Why We Sing: Lisa Sokolov/Jake Sokolov-Gonzalez in Goshen

The web of connections we discover as we interact with our fellow human beings, what we sometimes call “small-world” phenomenon, creates both surprise and comfort. Vocalist and pianist Lisa Sokolov, who performed on May 24 at the Institute For the Musical Arts with Jake Sokolov-Gonzalez, has relatives named Siegel. We were born 12 miles and 30 days apart into New York Jewish families. One of her closest musical allies, William Parker, is a hero of mine whom I will present in concert on June 12th for the 15th time. Jake’s friend JaMario Stills, whom he met at Brown University, teaches at Amherst College and is a theater colleague of Priscilla Page, my wife. And on it goes.

We were 40 in the big barn at IMA in Goshen, MA. It felt like a prayer session. The music flowed from melody to melody, sometimes with brief pauses between pieces; the sound was pure. The poems, written by Muriel Rukeyser, Yip Harburg, William Parker and Sokolov, among others, celebrated love, explored life’s mysteries, cried out for peace and justice, and ridiculed greedy despots. Unsure if we were at a concert or a religious ceremony, we didn’t know whether to applaud or not. We did so weakly, in spots. At the end, of course, we erupted with full-throated approval.

Were we in a secular or sacred space? It stands to reason we were confused by the ambiguity of the moment. Sokolov knows a thing or two about the power of the human voice. She has been using it as a healing modality for over 40 years. Since the early 1980s she has taught music therapy and her Embodied Voicework method at NYU, where she is a full professor in the University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She’s also a cantor. On Saturday she sang “Hashiveinu”, a beautiful melody that is part of the Yom Kippur service.

Sokolov studied with avant-garde jazz masters Bill Dixon, Milford Graves and Jimmy Lyons at Bennington College, where in March, she participated in a 50 year celebration of the school’s Black Music Department. After college and a short stay in Paris, she moved to New York in 1977 where she quickly fell in with bassist William Parker and fellow vocalists Ellen Christi and Jeanne Lee. Soon she was part of the scene at Studio Henry, a cooperative performance space in lower Manhattan that she built with John Zorn, Elliot Sharp, Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb and others.

After her own Jazz Shares performance at IMA in 2023, Holcomb encouraged Sokolov to contact me for a gig. The introverted Sokolov equivocated at first, but with a second push from Holcomb she relented; we thank the spirits she did.

But it was an easy ask. Nestled between Soft Machine and Martial Solal in my record collection were Lazy Afternoon, Presence and A Quiet Thing, three cherished Lisa Sokolov recordings. Also in the stacks were Gerry Hemingway’s Songs and William Parker’s Stan’s Hat Flapping in the Wind, both of which prominently feature the vocalist. I understood the upside of saying “yes”, and the addition of her son, Jake Sokolov-Gonzalez was the cherry on top.

A cellist blessed with a clarion tone and a fertile imagination, Sokolov-Gonzalez also experiments with electronics, film and performance art. He’s a year away from earning his PhD in Music and Multimedia Composition from Brown. He also cooperatively runs Pyxis, a performance/gathering space in Providence. Joining his mother in rich harmony and in plucked response to her darting flights, he grounded the proceedings with earthly resonance. It was the first inter-generational family band I’ve presented since Joe and Mat Maneri in 2004. In both instances, there was a special rapport.

“Like a pebble dropping into water,” she sang at the beginning of the evening, “tone is the rippling of waves through this ocean of air. Our ears translate these undulations into our experience of tone, activating trees of overtones, activating trees of overtones…” We were off and running.

“Take it to your heart,” she sang towards night’s end, “know and understand, that this world is merely a thin and narrow bridge. You need never be afraid, you need never be afraid.” And then in a remarkable coda, she revisited phrases she intoned throughout the concert. “Bring peace down” were her last whispered words.

When we got home after the post-concert reception, I played Tala, Terry Jenoure’s brand new release for Sokolov. I have long heard similarities in their sound and approach. She was pleased and impressed and unaware of Jenoure’s work. I was glad to create another strand in the web.

Just Friends: Advancing On a Wild Pitch in Greenfield

Bands produce better music when it’s made by friends. That’s not always the case, of course. There was no love lost between Stan Getz and Chet Baker, for instance, and tensions within various Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis ensembles have been well documented. Despite conflict, those ensembles made some beautiful (and important) music, but because jazz is highly interactive and requires such intense listening, it stands to reason that musicians who get along off the bandstand will have a better chance of making good music on it. Moppa Elliott’s quintet, Advancing on a Wild Pitch, is a case in point.

Bassist and composer Moppa Elliott, joined by friends Sam Kulik (trombone), Charles Evans (baritone saxophone), Danny Fox (piano) and Christian Coleman (drums), made some outstanding music for the 60 of us gathered at Hawks & Reed in Greenfield, MA on May 3. Playing material from their 2024 release, Disasters, Vol. II, on Elliott’s Hot Cup imprint, the quintet tore through the music with a surplus of spirit and technique.

The music, all written by Elliott, largely consisted of what we used to call light swingers: mid-tempo, toe tapping pieces with straightforward form. Recalling the luxurious, bottom-heavy sound of Gerry Mulligan’s Quartet with Bob Brookmeyer, Advancing On a Wild Pitch treated us to a satisfying and mellifluous evening. It was a standard deviation away from Elliott’s iconoclastic, polyglot band Mostly Other People Do the Killing (originally featuring Jon Iragabon, Peter Evans and Kevin Shea.)

The compositions we heard on Saturday, like many of Elliott’s pieces, were named after cities and towns in his native Pennsylvania. His current obsession highlights places in PA that have endured man-made disasters of one kind or another. There is no shortage of misfortune; Disasters, Vol. III is coming soon.

“Powelton Village” and “Cobb’s Creek” began the concert. They were places where John Africa’s anti-capitalist, Afro-centrist MOVE organization had confrontations with the Philadelphia Police Department. In 1985, the mayor and the police dropped two bombs on their Cobb’s Creek home, killing 11 people and destroying an entire city block. These pieces, and the others, were not programmatic, they didn’t reflect the title’s subject matter. They had, in fact, a relaxed demeanor and were full of low register cheer.

“Marcus Hook”, a small borough along the Delaware River, was the unfortunate location of a 1975 collision between two tankers carrying oil and chemicals that created a 50-mile oil spill and a fire that raged for three days. The piece was a slow blues featuring succinct solo statements from Fox and Evans. “The Donora Smog” commemorates an industrial town south of Pittsburgh that was the site of a rare weather event in 1948 when pollution from a steel mill and a zinc works plant combined with fog to create a toxic smog that killed upwards of 70 residents over several days. It provided easy listening, sending us back to the pre-revolutionary jazz of the early 1950s.

There were other disasters on the bill: a coal mine explosion, a train collision, a poisoned water supply among them, all delivered with élan and the polish of conservatory trained musicians.

The provocative premise of Elliott’s Disaster series is in keeping with his puckish nature. He named his celebrated band, Mostly Other People Do the Killing, by lifting a phrase of Leon Theremin's discussing Josef Stalin. A series of remarkable MOPDtK album covers faithfully mimic the design of classic records like Ornette Coleman’s This is Our Music (This is Our Moosic) and Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert (The Coimbra Concert). And in 2014, they produced Blue, an uncanny note for note recreation of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, that stumped experts in blindfold tests and resulted in many heated discussions. Elliott’s inclusion of Jorge Luis Borge’s short story, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”, as the only album note, sent a sly message about hero worship and the role of re-creation in art.

There was little irreverence displayed as the band relaxed before and after the show. Just the usual banter, jokes and needles between friends. Elliott and Charles Evans grew up together in Pennsylvania, and the baritone saxophonist took over for Elliott as band director at Tuckahoe (NY) High School. Elliott and Kulik met at Oberlin and live near each other in Queens, NY. (Kulik lives in Astoria, where I went to high school. Elliott lives in Sunnyside, where I spent the first 10 years of my life.) The Danny Fox Trio has released two recordings on Hot Cup Records. Bonding over the jazz canon and a love of baseball, this group of same-aged dudes all get along. You can hear it in the music.  

Keep Your Friends Close: Joe Fonda Quartet Plays Northampton

Bassist Joe Fonda is a working jazz musician, defined as someone who earns most of their income from gigging. For all but a chosen few, that’s a tough row to hoe. A handful are gainfully employed on Broadway, late-night TV, in military bands and a variety of commercial work; a small-percentage have achieved commercial success. But Joe Fonda is an independent contractor, chasing down gigs where ever they appear. Because he brings good energy and virtuosity to every musical situation, because he is open minded and open hearted, and because he is flexible and has a ton of experience, he is constantly working and often gets invited back.

Joe Fonda made his latest visit to the Pioneer Valley on April 18, when he brought his Quartet to the Parlor Room in Northampton. Alongside Kenny Wessel, guitar, Sam Bardfeld, violin, and Rob Garcia, drums, Fonda shared his joy of music making with 70 lucky souls.

This was Fonda’s 11th Jazz Shares appearance, and his first as an outright leader. (He has co-led performances by the NU Band, Conference Call, New Origin Trio and the Satako Fujii/Joe Fonda Duo.) He keeps getting the return call because he’s deeply musical, never fails to lift the bandstand, and has become a friend.

The 90-minute set was filled with Fonda originals that gave the band room to swing and fully express themselves as mature musicians. He told me that for some time he has wanted to write compositions “in time” and work them out with a band of his choosing. This Quartet fulfills that wish. The band knew the material from the inside out and nailed the exacting heads and endings. They soloed with distinction and created a group sound that was a thing.

Fonda is a long-time fan of keyboardist and bandleader Joe Zawinul. “Syndicate” was inspired by the great fusionist and provided Fonda the opportunity to expand his technique by playing endless series of 16th notes designed for the electric bass on its bigger acoustic cousin. Fonda’s funky bass line, clearly heard and articulated, was one of the evening’s many highlights.

Another memorable moment came when Wessel saved the day by catching Fonda’s bass after he lost control of it. Fonda will occasionally rake his strings, then shake his instrument to increase its resonance. As he was jiggling, the neck slipped from his hand, and Wessel, who was situated slightly in front of the leader, averted catastrophe with a nice grab. The crowd gasped, the band laughed, and hardly a beat was missed.

When not rescuing errant instruments, Kenny Wessel was creating conditions for the band to thrive. His mood-creating guitar fills offered delicate curlicues and massive sound washes, and his solos and twining statements with Bardfeld were expressive and bold. On the groove oriented pieces, he brought to bear his 12 years of experience with Ornette Coleman’s free-funk juggernaut, Prime Time. He and Fonda are touring Europe this fall with Thomas Heberer and Lou Grossi as the NU Band.

Like Fonda and Wessel, Sam Bardfeld is a graduate of Wesleyan University, known for their strong music focus. The violinist has gone on to perform and record with a dizzying array of musicians, including: Bruce Springsteen, Willie Colon, Anthony Braxton, Red Clay Ramblers and Steve Bernstein. In his Downbeat review of Bardfeld’s The Great Enthusiasms (Kris Davis, Michael Sarin), Bill Milkowski characterized Bardfeld’s playing as “combining a touch of Stuff Smith's playfulness with a Charles Ives aesthetic.” An accurate summation. Bardfeld made a key intervention during soundcheck, when he suggested that he move to the other side of the stage, away from the guitar. That allowed for proper sound separation and a satisfying listening experience.

I wish I had read Rob Garcia’s bio before he arrived, so I could have talked to him about his role in creating a thriving, community-based Brooklyn jazz scene through Connection Works, Brooklyn Jazz Underground and the Douglass St. Music Collective. I would have also liked to ask him about being an ordained minister and his holistic healing practice. Looking forward to next time. Garcia kept the Quartet tight all night. He read down meaty compositions with lots of tempo shifts and mood changes, all while propelling the band higher and higher. He gifted me his latest recording, his 10th as a leader, Works, (Michel Gentile, Daniel Kelly), which sounds fantastic.

Because he has spent much of his 40 year career engaging with some of the world’s fiercest improvisors, Joe Fonda has been typecast as an avant-guardist. So it was great to hear this crowd pleasing Quartet play “in the pocket” for much of the evening. We responded to the music because everything about it was life affirming. A number of people, including members of the band, encouraged Fonda to record this project. Perhaps another visit is in the offing.