Adapt and Survive: Jazz Shares in the Pandemic

On March 13, 2020 I reviewed a Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares concert featuring Steve Swell’s Kende Dreams. “The typical pre-concert buzz of excitement,” I wrote, “was overlaid by mild dread in the face of the uncertain arc of the gathering pandemic…there was a dawning realization that this might be the last live music any of us would hear for some time.”

Here we are, eight months later, our world turned upside down, with no end in sight, trying to overcome a novel coronavirus and a criminal president, while maintaining beauty, grace and joy in our lives. I am here to report that despite raging infections in the U.S., we remain steadfast, resourceful and committed to safely nurturing our music.

On Thursday, November 12, Jazz Shares produced a concert by the James Brandon Lewis Quartet, our seventh event since the great upending. Jazz Shares is persevering thanks to 73 dedicated shareholders, 12 business sponsors, and my new wife Priscilla Page’s heroic decision to put 100% of our wedding gifts into the Jazz Shares coffers.

We began our pandemic presenting on July 25th with a live, outdoor solo percussion concert in the backyard of founding members Ron Freshley and Linda Tumbarello. Ra Kalam Bob Moses is a legendary drummer and composer, a musician revered and overlooked in equal measure. Our company Gretsch Catalina Club kit was augmented by a second bass drum, a few toms, a set of congas (thank you Brandon Marger) and a trove of rattles, bells and whistles. Against a summer breeze and a backdrop of tall trees, Moses righted our psyches with two hours of non-stop percussion therapy. He set up patterns of rhythm that had the punch of a compelling first sentence, then wove stories full of twists and inversions. It was clear he was enjoying himself, and his happiness rubbed off, big time.

Over the summer, we kept kicking optimism down the road like politician’s kick cans. Surely by fall we’d be able to resume normal activities. But we had to move Terry Jenoure’s three-concert, Season 9 kick-off into the digital realm. Recorded in September at the Institute for the Musical Arts (IMA) in Goshen and broadcast on Amherst Media, her series was entitled Portal, a portentous concept, with the planet being on the verge of major change and all.

Over three programs, we entered layers of Jenoure’s musical world, beginning with vibrating strings set in motion by Avery Sharpe, (bass,) Wayne Smith, (cello,) and the leader, (violin.) The music unfolded like an unhurried conversation between friends. It was exciting to hear Sharpe, who kept time for McCoy Tyner all those years, explore open terrains and textures. Similarly, it was instructive to hear Smith, a classical player by training, stretch out so convincingly. Jenoure gave musical signposts to root the affair, but trusted her sidemen to listen, lead and follow.

Her duo with pianist Angelica Sanchez also had that surefooted looseness born of confidence. By turns reverent, playful and earthy, their set sailed. Jenoure and Sanchez are both in that sweet spot in their careers: they have enough experience to react comfortably to any aesthetic situation, and enough energy to get their point across with emphasis. The final leg of Jenoure’s journey included Joe Fonda, bass, and Reggie Nicholson, drums. A familial atmosphere prevailed, with Jenoure and her brothers joking good-naturedly, solving problems creatively and making music collectively. Jenoure’s vocals added extra piquancy, moving from skipping, high-pitched cavorting, to guttural, get-this baby out wails. Although these concerts were each aired only once, we hope the audio will one day be widely available. It was that good.

We were back at what has become our second home: Ann Hackler and June Millington’s Institute for the Musical Arts on October 4, when Jazz Shares hosted Charlie Kohlhase’s Saxophone Support Group for 40 socially distant travelers. Standing before a panoply of reds, yellows, browns and greens, the six reedmen: Dan Blake, Sean Berry, Jason Robinson, Josh Sinton, Andy Voelker and Kohlhase,filled the dry autumn air with crackling counterpoint and sonorous, mossy chords. The following Sunday, Priscilla and I returned to that hallowed ground for our wedding.

When the UMass Fine Arts Center cancelled two virtual Magic Triangle Series shows a week before the first concert (risk managers, lawyers and timid administrators won the day,) Jazz Shares stepped up and assumed responsibility for the events. On Oct. 29, we ushered in our new mode of producing: livestreamed concerts from Amherst Media, which boasts a professional TV studio, experienced operators, four cameras, and an interest in creating engaging programming. Marilyn Crispell, piano, Joe Fonda, bass and Harvey Sorgen, drums were first up. Crispell and Sorgen have been neighbors in Woodstock, NY for decades; Sorgen and Fonda have been in bands together for over 35 years; Fonda and Crispell have each “graduated” from Anthony Braxton University. Known collectively as Dreamstruck, the trio put us in a 75-minute trance, spun from sorrow and joy, hope and fear.

On November 12, tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis brought a quartet to Amherst. Playing with pianist Angelica Sanchez for the first time was a thrill the two shared equally. (Lewis was a student of Sanchez’ at the Banff International Workshop in Jazz & Creative Music in 2009.) The bass chores were handled by Max Johnson, who at 28 is nine years younger than Lewis. Chad Taylor, who over the last few years has been through these parts as much as anyone not named Joe Fonda, is Lewis’ closest collaborator. Their duo has released two recordings; it’s a real band; Taylor is the lone holdover from Molecular, Lewis’ brand-new quartet release. As always, the drummer was glue-like solid. The performance, as well as Lewis’ compositions, had muscle and flexibility, bravado and humility. As the pandemic has disrupted lives and livelihoods, I wonder about its impact on creative music, which has been on life support long before Covid-19 entered our lives. What happens to the music when people can’t play together, when there is no work?

Over and over again, we heard words of thanks and expressions of appreciation from musicians. Similarly, we were grateful for the opportunity to hear live music, played at the highest level. During these days of uncertainty, artists, and those who love art, need each other. Many of us have been dealing with financial concerns, depression and a loss of meaning in our lives. For all our sakes, it’s time to re-invigorate the term community. Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares is keeping a light in the window for dispossessed travelers.

Qualm Before the Storm: Steve Swell’s Kende Dreams

A patina of anticipation hung over 40 intrepid music-lovers on Friday the 13th, as Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares assembled at the Northampton Arts Trust to witness the last concert of a small tour by Steve Swell’s Kende Dreams. The typical pre-concert buzz of excitement was overlaid by mild dread in the face of the uncertain arc of the gathering pandemic. As we awaited the performance of Swell (trombone), Rob Brown (alto saxophone), William Parker (bass) and Michael T.A. Thompson (drums), there was a dawning realization that this might be the last live music any of us would hear for some time. For someone whose passion and purpose is bringing together world-class artists and open-minded audiences, it was an evening filled with swirling emotions. Perhaps it was that sense of impending qualm, mingled with our love for the music, that produced the palpable intensity and beauty we heard on stage.

When Silkheart Records offered Swell the opportunity to record an homage to Béla Bartók in 2014, his research led him to Hungary and the kende, the spiritual leader of the Magyars, who lived in the region before the founding of the Hungarian state. The kende served in a dual-monarchy with the gyula, or war-chief. (Unsurprisingly, all power was later usurped by the gyula.) When Kende Dreams performed at Hampshire College in September, 2016, the band was reeling from the recent death of their beloved pianist, Connie Crothers. This time, the musicians were staring into a future of canceled gigs and lost income.

In 1997 Fred Ho told us to Turn Pain into Power! (OODiscs), and Swell’s quartet did just that. They played with the conviction that comes from decades on the front lines of cultural production; they advanced the music with a righteous authority. Their 80-minute set brimmed with feelings of all kinds.

Brown and Swell have played together regularly since 1994, when they met in Parker’s famed Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra. They have built an amazing rapport, not only finishing each other’s sentences, but able to talk and listen at the same time. Their interplay was so seamless I sometimes heard them as one instrument. During recurring moments of high energy, when I sat inside their throbbing cacophony, I was convinced it was the calmest place in the world.

We saw Michael T.A. Thompson at Augusta Savage Gallery last year, in a delicate recital with violinist Jason Kao Hwang. This March 13th concert provided a fuller picture of Thompson’s impressive drumming. He was given lots of solo space, which he filled with forceful intelligence. The drum solos I like best have a clear scaffold of motifs to serve as points of departure, signposts used to tell the story. Thompson’s solos had that architecture. His brief use of harmonica lent a soothing, slightly mysterious air to the proceedings; when Swell joined playing plunger mute, the passing colors had a cleansing effect.

The compositions were all Swell’s and they guided us through moods of deep reverence, agitated indeterminacy and off-the-ground elation. Their full throttle, swinging unison passages were thrown into even greater relief by earlier periods of muted introspection.

Seeing William Parker so soon after his Feb. 27 appearance with Gerald Cleaver and David Virelles was a joy and a comfort. Over dinner, the droll godfather of the avant-garde reveled us with stories of his colorful Lower East Side neighbors, including Horizontal Man and Hot Dog. His anecdotes and his unflappability boosted my spirits, and maybe my immune system. His unaccompanied bass solo was impressive, not for its technical brilliance, but for its slow unfurling of a resonant sound world that enveloped us, and, if only for a moment, made us forget the madness.

It just so happens this Northampton concert, and earlier ones at Rhizome (Washington, DC), Keystone Korner (Baltimore) and Bop Shop (Rochester, NY), were supported by Jazz Road, a major new grant program administered by South Arts. Swell likened the four stops to “European style touring,” meaning the musicians could make some actual money. The irony that this brief taste of decent pay will be followed by a precipitous, virus-induced drop in income is cruel. This will cause real harm to artists and the citizens they serve. But jazz musicians, having always existed in the gig economy, are rarely surprised when things go from bad to worse.

There are organizations like Equal Sound and Freelance Artist Resource that are raising funds to give money to musicians who have lost work.

New Configurations: Magic Triangle Jazz Series in Northampton

After I contacted drummer Gerald Cleaver last year about bringing Farmers by Nature to the Magic Triangle Jazz Series, we waited in vain for Craig Taborn to respond. With a deadline looming, Cleaver asked pianist David Virelles to play alongside him and bassist William Parker. Farmers by Nature is one of the premier piano trios in jazz; adventurous, telepathic, and commanding. How would the new configuration work? Virelles and Cleaver have limited shared playing experience. Virelles and Parker none at all.

On Thursday, February 27, a packed house of over 130 people at the Northampton Arts Trust Building found out. Over the course of 100 scintillating minutes, the three wove idea after idea into an evening-length tapestry of improvisatory magic. There was no pause for applause, no set list, no recognized melodies, no pre-concert conversation about the contour of the evening, just three master musicians listening and responding to each other with intensity and creativity.

The musicians represent three generations and three regions steeped in music history. The 68- year-old Parker is a life-long New Yorker. Cleaver, 56, grew up in jazz-rich Detroit, while Virelles, a youthful 38, was raised in Santiago de Cuba, on the island’s eastern end. Together they demonstrated the unique blend of laser attention and open mind required for free improvising to soar and transcend.

The music unfurled in spirals, constantly changing with a logic and continuity that held our attention, despite the free nature of the interaction. In place of strict meter, the band provided pulse and momentum. During one segment late in the proceedings, Parker repeated a driving rhythmic pattern that threatened to blow the roof off 33 Hawley St. At another moment, Cleaver dove into his bag of funk and produced hooks we could almost hang our hats on. For his part, Virelles probed and counterpunched, confounding expectations and keeping us on our toes.

William Parker, who has performed in the Valley dozens of times over the years, has been called the “philosopher king” of New York. He is a trickster, always at the ready with humor and a story. He wore overalls with bright red patches on both knees, clearly a farmer by nature. Despite moving a little more slowly than the last time I saw him, his playing was inventive and spritely. He used a good amount of slap bass technique and bowed while fingering the very top of his strings. He’ll be back on March 13, performing with Steve Swell’s Kende Dreams.

How would Virelles fit into a trio of his elders? He was humble and deferential off the bandstand, but not at all intimidated playing with these accomplished veterans. After all, he’s had substantial playing and recording experience with drum masters like Andrew Cyrille, Román Díaz, and Milford Graves, and has studied and performed with icons like Henry Threadgill, Wadada Leo Smith, and Steve Coleman. Virelles showed no hesitation, contributing strong, independent threads of sounds, creating more tension than release. Virelles belongs to a generation of Latin American pianists that play and improvise in many styles. The notion that Latin pianists only play in clavé went out with Hilton Ruiz, and the idea seems even more antiquated today.

Gerald Cleaver belongs to a small group of great jazz drummers in constant demand. I would love to see a year’s list of his gigs; it would provide a good overview of the current state of jazz. Although he nominally leads Black Host, Farmers by Nature and this trio, he has made his mark as a highly inventive, very dependable sideman with Chris Lightcap, Roscoe Mitchell, Joe Morris, Ellery Eskelin, Charles Gayle, Michael Formanek, Enrico Rava, Joe Lovano, Ivo Perleman, Mat Maneri, Jeremy Pelt and dozens more. When a drummer with chops dedicates himself to advancing every musical situation, you get an evolving aesthetic in a healthy scene.

Jazz musicians have long participated in the “gig economy;” most live the freelancers’ life. That can make scheduling difficult, and bands with stable personnel almost non-existent. But what the music loses in continuity, it gains in new configurations that deepen relationships between musicians, excites listeners with new sounds and pulls the music in unexpected directions. It’s novel by nature.