Time is on Our Side: Erik Friedlander's The Throw Comes to Greenfield

There’s a tendency in the jazz world, and elsewhere, to focus on the newcomer, the next discovery, the fresh voice. That allure has appeal. But it’s equally thrilling to hear musicians who have spent decades refining their craft and honing their skills. Unlike the aging ballplayer who still understands pitch sequences but can no longer catch up to a fastball, old pro musicians can still get it done physically and have developed a refined aesthetic touch.

It’s always exciting to be in the presence of veteran musicians. Their accumulated knowledge is impressive, they are unperturbed by unexpected circumstances, and they have lots of stories to tell. When four seasoned artists are in the same band, well that can be a transcendent experience.

Such was the case on May 6, when Erik Friedlander’s quartet, The Throw, performed at Hawks & Reed in Greenfield, MA. The cellist was joined by Uri Caine, piano, Mark Helias, bass, and Ches Smith, drums. All but Smith are over 60.

Their 80-minute set (including an encore) featured a generous amount of material from A Queen’s Firefly, released last year on Friedlander’s Skiptone Records. Each of the pieces, all penned by Friedlander, had strong melodies, distinct rhythmic contours and specific points of view. Most featured multiple changes of tempo, including generous helpings of swing. The concert, attended by over 70 happy listeners, flew by.

Cellist Erik Friedlander, now 62, has been leading ensembles for almost 30 years, and has released 25 recordings under his name. He has been a close collaborator of John Zorn since the 1990s, and has extensive experience composing for film and TV (“Oh Lucy!”, “Thoroughbreds”, “The Romanoffs”). His father is the acclaimed photographer Lee Friedlander, and Block Ice & Propane, the first of his 15 recordings on Skiptone, captures cross-country family vacations built around his father’s work. Friedlander is an expressive soloist on cello, an instrument as present as it’s ever been in jazz. He is a consummate composer and a bandleader with a knack for constructing ensembles able to convey his musical thoughts.

I first met Uri Caine in 2002, when he presented his brilliant, expansive version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations as part of the UMass Magic Triangle Jazz Series. His sly take on this piece of the canon was both reverent and subversive, and I became an instant fan. This work, and Caine’s other classical music reimagining’s, can be found on Winter & Winter. In 2001, Caine and fellow Philadelphian’s Christian McBride and Questlove produced The Philadelphia Experiment, which was funky in the extreme. And when you consider his fusion trio, Bedrock, and his “straightahead” jazz chops, you realize you’re dealing with an artist who can play whatever music the moment demands. On Saturday, there were flashes of his prodigious technique, but he spent much of the evening providing just the right riffs and voicings to show off the contour of each composition.

The Magic Triangle Series presented the Mark Helias Quartet in 1997, by which time I was already familiar with the five outstanding Enja recordings he produced between 1985-95. Helias has been a regular visitor to western Massachusetts over the years, appearing as the Marks Brothers with fellow bassist Mark Dresser, with Joe Lovano and Tom Giampietro in a tribute to Ed Blackwell, BassDrumBone (with Ray Anderson and Gerry Hemingway), the Michael Gregory Jackson Trio and the Jane Ira Bloom Quartet. It was great to have the hip, loquacious, (and important) bassist back in the Valley. The 72 year old veteran provided a deep, soulful bottom that sounded wonderfully resonant in Hawks & Reed’s fourth floor space, called The Perch.

Although forty-something drummer Ches Smith is of another generation, he has already logged a ton of credits as a sideman and a leader. His two most recent releases, both on Pyroclastic, were blockbusters: We All Break – Path of Seven Colors, captures a groundbreaking amalgam of jazz and traditional Haitian drumming and singing, and Interpret It Well features Smith’s trio of Mat Maneri and Craig Taborn, with special guest Bill Frisell. Everything Smith played was full of life and seemed essential to the music. At a couple of points, his drumming became purposefully loud, bringing welcome attention to his prodigious skills.

Discovering new talent is always a joy, and this season Jazz Shares was thrilled to have introduced to our region younger musicians like Mali Obomsawin, Allison Burik, Patricia Brennan and Beth McDonald. But wine needs to age before it peaks, and there is nothing better than watching veterans like Erik Friedlander and his bandmates share the fruits of their years spent sharpening their craft.

Pass it Down: Ken Vandermark's Edition Redux

The passing of knowledge from one generation to the next is terribly important to the evolution and continuity of jazz. The history is full of stories of future standard bearers being shaped by formative interaction with their elders. Before the explosion of college-based jazz programs and the simultaneous shrinking of performance opportunities, most of that mentoring took place on bandstands and in the hours getting to those bandstands.

So it was heartening to watch 58-year old saxophonist and clarinetist Ken Vandermark lead a band of musicians half his age in concert at Hawks & Reed on April 20. The Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares event was part of an eight-city U.S. tour. The band has a European tour scheduled for the fall.

It’s hard to overestimate how valuable this kind of practical schooling is for emerging artists. The young musicians, Erez Dessel (keyboards), Beth McDonald (tuba) and Lily Finnegan (drums), are a few years out of college (undergraduate and graduate), and they absorbed Vandermark’s musical lessons a like dry paper towel. Vandermark remarked what fast learners they were, and how quickly they were able to inhabit his complicated compositions. At the same time, they were also soaking up soft skills: how to carry themselves, how to talk to sound engineers and interact with audience members, how to pack for the road.

Vandermark, who booked and managed the tour, also had to stay flexible and nimble. His original vision, called Edition 55, was a quintet with cello, bass, tuba and drums. Two months before liftoff, health and other unforeseen circumstances necessitated a reconfiguration into Edition Redux. Beth McDonald and Lily Finnegan were holdovers, while pianist Erez Dessel was a late addition. Vandermark had to rewrite parts and teach the newcomer his system for utilizing his compositions.

The music, which will be recorded and released on Vandermark’s Audiographic Records, had sections of dense, driving, unison playing juxtaposed with portions of open, meditative music. It had a suite-like sweep, and like all of Vandermark’s work, it was compelling and coherent and inspired by heroes of the composer. We heard pieces dedicated to the American-Mexican composer Conlon Nancarrow and the French filmmaker Robert Bresson.

We were glad to provide Dessel with an acoustic piano, his first of the tour. Although he sounded very good on his Korg keyboard, the piano sounded grand, expansive. A recent New England Conservatory graduate, he was music director of the Savanah (GA) Music Festival Jazz Academy, where he learned about the work of Georgia-born saxophonist Marion Brown. During show-and-tell at the post-concert dinner, we showed him Brown’s hard to find book, “Recollections”, and an original painting he did while living in western Massachusetts. Dessel is currently the community engagement coordinator for the Chicago Philharmonic.

McDonald had a big fat satisfying tone on tuba that was augmented by a bunch of pedals and effects. She gave the music its bottom while also providing drones, rumblings and a bit of mystery. Like the rest of the band, she studied in Boston (NEC) and lives in Chicago. Like the rest of her bandmates, she was curious and gracious in equal measure.

Finnegan got her masters degree from Berklee School of Music, where she was part of the Global Jazz Institute and the Institute for Jazz and Gender Justice. Her career has been greatly advanced by Terri Lynn Carrington and Kris Davis, who put her to work and put her in touch with folks who can advance a career. She is now back in her hometown of Chicago, where she is the record store manager of Catalytic Sound, an experimental music cooperative that Vandermark is involved in.

Ken Vandermark, an important figure on Chicago’s jazz scene since 1990, learned from elders too, of course. These include Hal Russell, the idiosyncratic, multi-instrumentalist, tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson, the owner/operator of Chicago’s jazz finishing school, the Velvet Lounge, and German reed man Peter Brötzmann, a leading figure in the European avant-garde. His father, jazz writer Stu Vandermark, also had an early impact. He and Ken’s mom, Sue, were at the Greenfield show, as well as the concert the night before at Rob Vandermark’s Seven Cycles bicycle factory in Watertown, MA.

So it goes, from generation to generation. Ken Vandermark is a humble guy with high standards and an expansive understanding of music; he’s providing a perfect conduit of jazz knowledge. Lending expertise and encouraging youth is the ultimate expression of hope, and insures a future steeped in past accomplishments.

The Ties That Bind: Stephen Haynes’ Knuckleball at the Shea Theater

In the creative music world, relationships matter. Because the music is heavily improvised, musicians must listen deeply to each other in order for meaningful dialogue to occur. Because the material payouts are often meager, the relationships between players becomes its own reward.

I was reminded of this fact on April 15, when Stephen Haynes’ septet, Knuckleball, convened at the Shea Theater for a concert produced by Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares. The concert was supported by a generous grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts, so at least for this evening, the musicians were paid well.

“Perhaps my favorite thing about the work yesterday in Turners Falls,” Haynes wrote on Facebook, “was the conversations: in cars, filled with sets of musicians driving to the gig, before and after our set, during dinner before we performed. Some of this was old friends in the ensemble reconnecting and reminiscing, some of it was new connections - the sort of listening and exchanges that knit and gather ensemble naturally. All of this flowed into and informed the improvisation throughout our hour plus set.”

And what a set it was.

In order to be closer to the audience, the ensemble set up in the pit in front of the stage. Sam Newsome (soprano sax), Josh Roseman (trombone) and Ben Stapp (tuba), were in one row, facing the three cornetists: Taylor Ho Bynum, Herb Robertson and Haynes, with Eric Rosenthal (drums) between them.

The unscripted performance had the drama and the ebb and flow of a great film score. There were no solos, per se. Rather, instrumental voices would emerge from the sound pool to command attention before retreating back into the mix. Periods of stasis morphed into cacophony before settling into quiet reflection. Brief solos and moments of dialogue between members of the ensemble gave the music space to breath.

Robertson’s use of miscellaneous sound making devices, what the Art Ensemble of Chicago called “little instruments”, greatly expanded the band’s sonic universe. Newsome, fresh off his brilliant work with Joe Morris and Francisco Mela in the same space three weeks earlier, attached tubes and tin foil to his soprano sax to produce myriad textures and colors. All the horn players employed mutes of various kinds, sometimes more than one at a time, to bend notes and invoke voice-like inflection.

The music was open and abstract, and produced a range of emotions. The nature of the proceedings reinforced the notion that we were exploring basic sound science, but the mastery of the musicians meant that the experiments were all in the service of making a collective sound. There was nothing dry or academic about it. Indeed, the dynamism of the players gave the septet a cohesion and shared purpose; they meshed perfectly.

After the show, most of the band reconvened at our house, where we listened to and marveled at Herb Robertson’s monumental 1988 JMT recording, Shades of Bud Powell. Ben Stapp, who teaches music to public school youngsters in Long Island City, was very interested in The Saga of Padani, a very hip recording by Oakland middle schoolers who have been taught to compose and improvise by their teacher Randy Porter. So it went past midnight, sharing stories and information, kibitzing, joking, eating and drinking.

Which brings us back to the notion of relationship. There were no egos, no stars in the band. Just seven highly accomplished veterans deciding in the moment what the music needed. The bonds deepened and expectations soared that the bands’ upcoming gigs at Firehouse 12 and Real Art Ways would yield even more satisfying results, and that the subsequent recording would be worthy of widespread public attention.