One-of-a-Kind Times Two: Ran Blake and Dominique Eade in Springfield

In a music world that values flash and technique, artists like pianist Ran Blake, who emphasize texture and depth above all else, are easy to overlook. In our spectacle-addled environment, one dense chord, simultaneously satisfying and unsettling, unfurling slowly over time, is an outrageous, even revolutionary, act.

Ran Blake returned to his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts on June 1 to perform with vocalist Dominique Eade in the beautiful Robyn Newhouse Hall at the Community Music School of Springfield. The concert, Blake’s first in the city in 55 years, concluded Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares’ 7th season.

Over two sets of glorious risk taking, Blake and Eade wove startling threads through some familiar themes. The Great American songbook, (“Old Devil Moon,” “On a Clear Day,” “Tea for Two”), Americana (“On Top of Old Smokey,” “Give My Love to Rose,” “Goodnight, Irene”), a string of Monk melodies and a string of songs associated with Stan Kenton, all floated by in various forms of abstraction; sometimes as discreet pieces, sometimes in medley.

Eade began Bob Dylan’s “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” alone. It foregrounded her creativity and craft and gave us a chance to reflect on the poetry of the piece:

Disillusioned words like bullets bark As human gods aim for their mark Made everything from toy guns that spark To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark It’s easy to see without looking too far That not much is really sacred

Donning sunglasses, Blake sat grinning while he rested his head in his hand. When he finally entered, the crowd of 80 burst into applause.

Most duos of this kind are configured as singer with piano accompaniment. The concert I heard with Eade and pianist Miro Sprague at the Northampton Jazz Festival last year was like that. Saturday’s concert featured a pair of equals. During the sound check, and right through the first set, Eade kept asking for her voice to be turned down in the mix. This was not deference to age or the fact Blake was her mentor at the New England Conservatory. These two instrumentalists were engaged in improvised dialogue with no figure or ground. They took chances, tried to surprise each other, hit notes that were right and wrong.

June 1st was declared Ran Blake Day in Springfield, and we surprised him with a signed proclamation from the mayor. Born in Springfield in 1935, Blake was educated at School Street School, Classical Junior High and until the 11th grade, Classical High School. His mind was sharp and his playing was focused, and although a drive around Springfield revealed his favorite city hangouts long gone (Classical HS is now condominiums), he seemed genuinely pleased to be back.

It is hard to overstate his importance to the music. He is a decorated veteran, recognized with NEA and Guggenheim Fellowships, and a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant. As the long-time director of the school’s Third Stream Department (now called Contemporary Improvisation), he has taught generations of NEC students (Marty Ehrlich, John Medeski, Matthew Shipp, James Falzone and Don Byron, among scores of others.) In addition to many fine solo and ensemble recordings (All That is Tied is a recent favorite), Blake has an illustrious history of working with female vocalists, including Jeanne Lee, Sara Serpa, Christine Correa, and Dominique Eade.

Eade belongs to a small group of jazz vocalists who can both command the stage and mix it up with her bandmates. Her voice is clear, her presence is palpable, and her fearlessness gave the evening drama and weight. Her wordless work on the Monk pieces revealed a jazz musician who happens to sing. Eade is also creating a legacy as an educator at NEC, where she has taught since 1984. Former students include Luciana Souza, Kate McGarry, Lisa Thorson, Patrice Williamson, Aoife O’Donovan, Roberta Gambarini, and many others.

Singing with Blake is neither easy nor straightforward. His voicings, the way he uses pedals, his phrasing, are all distinctive, idiosyncratic and whimsical. Like a good yoga instructor, he makes you bend in ways you didn’t think possible. But the rewards, in terms of expressive range and depth of emotion, were readily apparent to the privileged present.

Avoiding the Obvious: Michael Formanek’s Elusion Quartet in Northampton

It is no mean achievement to produce music that has distinct contours yet retains a looseness that speaks of freedom. Michael Formanek, who brought his Elusion Quartet to the Arts Trust Building in Northampton on May 18, writes sturdy compositions that have texture and lots of room for improvising.

The ensemble: Tony Malaby, tenor and soprano saxophone, Kris Davis, piano, and Ches Smith, drums and vibraphone, are all master musicians who seemed quite at home with the leader’s slow, unfurling lines. In February, 2018, they played one gig, then recorded Time Like This on Intakt Records. Fifteen months later they reconvened for a delayed CD release tour that took them to the UK and then New Haven, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and little old Northampton.

This all-star quartet is the second Formanek has formed in recent years. In the early part of the decade his group with Tim Berne, Craig Taborn and Gerald Cleaver produced two highly regarded ECM recordings. The music made by the Elusion Quartet is more open than his earlier efforts; it was elusive and chamber-like, and rarely settled into strict meter. Most pieces ruminated in subdued free time, before gaining intensity and structure.

Formanek was born in San Francisco and was 18 years old when he appeared on The Bishop, a 1976 Theresa Records release led by saxophonist Norman Williams. The pianist on the date was Valley stand out Paul Arslanian, who also did A&R work for the Bay Area label. They got a chance to reconnect during the post-concert reception that followed the Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares event. The bassist was the very definition of precocious; he was touring with Tony Williams and Joe Henderson while still a teenager, and spent his twenties playing long stints with Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Fred Hersch, and Freddie Hubbard.

It’s always exciting to hear Tony Malaby, whose most recent visits to the area were with Daniel Levin’s Trio and Harris Eisenstadt’s Old Growth Forest. The Eisenstadt hit on June 11, 2017 at the Parlor Room, has just been released on Astral Spirits (http://www.harriseisenstadt.com/albums/old-growth-ii/). His tone on tenor has a singing quality that, on “A Fine Mess” and elsewhere, served the music beautifully. His extended soprano duet with Kris Davis, which opened “This May Get Ugly” was an expressive, highly animated conversation and one of many highlights.

I have wanted to invite Kris Davis to our area for some time. She was voted Downbeat’s 2017 Rising Star on piano, has released 10 records, won multiple high-profile grants and garnered lots of well-deserved praise. I wished she had gotten a little more solo space on Saturday, but then again, the music was not built around solos and heads. The shifting combination of instruments gave her a chance to shine, which she did brightly. She’ll be heading to Boston in the fall to begin teaching at Berklee. That might make it easier to get her to the Valley.

Like his bandmates, percussionist Ches Smith is very much in demand. In the last 10 years he has amassed a crazy number of recording and performance credits with Tim Berne, John Zorn, Mary Halvorson, Marc Ribot, Dave Holland, Darius Jones, and Jason Robinson. His first ECM recording as a leader, The Bell (2016), included Craig Taborn and Mat Maneri. He easily read down tricky written parts and propelled the band without getting locked into specific tempos. His dynamics were spot on, which was critical since the concert was played without sound reinforcement. Although he only got one extended solo on vibes, it confirmed his originality on that instrument, as well.

Formanek is perfectly positioned to add to an already vibrant career. He recently retired from full time teaching duties at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and moved to New York. His easy-going bandleading style, large, welcoming sound on bass, and demanding, but accessible compositions make him a magnet for forward thinking musicians.

The Swim Upstream: Ken Vandermark/Nate Wooley Duo at UMass

Most celebrated musical forms were pioneered by, and made for, those with limited resources. Rebetika, hip hop, flamenco, blues and many other popular styles were originally street music, made by disenfranchised folks in dive bars and poor neighborhoods, before being co-opted and monetized by others. It’s an old story: cultural innovation bubbles up, and economic rewards (sometimes) trickle down.

But because the business of creative music is to confound and spellbind, it’s hard to exploit, and thus left mostly to its own meager devices. I alluded to the shoestring budgets I’ve had over my 30+ years of producing “jazz” in the Pioneer Valley, at a lovely event/concert on April 24 at the Old Chapel at UMass. I was honored with a “Jazz Hero” award by the Jazz Journalists Association at a reception prior to a concert by Ken Vandermark and Nate Wooley, concluding the Magic Triangle Series’ 30th anniversary season.

My budgets are large compared to grass-roots, door-gig producers, but small compared to my Fine Arts Center colleagues. Yet because the supply of truly astounding musicians is so high and the number of performances that pay is so low, I am able to hire the most innovative musicians on the planet for modest fees. By the way, if I had more money I wouldn’t necessarily engage higher-priced artists, I’d pay the musicians I would book anyway, more.

Trumpeter Nate Wooley and saxophonist Ken Vandermark began their seven-city tour at UMass on Wednesday, before moving on to a couple of art galleries, a tavern, a school, and a bicycle factory. Not dive bars perhaps, but unprepossessing venues with tight margins. With awards and accolades galore, thousands of amazing live performances and critically acclaimed discographies, you’d think a civilized society could do more for them. Not in 2019 America.

Wooley took the stage first, playing a half hour solo set full of remarkable sounds and moving music. Though he is a leading sound scientist, expanding the potential of his 500-year old instrument, he didn’t just catalogue various techniques, he used them to create arc, narrative, beauty and provocation. The uninterrupted performance touched all the bases: delicate half-heard whispers, fuselages of circular breathed fury, percussive valve taps, pure round tones, decaying sound, silence.

During his solo, Vandermark performed pieces on tenor saxophone, clarinet and baritone saxophone, each dedicated to a different influence. His clarinet piece acknowledged three masters of the instrument: Pee Wee Russell, Jimmy Giuffre and John Carter. References to those elders were oblique, found in small gestures, invoked in spirit. His piece on baritone honored the influential filmmaker, Agnes Varda, who died March 29 at the age of 90. As the audience of 115 murmured in recognition, my film watch list just got longer. Vandermark used his beautiful sound on the instrument to lay down rhythm and break notes into many parts.

The second half of the program featured the duo playing material that was jointly composed. Adapting the Surrealist parlor game of “exquisite corpse,” where a person would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal it, and pass it on to the next player for their contribution, Wooley and Vandermark sent composed parts back and forth between New York and Chicago. Despite the disparate nature of the process, the results were coherent, meaty, delightful in places. The compositions, which Wooley titled on the spot with names like, “Ken Got a New Shirt but I Think It’s an Old Shirt and He’s Lying,” and “Farting on Main Street,” featured strong unison passages leavened with improvised whimsey. Vandermark again made the instrumental rounds, giving the evening a nice range of pitch and texture.

Creative music always swims upstream, head-winding our expectations and comfort zones; refusing to guarantee that audiences will “like it,” be entertained. Of course, upstream has financial dimensions; for many of the artists I present, music is as much a calling, as a profession.

What an honor to present Nate Wooley again (Jazz Shares brought his Quintet to the Shea Theater in November, 2016,) and to finally host Ken Vandermark as a leader. They are honest-to-goodness working musicians, bucking odds, busting trends, refusing to curl up and abide by convention. I’m glad there are outposts like ours willing to take chances to lift up our people.