!!! Music and good food. New Orleans
allows us to remain in a child like. We honor
dancing and singing in New Orleans, no matter
how old you are.
JI: How do you stay balanced as an artist, as an
individual, given the stresses of contemporary
society, and the immense amount of traveling
and touring that PHJB does?
PHJB: Staying sane is a full time job. Creativitly dosn’t shut itself off. It’s a balance. As
you get older and have more experiences, the
answers usually reveal themselves
JI: What do you do to “recharge your batteries”
— what ideas or activities outside of music do
you engage in and how do they provide fulfillment and or balance for you?
PHJB: I love to be out in nature. I love to be out
in the water or up in the mountains. I ride my
bike every day. I need to exercise and eat right.

JI: What have you discovered about human
Gary Burton
kind of now faced with repeating myself somewhat and I wanted to try some new things. I
wanted to do this project with Astor Piazolla and
they weren’t interested in that. So I took that
actually to Atlantic to record and I noticed Chick
had already moved on to GRP at that point and
he was raving about how great it was to work
with them and I thought well, OK I think it’s
time probably for me to make a new start and
more possibilities were available at GRP. Things
changed again when I went to Concord for the
13 years I was there. Now I’m with Mack Avenue. Again I was looking for a company that I
felt some kind of a simpatico with and I realized
there are always some limitations as to what any
label can accommodate.
JI: What were your parents like? Was there one
parent that was very articulate or both of
them? Talk a little bit about that for a second.
GB: OK. Well, my father was a college graduate
and a chemical engineer. So he was pretty informed and intelligent. He was especially good
at practical things, fixing things at the house and
how cars ran and all of this sort of thing. My
mother was a very quiet person. She’s still living. She’s 97 now. But my mother was a very
46
quiet person. A wonderful mother, but neither of
my parents read books or discussed things of an
intellectual nature. I never heard a conversation
about politics or music or art or anything. I have
no idea how I stumbled into this. I know I discovered reading when I was a kid and started
hanging out at the public library in this little
town I grew up in because I didn’t have money
to buy books, nor were there book stores anywhere in my area. I lived in a little farm
town. But the library had a lot of books so I
would just hang out there reading books, reading
books. And I’ve continued to this day. I’m still
an avid reader. And of course I stumbled into
music. My parents did want the three kids in the
family to take music lessons because growing up
in the depression, my father had always wished
that he had had the chance to play an instrument
or something and wanted us to have a try at
it. And I was the only one that stuck with it, my
brother and sister took lessons for a bit and gave
up on it and moved on to other things. But it’s
hard to say how I ended up being the kind of
person I am because it doesn’t trace back to my
family roots at all. I had a great family. They
were incredibly supportive and I was really
raised in a typical Midwestern solid all-around
family environment. But in terms of as you say
being an articulate, intelligent, intellect kind of
person, I don’t know where that came from.
JI: Apparently from all of your reading, your
curiosity was heightened.
GB: Yes.
JI: Finally what are the attitudes that you’ve
encouraged students or friends or family or fellow artists to embrace or embody to experience
the balance and value rich life or career that you
have?
GB: Well, it’s as you say it, balance. I was always disappointed in my earlier years when I
would find musicians who had almost no life
outside of the gig. That’s all they talked about,
that’s all they thought about, that’s the only
thing that interested them. It was all about last
night’s gig, tomorrow’s gig, how did I sound,
how did you sound and so on. I was always reading books and going to plays and having discussions about all kinds of things, and I’ve encouraged my young band members to be more open
to things in the world of creative arts. I’m forever buying tickets to Broadway shows or concerts or events. If we’re in Paris I say OK, tomorrow we’re going to go to the Eiffel Tower
and then we’re going to the Louvre, meet downstairs at 10:00 and so on. I’ve always dragged
the young musicians out of their room to see the
world that they were experiencing rather than
just drifting through it like musicians often do. I
just believe that there’s so much to be learned
from the world around us and it was always kind
of my job to push that on younger musicians.

  
Interview
Scott Healy
Interview by Joe Patitucci
Visit Scott healy
JI: Could you talk about how your work as keyboardist on the network TV show, Conan
O’Brien Show has challenged and or supported
your artistic pursuits and artistry?
www.HudsonCityRecords.com
Scott Healy is the Musical Director on the Conan O’Brien Show on network TV.
JI: What are some of the lessons you’ve learned
about business and the music business in your
travels as studio musician, touring sideman, and
or independent artist?
SH: I think the most important lesson I’ve
learned about business is to try to establish
strong personal relationships with as many people as you can, whether it’s employers, potential
employers, peers, crew, and perhaps most importantly, yourself. How you treat yourself and your
outlook about what you do is important—a positive outlook and vibe is really going to serve you
well. I think everyone struggles with this, especially when first starting out, whether it’s worrying too much about money, or the quality of
what you’re being paid to do, or the personalities
of those around you. It is a struggle to keep going sometimes, looking forward, being positive
and happy. It’s only when you’re feeling good
and productive and involved in the scene that
you will be open to new opportunities that pop
up—and opportunities do appear, usually in the
most unexpected and unpredictable ways. I always use the example of how I got the gig on
Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 1993. The
cliché is true: it was not what I knew, but who I
knew, and if there had been an audition I would
have never gotten the gig. I had however been
playing weddings and various small club gigs
with two members of the band. So who knew
that playing small and ostensibly insignificant
gigs would be that thing that gave me the opportunity of a lifetime! In the studio, it took me a
while to learn a major lesson: give them what
they want. It sounds simple, but focusing on on
someone else’s’ musical vision is a selfless skill
which has to be developed. Remember, they
hired you to do what you do, but what is it they
think you do? I used to play on a lot of commercials on piano and B3 in NYC, and figuring out
exactly what style or genre they wanted was
really important. What they might consider
“jazzy” could mean a multitude of things, from a
quiet Basie style, to lounge piano, to bebop, to
funky gospel. Figure it out on the spot and give
it to them simply and directly. As an independent artist? Who knows, I’m still figuring it out. I
do know from experience that it’s really hard to
have the split personality of a sideman and an
independent artist. Being faced with the blank
page is a much different feeling than collaboratTo Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880
ing with someone who has hired you for a specific gig. We’re at a great time in the business
for an indie artist, with the internet we can find
our audience, and digital media and distribution
enables us to publish just about anything for
practically no money. It’s great, but it requires
time, perseverance, and a vision, all which are
hard to get together when you’re doing gigs,
traveling, or in the studio with someone else.
Ask me again in ten years.
SH: Again, managing an independent career
while holding down a fulltime TV gig has been a
challenge. But the show is so fun and engaging
that I hardly notice the conflict anymore. Being
on TV every night makes me well-known in
certain circles, my increased profile has really
helped me in many situations. On the other side
of the coin however, I play so much rock, funk
and R n B on the show, that people don’t know
that I play jazz, classical, and most never even
suspect that I’m a composer. So I have to keep
putting myself out there in the community, leading various bands, writing for performances and
other artists, all to show people what I can do,
and what I want to do.
JI: What did you discover about leadership, and
about leading a band as a result of your work
with music and pop stars such as Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Al Green, BB King, Jackson
Browne, Levon Helm, Son Seals, Hubert Sumlin
and Tony Bennett and others?
SH: I worked with a few of these artists on the
Conan show, and I learned how to play a specific
part, and play it well from a cold start in front of
two million people. Again, focus, directness, and
a real knowledge of styles is really important to
being a sideman, especially in a live situation.
With Springsteen I had to learn 35 tunes in just a
few days, some of which I sort of knew, but
most had very specific piano and organ parts I
had to learn and nail. Watching Bruce I could
see his total dedication and focus, and he’s not
afraid to rehearse—a lot if necessary—to get
things right, just the way he wants it. It’s worth
taking the time to get the best out of a tune.
Levon Helm taught me to listen to the drummer,
that the piano and the drums have a link that’s
got to be strong. There’s a difference between a
Chicago shuffle and a Texas boogie, and Levon
could show it you on the bandstand, but you
have to be receptive to it. When you locked in
with Levon, he’d lock eyes with you and smile,
and you knew you were in the pocket. From all
these great artists I learned that you can show
your sidemen what you want, not specifically
how to play it, but that a good leader knows
what they want and can somehow communicate
it to the band.
JI: Having attended the Eastman School of Music, what are your opinions about the benefits or
shortcomings of pursuing the academic route
versus performance and apprenticeship in the
music industry that have in the past pathway to a
performance career in the past?
SH: I think that just going to music school doesn’t necessarily mean you’re pursuing an academic route. Obviously, being an apprentice in a
band, on the road, or hanging in the studios as a
nineteen year old would be an arguably better
education than going to school, but I did learn
things in school that I could get nowhere else.
Plus, at Eastman, everyone was better than me,
and I was pretty good. Or so I thought. A good
music school enables you to take the time to
hone your craft and get better fast, but also
shows you the work ethic you need to compete
in the music business. For me, it also gave me
innumerable contacts. Also, I had the great fortune of studying arranging and composition with
Ray Wright, in addition to my regular classical
composition lessons with my regular teachers.
Ray’s assignments included writing and arranging music for 65-piece studio orchestra, having it
read by a live band, and hopefully performed in
concert, all very quickly, just like in the “real”
world. After you do a few of those, write some
big band charts, arrange vocal music, and write
your regular “legit” modern classical music,
you’ve just had a very compressed and intense
apprenticeship. Not to mention studying theory
and counterpoint, music history, piano, accompanying other instrumentalist, jamming and
playing in bands, and practicing. My first writing
gig out of college was writing pops arrangements and back-up charts for symphony orchestra, my second was arranging music for commercials. It was all a piece of cake compared to
Ray’s advanced arranging classes. I could conduct, read a transposed score, write for orchestra--I was ready, and I give Eastman all the
credit. Plus, where else are you going to write a
fugue and rehearse Stravinsky, all before lunch?
JI: How did your work as an educator at Sarah
Lawrence College challenge or benefit your
development as an artist and provide clarity
about your own music and creative pathways?
SH: As far as learning literature, styles, and the
jazz tradition, I now see my teaching at The New
School and Sarah Lawrence College as a huge
influence, and I wouldn’t be the same writer or
player if I didn’t have to teach jazz history. I
always had a lot of records, and I learned to play
mainly from recordings, but my influences and
the records I bought really were the usual—Bill
Evans, Miles, Trane, Blue Note stuff, Thad
Jones, Gil Evans, fusion from the seventies, a
smattering of swing. I learned a lot of Monk and
Ellington tunes, tons of standards, and most of
the usual repertoire that players learn. Teaching
jazz history forced me to really learn everything
for real—not just what I liked to play or listen
to—including early jazz, which really opened
my head up. I always had to stay a week ahead
of my students, and in the beginning I was flying
blind. But I rediscovered or discovered for the
first time, tons of music which I’m embarrassed
to say I didn’t know was there. Learning Jelly
Roll Morton got me into James P Johnson, Willie “the Lion” Smith, and Earl Hines. Wow.
47
Gary Burton
that just is at kind of a magical level and it’s
always inspiring and rip-roaring fun.
JI: Given your many associations with influential jazz artists and industry people over the
years, could you choose one or more and briefly
discuss some specific or broad understandings
you may have discovered that have helped you
grow as an artist or personally?
GB: Sure, I can think of two good examples. One is Pat Metheny who started out in my
band as a kid guitar player—he was 19. And I’ve
continued playing with Pat also for 41 years. I
met Pat the same year Chick and I started doing
our duet thing ironically. Pat, of course, went
from being a young upcoming musician with a
lot of promising talent to quickly becoming a
very original player, a band leader, and an accomplished composer and a very talented producer of his records. And I’ve often told him, I
said it’s like you were my protégé and sort of my
student at the beginning and then before long it
was reversed. And every time I do a project with
you it’s like learning some more about how to
get the most out of a recording project and how
to figure out the best ways to arrange new pieces
of music and put together projects. So that has
been a continuing inspiration. As a young player,
it was great to watch him evolve and grow and
try things and display his talents. And as a mature player, it’s been like learning more about
jazz and more about making records than I ever
several minutes. You get a solo spot and you
maybe play three or four choruses of a tune over
and over again while you make a solo. That
doesn’t happen in tango. There’s normally none
or only a limited amount of improvising, more
along the lines of embellishing that goes on. But
what Astor had in mind was he didn’t write out
any solo changes for me or sections to solo
over. He just said play something there, or this
four bars over there, do something in that four
bars, or in this spot here, fill-in something
there. It was like he wanted me to drop in and
out of written notes to improvising briefly back
to written notes, a little improvising back to
written notes. I’d never done anything like that
before and it was a challenge because I’m used
to having a bigger span of time to get something
developed. And I had to learn how to smoothly
move in and out of the written sections and the
improvised moments. And so it was actually a
great education. And he also taught me how to
be more expressive. Jazz has a lot of drama to
it. Tango has even more drama, almost melodramatic. And I noticed that right away when I
started playing with his band and he was encouraging me do more with that, make it stronger
there and so on. And I kept trying to get more
passion going and more dynamics and so
on. And eventually he would say yes, yes, that’s
it. And I realized after that year of playing with
him that it had changed my jazz playing as well,
that I now had much greater understanding of
how to bring more power to my melody lines
and my improvisation.
JI: It sounds like from your description that that
was a George Shearing on steroids experience.
[Gary laughs] I remember when we were talking
“It was like [Astor Piazzola] wanted me
to drop in and out of written notes, to
improvising briefly, back to written notes,
a little improvising back to written notes.
I’d never done anything like that before
and it was a challenge because I’m used
to having a bigger span of time to get
something developed.”
knew. The other example I would give is my
experience playing with Astor Piazolla. It was
tango music—he invited me to collaborate on
what at first was going to be just a record. And it
turned out we actually ended up touring for half
a year. I wasn’t even sure. I had never played
tango music before although I had heard his
records and thought they were amazing. But I
wasn’t sure how I would fit into his band. But it
was a terrific learning experience. Normally
we’re used to improvising as jazz players for
48
a few years ago you were saying how when you
first toured with George Shearing you had to
play a solo in one chorus. That’s all you’d get.
GB: That’s right.
JI: And you had to really load it with everything
you could - and be fully in the moment, summoning everything that you knew that you could
do. And here it is, now you’re having to do it
every two bars with Astor Piazzola.
GB: Yes. And I realized after I had come to
terms with this thing with Astor that in fact there
was a good example of this in the jazz world
which is Duke Ellington’s band. He often had
moments of suddenly there’s a trumpet player
with a cup mute playing one phrase, one lick in a
spot, and here’s a saxophone slide thing that
happens for over a measure there. So he would
go around us, point at the band and say oh play
something there, but little spots where they
would just add a lick or a fill. And I realized
heck, it’s being done in jazz just not in small
group jazz and probably not in even most big
bands. But Duke was using that technique with
his musicians, I realized on reflection. So I wasn’t the only one that had discovered this.
JI: You alluded to this in your discussion about
Pat Metheny - and kind of anticipated a question
that I had about learning as much from teaching
and mentoring as being a student. With your
ample experience in the educational area at
Berklee for many years and conducting clinics,
could you talk about this a little bit more?
GB: Sure. I think that’s one of the things that
draws you into teaching and keeps you there is
that you quickly discover that you get fresh ideas
and perspectives from students. They’ll often do
something that they don’t even know they’ve
done it. But you hear them do it and you think
God I would never have thought of using that
chord there and it sounds really hip. I’ll remember to use that the next time I play this
song. Even they would sometimes make a mistake and it will give you an idea of something
that you hadn’t thought of before. And they’ll
ask you questions, how do you know to do
this? By the time you’ve thought of the answer
you realize you had never asked that question
before and you’ve learned something about how
playing is accomplished. So all the years I’ve
taught, that was really one of the big motivations
was that I felt it kept me fresh learning and
evolving as a musician. I have a saying which I
use called the unpredictability of youth which is
something that you get when you work with
young players and teach young players. They’re
full of surprises. They take risks. They do things
naively without realizing what they’re doing and
it opens doors to things that a stayed old professional wouldn’t think of doing.
JI: That leads to another question I have. But
before I ask it, since we’re speaking about education, and given your endorsement of online
remote education, which I read about in the posting on your website - would it be a good idea to
expand that to elementary and grade schools to
help students eliminate peer pressure, bullying,
puerile distractions and those things that can
impede and adversely affect the speed and depth
of the learning process?
GB: Could well be. I’m not an expert on all the
different aspects of online education. It certainly
works at the higher levels, at college level and so
on. And there was some question as to whether it
would be that workable for music but it’s turned
out that in fact it works very well with mu-
Gary Burton
sic. But I don’t know about early childhood or
grade school and so on. It might. The one thing
that still kind of amazes me and impresses me is
how much the young kids today are growing up
with using the web constantly for everything. They have their pads and their phones and
everything, and they’re connected. And they’re
learning as much or more from those experiences as they are from traditional teaching ex-
piano lessons, come back at 3:00 PM with two
dollars - a dollar for a lesson, 50 cents for a cardboard keyboard, 25 cents for the Thompson piano book and 25 cents for a manuscript book. I
asked my mother if I could go for lessons and
she said yes. I think those drives or aptitudes are
intuitive - and sometimes as a kid you can seize
upon them without anybody telling you that you
should or you shouldn’t be doing this or that or
the other thing.
GB: Yes, and you learn differently at a young
age. The same way we learn language as a kid
but we don’t learn—if when you’re two and
that I’m in. So it’s not exactly a retirement age
for jazz musicians. But it does cause you to reflect a lot on what’s taken place in the years
past. I think it’s inevitable when you get to one
of these milestones you start thinking about the
people you’ve played with and how your music
has changed over the years and all the different
projects and side trips you’ve made and ask
yourself well what’s it added up to and where do
I stand now and what’s my responsibility from
now on going forward. Am I supposed to be still
breaking new ground? Am I trying to maintain
what I’ve accomplished up to this point? A little
bit of both of those I suppose, but it’s one of
“when you get to one of these milestones you start thinking about the
people you’ve played with and how your music has changed over the
years and all the different projects and side trips you’ve made and ask
yourself well what’s it added up to and where do I stand now and
what’s my responsibility from now on going forward.”
periences. I have a grandson who’s a year and a
half years old who’s already starting to use his
mother’s iPad and iPhone. Just from watching
her he can turn them on and move things around
and so on. He can’t even talk yet and he’s already getting used to the new world of all
this. So I suspect the answer is probably yes
although I don’t have any expertise that makes
me an authority on it.
JI: Well kids—they say that, I can’t remember
where I read this but, children are geniuses until
they’re de-geniused by their parents or teachers
or whoever.
GB: [Laughter] Well, I think kids certainly are
born with a lot of natural intuitions and the real
world experiences do tend to even that out. It’s
true. I always felt that way about music to some
extent. If you’ll notice, virtually every musician
you’ll ever meet, every successful and professional musician, started playing between the
ages of 5 and 7. You don’t meet people that took
up the violin at age 20 or the trumpet at age 25
or something. You do meet people who do take
up instruments, but they don’t become star players. There’s some golden age of learning intuitively and like a sponge soaking up everything
that happens when you’re five, six, seven, eight
years old that’s a magic time in the development
of the musician, of the musical mind. And parents should, if at all possible, try to make music
available to kids when they’re that age. They
might have fun with it years later when they try
to form a rock band in high school and so on, but
they’ll never have that learning opportunity that
only happens to young children.
JI: When I was growing up in Brooklyn, my
mother, who had taken voice and piano lessons
when she was a child, had not pushed us into
music lessons. Yet, I remember being in first
grade, and we’d get out at 1:00 PM, and the
teacher said that anybody who wants to take
three years old and you’re learning to speak
English or whatever it is, you’re not learning it
from a book or even from a teacher. You’re
learning it from your surroundings, from your
parents and your siblings and your neighbors and
so on. So you learned it in a more intuitive way
and that’s sort of what happens with a child’s
first encounters with music. Your brain is learning it consciously to some extent but your unconscious mind is also working furiously at the
same time absorbing the sounds and the structure
and the organization of it all and how it all fits
together and understanding the language of music. It’s another language, music, and it’s structured the same and organized in our brain the
same way that speech is which is why we learn it
so much more naturally when we’re kids.
those in a way artificial—it’s a number, that’s
all. But it does tend to make you kind of look at
the mark of your history.
JI: Yes, it’s kind of an intersection between
speech and mathematics I’ve always thought.
GB: Yes, and you go through different states of
mind of course. Some days you wake up and you
feel really energized and positive and other days
you wake up and you’re kind of wondering what
does it all mean and so on. I think every artist
has this back and forth thing. It’s part of what
keeps our art honest. If you think you never hit a
bad note or have a bad day or whatever, if you’re
over confident your work with suffer. And by
the same token if you’re always insecure and
feel you never sound very good you’re not going
to be at your best either. There’s a balance between optimism and pessimism that every artist
has to maintain. That’s why there’s so many
drinkers and drug users in the artistic lines of
work. It’s kind of a challenge to keep your balance.
GB: Yes, absolutely is.
JI: And then if things work out then your parents don’t have to put up that kitchen magnet
that says attention teens, leave home now while
you still think you know everything.
GB: [Laughter] Well that may happen anyway.
JI: Ashley Montague spoke about the value of
maturing in our childlike qualities rather than
our adult qualities to avoid, as he called it, psychosclerosis - among other drawbacks. Could
you reflect on that idea as you approach this
week long 70th birthday celebration at the Blue
Note … or are we allowed to say 70th Gary?
GB: Yes. I turned 70 six months ago in January
so this is my 70 year. It just sounds really old to
me when I say it. I’m 70. Wow, that’s even way
past 65 when people normally retire. Here I am
still going at 70, and yet there are a lot of 70 year
olds still real active especially in this business
JI: Yes. Well I guess years ago I read, “It seems
like the more I learn the less I think I know.” But
there was something I read years ago by the
philosopher Bertrand Russell, who said “The
trouble with this world is that the foolish are
cock sure and the intelligent are all full of
doubt.” The older I get the more I think I doubt
everything. You were just talking about that. The
reflection about, “Gee, am I going in the right
direction? Am I doing this? And you’re looking
at the timeframe. You sound vivacious in your
speech in our conversation and I also understand
the point you are making.
JI: About 20 years ago or so, you did a presentation at the Percussive Arts Society when it came
to Philadelphia.
GB: A long time ago. I remember that one.
JI: Yes, and it was great. You were speaking
about how in improvising a solo there’s a begin-
49
lenges or mistakes that you might have experienced during your career or your life could you
share with readers that would help them enrich
their own lives - or for the musician segment,
their own artistic pursuits?
Gary Burton
ning and a middle and a dénouement or an ending - in the same way that we don’t just immediately start a conversation without perhaps a hand
shake, and hi, how are you doing. Could you talk
a little more about that process?
GB: Sure. Well, the solo is like a little speech or
a conversation with a friend. We don’t just start
in the middle of a train of thought. We first introduce ourselves. We say hello and we say sort
of what we’re going to talk about. And we try to
convey this should be really interesting, I think
you’re going to get something out of what I have
to say so pay attention. You’ve sent this message
with your first couple of lines that you play in
your solo and then you develop story lines just
as you do when you’re explaining something to
someone. And eventually your story or your
explanations come to kind of a—they wrap up.
And even as you wrap up you want to exit
smoothly. You don’t want to just stop talking
bluntly at the end of a sentence. You say well,
that’s pretty much what I have to say. I hope you
enjoyed it and maybe I’ll see you again next
week, and shake hands and so on. We sort of
want to start and stop our communications
whether it’s spoken or musical with smooth
entry and smooth exit. And if you don’t, there’s
an abruptness that seems awkward. And you’ll
GB: Well, yes. I guess my main mistakes have
been a few projects that I thought were going to
really be well received. And yet when the record
came out, nobody cared. And at the time I was
convinced that I was on to something that was
going to really be good. And it was both a disappointment and a surprise to find out that in spite
of my most heartfelt expectations it didn’t
work. One was a record I did combining jazz and
country music back in 1966. It was called Tennessee Firebird. And since I grew up in that part
of the country and started my career in Nashville
studios I knew a lot of country musicians. In
fact, Chet Atkins, guitarist, was one of my early
mentors and a longtime friend. So I got this
idea. Well OK, I’m going to bring Roy Haynes
and Steve Swallow, and I’m going to do down to
Nashville and bring in the studio a great banjo
player and a mandolin player and some guitar
players and a harmonica player and a violinist
and so on, and I’m going to take a bunch of
country songs and re-harmonize them and rearrange them into being good for improvising on,
turn them into jazz tunes. Well, it was a lot of
fun and a very challenging interesting project. None of the Nashville guys read music so I
had to teach everybody the songs one at a time
as I approached each new piece. It took me about
“I was always disappointed in my earlier
years when I would find musicians who had
almost no life outside of the gig. That’s all
they talked about, that’s all they thought
about, that’s the only thing that interested
them. It was all about last night’s gig,
tomorrow’s gig, how did I sound, how did
you sound and so on. I’ve encouraged my
young band members to be more open …”
hear that with new players, with beginners at
improvising. There’ll be sudden lurches here and
there in their performances because they haven’t
yet figured out how to move smoothly from one
soloist to the next and that sort of thing. But I
use a lot of comparison to speech. It’s very similar, and almost anything that applies to the natural ways of speaking apply to improvising as
well.
JI: Yes. One of the foundational principles that
I’ve read about and experience is that we grow
as much from our mistakes and challenges as
from our successes even though we are uncomfortable making mistakes. What if any chal50
an hour to two hours to make an arrangement
and teach everybody their part just by playing it
by ear as they did. And I loved the record and
thought it was a real interesting breakthrough in
terms of trying new kinds of music. And it was
one of the two least selling records I ever put
out. No one was ready for this at all. Years later,
a lot of people discovered it and asked me about
it. Bill Frisell even said God, I’ve been kind of
exploring this whole Americana aspect of jazz
and I find out you were doing a lot of this stuff
20 years ago before I even thought of it. And
then the second time that happened, I got the
idea to make a really thoughtful and artistically
high-level smooth jazz record. Smooth jazz had
become pretty popular. By this time I was on
GRP and it was the 80’s and I thought wow, the
thing that’s missing in smooth jazz records is
more intellectual content. But the groove is
smooth and the songs are not complicated and
there’s no fancy flashy playing. Everything is
relaxed and easy going and easy to listen to but
that doesn’t mean it has to be boring. So I collaborated with Bob James, a musician I much
respected, and we came up with an album of
material. I got all good players and made the
record. Pat wrote two songs for it. I was excited
about this. I thought we did a really good job of
capturing it. Again, my regular fans were not
interested at all and I didn’t make any new fans
either. Downbeat’s review called it the best elevator music thay’s ever heard, which actually
was what I had in mind to be honest
[Laughter]. And I still hear this record to this day
in supermarkets and airport lounges and things,
all of a sudden there’ll be a track from it, it’s
called Cool Nights, and every now and then I
come across a track somewhere in the Muzak
world. So I know somebody has found a use for
it.
JI: Somebody picked up on it.
GB: Yes, but as a major audience builder it
failed completely. So I said OK, I’m back to
what I usually do which is playing more virtuosic jazz projects and I’ll have to stay with that.
JI: Was there a different kind of set of instructions or matrix of understandings, since you
mentioned GRP, between when you were with
ECM and then moving over to GRP? What were
the differences?
GB: Well every record company in the jazz field
has some kind of identity, label identity, the
range that they tend to work within. And you can
tell by looking at the records they make sort of
what kinds of things they’re in to, what they feel
comfortable with. And it has a lot to do with
what they feel they can promote, who their audience is that they’ve built up that buy their records. So when I was at Atlantic, for instance, I
had an idea to make an orchestra record and they
said point blank that we would not be very successful at selling such a record because all of our
radio stations that we work with and the audience that are used to Atlantic Records this would
be a strange thing. It wouldn’t get airplay on our
stations so pick something that’s closer to what
we normally do. And I said that was actually
good advice to me and I realized this is true with
every company whether it’s Blue Note or ECM
or whatever, there’s a range that each label kind
of chooses as its niche. And if you want to record for that label then you need to sort of stay
within their framework because you want them
to be able to promote it and sell it for you and
not to be such a fish out of water that the record
just disappears out of site. One of the reasons I
left ECM after 16 years was that I had made I
think 18 records for them and I felt I had exhausted the range of possibilities. I had done
quite a few records in each of the sort of stylistic
zones that ECM traded in and I felt like it was
JAZZ BIRTHDAY GALLERY
THIS DAY IN JAZZ — SEPTEMBER
September 1
• Gene Harris
• Art Pepper
• Boney James
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September 2
Walter Davis, Jr.
Clifford Jordan
Horace Silver
John Zorn
September 3
Larry Ridley
Mickey Roker
Peter Bernstein
David Sanchez
September 4
Lonnie Plaxico
Gerald Wilson
Dave Liebman
September 5
Richie Powell
September 6
Charles Moffett
Buddy Bolden
September 7
Joe Newman
Sonny Rollins
Jazz Inside-2013-09_051-...
page 1
• Scott Hamilton
• Brian Lynch
September 13
• Makanda Ken McIntyre
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September 8
Wilbur Ware
Butch Warren
Norris Turney
Marion Brown
James Clay
September 9
Elvin Jones
George Mraz
September 10
Roy Ayers
Raymond Scott
Cliff Leeman
Prince Lasha
Dave Burrell
Craig Harris
September 11
Harry Connick, Jr.
Peck Morrison
Baby Face Willette
Hiram Bullock
September 12
Steve Turre
Cat Anderson
• Chu Berry
• Mel Torme
September 14
• Oliver Lake
September 15
• Cannonball Adderley
• Al Casey
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September 16
Hamiet Bluiett
Charlie Byrd
Jon Hendricks
Earl Klugh
September 17
Jack McDuff
Perry Robinson
September 18
Emily Remler
September 19
Muhal Richard Abrams
Candy Dulfer
September 20
Steve Coleman
Eric Gale
Red Mitchell
Jelly Roll Morton
• Joe Temperley
• Steve McCall
• Billy Bang
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September 21
Chico Hamilton
Slam Stewart
Tommy Potter
Sunny Murray
September 22
Ray Wetzel
Marlena Shaw
September 23
John Coltrane
Frank Foster
Les McCann
Albert Ammons
Jimmy Woode
Ray Charles
Jeremy Steig
Don Grolnick
Sterling Bose
September 24
Fats Navarro
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Herb Jeffries
John Carter
Wayne Henderson
Bill Connors
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September 25
Mike Gibbs
Billy Pierce
Sam Rivers
Garvin Bushell
John Taylor
Barbara Dennerlein
September 26
Gary Bartz
George Gershwin
September 27
Bud Powell
Red Rodney
September 28
John Gilmore
Kenny Kirkland
September 29
Jean-Luc Ponty
Dave Kikoski
September 30
Antonio Hart
Oscar Pettiford
Buddy Rich
Jon Eardley
Patrice Rushen
51
Wednesday, August 28, 2013 12:26
Composite
John Zorn
September 2
60th Birthday Celebration
Marathon of Concerts and
Film in NYC During September
(See Calendar section, page 15-27)
Patrice Rushen
September 30
Photos By Eric Nemeyer
Lonnie Plaxico
September 4
Gary Bartz
September 26
David Sanchez
September 3
Buddy Rich
September 30
Antonio Hart
September 30
Peter Bernstein
September 3
Sonny Rollins
September 7
CD REVIEWS
Laura Ainsworth
NECESSARY EVIL—Eclectus Records ER1002. Necessary Evil; One More Time; The Gentleman is a Dope; Just Give Me a Man; Love is a
Dangerous Thing; My Foolish Heart; The Lies
of Handsome Men; Get Out and Get Under the
Moon; Out of This World; Hooray for Love; I’d
Give a Dollar For a Dime; Last Train to Mercerville.
PERSONNEL: Laura Ainsworth, vocals; Brian
Piper, keyboards and arrangements; John Adams, bass; Steve Barnes, drums and percussion;
Chris McGuire, tenor sax; Clay Pritchard, tenor
sax; Jay Saunders, trumpet; Keith Jourdan, trumpet; Rodney Booth, trumpet; Peter Clagett, trumpet; Carl Murr, trombone; Greg Waits, trombone; Simon Willate, trombone; Eric Swanson,
trombone; Randy Lee, alto sax; Jim Pritchard,
alto sax; Pete Brewer, baritone sax and flute;
Steven Story, violin.
By Eric Harabadian
There is a strong film noir-ish femme fatale
type theme going on with this release from the
get-go. There is the sultry red headed chanteuse
herself Laura Ainsworth on the cover sporting a
smoking gun and a come hither gaze. Then there
are the cinematically engaging liner notes on the
inside that amusingly draw the listener in with
tales of love in all its twisted forms. And it is all
delivered so skillfully and tongue-in-cheek by
the leader and her brilliant musical accomplices.
This record naturally picks up where her
critically-acclaimed debut Keep it to Yourself left
off. But while Ainsworth’s previous release
contained key original material, her latest is
purely drawn from rarities found in the Great
American Songbook and from alternate sources.
She, in turn, displays her talents here as a magnificent interpreter of song, armed with the ability to take a complex or witty lyric and give it
the proper stylistic spin. A case in point is the
title track “Necessary Evil.” She opens the album with a smooth crooner that really sets a
carefree and relaxed mood. Her enunciation is
impeccable and the band swings in step with her
upbeat disposition. “One More Time” is a bluesy
torch song, with smooth piano accompaniment
from Brian Piper. The scorching muted trumpet
of Rodney Booth and the gentle drums of Steve
Barnes add a nice contrast. The amusingly titled
“The Gentleman is a Dope” is one of those rarities written by none other than Rodgers and
Visit www.JazzNewswire.com
Hammerstein. This is another lyrical piano vehicle for Piper, with a sweet theme about unrequited love. Again, Ainsworth really sells it here
and bends the listener’s ear in the process. Along
these lines, “Just Give Me a Man” will have you
smiling as this blues-filled confessional about
finding Mr. Right borders on comic desperation.
“Love is a Dangerous Thing” is sort of a cautionary tale and instructional handbook on the
pitfalls of amour. Chris McGuire’s clarinet work
injects some buoyant energy and spirit into the
proceedings. One of Ms. Ainsworth’s considerable gifts is her ability to balance the absurd with
a fair share of gravitas. The latter comes into
play on the Young/Washington gem “My Foolish Heart.” It is simply a beautiful take on a romantic classic. The mood is somewhat ethereal
and dream-like, with the addition of Steven
Story’s amazing violin solos. “The Lies of Handsome Men” is a bit of a musical departure from
the majority of the material here. Lyrically, the
tune is lock step with mature and provocative
themes of love, relationships and passion. But
the underlying groove and Piper’s electric piano
solo seems to suggest more of a contemporary
Bob James approach. Bassist John Adams and
drummer Barnes lay down a solid and transparent backbeat as Piper’s keyboard work is simply
crystalline. Arlen/Mercer’s “Out of This World”
and Eubie Blake’s “I’d Give a Dollar for a
Dime” are further examples of the diversity,
taste and range that the leader and her crew bring
to the table of this exquisite musical feast.
Laura Ainsworth has not only met the incredible standard set by her debut recording, but
surpassed it with her timeless musical craftsmanship and abundant raw talent.
Albare
THE
ROAD
AHEAD
–
Enja
9598
How to Submit CDs
For Review in
Jazz Inside Magazine
Record labels or individual artists who
are seeking reviews of their recordings may submit CDs for review
consideration by following these
guidelines. Send TWO COPIES of
each CD or product to: Editorial
Dept., Jazz Inside, P.O. Box 30284,
Elkins Park, PA 19027. All materials
sent become the property of Jazz Inside, and may or may not be reviewed, at any time.
www.enjarecords.com. Road Ahead Part A;
Intro To Give Me 5; Give Me 5; Intro To The
Gift; The Gift; Expectations; Intro To Heart Of
Heart Revisited; Heart Of Heart; No Love Lost;
New Signs; Tender You; Overjoyed; The Road
Ahead Part B
PERSONNEL: Albare, guitar, synth guitar; Phil
Turcio, piano; Yunior Terry, bass; Pablo Bencid,
drums; Allan Harris, vocal on “Overjoyed”
By Scott Yanow
Albare, a major guitarist from Australia, is
a musician well worth discovering. While at 56
he is far from a newcomer and he is well known
in his native land on a few levels, he will be a
new name to most Americans. He made his first
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57
Ralph Alessi
major tour of the United States in the winter of
2012.
Born as Albert Dadon in Morocco, he grew
up in Israel and France. Taking the name of Albare for his musical endeavors, he played guitar
professionally in Paris before moving to Australia when he was 27. Since then he has had a very
successful career as a businessman. He is the
executive chairman of Ubertas Group, a funds
management and property development company. Albare was chairman of the Melbourne
Jazz Festival during 2003-05, has been its artistic
director since then, and is chairman of the Australian Jazz Awards.
As a performer, soon after his arrival in
Australia, Albare became a pioneer in acid jazz,
improvising over the work of DJs. While his first
CD was in that genre, he has since evolved into a
guitarist whose music is difficult to classify.
While it is obvious while listening to the first
few selections on The Road Ahead that Pat
Metheny is an influence on his sound, Albare
also keeps his music open to the influence of
Middle Eastern folk music and scales.
The Road Ahead teams Albare with pianist
Phil Turcio, Cuban bassist Yunior Terry and
drummer Pablo Bencid (who is from Venezuela). Turcio is actually best known in Australia
as a major pop record producer but, as he shows
throughout this project, he is also a very fluent
jazz pianist. He played regularly with Albare
back in the early 1990s and rejoined him for the
American tour and this CD. In addition, New
York vocalist Allan Harris makes a guest appearance on “Overjoyed.”
Throughout this project, it is difficult not to
be impressed by the tones that Albare gets out of
his instrument. On the opening “The Road
Ahead Part A,” he is heard solo on the synth
guitar although it sounds as if several other instruments are also playing. That selection was
recorded in a single take without overdubs. On
“The Gift,” Albare at first sounds a bit like a
muted trombone. And on “New Signs,” which
has the most boppish playing of the CD, Albare
acts as the bridge between Pat Metheny and Wes
Montgomery. Metheny has sometimes claimed
Montgomery as one of his influences although
that is never really apparent in his own playing.
Albare shows that there was a connection after
all.
The guitarist is also an excellent songwriter.
Not counting three brief “intros” to pieces which
range from 8 to 26 seconds, there are ten Albare
originals on The Road Ahead including the twopart title cut. Among the highlights of The Road
Ahead are the singable melodies of the laid-back
“Expectations,” “Heart Of Heart,” the heartfelt
“No Love Lost” and the warm ballad “Tender
You.”
The Road Ahead serves as an excellent
opportunity for fans of the jazz guitar to be introduced to the appealing music of Albare.
58
BAIDA – ECM 18732 www.ecmrecords.com.
Baida; Chuck Barris; Gobble Goblins; In-Flight
Entertainment; Sanity; Maria Lydia; Shank; I
Go, You Go; Throwing Like A Girl; 11/1/10;
Baida (reprise)
PERSONNEL: Ralph Alessi, trumpet; Jason
Moran, piano; Drew Gress, bass; Nasheet Waits,
drums
By Scott Yanow
Ralph Alessi is a natural to appear on the
ECM label. Some of the earliest music he heard
was classical since his father was a classical
trumpeter and his mother was an opera singer.
Born in San Francisco, he studied at the California Institute for the Arts under Charlie Haden.
Since graduating, he has been a fixture on the
post bop and avant-garde jazz scenes in New
York. Alessi has uplifted bands led by Steve
Coleman, Uri Caine, Ravi Coltrane, Fred Hersch
and Don Byron. He has also led several groups
of his own and headed seven previous CDs.
For his debut as a leader for ECM, the
trumpeter enlisted the same musicians who he
had first utilized on a few songs on his 2002
album This Against That. They also appeared
with Alessi on 2010’s Cognitive Dissonance. In
addition, Alessi worked alongside Drew Gress in
the late 1990s with Uri Caine and with Nasheet
Waits for a period with Fred Hersch. He knows
his sidemen’s capabilities so he provided original music on Baida that inspires them to stretch
themselves.
Whether playing open or muted, stating a
melody with long tones or bursting with emotional sounds, Ralph Alessi is never predictable.
Although perfectly capable of playing heated
uptempo solos, he has also long known the value
of making every note count.
The set begins with the title cut. Alessi
makes a few distorted sounds with punctuations
by drummer Waits before the other musicians
join in. Otherwise, the piece has the feel of an
impressionistic ballad, setting an atmospheric
mood full of wonder and openness.
“Chuck Barris” is named after the host of
the Gong Show who in more recent times wrote
some eccentric memoirs that claimed that he had
also worked at the time as a CIA agent. Alessi’s
piece is as eccentric as its subject. It sounds a
little mysterious at its conclusion, as if to ask if
Barris might really had been in the CIA after all.
An odd rhythmic idea is stated by Moran
throughout much of “Gobble Goblins” including
behind the short solos. “In-Flight Entertainment”
is most noteworthy for the close interaction by
Alessi and Moran, who seem to occasionally be
reading each other’s thoughts. “Sanity” can be
called an avant-ballad featuring Alessi’s warm
and creative trumpet, accompanied by Moran’s
sympathetic piano.
“Maria Lydia” was written as a memorial to
Ralph Alessi’s mother. She passed away shortly
after the CD was recorded but had an opportunity to hear and enjoy this music. This is a nearly
reverent rendition of a waltz with tasteful and
melodic playing by each of the musicians.
“Shank” is the most uptempo piece and has
some explosive trumpet along with a very active
rhythm section. “I Go, You Go” begins with
lyrical trumpet over gentle backing. The piece
becomes much more intense during the piano
solo before eventually returning to the original
mood. A seven note bass pattern is effectively
utilized throughout “Throwing Like A Girl.”
“11/1/10” features some out-of-tempo trumpet
playing and a Jason Moran solo that is so dramatic that it is worthy of Ran Blake. Baida concludes with a reprise of the title cut, this time
taken muted by Alessi.
Baida is filled with stimulating music that
will keep listeners guessing.
Quentin Angus
PERCEPTION—Aurora Sounds AS-QA001.
Particular, Peculiar; Perception; Nardis; Red
and Yellow; Chernobyl; Restoration; Den Haag;
Bounce.
PERSONNEL: Quentin Angus, guitar; Jo
Lawry, voice; Will Vinson, alto sax; Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, soprano sax; Shai Maestro, piano; Matthew Sheens, piano; Linda Oh, bass; Or
Bareket, bass; Kenneth Salters drums and percussion; Yanni Burton, bass; Sarah KoenigPlonskier, violin; Lavinia Pavlish, violin; Jack
Stulz, viola; Leanna Rutt, cello.
By Eric Harabadian
Australian guitarist Quentin Angus is only
in his mid-20s but, with this second recording as
a leader, already shows unique passion and vision. His playing style seems to draw on classic
touchstones from artists like Pat Martino, Wes
Montgomery and Kenny Burrell, and his level of
accomplishment as a performer is very high. But
what’s really fascinating is his approach to composition. He tends to think conceptually rather
than frame each piece as a vehicle for blowing or
strict improvisation. The chops are certainly
there but his ability to create a singular voice as
a composer really stands out.
The album cover of Perception displays an
optical illusion of cross bars and dots that fluctuate black and white depending on where you
look. The illusion creates an animated dance that
is a feast for the eyes. The same can be said on
an auditory level. Angus’ music is an illusion for
the ears that takes the listener on a path less travelled. “Particular, Peculiar” reveals the leader’s
diverse musical tastes and, in particular, his exposure to the “drums ‘n bass” and “break beat”
culture. Rhythmically the piece is quite complex,
with the guitar melody dancing wildly about
before modulating into more of a traditional
swinging jazz model. It alternates a bit back and
forth and sets up an interesting contemporary
pop groove but still roots itself in classic jazz
improvisation. Next up is the title track
“Perception” which has a very Euro/ECM Records aesthetic. It begins with Shai Maestro’s
graceful and flowing piano-based melody that
transitions into a staccato-riddled full ensemble
unison figure. This gives way to inspired solos
from bassist Linda Oh and drummer Kenneth
Salters. Angus enters into the fray by playing
more ornamentally and supportive. The only
cover tune here is a great one by Miles Davis
called “Nardis.” It is anchored by a heavy rocklike riff that is repeated and is a nod to Davis’
landmark explorations into early ‘70s fusion.
The mid-section turns very delicate and open.
There is a bass solo by Or Bareket which serves
as a gateway to Angus’ Scofield-Metheny amalgam approach—lots of space and well placed
usage of notes. “Red and Yellow” is inspired by
the changing of the seasons and the colors of the
leaves in New York City. The ethereal and angelic quality of wordless vocals by Jo Lawry
recalls the classic pairings of trumpeter Kenny
Wheeler and Norma Winstone or pianist Keith
Tippett with Julie Driscoll-Tippett. “Den Haag”
has very personal significance for Angus as it
was written in The Netherlands when he was
stuck there for two weeks. He was trying to replace all his stolen identification while on tour
with his band. This is clearly a situation of making lemonade out of lemons and he came up with
a fantastic piece during his stay there. The Yanni
Burton String Quartet comes into play here and
interjects a floating and cosmopolitan flair.
“Restoration” features very angular intervals by
pianist Maestro that evoke a Chick Corea vibe.
The small combo feel is direct and straight ahead
and Will Vinson’s bop-filled solos are clear and
powerful. Perhaps one of the album’s more
beautiful pieces can be found in “Chernobyl.”
It’s a reverent and somewhat somber track dedicated to the nuclear disaster of 1986. It was written by pianist Matthew Sheens and his collaboration with Angus’ stark and fleet fingered guitar
lines offer a glimmer of hope within the body of
the dark subject matter. The album concludes
with a typical show closer for the Quentin Angus
Quintet called “Bounce.” The piece has an asymmetrical complexity to the head but is is somewhat explosive and easy to grasp. There are
some nice relaxed and inventive ideas at play
here from the leader and the group lays down a
good groove. This is a suitable conclusion to a
truly special and essential recording.
Anthony Branker
UPPITY – www.anthonybranker.com. Let’s
Conversate; Dance Like No One is Watching;
Three Gifts (from a Nigerian Mother to God);
Across the Divide; Uppity; Ballad for Trayvon
Martin
PERSONNEL: Ralph Bowen, tenor saxophone;
Andy Hunter, trombone, keyboards; Eli Asher,
trumpet, flugelhorn; Jim Ridl, piano, Fender
Rhodes; Kenny Davis, acoustic bass, electric
bass; Donald Edwards, drums; Charmaine Lee,
vocals; Anthony Branker, composer, musical
director
By Curtis Davenport
With a large percentage of jazz musicians
being African-American, racial justice has long
been a point of contention and frustration for
them (us). This frustration has manifested itself
in different ways. Many in the 50’s and 60’s
aligned themselves with religious groups such as
the Nation of Islam, which preached black self
reliance and encouraged members to discard
their “slave names” in favor of names that they
felt were closer to their original selves. Others
left the U.S. altogether and moved to Europe,
where they believed the sting of prejudice to be
less prevalent. Others remained and turned their
frustration into musical expression, albums such
as Max Roach’s We Insist! were part of a subgenre that continued to thrive through the 60’s
into the 70’s. Though individual compositions
dealing with racism and social justice continued
to crop up in certain situations (Branford Marsalis’ “Breakfast @ Denny’s” comes to mind),
the jazz social protest album had become pretty
much a thing of the past.
Recent well publicized events have begun
to awaken the sleeping giant; from decisions by
the Supreme Court, to controversial decisions by
juries in high profile racially charged
cases. President Obama even recently commented on his experiences with being profiled.
Jazz musicians do not live in a vacuum. Many
are all too personally and painfully aware of the
scourge of racism and they express their feelings
about it, musically. Dr. Anthony Branker, Director of the Program in Jazz Studies at Princeton
University has recently created a beautiful and
eloquent musical statement about his frustrations, titled Uppity.
Dr. Branker began his career as a trumpeter,
including a stint with the Spirit of Life Ensemble, which enjoyed a lengthy stint as the Monday
night band at the legendary Sweet Basil. His
interest in jazz education led the Princetoneducated Branker to Hunter College and subsequently back to Princeton, where he helped to
build the ivy-league school’s moribund jazz
program. Around 1999, medical problems stemming from a brain aneurysm led him to put down
his trumpet and concentrate on composing, arranging and conducting. Dr. Branker has
founded two professional collectives, one called
Ascent and the other Word Play, each of which
has made several previous recordings. It is Word
Play that performs his compositions on Uppity,
featuring a few well known NYC jazz musicians
such as Ralph Bowen on tenor, Jim Ridl on piano and Donald Edwards on drums. Dr. Branker
chose the album title as an acknowledgement of
the word that is often used to describe blacks
who “don’t know their place” in society as some
view it. He cites several high profile cases where
recently young black men who were thought by
others not to belong in certain places, paid with
their lives for other’s assumptions. And each of
the album’s six compositions has something to
do with some of these circumstances.
This is not to say that Uppity is a dark or
angry album. There are joyous moments as well,
such as “Let’s Conversate”, a piece of jazz infused with a little bit of funk, all riding on Ridl’s
skittishly joyous Fender Rhodes, Kenny Davis’
popping electric bass and a sax/’bone duel between Bowen and Andy Hunter. “Dance Like No
One is Watching” is in that same vein. “Three
Gifts (from a Nigerian Mother to God)” is based
on the heartbreaking story of a mother who lost
her three children as they returned home from
school during a 2005 plane crash. It’s stunningly
beautiful music, with a mournful flugelhorn solo
by Eli Asher with counterpoint by Bowen and a
softly mournful vocal line by Charmaine Lee
going on underneath. You will feel the tug at
your heartstrings. “Across the Divide” is a plea
for us all to take the first step in bridging the gap
of understanding. The African rhythms that drive
the piece give it a “world music” tinge. The title
track, is the most dissonant number on the album, announcing itself with the horns wailing
and Edwards bashing out his frustration on the
drums. You can almost hear the epithets being
hurled. Things settle down a bit in the middle as
if there’s an attempt to reach détente with Ridl’s
piano acting as mediator. The “peace talks” fall
apart and we return to the shouting horns at the
end, now joined by Ridl, the frustrated mediator.
“Ballad for Trayvon Martin”, written in honor of
the Florida teen who went out for snacks last
year and somehow ended up dead, closes the
album. It is lushly orchestrated with two lengthy
and beautiful tenor solos by Mr. Bowen telling
the story, in some of his finest recorded work.
These solos are broken up by Mr. Ridl’s piano
statement which is also quite good.
Anthony Branker’s Uppity is thought provoking jazz that is still quite accessible for most
listeners. I pray that one day it won’t be necessary for artists to write music about such situations but as long as they do, I also hope that they
continue to express themselves so powerfully.
BWB
HUMAN NATURE – Heads Up Records HUI34356-02. www.concordmusicgroup.com. Another Part of Me; Billie Jean; Human Nature;
Beat It; Who’s Lovin’ You; She’s Out of My Life;
Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground); The
Way You Make Me Feel; I Can’t Help It; I’ll Be
There; Man in the Mirror
PERSONNEL: Rick Braun, trumpet, flugelhorn, valve trombone; Kirk Whalum, tenor saxophone, flute; Norman Brown, guitar; Braylon
Lacy, bass guitar; Khari Parker, drums; John
Stoddart, keyboards, background vocals; Lenny
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Castro, percussion; Ralph Lofton, Hammond B3 organ; Sheléa – vocals
By Curtis Davenport
BWB is a contemporary jazz supergroup,
comprised of three of the genre’s most celebrated artists: Rick Braun, on trumpet, Kirk
Whalum on tenor sax and guitarist Norman
Brown. They first came together in 2002 to
record Groovin’, an inspired album of “smooth
jazz” covers of R&B classics. That album was
elevated high above most similar fare because of
the strong musicianship and arrangements of the
leaders, who were totally invested in the project.
The world tour that they embarked on in support
of that first album whet everyone’s appetite for
more from BWB.
However, over the last eleven years, Braun,
Whalum and Brown have been quite busy with
their individual careers and projects, so as successful as Groovin’ was, they had not found an
opportunity to record a follow-up session until
now. Human Nature, their new disc, is another
album of covers, a tribute to the music written by
and associated with the late pop legend, Michael
Jackson.
Braun came up with the concept and he and
his musical partners went through the massive
Jackson songbook, stretching back to the Jackson Five and up through his latter days when he
became the self-proclaimed “King of Pop”. Each
member of the trio picked their favorite Jackson
songs, and then proceeded to try and put their
personal stamp on their selections. The songs
chosen include a couple from the old J5 catalog
but most of the repertoire come from Jackson’s
most famous trio of albums: Off The Wall,
Thriller and Bad. Personally, I would have liked
to see them take a crack at some of material from
Michael and his brother’s “transitional” period in
the mid ‘70’s when they worked with Kenny
Gamble and Leon Huff at Sigma Sound Studios
in Philadelphia. Much of the material from then
would have great jazz potential (“Show You the
Way to Go” and “Find Me a Girl” immediately
come to mind). Also there was some great material for jazz covers on Dangerous (I still remember Clark Terry’s surprisingly good version of
“Remember the Time”). But BWB chose to stick
with the hits and, for the most part, came up with
some interesting re-imaginings.
Most effective of these were “Beat It,”
which they’ve recast with a driving ska beat,
over which each of the principles takes a nice
solo turn; “Shake Your Body (Down to the
Ground),” which has been given a Latin-pop
treatment in which Norman Brown cooks with
some of his trademark Benson influenced guitar
lines; “Another Part of Me”, which is played
pretty straight but it’s such a naturally infectious
groove that it couldn’t miss; and then there’s
“Billie Jean”, featuring that iconic bassline.
Braun contended in a recent interview that Miles
Davis’ “Milestones” could be played over that
same bassline. I admit that I scoffed when I first
heard that statement. Then BWB goes out and
proves it by breaking full on into “Milestones”
as they trade fours during the last thirty seconds
of “Billie Jean”. I’ll be damned, Braun was
right! I wish that they had developed that version
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of “Milestones” into a full fledged track. It
would’ve been very interesting. Perhaps they
will on a future BWB project.
The standout track however, is “Who’s
Lovin’ You”, a song written by Smokey Robinson and which appeared on the J5’s first album
in 1969. It was also the “B” side of the group’s
first hit, “I Want You Back” but it took on a life
of its own as a result of Michael’s incredible
vocal performance (at age 11, he owned that
song like someone 30 years older). It’s a blues
drenched tune to begin with and so BWB just
take it where it always wanted to go; to an urban
jook joint. Braun and Brown have nice, brief
solo turns but this one belongs to Whalum and
his Texas Tenor. Whalum feels every note and
so do we, with Ralph Lofton’s organ pushing
him, as his horn “sings” the song the way Michael did over 40 years ago.
Human Nature is solidly produced and
well-played. It’s good to have BWB back on the
scene as a group. Hopefully they will develop
some of the good ideas that were hinted at here,
on another project in the near future.
Etienne Charles
CREOLE SOUL – Culture Shock Music
EC004. www.etiennecharles.com
Creole
(intro); Creole; The Folks; You Don’t Love Me;
Roots; Memories; Green Chimneys; Turn Your
Lights Down Low; Midnight; Close Your Eyes;
Doin’ The Thing
PERSONNEL: Etienne Charles, trumpet, flugelhorn, percussion; Brian Hogans, alto saxophone; Obed Calvaire, drums; Jacques SchwarzBart, tenor saxophone; Kris Bowers, piano,
fender rhodes; Ben Williams, bass; Erol Josué,
vocals; Daniel Sadownick, percussion, vocals;
D’Achee, percussion, vocals; Alex Wintz, guitar
By Curtis Davenport
One of the reasons that jazz is struggling
with the public lately is a lack of fresh voices.
Whether it is intentional or not, so many artists
have a sound that is extremely derivative of
someone who came before them. We who write
about the music often aren’t much help as we
rush to crown “the next Miles”, “the next Hubbard”, “the next Wynton”. So when I hear someone who doesn’t sound like everyone else, I sit
up and take notice. Etienne Charles, a 30 yearold trumpet player, originally from Trinidad, has
caught my attention.
What differentiates Mr. Charles from some
of his contemporaries is his use of rhythm. This
is not something that has happened overnight, at
least on his recordings. This is Charles fourth
album. In the same way that Robert Glasper has
evolved what is now his signature sound, Mr.
Charles developed what we hear on Creole Soul
over the course of his previous discs. A graduate
of Julliard and of Florida State University where
he was mentored by pianist Marcus Roberts, Mr.
Charles, not surprisingly, evinced no small
amount of Marsalis family influence in his early
work. That is, much of it was rooted in the hard
driving post bop of the ‘60’s. The music was
well-played and demonstrated Mr. Charles considerable prowess on his instrument but it did get
lost in the straight-ahead shuffle. But there were
always these moments on Culture Shock, Folklore and Kaiso, where Charles would delve
deeply into the music of his Caribbean roots. I
found these to be the most interesting tracks on
those albums. On this new album Etienne
Charles takes the next step and he has created a
sound that while still firmly rooted in jazz, is
also deeply infused with the music of Trinidad,
Martinique, New Orleans and a few other stops
in between.
You know that you’re in for something
different from the opening track “Creole”, which
features a brief introduction by voodoo priest
Erol Josué delivering a chant in the Haitian Creole language, Kweyol. The main part of track
then jumps off, riding on Alex Wintz’s guitar
lines and a driving kongo groove. Charles then
joins in with a trumpet statement that is equal
parts rhythmic and majestic. Brian Hogans picks
up the same line on the alto sax and takes it to
the next level. Then Kris Bowers’ Fender Rhodes settles the proceedings just enough to keep
them from boiling over too quickly. All the
while Josué’s vocals, Wintz’s guitar and the beat
keep are making the song captivating and refreshingly different. “The Folks”, is a soulful
groove, mellower than the opener but still
memorable due again to Mr. Charles’ trumpet,
Jacques Schwarz-Bart’s tenor and Bowers’ burbling Rhodes, which quietly sets the background
throughout much of the album. Then there’s
“You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No), a Bo Diddley tune that became a rocksteady hit in the
‘60’s. Charles keeps the infectious beat, adds a
full horn line and gives this tune perhaps its third
life. I could easily see a hip club DJ throwing it
in the mix, even though it is still very much a
jazz tune. Mr. Charles also has roots in Martinique, which he pays tribute to on “Roots”, an uptempo jazz tune with a touch of the bel-air beat
that Martinique is known for and includes a vocal chant break in the middle. Among the cover
tunes is Monk’s “Green Chimneys” imagined
here with a very subtle calypso beat which
sounds very interesting against Bowers dancing
piano chords. And Bob Marley’s “Turn Your
Lights Down Low” interpreted as reggae-jazz,
with Charles soothing flugelhorn leading the
way.
Creole Soul is a rousing success because
Etienne Charles doesn’t try to force the marriage
of jazz and other musical genres. He lets it happen naturally, employing other young musicians
who are completely on board with his vision.
They have created something that is different
and exciting. Creole Soul is jazz that takes the
two words of its title seriously and that’s what
makes it distinctive.
Ryan Cohan
THE RIVER—Motema Music . River (I) Departure; Call & Response; Arrival; River(II)
Dark Horizon; Storm Rising; River(III) Aftermath; Forsaken; Brother Fifi; River(IV) Beautiful Land; Domboshava; Kampala Moon; River
(V) Connection; Last Night at the Mannenberg;
River(VI) Coming Home.
PERSONNEL: Ryan Cohan, piano; John Wojciechowski, tenor and soprano sax, flute and
alto flute; Geof Bradfield, tenor and soprano
saxophones and bass clarinet; Tito Carrillo,
trumpet and flugelhorn; Lorin Cohen, acoustic
bass; Kobie Watkins, drums; Samuel Torres,
percussion.
By Eric Harabadian
This is Ryan Cohan’s third release for
Motema and it is, perhaps, his most ambitious.
The River was inspired by a trip that his quartet
made to conflict-ridden regions of Rwanda,
Uganda, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. As musical ambassadors of the
U.S. State Department, his band was chosen by
people like Wynton Marsalis and other members
of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to spread
the good will of jazz to those around the world.
The River documents the journey in the
form of an ever-flowing tributary that reflects
the African trip by Cohan and his ensemble. It
was a trip by U.S. jazz musicians in the tradition
of other state-sponsored excursions by Louis
Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington.
It is also significant because many of the flavors
and textures of the music created by Cohan reflects the spirit of these masters as well.
The album begins with the first of six interludes that serve as links between the various
pieces. “River (I)” introduces Cohan on solo
piano. The main body of the relatively short
work is built off a somewhat simple vamp that
inspires open Keith Jarrett-like ramblings. “Call
and Response” follows and finds the ensemble in
sort of a tune-up mode. Once all roles are established they harmoniously converge and are up
and running. “Arrival” recalls Cohan’s experiences on the bustling streets of Rwanda. It is
meticulously executed as each instrument fuels
the collective energy to a fever pitch. “River (II)
Dark Horizon” is the second interlude and features an emotionally riveting duet between John
Wojciechowski and Geof Bradfield on saxes.
This exchange leads into “Storm Rising” that is
furious and intense. The piece was inspired by
the tensions from dictatorships that have ravaged
regions of Zimbabwe and the Congo. “River (III)
Aftermath” features solo trumpet from Tito
Carrillo that is sweet, somber and modally exotic. “Forsaken” continues that trumpet path,
with Carrillo offering a muted and mournful
wail. The mood is haunting as the ensemble’s
rhythms lumber in bold and stark syncopation.
“Brother Fifi” kind of changes gears a bit and is
dedicated to one of the survivors of the Rwandan
genocide. The feel is one of celebration and a
joyous mix of African rhythms and funky western swing. “River (IV) Beautiful Land” is a bass
solo by Lorin Cohen. It’s a wonderful example
of dynamics and a less-is-more approach. But
then Cohan uses that as a springboard for an
ostinato groove in “Domboshava.” This was
named for an historic national park in Zimbabwe
and cooks with a smooth Afro-Cuban groove.
There are nice accents between drums and percussion, with the bass hanging it all together.
The vivid and romantic “Kampala Moon” offers
a tender view of the landscape that richly populates Uganda. Cohan’s piano and the soprano sax
really illustrate things wonderfully here. “River
(V) Connection” is a percussion interlude and
puts the spotlight on Samuel Torres’ deft bongo
and conga work. “Last Night at the Mannenberg” is a tribute to a popular nightclub in Zimbabwe where Cohan and his group really connected with the audience and their culture. This
is defined by the leader’s strong left hand syncopation and the spirited manner in which the entire ensemble joins in. The album concludes with
the final interlude “River (VI) Coming Home.” It
is a bluesy piano reprise that succinctly encapsulates Cohan’s musical travelogue.
Ryan Cohan is a strong composer and has a
real gift for painting graphic detail and emotion
through music. He also elicits some stellar performances from these great players. The overall
feel of the disc takes on the drama and dynamics
of elements from some of Gillespie and Ellington’s best work.
Jonathan Finlayson
MOMENT & THE MESSAGE – Pi Recordings PI48; www.PiRecordings.com.
Www.JonathanFinlayson.com. Circus; Lo Haze;
Ruy Lopez; Carthage; Tensegroty; Le Bas-Fond;
Tyre; Fives and Pennies; Scaean Gates.
PERSONNEL: Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet;
Miles Okazaki, guitar; David Virelles, piano;
Keith Witty, bass; Damion Reed, drums.
By John R. Barrett, Jr.
The metaphor come from chess: the Sicilian
Defense avoids initial confrontation and concedes territory in the beginning, while giving its
player the potential to take a future advantage.
The movements taken by Jonathan Finlayson
and his cohorts are seldom direct and never obvious: the tunes develop in stages and move where
they will, a turbulent setting where surprises
come often. The glassy textures which open
“Carthage” have a Monkish feel, with Miles
Okazaki's guitar glowing beside the angular
steps of David Virelles. Finlayson enters softly,
his breathy notes matching the others'; he leaves
soon after, and the rhythm gains force, Virelles
punching the keys when the trumpet returns. His
notes are quite crisp now, with a metallic bite; he
climbs with meandering steps, Virelles urging
with brief bursts of sound. The drums step up
and Jonathan double-times, sliding upwards as
the guitar slows down and tone clusters ring.
David's comp is thick, blurry at times during
Okazaki's skittering solo, a pace matched by the
stormy cymbals. With this stew at its thickest,
the trumpet resumes, rising with menace and
hitting a proud spiral as the rest ceases, with
Jon's final note strong against Virelles' decaying
chords. This is a collective individualism, a bracing sound that engages the mind and jolts the
ears.
Curtains of sustain mark David's intro to
“Le Bas-Fond”, a wistful walk done in soft colors. A few thumps from Damion Reed and Jonathan changes all: his lines are like lightning, fast
with sharp edges. Virelles switches to blunt
chords, while retaining his lushness; the trumpet's aggression is matched by Okazki, in a long
series of rubbery single notes. David's turn is
more cerebral than the others, a series of lengthy
runs that reach the same destination in different
ways. A little slower on his return, Jonathan
zigzags high, drapes floating notes over the frantic surroundings, and climbs with Virelles in an
abrupt finish. “Tyre” weds a snaky guitar line to
a calm brass ascent; Finlayson exits after the
theme, leaving David to ripple fast fingers
against the still-active twangs. The horn soon
comes back, and there's a three-way to-and-fro
stirred on by persistent drums. It ends much as it
started, only with Jon more in the spotlight – his
close is slow, pained, and positively funereal.
This leads to the epic “Fives and Pennies”,
whose first minutes are an uneasy quiet. Miles
plucks softly, a sad timeless strum joined by
terse piano. The chords are harsh, and their sustain makes the guitar more active; bassist Keith
Witty thrums quietly, and the low keys rumble
with menace. Almost flutelike is Jonathan when
he enters, soft and breathy and pleading. He
starts to drawl in his sadness, and the pattering
cymbals cause all to go faster. Now anchored by
a steady hammered chord, Finlayson sharpens
his tone, quickens his pace, and the whole mood
grows tense. The horn hits a nervous five-note
pattern; David's comp becomes lusher and more
involved, and then we shift to a more typical
structure. (This is where we first hear the theme,
almost eight minutes into the piece.) With
Virelles' comp deep and forboding, Miles floats
his most lyrical solo (with Wes Montgomery
octaves in places!) David's own solo is rhythmic
and blunt; Jonathan takes that tone on his return,
and charges hard as the background turns shrill.
The final moments are weary, with Jon rumpled
like a trombone and the cymbals hissing away.
An amazing mosaic: the parts don't “fit” but they
absolutely do.
The jaunty “Circus” takes a more active
pace than many of these pieces: driven by snares
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and a rock-hard bass, Miles snaps the strings
hard and Jonathan, with a hard cornet-like tone,
races across the stage bleating Morse code. Okazaki's taut comps sound like a koto (or a cowbell!) while the piano crashes hard – then, in
almost a cinematic dissolve, silence takes over as
horn and bowed bass walk a slow dirge. Reed's
cymbals rain down, the pace toughens, and the
anxiety is so thick you can breathe it. Some of
the edge is taken off by a soft piano fade and
some wispy guitar, yet the dread remains: the
“Circus” in question could be the Circus Maximus. “Ruy Lopez” (another chess reference) has
nimble brushwork and a nervous-sounding
theme giving way to gentle interplay. Miles'
chiming solo is his warmest; Jon answers with a
swaggering sound, a touch more emotional than
some other efforts. Virelles' turn is almost a
double solo, with Witty getting quite active in
the piano's reflective moments. And the “Scaean
Gates” are built on big blocks of sound, from
David's cold chords to the trumpet's jagged
surges. His solo flutters amid the warm rush of
cymbals; the guitar is sparse but stands out when
present. The trilling piano solo is emulated by
Miles, mostly heard on the left speaker. There's a
tiny quote of “A Night in Tunisia”, the pace
slows slightly, and in jumps Finlayson, his pleasing side-to-side motion enhanced by strong guitar. A restless piano riff brings it all to a close;
“restless” is a good word to describe this album,
along with “exhilarating”. Ignoring the obvious
structures and directions, this band blends
thought and impulse into its music in a way that
will put any misgivings in check.
Roberto Fonseca
YO—Concord Jazz 0575. Web: ConcordMusicGroup.com, RobertoFonseca.com. 80s;
Bibisa; Mi Negra Ave María; 7 Rayos; El
Soñador Está Cansado; Chabani; Gnawa Stop;
El Mayor; JMF; Así Es la Vida; Quién Soy Yo;
Rachel; Bibisa (Remix); 80s (Remix)
PERSONNEL: Roberto Fonseca, acoustic piano, electric keyboards, producer; Daniel Florestano, producer; Gilles Peterson, co-producer;
Felipe Cabrera, acoustic bass; Sekou Kouyate,
kora; Joel Hierrezuelo, percussion; Baba Sissoko; percussion; Munir Hossni, electric guitar;
Ramsés Rodríguez, drums; Mike Ladd, vocals;
Faudel, vocals; Fatoumata Diawara, vocals;
Assane Mboup, vocals
thinks of Afro-Cuban rhythms being combined
with jazz melodies and jazz improvisation. Many
of those greats are no longer with us (although
Sanchez, now 61, is still keeping busy and playing his congas better than ever), and it is important for younger jazz improvisers to keep the
Latin jazz flame burning. Cuban-born pianist/
keyboardist Roberto Fonseca does his part on
Yo, whose title means “I” or “Me” en español.
This is a diverse album that draws on a variety of
influences, ranging from post-bop to fusion to
Latin and African music. And at times, Fonseca
reminds us of the “Afro” part of Afro-Cuban
music: the music of Sub-Saharan Africa is a
strong influence on “7 Rayos,” “Gnawa Stop”
and “Bibisa.” Some of the selections, in fact,
feature African kora player Sekou Kouyate. The
kora is a traditional acoustic instrument from
Sub-Saharan Africa; it isn’t an instrument one
normally expects to hear in Afro-Cuban jazz or
salsa. But then, Fonseca is expansive in his approach and isn’t pretending to offer a carbon
copy of Machito circa 1962. Fonseca is eclectic
and electric, although “El Soñador Está Cansado” and “Así Es la Vida” blend Afro-Cuban
music and post-bop in a more conventional way.
“Chabani” is an interesting surprise. That
track also has an African influence, but African
in an Arabic-influenced way that is more mindful of North Africa and the Maghreb countries
(such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya)
than it is of the Sub-Saharan countries to the
south. “Chabani” is an easy track to appreciate if
one has a taste for Arabic-flavored jazz (an area
in which Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Lateef and the
late John Coltrane have excelled).
“JMF,” with its rock influence, takes the
album into fusion territory and has a melody that
would not be out of place on a Santana album
(Carlos Santana, although primarily a rocker, has
been incorporating jazz and Afro-Cuban influences since the late 1960s). And on “Rachel,”
jazz-rock fusion is fused with drum ‘n’ bass, also
known as jungle. For those who are unfamiliar
with that term, drum ‘n’ bass is a form of club/
dance music that is especially popular in Europe.
“Rachel” has that easily recognizable drum ‘n’
bass beat, although it also has the influence of
electric Miles Davis (minus the presence of a
trumpet right up front). Try to envision one of
Davis’ electric bands without a prominently
displayed trumpet (which, of course, was Davis’
instrument) and with a drum ‘n’ bass/jungle beat,
and you can get an idea of what Fonseca successfully brings about on “Rachel.”
Fonseca, who was born in Havana in 1975
and is now in his late thirties, has a lot of interesting ideas. He isn’t afraid to take chances, try
different things and be unpredictable—and that
serves him well on the eclectic Yo.
Satoko Fujii
By Alex Henderson
Hispanic musicians didn’t invent jazz, but
they have certainly made some exciting contributions to it. Chano Pozo, Tito Puente, Machito,
Mario Bauza, Ray Barretto, Poncho Sánchez,
Mongo Santamaría—these are some of the
names that immediately come to mind when one
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TIME STANDS STILL – Not Two MW 897
www.nottwo.com Fortitude; North Wind And
The Sun; Time Flies; Rolling Around; Set The
Clock Back; Broken Time; Time Stands Still
PERSONNEL: Satoko Fujii, piano; Natsuki
Tamura, piano; Norikatsu Koreyasu, bass; Akira
Horikoshi, drums
By Scott Yanow
Those who follow avant-garde jazz and the
most adventurous type of improvisations have
been long familiar with pianist Satoko Fujii.
Born and raised in Tokyo, she had extensive
classical training but switched to jazz in 1978
when she was 20. She studied at Berklee and the
New England Conservatory, making her recording debut in 1996. Since then she has been
remarkably prolific, leading or co-leading over
50 CDs in a wide variety of settings. She led a
trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Joe
Black for years, had the group expand to a quartet with the addition of her husband trumpeter
Natsuki Tamura, led and recorded with four
different big bands (including releasing one CD
from each of the orchestras in the same month),
became involved with an avant-rock group, and
recently has led the Satoko Fujii New Trio.
A pianist who alternates free improvisations
that can be quite intense with quieter introspective sections, Fujii sounds unlike anyone else.
The same can be said for her music which is
frequently episodic and consistently surprising.
She can play solos so powerful that they are
easily heard over one of her big bands, but she is
also expert at contrasting sound with silence. Her
improvisations and her compositions may sound
free form at first but closer listen reveals a definite direction and purpose, even when the music
is a bit violent.
Time Stands Still is the third and final recording by Satoko Fujii’s Ma-Do group. The
reason for its finality is that bassist Norikatsu
Koreyasu passed away in 2012. Recorded in
2011 (four years after the group was originally
formed) and recently released for the first time,
Time Stands Still is a strong example of the
group’s music.
The opening number “Fortitude,” begins
with silence before Natsuki Tamura engages in
some quiet sound explorations. The mood is
soon shattered by some startling bowed bass
from Koreyasu, which inspires the other musicians to join in. A dissonant melody appears
(with drummer Akira Horikoshi playing specific
patterns) before one is left again with some unaccompanied trumpet. Expressive and free solos
by Tamura and Fujii bring the piece to a climax.
The other six Fujii compositions follow
along similar paths in that a mood and a pattern
that is established during one minute might very
well be overshadowed by another mood a few
minutes later.
To name a few other highlights, the pianist
starts out “Time Flies” quite tenderly before
sounding as if she has been set on fire. “North
Wind And The Sun” evolves from conventional
structures to thunderous playing with Fujii taking one of her finest solos of the date. “Broken
Time” begins as an out-of-tempo free ballad and
includes some conventional sections before it
goes outside. “Time Stands Still” is quite somber
with
Koreyasu’s bowed bass making one
greatly regret his passing.
The other musicians were very familiar
with Satoko Fujii’s conception and make strong
contributions to the music. Natsuki Tamura’s
distorted tones on trumpet work well, bassist
Norikatsu Koreyasu is quite creative, and drummer Akira Horikoshi never lets the music become too relaxed.
The results are quite invigorating and deserve several close listens.
Jazz At Lincoln Center
Opening Weekend
Sep 19–21, 8PM
Ahmad Jamal and
Wynton Marsalis &
Jazz at Lincoln
Center Orchestra
Opening weekend
Sep 20–21, 7PM & 9:30 PM
Bill Frisell
Gershwin and Beyond
Photos by Eric Nemeyer
Ahmad Jamal
Wynton Marsalis
Bill Frisell
Bruce Gertz
OPEN MIND – Open Mind OMJ-004
www.openmindjazz.com Eighty Eight; Glad
You’re Hear; Open Mind; Facing It; Just A Flesh
Wound; E.J.; Outer Urge; Gabriella; Lapso; For
Gwenn
PERSONNEL: Bruce Gertz, bass; Phil Grenadier, trumpet; Jerry Bergonzi; tenor; Gabriel
Guerrero, piano; Austin McMahon, drums
By Scott Yanow
Bruce Gertz, who started as a guitarist before switching to the electric bass when he was
14, is best known as a superb acoustic bassist.
He graduated from Berklee and is currently an
influential professor of bass at his alma mater. In
his career he has worked (and sometimes recorded) with such notables as Bill Frisell, Bob
Berg, George Cables, Gil Evans, Tom Harrell,
Jon Hendricks, Joe Lovano, Diane Schuur, Mick
Goodrick, Mike Stern, George Garzone, Maynard Ferguson, Gary Burton, Dave Brubeck,
John Abercrombie, and Kenny Werner.
And yet on his latest CD as a leader, Open
Mind, Bruce Gertz is more notable as a composer than as a bassist. He does take his share of
bass solos on many of the pieces, including a
nice bowed improvisation on the ballad “E.J.”
And his playing behind the other musicians is
consistently stimulating, driving and sensitive.
But it is his ability as a songwriter that really
stands out on this project. Eight of the ten songs
are his, all but Jerry Bergonzi’s “Gabriella” and
Gabriel Guerrero’s “Lapso.”
Gertz has known tenor-saxophonist Jerry
Bergonzi since 1977, playing with him in Con
Brio and in several groups since then. Bergonzi
at the time (and during his period as a member of
the Dave Brubeck Quartet) was strongly influenced by the sound and style of late 1950s John
Coltrane. He has since added Joe Henderson and
Wayne Shorter to his influences, mixing them
together to form his own dynamic style. Trumpeter Phil Grenadier (who like Gertz and Bergonzi is based in Boston), pianist Gabriel Guerrero (originally from Columbia and now living
in New York) and drummer Austin McMahon
are all strong assets to the quintet. While sometimes using the mid-1960s Miles Davis Quintet
as its foundation, the group has its own sound
and a fresh repertoire.
The opening “Eighty Eight” uses a rhythmic pattern of 3-3-2 (with two bars in waltz time
and one in 2/4), a pattern that is utilized throughout the piece. As with the other performances,
the solos are concise and make use of every
moment. Bergonzi’s muscular tenor and Guerrero’s inventive piano make the potentially
tricky song sound effortless.
“Glad You’re Hear” has a funky bass and
drum pattern that gives way to a straight ahead
section in each chorus. While “Open Mind” has
a complex melody worthy of Wayne Shorter, the
chord changes are taken from Cole Porter’s “I
Love You.” Grenadier and Bergonzi both take
excellent solos. “Facing It” is a brooding ballad
that showcases the rhythm section, giving evidence as to why Guerrero is highly rated.
“Just A Flesh Wound” is a relative to
“Solar,” giving the quintet another opportunity
to swing in a modern way. “E.J.” has heartfelt
solos by bass, trumpet, tenor and piano. “Outer
Urge,” Gertz’s answer to Joe Henderson’s “Inner
Urge,” is a medium-tempo romp. Bergonzi’s
jazz waltz “Gabriella,” Guerrero’s “Lapso” and
“For Gwenn” (which has a particularly attractive
blend between the two horns) brings this fine set
to a close.
Several of these songs could become standards in the future if properly exposed. To help
make that possible, included with this CD are
lead sheets for all ten originals. The music on
Open Mind can be considered a strong example
of today’s modern mainstream jazz.
Willie Jones III
PLAYS THE MAX ROACH SONGBOOK—
WJ3 1012 www.williejones3.com Ezz-Thetic;
Libra; Equipoise; Freedom Day; Mr. X; To
Lady; I Get A Kick Out Of You/Shirley
PERSONNEL: Willie Jones III, drums; Jeremy
Pelt, trumpet; Stacy Dillard, tenor; Steve Davis,
trombone; Eric Reed, pno; Dezron Douglas, bass
64
By Scott Yanow
Willie Jones III, one of today’s finest drummers, pays tribute to the always innovative Max
Roach on his new CD.
Max Roach was a giant from the beginning,
always sounding individual and adding subtle
colors, solid swing and constant creativity to
every setting in which he performed. He started
with Coleman Hawkins, was Charlie Parker’s
drummer during the peak of Bird’s career, and
was the definitive drummer of the classic bebop
era. However that was just the beginning. After
spending a period on the West Coast performing
with the top L.A. musicians, he became a bandleader, forming a superb quintet co-led by Clifford Brown in 1954.
During the next 50 years, Roach’s music
included hard bop, melancholy ballads, pieces
inspired by the Civil Rights movement, collaborations with his wife Abbey Lincoln, post bop
and avant-garde explorations, his all-percussion
ensemble M’Boom, reunions with bebop greats,
and duet sessions with Anthony Braxton and
Archie Shepp. Through it all, Roach was always
a creator who constructed solos that were often
architectural gems. And whether his bands featured Sonny Rollins, Kenny Dorham, Stanley
and Tommy Turrentine, Booker Little, George
Coleman, Freddie Hubbard, Odean Pope or Cecil
Bridgewater, they were always stimulating units
that ranked at the top of the field.
For his project which was recorded live at
Dizzy’s Coca-Cola in 2012, Willie Jones put
together a high quality and hard-swinging sextet.
Jones first gained recognition playing in Los
Angeles with Black Note, and working early on
with Milt Jackson and Arturo Sandoval. He has
been a household name in the jazz world ever
since he began a seven-year stint with the Roy
Hargrove Quintet in 1998. Jones has since
played with a who’s who of jazz. And starting in
2000 when he formed the WJ3 label, he has been
regularly heard as a bandleader.
Plays The Max Roach Songbook is a classic
hard bop album. The sextet is a little reminiscent
of Roach’s late 1950s/early ‘60s groups with the
Turrentines and particularly when he utilized
Booker Little, Julian Priester and George Coleman. While there is no attempt to directly emulate Roach, Willie Jones III. and his musicians
are creative within the style of music that Roach
often played while displaying their own musical
personalities.
“Ezz-Thetic,” George Russell’s classic
modernization of “Love For Sale,” sets the mood
for most of the set. The music is uptempo,
swings up a storm, and features passionate solos
from Stacy Dillard, Jeremy Pelt, Eric Reed,
Steve Davis and Jones. Gary Bartz’s “Libra,”
which is similar to “Impressions” and “So
What,” is even hotter. George Cables’ best-
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known original “Equipoise” has sensitive solos,
particularly from Eric Reed who often takes solo
honors on the date.
“Freedom Day,” which was co-written by
Roach and Oscar Brown Jr. as part of the
“Freedom Now Suite,” evolves through several
tempos, features colorful ensembles and has
some raging tenor playing by Stacy Dillard. The
rapid “Mr. X,” also composed by Roach, includes superior solos including a spot by trombonist Steve Davis that is reminiscent of Curtis
Fuller. This highly enjoyable outing concludes
with the slow ballad “To Lady” and an arrangement of “I Get A Kick Out Of You” taken from
Roach’s group with Clifford Brown.
Throughout Plays The Max Roach Songbook, Willie Jones III. drives the band, keeps the
music stimulating, and inspires his musicians to
play at their very best. He succeeds at both paying tribute to Max Roach and playing his own
conception of modern hard bop.
Tom Kennedy
JUST PLAY!—Capri Records Ltd. #74122-2.
Airegin; Moanin’; The Night Has a Thousand
Eyes; Ceora; One Liners; In a Sentimental
Mood; Bolivia; In Your Own Sweet Way; What
is This Thing Called Love.
PERSONNEL: Tom Kennedy, acoustic bass;
Dave Weckl, drums; Renee Rosnes, piano;
George Garzone, tenor sax; Mike Stern, guitar;
Tim Hagans, trumpet; Lee Ritenour, guitar; John
Allred, trombone; Steve Wirts, tenor sax.
By Eric Harabadian
Veteran bassist Tom Kennedy has played in
a variety of jazz situations and really made a
name for himself as a first call electric player.
His collaborations with folks like guitarists Bill
Connors and Mike Stern in contemporary and
fusion settings are certainly noteworthy. But
here the leader gets back to the nitty gritty of it
all and lays out a classic bop program of select
covers that fit his style like a glove.
Just Play! kind of says it all. Kennedy’s
whole concept with this date was just to allow
some of his favorite musicians to gather in the
studio and play, essentially, off the tops of their
heads. He didn’t want the arrangements to be
overly complicated or stray too far from the
classic forms and structures of the originals. He
wanted the players to feel inspired and comfortable, without being locked into reading charts
and trying to navigate unfamiliar territory. From
that standpoint—mission accomplished! There is
a collective atmosphere on this record that is
imbued with the essence of a Blue Note session
from back in the day. Whether it’s a burning
bopper or a tender ballad everyone performs
with an attitude based on empathy. Kennedy and
66
company check their egos at the door. And that’s
why this record smolders with abandon and simpatico performances that modern jazz fans will
appreciate.
Check out the track list! They burst out of
the gate with Sonny Rollins’ “Airegin” and employ a take no prisoners attack. The changes fly
by with blazing speed by way of long-time associates Kennedy and drummer Dave Weckl.
Renee Rosnes comps impeccably and George
Garzone burns on tenor. That’s followed by the
gospel-tinged, testifying Bobby Timmons classic
“Moanin’.” Lee Ritenour sets the scene here
with the familiar bluesy head and that gives way
to some stellar soloing from Kennedy and the
sax section. “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes”
picks up the rhythmic pace at a nice clip featuring punchy horns by Tim Hagan, John Allred
and Steve Wirts. A nice ballad is integrated into
the mix with Freddie Hubbard’s “Ceora.” Kennedy makes his mark here by playing somewhat
reserved and taking some time for his solo to
develop. Rosnes’ stellar piano work and Weckl’s
tasteful brush accents are remarkable. Mike
Stern’s own “One Liners” fits in well with the
other standards here. His considerable chops
come into play and ignite great solos from Rosnes and inspired swing from Weckl. Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood” is suitably
sweet and lyrical. Garzone makes an exceptional
appearance here and lends a consistence and
poignant grace to the piece that is quite stunning.
Perhaps, the showstopper has to be the finale,
Cole Porter’s “What is This Thing Called Love.”
It is a real tour de force that begins with a lilting
sort of Afro-Cuban groove that quickly shifts
into swinging overdrive. Great solos abound by
Garzone and Weckl, with the guitars of Stern
and Ritenour and the brilliant piano work of Ms.
Rosnes.
With this release Tom Kennedy cements
himself as a modern traditionalist of the highest
order. And most importantly he has shown impeccable taste in his choice of material and
knows how to organize a loose yet powerful and
swinging session. Well done!
Kneebody
THE LINE-Concord Records CRE-34495-02.
Lowell; Cha-Cha; Trite; Sleeveless; Still Play;
The Line; E and E; Pushed Away; Work Hard,
Play Hard, Towel Hard; Greenblatt; What Was;
Ready Set Go
PERSONNEL: Adam Benjamin, keyboards;
Shane Endsley, trumpet; Kaveh Rastegar, electric bass; Ben Wendel, saxophone; Nate Wood,
drums
By Dan Burke
I’ll start this by saying that I have been a
08-2013_Lineage_JazzInside 7/26/13 4:28 PM Page 1
NEW
!
ROCK & POP
CL ASSICS
REVISITED
look back, but
This recording is a
of today. You will
cast in the sound
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be surprised at th
nes take.
of these classic tu
1310 Tucker Road
North Dartmouth, MA 02747 USA
Phone: (508) 992-6613
Web: www.whalingcitysound.com
M r. S a n d m a n
Eleanor Rigby
Visions
Tequila
r You
I Only Have Eye, ts RFuon
Walk, Don
Woodstock
Wipe Out
erywhere
v
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Love Me Tender
fan of the jazz quintet Kneebody for quite some
time starting with a “blind date” purchase on the
always wonderful German label “Winter & Winter” and then catching up with the other releases
(including a hauntingly beautiful interpretation
of 12 Charles Ives songs with Theo Blackmann
on vocals). Solo releases by individual members
Ben Wendel and Shane Endsley have proven
very rewarding purchases as well. Having been
on three other labels over the previous four recordings, Kneebody has found a most suitable
new home with Concord Records for the release
of “The Line”, their fourth studio outing.
Adam Benjamin’s “Lowell” starts this record off with a highly distorted stabbed keyboard riff joined shortly by a slapback snare and
tom beat. The horns come in to play the main
melody--a simple yet compelling line. This dark
rocking track would throw many a jazz listener
into a quandary as to what genre of music the
output of Kneebody would most accurately reside in. The answer to this question is . . . Well,
we will just have to listen some more.
“Cha Cha” begins with a “fill in the dots”
spasmodic groove in the stop-start vein of Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” then fleshes
out with horns front and center playing a kind of
New Orleans vamp. After a second go‘round, we
are treated to a dancing snare groove over watery
keyboard and almost subsonic bass joyously
giving some bones to a wistful trumpet melody.
A lead bass solo looms large over the return of
the repeated first section and introduces a fantastic trumpet solo by Shane Endsley who is finally
teased back into the main theme by Ben and
68
Adam on sax and keys respectively.
I remember sitting slack-jawed throughout
the live performance of the next track entitled
“Trite”, when I had the pleasure catching Kneebody live at the 2013 Winter Jazzfest. Drummer
Nate Wood and bassist Kaveh Rastegar start off
this track with a hyperkinetic stuttering snare/
hihat groove over a deep marching quarter note
bassline in an update of English DnB/Jungle that
produces a spiraling sort of “audio vertigo”
made even more disorienting by the horn bursts
that seem to have been played in another room
without any knowledge of ‘the one’. This runaway horse of a gorgeous groove is brought
under the reins of Ben and Shane as they ride it
into submission with a powerfully complex unison bop horn melody while Adam lays the track
ahead – the track leading to a killer ringmodulated keyboard solo with pots ‘n’ pans
replacing drum ‘n’ bass and the biggest baddest
bass bangin’ away. That crazed paired down
groove returns and only serves to emphasize the
lushness of the main melody as it victoriously
returns along with a keyboard melody that
sounds like Appalachian fiddlers playing with
Jon Hassell. It all breaks down with a series of
horn and key stabs over an imaginative drum
solo. (Nate Wood is a highly original player
whom I’ve seen in several other groups including Tigran Hamasyan. More people should know
his name.)
The next track, penned by Kaveh, is entitled
“Sleeveless” and is a lush and elegant piece with
beautiful swells and eddies and lots of room
between the instruments. The pacing has a very
Zawinul feel and features some of the most
beautiful bittersweet interplay between the horns
and keyboards.
“Still Play” features Ben and Shane recreating the complexity of a DNA strand with wind
and brass in one of the most challenging horn
melodies I’ve yet heard. I remember feeling
nervous for them as they played this at Winter
Jazzfest. No need – they pulled it off with surgical precision and with plenty of joy.
Whereas “Sleeveless” is delicate with
plenty of open space, title track “The Line” is its
thick and fleshy sibling - pulsing and surging
forward with its crashing open hi-hat and heavily
treated keyboard melody that morphs into a
doom metal update of “Frankenstein” (Edgar
Winter not Mary Shelley)
“Pushed Away” and its three bass intro
(that beats Spinal Tap!) “E and E” bring a sense
of gravitas and vastness as it moves toward the
ever-receding horizon.
“Work Hard, Play Hard, Towel Hard” with
its pulsing bass and insistent snare and hi-hat
groove serves as a barebones backdrop for
Shane’s athletic trumpet work sectioned by dual
horn blasts. Adam’s keys build tension as the
bass shifts up and drums re-calibrate. What follows is a highly original cat-and-mouse game
between the skipping hi-hat and sax. The overall
complexity of this ever-shifting composition is
belied by the apparent ease with which it is
played.
“Greenblatt” and “What Was” return to a
more relaxed song structure with plenty of room
for the lush horns to bloom. I can feel Wayne
Shorter especially in the latter.
“Ready Set Go”, let’s call it what it is – a
Ben Wendel power ballad, ends the album on an
authoritative and heavy note much in the vein of
some of Jim Black’s work with “Alas No Axis”.
It is precisely this balance of the overtly heavy
against the almost ephemeral that makes Kneebody such a compelling listen for me. The everpresent shifting between the genres of rock and
jazz give this band freedom from musical citizenship and allow them to paint their music with
bold strokes and have it appreciated on its own
terms. “The Line” is a fantastic listening experience and, along with their earlier works, well
worth adding to your music collection. I must
also stress that this is a band you must catch live
if at all possible.
Mack Avenue Superband
LIVE FROM THE DETROIT JAZZ FESTIVAL 2012—Mack Avenue Records MAC 1076.
Liberty Avenue Stroll; All Blues; Guantanamera; Breakthrough; Nuages; Oh Daddy Blues;
Honky Tonk.
PERSONNEL: Carl Allen, drums; Gary Burton,
vibes; Aaron Diehl, piano; Kevin Eubanks, guitar; Tia Fuller, alto sax; Sean Jones, trumpet;
Cecile McLorin Salvant, vocals; Evan Perri,
guitar; Diego Rivera, tenor sax; Alfredo Rodriguez, piano; Rodney Whitaker, bass.
By Eric Harabadian
The summer and fall are great times for
outdoor music festivals. One of the top ones in
the U.S. has got to be the Detroit Jazz Fest, the
largest free Jazz festival in the world. Recorded
last year over the traditional Labor Day weekend, Mack Avenue gathered a mix of their rising
young stars blended with some notable legends
to create a magic night of pure improvisational
bliss.
The evening opens with trumpeter Sean
Jones’ “Liberty Avenue Stroll.” And that’s the
perfect title for the piece as the rhythm section of
Carl Allen and Rodney Whitaker set this tune in
motion with a nice mid tempo swing. Strong
solos emerge from Jones’ seemingly effortless
flow of ideas and Aaron Diehl’s lyrical keyboard
dexterity. The Miles Davis classic “All Blues”
follows and shines the spotlight on soloists Gary
Burton and Kevin Eubanks. There is some nice
loose and rubato rapport at the outset which
quickly gives way to the familiar lilting waltztime rhythms. Burton offers more of a traditional
modern bop influenced approach while Eubanks
pulls out all the stops with a low volume John
Scofield-meets-James Blood Ulmer-screamerthat
works beautifully. If you are looking for something completely different, hang on because
you’re in for a treat with pianist Alfredo RodriTo Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880
guez’s take on “Guantanamera.” This is one of
the most unusual versions of this traditional
Spanish tune ever performed. Imagine if Chick
Corea, Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor all
joined forces in a session of piano tradeoffs and
you’ll get an idea as to the avant garde nature of
his presentation. Rodriguez breaks the tune
down in a series of inventions and exciting variations. The ensemble is back on stage for saxophonist Tia Fuller’s composition
“Breakthrough.” This one swings from the get
go. It’s taken at a jaunty and odd metered pace
that keeps both audience and performer on their
toes. Sean Jones simply shines here as a true
star. There is a freedom and effervescence to his
playing that is rare and beautiful. The same can
be said for Fuller, whose solo begins somewhat
reserved and gradually rises to the occasion. The
rhythm section ebbs and flows perfectly with the
front line in empathic fashion. Guitarist Evan
Perri is one of the young lions on the Mack Avenue roster and is one of the founding members of
the Hot Club of Detroit. The Django Reinhardtinfluenced guitarist is in his element here doing a
faithful cover of the Belgian icon’s classic.
Perri’s facility on the six-string is superb and
delicately played. Diehl’s unison lines and exceptional accompaniment make this track a show
stopper. The only vocal track on the album is by
another young rising star Cecile McClorin Salvant. She performs a piece called “Oh Daddy”
and delivers it in an authentic, vintage style. Her
phrasing and coquettish patter recalls Bessie
Smith or Billie Holiday. Diehl is her primary foil
here and provides a wonderful harmonic cushion
for Salvant’s words to be caressed and accentuated.
What would a live gathering of all stars be
without a celebrity jam? And they dedicate their
cover of Bill Doggett’s classic “Honky Tonk” to
one of Detroit’s favorite sons, the late great guitarist/vocalist Johnnie Bassett. The majority of
the participants here take their turns laying out
their wares on 12 bar phrases. The tune ends
with Eubanks and Perri bringing the house down
with dueling leads.
Mark Masters
EVERYTHING YOU DID: THE MUSIC OF
WALTER BECKER & DONALD FAGEN—
Capri Records 74123. Web: CapriRecords.com.
Show Biz Kids; Bodhisattva; Do it Again; Charlie Freak; Black Cow; Josie; Fire in the Hole;
Kings; Aja; Chain Lightning
PERSONNEL: Mark Masters, producer, arranger; Anna Mjöll, vocals; Tim Hagans, trumpet; Louis Fasman, trumpet; Les Lovitt, trumpet;
Les Benedict, trombone; Dave Ryan, trombone;
Ryan Dragon, trombone; Dave Woodley, trombone; Oliver Lake, alto saxophone; Don Shelton,
alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, alto flute;
John Mitchell, tenor saxophone, bassoon; Billy
Harper tenor saxophone; Gene Cipriano, tenor
saxophone, English horn; Gary Smulyan, baritone saxophone; Brian Williams, bass clarinet;
Sonny Simmons, English horn; Brad Dutz,
vibes, percussion; Hamilton Price, acoustic bass;
Peter Erskine, drums, liner notes; Gary Foster,
liner notes; Thomas Burns, executive producer;
69
Talley Sherwood, engineer; Cat Conner, photography
By Alex Henderson
A positive trends for me in the 21st Century
jazz scene is an increase in the number of improvisers performing rock and R&B songs. There
are still plenty of jazz artists (both instrumentalists and vocalists) who favor “all Tin Pan Alley
all the time” policy when it comes to choosing
popular songs to interpret, but thankfully, artists
ranging from the Bad Plus and the Modern Rock
Quartet to singer Cassandra Wilson are insightful enough to realize that rock and R&B songs
can be excellent vehicles for jazz expression.
And bandleader/arranger Mark Masters, with the
help of his ensemble, demonstrates that on Everything You Did: The Music of Walter Becker &
Donald Fagen. This 2012 recording is a tribute
to Steely Dan, who were huge in the 1970s and
still have a devoted following today. Although
primarily a pop-rock group, Steely Dan clearly
had jazz influences (as well as soul and funk
influences) and worked with plenty of jazz musicians back in the day (including Wayne Shorter,
Phil Woods, Victor Feldman and Warne Marsh).
So when you think about it, recording an acoustic post-bop tribute to Steely Dan makes perfect
sense even though most straight-ahead jazz musicians ignore the Becker/Fagen songbook.
Some “smooth jazz” artists have recorded
dull, saccharine “elevator muzak” versions of
Steely Dan’s songs, but nothing like that happens on this engaging CD. Quite the contrary:
whether Masters and his colleagues are embracing “Josie,” “Do It Again,” “Bodhisattva” or
“Chain Lightning,” they perform like hardcore
improvisers and not pop instrumentalists or a
cover band. Everything You Did is not an album of note-for-note covers; it is an album of
interpretations, and the musicians have plenty of
room to stretch out and improvise. That includes
the members of Masters’ ensemble as well as
some special guest soloists, including Oliver
Lake and Gary Foster on alto saxophone, Sonny
Simmons on English horn and Tim Hagans on
trumpet.
One of the great things about Steely Dan
was their ability to combine cryptic lyrics with
infectious, jazzy pop-rock hooks and melodies.
Lyrically, they could be abstract and cerebral,
but melodically, harmonically and rhythmically,
Steely Dan would pull you right in. Because this
album is mostly instrumental, the listener is reminded of Becker/Fagan’s melodic greatness
more than their lyrical greatness—and those
melodies become the basis for an abundance of
inspired blowing on Everything You Did. The
only vocals are on “Charlie Freak” and “Black
Cow,” both of which feature singer Anna Mjöll.
She sticks to wordless scatting on “Charlie
Freak,” and “Black Cow” is the only track that
features Steely Dan’s lyrics.
So why do so many jazz improvisers still
ignore the music of Steely Dan and other poprock greats? It comes down to dogma: they have
been conditioned to believe that worthwhile
popular music ended with Tin Pan Alley. But
when you consider that the Baby Boomers, GenX and Gen-Y (a.k.a., the Millennials) all grew up
with rock and/or R&B, it becomes harder and
harder to make an argument that jazz musicians
should only choose popular songs from the prerock era. From “Fire in the Hole” to “Aja,” Masters is as jazz-minded on this album as he would
be on an album of standards. Masters sacrifices
nothing from a jazz perspective here, making
Everything I Did a consistently interesting tribute to the Becker/Fagen songbook.
Pat Metheny
TAP: JOHN ZORN’S BOOK OF ANGELS,
VOL. 20-Nonesuch/Tzadik Records 535352-2.
Mastena; Albim; Tharsis; Sariel; Phanuel; Hurmiz
PERSONNEL: Pat Metheny, acoustic and electric guitars, baritone guitar, sitar guitar, tiples,
bass, piano, orchestrionic marimba, orchestra
bells, bandoneon, percussion, electronics, flugelhorn; Antonio Sanchez, drums
By Dan Burke
John Zorn’s fascination with traditional
70
Jewish music and his own Jewish heritage had
motivated him to write “Kristallnacht” in 1992.
Inspired by the enthusiastic response to this
piece, he set upon the task of writing 100 songs
in a year that would update “the idea of Jewish
music into the 21st century”. Within a three year
period, he had composed 200 tunes which became the first Masada Book. After ten years of
playing the compositions of Book One, Zorn
decided to write some more and ended up with
another 300 tunes with titles mostly derived
from demonology and Judeo-Christian mythology. These were gathered together as Book Two:
“The Book of Angels”. There have been quite a
few recordings of these tunes along the way as
interpreted by other forward-thinking musicians
including, Erik Friedlander, Marc Ribot, Secret
Chiefs 3, Uri Caine, and Medeski, Martin and
Wood.
We arrive at “Book of Angels, Volume 20”
with Pat Metheny at the helm this time. While
reading the list of instruments used on this recording I was very pleased to note that, short of
an orchestrionic marimba, this was chiefly to be
a return to Pat’s first instrumental voice, the
guitar. (I had found Metheny’s Orchestrion period, though technically fascinating, to be as
emotionally uncharged as Zappa’s affair with the
Synclavier on 1986’s “Jazz From Hell”). To
further entice, the drum throne was to be occupied by none other than the highly imaginative
timekeeper, Antonio Sanchez.
Starting off with “Mastena”, a cycling hypnotic piece of entwined sitar guitar and acoustic
guitar, we are carried along by the powerful yet
highly detailed Sanchez 11/8 drum groove. Over
the course of the song’s seven minutes, Pat introduces sections of increasingly processed and
distorted guitar until the entire piece breaks
down into something you might hear on an
Aphex Twin release.
The lace-like delicacy and rise and fall in
tempo of the acoustic guitar passage which introduces “Albim” plays in delightful contrast to the
previous track’s more assertive textures and
insistent timing. Thoughtful cymbal work and
velvety thick bass notes paired with Pat’s gorgeous style of (fore)playing around the melody
slowly bring us to cruising height for several
measures of energized guitar work over bandoneon and piano dipping briefly into the more
introspective opening passage and then rising
back for more spirited interplay. The piece ends
with a staccato doubled piano and harpsichord
leading into an almost sinister series of stabbing
tripled voicings before ending with a simple
guitar chord.
With its brisk tempo and shifting measures
in 9 and 10, paired with a plucked single, then
doubled, then tripled middle-eastern motif”, all
enhanced by finger cymbals, “Tharsis” quickly
engages the listener. As drums come onboard, a
separate bass melody plays counterpoint adding
a layer of complexity reminiscent of the work of
Avishai Cohen and Jasper Hoiby’s “Phronesis”.
Just as quickly, this all falls away leaving only
the finger cymbals and a simple piano counting
out the time. A lush and expansive atmospheric
flugelhorn and synth section follows leaving
plenty of room for Antonio to ebb and flow with
his kit. Orchestrionic marimba reintroduces the
middle-eastern motif, this time done in a more
playful swinging way as a hard-synched synth
voice frenetically solos over the top.
Time for Tiples! “Sariel” is a celebration of
acoustic string textures and tone colors. After
about three minutes of sheer pleasure, Pat brings
on an anthemic almost Frippian sustained-note
guitar solo that plays very nicely with his other
stringed friends. As with the “A/B/A/B” compositional technique evidenced on “Albim”, we
return to the first section and then revisit the
second section with greater verve and zeal. Is
this due to the fact that the original Zorn Masada
compositions are mostly shorter pieces and
therefore must repeat for sufficient duration?
Whatever the reason, it does not wear out its
welcome and provides a good framework for Pat
to really stretch out. He ends this piece with a
total breakdown of structure and an abstract call
& response with Sanchez that brings to mind the
more adventurous non-Wilco side of Nels Cline.
The 2nd longest track on the record, “Phanuel” is
split equally between a beatless atmospheric first
section and a second section played in the style
of a more traditional guitar trio. The first few
minutes of minimal acoustic guitar notes and
71
chords are played with such a reverence for
space as to bring the listener within touching
distance of the fretboard. The gauzy backdrop
for this guitar work is comprised of sustained
synth pads and plenty of ambient laptop trickery
using distorted voices, modified guitar and horn,
and effects. At the 4-minute mark a more concise guitar melody emerges as the ambient backdrop washes away. The piece slowly builds with
cymbal flourishes and doubled string voicings.
Pat starts playing a soulful lead over low-level
distorted guitar backdrop, economic bass and
Antonio’s delicate ride. The bones slowly fall
away as the guitar takes on more open space and
fades.
“Hurmiz” is the perfect “after-dinner mint”
for this project, as it notches up the energy level
with its frenetic piano/drum interplay reminiscent of the work covered by Bill Bruford and
Patrick Moraz on their duo project. There is an
approach to playful minimalism here occasionally fragmented by a reoccurring pair of gospel
piano chords. This piece feels as though Pat and
Antonio are just having fun in the studio and
creating something very pleasing in the process.
72
This release celebrates the work of Zorn while at
the same time allowing Pat and Antonio the
freedom to really create something new. The
playing is spirited and thoughtful throughout and
a real treat for those of us who appreciate a
healthy dose of texture in their music. Pick this
one up and, while you’re at it, check out some of
the other “Book of Angels” interpretations.
tic bass; Janne Tuomi, drums, marimba; Mika
Kallio, Stafan Pasborg, drums.
Wadada Leo Smith
OCCUPY
THE
WORLD
–
TUM
www.tumrecords.com. Queen Hatshepsut; The
Bell -2; Mount Kilimanjaro (Love and Compassion for John Lindberg); Crossing On a Southern Road (A Memorial for Marion Brown); Occupy the World for Life, Liberty and Justice.
PERSONNEL: Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet,
conductor; John Lindberg, acoustic bass;
TUMO: Verberi Pohjola, trumpet, electronics;
Jari Hongisto, trombone; Kenneth Ojutkangas,
horn;Juhani Aaltonen, Fredrik Ljungqvist,
Mikke Innanen, reeds, flutes; Seppo Kantonen,
piano; Iro Haarla, harp; Mikko Iivanainen, Kalle
Kalimna, electric guitars; Veli Krokfors, acous-
By Mark Keresman
One of the premier members of the
AACM—the Chicago-based Association for the
Advancement of Creative Musicians collective—has become one of America’s premier jazz
composers, bandleaders, and trumpeters, namely
Wadada Leo Smith (born 1941). Unlike some of
his contemporaries, Smith has reached even
beyond the “mainstream” of the avant-garde to
conquer/create new panoramas—his albums and
compositions include works for acoustic, electric, and electronic instrumentation and collaborations with musicians outside the “pure” jazz
continuum. (His tribute albums to the electric
music of Miles Davis, the Yo Miles series on
Cuneiform and Shanachie labels are co-helmed
with avant-rock guitarist Henry Kaiser and feature Michael Manring, the ROVA sax quartet,
ex-Journey drummer Steve Smith, and polymath
composer/percussionist Lukas Ligeti.) Smith’s
music is in some ways like that of Duke Ellington in that it’s virtually the sum-total of the times
from which it emerged—it shares aspects of
Roscoe Mitchell and Lester Bowie, Miles Davis
and Herbie Hancock, Charles Ives and Carl Ruggles—a truly, but not exclusively, American
sound.
Occupy the World marks the debut of four
Smith compositions for a large ensemble and the
recorded debut of TUMO, a large, loose assemblage of Scandinavian musicians dedicated to
creative music, its players coming from backgrounds in jazz and classical styles. Occupy also
features a remake of “The Bell,” Smith’s first
recorded composition from the groundbreaking
Anthony Braxton album 3 Compositions of New
Jazz (Delmark, 1968). Occupy is a heady but
rewarding listen—most of the tracks range from
15 to over 30 minutes in length, and they balance
massed ensemble playing and collective improvisation. “Queen Hatshepsut” begins with
some dense, bereaved-sounding orchestral swells
that evoke European classical composers Mahler
and Bruckner (late 19th/early 20th century-era)
amid cymbal washes, segueing into what can
only be described as Don Cherry’s proto-jazz/
world fusion juxtaposed with the eerie psychescratching tones of Alfred Hitchcock’s soundtrack wizard Bernard Herrmann. This piece encompasses idyllic pastorals, stately and cinematic drama, mournful nocturnes, and bracing
(but only semi-sweet) atonality, the later conjuring mind’s-ear echoes of that recently passed
grand old man of American mod-classicism
Elliott Carter. Herein, Smith’s trumpet crackles
like and cries as if proclaiming and celebrating
the majesty of a past dynasty. “Mount Kilimanjaro” is a concerto-like piece in tribute to and
featuring protean bassist John Lindberg, a fre-
quent collaborator of Smith’s—setting him
“against” a bank of drummers, Lindberg’s bass
attack displays astounding technique with measured and elemental fervor.
"Occupy the World for Life, Liberty, and
Justice," dedicated to the international Occupy
movement, begins with passages for strings
evoking Dvorak and Schoenberg, followed by
some terse and dissonant electric guitars and
full-bodied orchestral aggression. It encapsulates
the tensions between those who seeking to maintain a socio-economic status quo and those wishing to disrupt what they see as a self-serving and
corrupt status quo. Smith’s trumpet is brooding
and apocalyptic, the TUM group seethes as if
calling the global money-movers to an accounting, drums POUND like a clarion call for a notion of Justice that’s not for sale. As unpredictable—and purposeful—as Carla Bley, Ornette
Coleman, Leonard Bernstein and Charles Ives,
“Occupy…” features notated passages and room
for the musicians to express themselves and
interact with each other, not quite “freeform” (as in, this isn’t a free-for-all, though it
might sound that way to avant-neophytes)—in
fact, Occupy occasionally resembles the conducted improvisations—“conductions”—of the
late Butch Morris. As with Morris, Smith makes
“creation” seem both organic and ordered, melding the approaches of musicians from different
backgrounds and eliciting and shaping a true
flow of inspiration.
An easy listen? Not particularly—but if you
can embrace Ornette and Penderecki, Varèse and
John Zorn, George Russell and Robert Moran,
Occupy the World is a quite crucial listen for
fans of 21st century cutting-edge music.
Chip Stephens
RELEVANCY—Capri Records Ltd. CAPRI
74120-2. Syndrome; Like Someone in Love;
Somewhere Before the End; This Funny World;
C hip’s Blues; A Day in May; Be My Love; Skidoo.
PERSONNEL: Chip Stephens, piano; Dennis
Carroll, bass; Joel Spencer, drums.
By Eric Harabadian
Chip Stephens bares his soul in the liner
notes and shares a personal story that sheds some
light on his life and, perhaps, the approach to his
art. The leader talks about the death of his father
and the significance of his parents nursing him
back to health after a severe auto accident in
May of 2008. Stephens uses this as a statement
about the challenges that we are faced with in
life and how one needs to prioritize what is important and relevant and what is not.
Apparently Stephens sustained such extensive injuries from the accident that he was in a
coma for five days. Doctors were not certain
73
whether he would ever walk or talk, let alone
play piano, again. Years later, alive and well, the
pianist takes stock and gives thanks, with an
album that is a mixed bag of Great American
Songbook gems, rare covers and select originals
of the post-modern bop variety. He is joined by
the rhythm section of bassist Dennis Carroll and
drummer Joel Spencer. But maybe the term
“rhythm section” might be rather generic for
these two. They, at once, steer and drive the
train. When they move in tandem with Stephens’
inventive melodic lines and death-defying runs
they truly function as one big harmonic machine.
Carla Bley’s “Syndrome” kicks off the
track list by exploding, with an interesting song
structure involving alternate key modulations
taken at a brisk and break neck pace. Stephens
punctuates via Tyner-like percussiveness that
works nicely off the urgent accents of the drums
and bass. “Like Someone in Love” is a familiar
Van Heusen/Burke perennial that does an about
face, with a somewhat bluesy and elegant approach. There is an upbeat feel and a seamless
flow of ideas from the leader that is quite remarkable. The same can be said for the follow
up track entitled “Somewhere Before the End.”
This is a perfect example of what was alluded to
earlier when mentioning that the entire group
operates as a unit. The piece begins as kind of a
loose experimental thing where the trio plays in
both supportive and rubato roles. And then,
“somewhere before the end,” Stephens reveals
the tune as a blues and the band falls in collectively as such. “This Funny World” by Rodgers/
Hart shifts gears and displays Stephens’ affinity
for ballads. It is light and reflective, with some
darker chordal shadings throughout. “Chip’s
Blues” is very light hearted and somewhat comical in its manic introduction. It goes into a
straight-ahead relaxed swing that takes one
through a pianistic adventure paying homage to
Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans and Ahmad Jamal.
Perhaps the sole thrust of this album can be
summed up in the piece “A Day in May.” This is
the leader’s instrumental account of his lifechanging auto accident and it is quite compelling. Via a 12-tone row Stephens creates a conceptual suite encompassing all the phases of his
experience; recovery, rehabilitation, success,
pain, confusion and walking again. After such a
heavy piece the group was wise to throw in another standard. “Be My Love” lightens the mood
as only a piece by Sammy Cahn can. And that
brings us to a momentous conclusion, with the
Bill Evans composition “Skidoo.” It wraps
things up on a very high and exuberant note.
Stephens really cooks here playing modally in a
very stream of conscious fashion. There are also
some notable breaks in the mid-section between
Stephens and drummer Spencer.
“My own personal relevancy is based on
the premise that I would rather fail going for
something, than to succeed playing it safe, just
getting by. It is one of the defining characteristics of my playing and in fact, my life,” says
Stephens. One listen to this album and you will
agree that that message is communicated perfectly clear.
74
Warren Wolf
WOLFGANG – Mack Avenue Records MAC
1077 www.mackavenue.com Sunrise; Frankie
and Johnny; Grand Central; Wolfgang; Annoyance; Lake Nerraw Flow; Things Were Done
Yesterday; Setembro; Le Carnaval de Venise
PERSONNEL: Warren Wolf, vibes, marimba;
Benny Green, piano; Christian McBride, bass;
Lewis Nash, drums; Aaron Goldberg, piano;
Kris Funn, bass; Billy Williams, Jr., drums;
Aaron Diehl, piano; Darryl Tookes, vocals
By Curtis Davenport
It seems that Warren Wolf appeared out of
nowhere a couple of years ago and immediately
became the hottest young vibraphonist in jazz. In
addition to his work as a leader he is a member
of Christian McBride’s terrific quintet Inside
Straight. He also plays with pianist Aaron Diehl
who has grabbed a lot of attention with his debut
album; and he recently took over the vibes chair
in the SF Jazz Collective, following in the formidable footsteps of Stefon Harris and Bobby
Hutcherson. Though he also is proficient on
drums and piano, Mr. Wolf has done most but
not all of his recording on the vibes, with Wolfgang being his second album for Mack Avenue
and sixth overall. I found his eponymous prior
Mack Avenue release to be promising but uneven. On Wolfgang, those rough spots have been
filed away, leaving an artistic statement that is
strong, cohesive and musically diverse.
Wolf employs two different groups on this
album, each one helping to push his sound in a
different direction. The first features a younger
generation of musicians – pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Kris Funn and drummer Billy Williams, Jr. The second trio is comprised of better
known veterans, Mr. McBride on bass, Lewis
Nash on drums and pianist Benny Green. The
younger cats employ a lighter touch which fit
nicely with Wolf originals such as “Sunrise”, a
sprightly waltz-tempoed number that gives Wolf
plenty of room to stretch out and display his
virtuosity. McBride’s influence (and bass) is all
over the three tracks anchored by the veteran
trio. The tempos are more defined and the sound
is decidedly more soulful. On “Frankie &
Johnny” they pay an obvious tribute to the version of this tune that was performed by Ray
Brown and Milt Jackson on their late ‘60’s live
album That’s the Way It Is. Wolf and company
kick off with a repeat of the unforgettably nasty
bass and low end piano vamp that Brown and
Monty Alexander patented on the original.
McBride even repeats Brown’s shout of “yeah”
at just the right moment. Wolf then jumps in,
swinging like “Bags” and they are off to the
races. If you aren’t at least bobbing your head by
the end of this one, check your pulse. “Grand
Central” featuring the “youngsters”, is a hard
Jazz Educataion
Wisdom
Five Towns College Music Professors Share Their Ideas
Stephen Gleason
Vocal Perspectives
I’ve been teaching the sight singing class for
about ten years. We’re singing songs as part of
it—songs like “How Insensitive.” In doing so,
you’re teaching harmony, melody, rhythm.
When you hand out a really fine “art song” it is
not only a study in music, it is a study in history,
in ethnicity, in culture. So the classes are a lot
more than just a sight singing class. Once you
sing a Bach chorale, you kind of giggle. It will
never go out of style—and that is important to
impress upon students. Our degree program at
Five Towns College is in Jazz and Commercial
Music. So, it is my responsibility to expose students to the origins of the music, where it is
derived from. We also look at songs by Stevie
Wonder for example — popular music as fine
art. It has jazz harmonic sensibilities, but it also
has so many influences—blues, Motown, gospel
… it is crucial to expose students to that.
Bryan Carrott
Rhythm Perspectives
It presents a challenge in the wide variety of skill
or lack, among individuals, often requiring
groups be sectioned accordingly, within the ensemble class. The more experienced receive
more challenging material, warm ups, etc. The
less experienced often focus on rhythmic training and technique. This is where the subject of
rhythmic foundation comes in, and I can’t help
but emphasize it’s importance enough. Since
many in the class major on other instruments or
voice, I often reiterate the point that rhythmic
security and execution is every responsibility of
every musician in any group, ensemble, or
combo, whatever the instrument, voice included. That said, I’ve often made an analogy
that a drummer or bassist with bad time, can
have the effect of a dentist with bad breath — a
grim childhood memory. There is an inner clock,
pertaining to pulse, within everyone, often with a
rebellious streak, that needs to be focused and
sometimes revamped, to receive and perceive the
tempo that is set, even by the one who sets it.
Let’s get on the same page. The challenge of
becoming familiar with rhythms & being able to
execute them when read, is a constant goal that’s
put before all the students. Many of them have
not had to read challenging material before entering.
JINY-75
page 1
see the connection and make it relevant for
them—rather than having them think that there
is this type of music and there is this type of
music. Of course, all of these techniques are
being used in pop arrangements as well. When
Bartok came up with how to write for strings,
you find that in film scores, and other types of
commercial music.
Peter Rogine
Demetrius Spaneas
Music Business
One thing that I tell students is that you can’t use
your teachers as a model. The paradigm for the
business changes constantly. What may have
worked for me 15 or 20 years ago, is not going
to work for a student now. I tell classical students not to expect that they’re going to win an
orchestra job—simply because they virtually
don’t exist any more. I tell jazz students the
same thing—that getting a steady [playing] gig
is not necessarily going to happen. So I tell them
to be more entrepreneurial about it. In the many
lectures I’ve done, I tell students that you have to
be your own business. You have to decide to
promote yourself. You can’t wait for anyone else
to do it. You have to be extremely proactive in
creating your own career.
Compositiom
For the most part, with the classical composers, I
get them very familiar with scores. I focus on
Bartok quite a lot because he had the basis of
modern orchestration, while still using a tonal
palette. I think that many classical composers
and jazz arrangers, post Bartok, are using a lot of
his techniques as a basis to explain what modern
Classical orchestrators are doing, but Gil Evans’
The Value of Studying Music
One of the other things that we talk about here at
the college is about something that people are
always asking us … young people and their parents: “What should we study music?” and the
given the economy and so on. And, of course,
that’s not the reason to study music. The study of
music gives much more than that. The study of
music, and the need to practice and focus means
you experience being alone … getting comfortable with yourself being alone … delayed gratification … and working with all types of people
once you’re playing. We have students who go
into audiology, psychology, sociology, instrument repair, or become New York State licensed
music instructors—we have that program here.
So not everyone becomes a performer. But the
training is very valuable. And, these studies
develop the soul. Let’s face it—music is a very
soulful thing.
Be Prepared With A Good Foundation
If someone were to come here from another
school, they’d say, “Boy, you guys are pretty
traditional or mainstream.” You have to learn to
read, play chord melodies ala Joe Pass, play solo
guitar, you have to backup a singer — as op-
“The study of music, and the need to practice and
focus means you experience being alone … getting
comfortable with yourself being alone … delayed
gratification … and working with all types of people
once you’re playing. And, these studies develop the
soul. Let’s face it—music is a very soulful thing.”
color palette as well. I really don’t like to make
any distinction between classical and jazz training as far as composition goes. Once you got to
mid-Century, the techniques were moving back
and forth. You could take what Stravinsky was
doing, and take what Duke Ellington was doing,
and mix them with what Gunther Schuller was
doing. You could take a Lennie Tristano composition and say this is coming from mid-Century
modernism in classical music. I want students to
posed to, “Hey, write your own composition …
let’s stretch out on a one chord vamp for three
hours …” That may happen when I’m gone, but
it’s not in our curriculum. I really am a firm
believer in foundation—sight singing, Bach
Chorales. This is only four years. When students
graduate, I tell them, “Now you’re prepared to
go anywhere. Don’t stop.”
Five Towns College
www.ftc.edu
75
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driving post-bop exploration, with Wolf spraying
line after line over Goldberg’s block chords,
building the tension until it explodes into a joyous 4/4 sprint. “Things Were Done Yesterday”
sounds like an outtake from one of the Inside
Straight albums, with its extremely catchy melody line, McBride’s bass almost forcing your
fingers to snap and Benny Green showing his
Bobby Timmons influence on his piano solo.
Most striking are the two selections performed as duets with Mr. Diehl. Like Diehl,
Wolf cut his teeth on classical music and has a
great appreciation for the music of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and other classical composers, in
addition to his love of jazz. Together they display this love and their striking technical proficiency on the title track, an obvious nod to Amadeus, in name as well as style. Through most of
the album, Wolf sounds a little like the postMJQ Milt Jackson. Here, it is Jackson and John
Lewis and absolutely beautiful.
Wolfgang is the most mature album of
Warren Wolf’s brief career. His growth as a
musician, composer and arranger are all evident
from first note to last. Wolf is someone to keep
your eyes on, as his future looks extremely
bright.
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76
“Anyone who has the power to
make you believe absurdities has the
power to make you commit injustices.”
- Voltaire

PDF - Jazz Inside Magazine

Transcription

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