Mixing it Up: Pitching and Presenting Jazz

Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares is in discussion to bring Knuckleball to western Massachusetts next season. Led by cornetist and composer Stephen Haynes, the band of six horns and a drummer conjures images of slow, dancing baseballs moving every which way. The allure of the knuckleball, which makes life so difficult for both batters and catchers, is its unpredictability, and the thrill that comes from not knowing what direction it will take.

And it’s not just knuckleballs that are unpredictable. The whole art of pitching seeks to obfuscate and surprise. Here is how Amherst poet, Robert Francis described it:

His art is eccentricity, his aim How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at, His passion how to avoid the obvious, His technique how to vary the avoidance. The others throw to be comprehended. He Throws to be a moment misunderstood. Yet not too much. Not errant, arrant, wild, But every seeming aberration willed. Not to, yet still, still to communicate Making the batter understand too late.

Jazz improvisers adopt a similar stance, and the more I think about it, my own programming philosophy owes something to that attitude. Like the musicians I present, throughout my career I’ve tried to “avoid the obvious and vary the avoidance”.

I feel sorry for presenters who won’t challenge their audience, who can’t introduce lesser-known artists or those breaking with convention. These producers are often hemmed by financial concerns, the need to put “butts in seats”. Their first option is always the safe choice. When you’re forced to “give the people what they want”, you can only get what they already know. It’s easier to hit a ball when you know what’s coming, but good hitters can put the ball in play even when fooled by a pitch.

I pitched in high school (William Cullen Bryant in Astoria, Queens) and college (SUNY, Oneonta). Maybe that explains my inclination to keep audiences off balance by mixing in curve balls. The cadre of folks who regularly come to my concerts have learned to embrace the unfamiliar; they don’t always need to know what’s coming next. I remember the great New Orleans clarinetist, Alvin Batiste describing the learning process as moving, “from the known to the knowable.” As I see it, my job as curator is to expand horizons, to move people beyond their already known.

I suppose everyone gets labeled, and long ago I became the “avant-garde jazz producer in western Mass”. So every once in a while I’ll present someone like Steve Kuhn or Chris Anderson, Queen Esther, the Curtis Brothers or Ricky Ford, artists firmly rooted in “the tradition”.

Just when folks think they have me pigeonholed, I’ll present Dave Douglas with a “country” singer (Aoife O’Donovan) playing Christian hymns, ragtime piano player Reginald R. Robinson or Joe Fonda’s From the Source, featuring a tap dancer (Brenda Bufalino) and a vocal body healer (Vicki Dodd). You know, throw a change-up.

I love when we get to hear an instrument not part of the typical jazz lexicon: a theremin (Rob Schwimmer) or a contra bass saxophone (Anthony Braxton) or a harpsichord (Jamie Saft). We got to see an ondes martenot (Suzanne Farrin) for the first time, as part of Sarah Manning’s Underwater Alchemy. After we’ve presented a string of conventional rhythm sections, out of left field we’ll throw a clarinet sextet (James Falzone’s Renga Ensemble) or a bass duo (The Marks Brothers). We’ve presented concerts of solo soprano saxophone (Sam Newsome) and solo drums (Milford Graves, Andrew Cyrille, Tyshawn Sorey), as well as large ensembles playing free jazz (William Parker’s Little Huey and Alan Silva’s Celestrial Communication Orchestras). Our listeners are intrepid, they are prepared for anything.

If you rely on the majority of jazz presenters and radio programmers as your sole source of information, you could come away believing that little has changed in 60 years. That presumption is patently false, of course, and robs the music of the vibrancy that is its hallmark. Pitchers who only throw fastballs when they are behind in the count will not be successful, and jazz that is trapped in stylistic boxes will lose the rule-busting urgency that has been fundamental throughout its history.

Some of the most exciting new developments in jazz have taken place at the intersection of African-American music and various traditions outside the U.S. That’s why I’ve made an effort to hire musicians who can introduce us to scales, instruments and musical practices from the Philippines (Susie Ibarra’s Electric Kulintang), India (Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Dakshina Ensemble, Joel Harrison’s Multiplicity), the Balkans (Slavic Soul Party), China (Jason Kao Hwang’s Burning Bridge), Cuba (Michaele Rosewoman’s New Yor-uba, Román Díaz’ Rhumba Ensemble), Iraq (Amir ElSaffar’s Two Rivers Ensemble), Brazil (Rob Maszuk’s Sao Paolo Underground),Japan (Miya Masaoka’s Brew), Guadeloupe (David Murray and the Gwo-Ka Masters) and Europe (Instant Composer Pool Orchestra, Uri Caine’s Goldberg Variations). It doesn’t all swing like Basie, but it expands your mind.

I would often listen to WMUA, the student and community radio station at UMass, and come upon extraordinary sounds. I was so grateful for programs like Michael Ehlers’ “The Transnational Jazz Conspiracy” and Max Shea’s “Martian Gardens” that insisted on the latitude to be fearless in their programming. Nothing was off-limits, everything was on the table: from the outer realms of sound, to beauty and mystery of breathtaking proportions. They programmed for listeners with open minds, folks who didn’t need to like everything or understand it all.

I claim that same curatorial freedom when presenting live music. I’ve always wanted to be the guy who could throw any pitch at any time.

Illegal Crowns Make Their U.S. Debut

Two years removed from our original concert date, music lovers in western Massachusetts finally got to see Illegal Crowns perform in person on June 19, 2022. The cooperative quartet: Taylor Ho Bynum, cornet, flugelhorn, Mary Halvorson, guitar, Benoit Delbecq, piano and Tomas Fujiwara, drums, captivated an audience of 50 at the Bombyx Center for Arts & Equity in Florence, MA on Father’s Day and Juneteenth.

Illegal Crowns pairs long-time collaborators Ho Bynum, Halvorson and Fujiwara, with the esteemed French pianist and composer, Benoit Delbecq. They received a French-American Cultural Exchange grant to cover expenses for their five-city tour.

The concert was twice delayed by the pandemic. COVID-19, along with exceedingly strict immigration restrictions placed upon artists during the last administration, meant that the $1,800 budgeted for Delbecq’s visa and legal services almost tripled. Despite the obstacles, the musicians and producers persevered, and we were the beneficiaries.

Sunday’s Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares event, an afternoon affair, was the last gig in tour that included stops in Washington, Pittsburgh, New York and Boston. These were their first live performances in the United States. After the show, the band headed to Firehouse 12 in New Haven to record their third album.

What sublime music we witnessed. Everyone in the band contributed compositions, and the consistent variety of sounds and moods meant that an hour flew by without me noticing I was sitting on a wooden pew. Swing, funk and ballads mingled naturally with abstract elements to produce, in Ho Bynum’s words, “a hybridized and willfully corrupted musical vocabulary.”

We hardly noticed the absence of a bass instrument, as Halvorson and Delbecq provided the rhythmic bottom, while simultaneously creating swirling beds of sparks and momentum. Despite liberties taken with harmony and meter, lyricism and form ruled the day.

Writing about the band in Point of Departure, Ed Hazell summed it up: “Their every gesture is defined, specific, and placed within the flow of music so it harmonizes with what surrounds it. Sure there’s tension and release and dissonance and noise, but there’s never a clash or an element out of place.”

Halvorson has been through these parts multiple times since she first performed at UMass with Jessica Pavone 10 years ago, but I have never heard her sound more tuneful. Of course, she employed her usual arsenal of note-bending pedals and piquant ideas, but these elements were folded beautifully into an organic ensemble sound.

Delbecq also exerted a consonance over the proceedings that made the avant-garde accessible. On occasion, he inserted twigs between the piano strings, producing a kalimba-like buzz. After the concert, he showed me his bag of bark-less sticks, some of which had thumb tacks attached. He knew the wood type for each of his devices, as well as the location of each tree. The technique gave things a world-music vibe that added depth and dimension to the music. Incidentally,Delbecq’s solo record, The Weight of Light (2021, Pyroclastic), is a gem.

The tour and the forthcoming record were supported by the French-American Cultural Exchange Foundation, a program of the French embassy in the U.S.. Their mandate: to foster meaningful interaction between French and American musicians, results in some fascinating collaborations. I still remember vocalist Emilie LesBros’ performance with Darius Jones at the 2015 Vision Festival, supported by FACE.

It’s always interesting when a new person enters an established group. Ho Bynum, Halvorson and Fujiwara have known each other for half their lives, and appear frequently in each other’s bands. Ho Bynum told me afterwards he loves the influence Delbecq exerts on the ensemble. Perhaps that’s why the cornetist sounded especially sweet at Bombyx. His smeared sounds and tattered phrases sounded very good alongside his chugging bandmates. Ho Bynum is becoming a master of mutes, using a bowler hat and funnel, among other devices, to provide texture and humor.

Fujiwara was his usual dynamic self, playing precise rhythms on every part of his drum kit and at all volumes. He articulately framed each piece, making it easier for us to follow the composer’s intent. The breadth of the compositions gave us a chance to hear his incredible range as a drummer.

It’s been great to have Ho Bynum, Halvorson and Fujiwara, who all grew up in the Boston area, make regular visits to western Massachusetts. Thanks to them for introducing us to Benoit Delbecq, and expanding our known circle of talented pianists and composers.

More Than Notes On a Page: Music Follows Fellowship

Because the music is largely improvised, and depends heavily on the listening skills and collective decision making of its participants, jazz is a relationship-based art. Those relationships extend to listeners and producers, as well as musicians. Collectively, we shape the music and dictate its outcomes.

The importance of relationship was highlighted as the Jessica Pavone String Trio came to the bucolic grounds of the Institute for the Musical Arts (IMA) in Goshen, MA on June 9, as part of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares’ 10thseason. The point was also underscored by a week-long residency by Terry Jenoure’s Sextet that included work at IMA, the Shea Theater and the Northampton Center for the Arts.

Pavone’s trio: Aimée Niemann, violin, Abby Swidler, violin and viola and Pavone, viola, are on an extended tour in support of their new release, …Of Late (Astral Spirits). Sandwiched between dates in Chicago and New Haven, the Trio provided 20 local listeners with a glimpse into the unique sound world of Jessica Pavone, who composed and arranged an hour of dense, sometimes unsettling music.

Although the music was scripted, the musicians retained the latitude to choose notes, determine entrances, and create sounds within compositional parameters. The pieces, drawn mostly from the new recording, all had distinct points of view. There were the long, bended notes played in unison on the disquieting, “Done and Dusted”, for instance. Or a composition that summoned some ancient, from-the-gut country music. The band decided against electric lights in the barn, save for the tiny lamps on their music stands. By the finale, “Hidden Voices,” which slowly introduced vocals into the mix, the evening’s natural light had faded, and we sat in stunned silence as this mysterious, otherworldly music washed over us and the darkened space we occupied.

Reviews are typically confined to what transpires on stage, but the music evolves as the musicians grow, and much of that growth takes place off the bandstand. The opportunity to share meals, stories, and histories creates a web that holds the music. We introduced Jessica, Aimée and Abby to IMA and two early champions of elevating women in music: Ann Hackler and June Millington. We talked about Leroy Jenkins, the great violinist, who mentored both Pavone and our dear friend, Terry Jenoure. We discovered that Jessica’s parents graduated from the same high school I did: WC Bryant, in Astoria, Queens. In a jazz world of meager financial returns, evenings like this are priceless.

Meanwhile, from June 5-11, the violinist and vocalist Terry Jenoure invited five musical friends to spend the week in western Massachusetts to create music. Using funds provided by a South Arts’ Jazz Road Residency grant, Jenoure brought together Anglica Sanchez (piano), Joe Fonda (bass), Avery Sharpe (bass), Wayne Smith (cello) and Reggie Nicholson (drums) to perform at the Jazz Shares annual meeting/party at IMA, rehearse and interact with area artists at the Shea Theater, and give a culminating concert at 33 Hawley St, in Northampton.

For the Jazz Shares event, Jenoure divided the musicians into three groups of two, each improvising for about 15 minutes. The duo of Jenoure and Fonda segued seamlessly to Sanchez and Smith, before giving way to Sharpe and Nicholson. The pairings were inspired, and the music they produced unfolded spontaneously, but with an inevitability that seemed preordained.

Jenoure’s concert at the Northampton Center for the Arts had all six musicians on stage and featured a piece dedicated to Jenoure’s father, Maurice, who recently passed. Developed during the residency, the piece, “Letters From Papa”, included excerpts of her grandfather’s letters sent from Canada to her grandmother in Jamaica.

It was instructive to see the music grow as the group cohered. The six musicians had varying levels of familiarity with each other. Jenoure has known Sharpe, Fonda and Nicholson for decades, while Sanchez and Smith are newer colleagues. As they shared meals, made music together, and relaxed in the country, the group cohered. That’s how bands are formed. For me and my wife Priscilla Page, the chance to spend time with our out-of-town friends (Fonda, Sanchez, Nicholson), was a joy.

On a side note, Jenoure is also a superb visual artist. She has curated, “Syncopate: Homage to Jazz”, up through July 2 at Gallery A3 in Amherst.

On another side note, Felipe Salles and Lois Ahrens produced a fantastic concert, “Tiyo’s Songs of Love” with Zaccai Curtis, Avery Sharpe, and Jonathan Barber on June 12 at Bombyx in Florence, which we were also privileged to witness.

I titled a small book marking the 25th anniversary of my Magic Triangle Jazz Series, “Close to the Music.” That’s been my life’s ambition, to stay close to the music and help nurture it any way I can. Strengthening the web by spending time with creative friends and engaging with their music, is what it’s all about.