Growing Deeper: The Angelica Sanchez Nonet begins the 30th Annual Magic Triangle Jazz Series

There is much that has to go right for a concert to be successful. Some elements, like developing a cohort of talented and motivated instrumentalists, takes years. Often times, it also takes a little good fortune. Such was the case on September 27, when the Angelica Sanchez Nonet kicked off the 30th annual Magic Triangle Jazz Series at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Sanchez, who has been a fixture on the New York jazz scene since relocating from Arizona in 1994, has developed deep musical relationships with some of today’s finest improvisers. Eight of them: Thomas Heberer, trumpet, Kenny Warren, cornet, Chris Speed, Michaël Attias, Ben Goldberg, reeds, Omar Tamez, guitar, John Hébert, bass and Sam Ostpovat, drums, played her intricate, open-ended compositions with élan and conviction on Thursday.

With the exception of Warren, who recently joined the band in Kirk Knuffke’s absence, the musicians have been chewing on most of these pieces for over a year. (Sanchez added three new works for this three-concert tour.) After the show, Sanchez and Tamez agreed the band has now reached a new level of comfort with the material, not only improvising on written themes, but taking license to add new ideas to the compositions themselves. In Sanchez’ view, that is a good thing. I’m sure the band rapport only grew during their final “hit” at Firehouse 12 in New Haven on Sept. 28. The plan is to document and release that effort.

As well prepared as one hopes to be, presenters must sometimes travel by their pant seats. Midway through the set, a malfunction in Tamez’ Fender Ultimate Chorus amp started producing an unwanted buzz. When the guitarist’s swift kick did not solve the problem, Sanchez suspended activity while intern extraordinaire Ben Powell retrieved his smaller, more reliable Fender Super Champ amp from his locker. It arrived in time for Tamez to take an extraordinarily beautiful unaccompanied solo to begin “Ring Leader.” Full of whispered, glistening tones, his introduction held 140 rapt listeners in an unhurried state of bliss.

Powell first saved the day at sound check when it became clear that the modest Ampeg-10 bass amp we provided Hébert would not be up to the task of powering this size ensemble. One of Powell’s UMass classmates graciously provided a grown-up amp, and all was saved. As a result, Hébert was easily able to anchor the band, projecting a sturdy bottom, heard and felt throughout Bezanson Recital Hall.

After the show, the subject of generosity came up. Sanchez talked about the gratitude that comes when serious musicians engage seriously with your ideas. While talking of the great lineage of Denver trumpeters (Kenny Warren is from there), we were told a story of Ron Miles giving his student, Kirk Knuffke, his $15,000 Monette cornet, the only stipulation being that he would play it. Omar Tamez, a wise soul if ever there was one, told us that Kenny Burrell gave him the guitar he played with John Coltrane. Tamez has taken good care of it, and will pass it on when the time is right.

Sanchez is fierce without being loud. In her writing, and her playing, she claims an enormous amount of sonic territory. Her pieces exist between moods and time signatures, in a constant state of becoming. Despite the size of the ensemble, Sanchez carved out ample opportunity for solos and small group interaction. Except for alto saxophonist Michaël Attias and drummer Sam Ostpovat, all the band members have performed in the area in the last three years. All players played.

I agreed with Amir ElSaffar, who was in attendance in advance of his own UMass concert the next evening, that as the night went on the music deepened, grew into itself.

And We Begin Again: Jazz Shares Season 7

In Laurie Carlos’ The Pork Chop Wars, recently brought to life at Flywheel Arts by Priscilla Page, Djola Branner and Shakeel Cullis, the playwright invokes a “praise song, swollen with gratitude.” The first Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares concert of the season, featuring Jason Robinson, tenor saxophone, David Goodrich, guitar, and Bob Weiner, drums, felt like a kind of praise song, with plenty of gratitude circulating throughout the room.

It was a time of beginnings: the kick-off of Season 7 of Jazz Shares, the first public performance by this trio, the first event in the Northampton Arts Trust Building’s new flexible performance space, the start of another academic year, Rosh Hashanah.

Robinson, now Chair of the Music Department at Amherst College, and Weiner, also a gifted educator and long the preeminent percussionist in the Valley, are serious about building a strong music community where they live. They are two of the forces behind the monthly Soundworks Gathering, which hosted the theatrical reading at Flywheel in Easthampton last Thursday. They give free lunch time concerts at the Amherst Survival Center, are regulars on the Green Street Trio scene, and organize Creative Music Gatherings, where groups of disparate musicians workshop ideas.

The community, in turn, came out to support Robinson, Weiner and former Pioneer Valley resident David Goodrich, who played two sets of interactive, improvised music. More than 120 of us crowded into the brand-new Hawley St. space on Saturday, September 8, to listen to melodies materialize and dissipate with the determinacy of a dream.

Themes from the Great American Songbook floated by, followed by folk tunes, compositions of Ornette Coleman, Bob Dylan, Thelonious Monk, and others. I had the sensation of watching clouds form and vanish; what was clearly a car or a dog, is now, moments later, a series of cotton puffs. Melody was king during Saturday’s concert, but the tensile strength of it, “the resistance of the material to breaking under tension,” varied.

Out of the band’s sound world, a song you recognized would emerge and linger, until one of the musicians applied enough tension to move things in a new direction. There was no applause between solos or songs. The music was one continuous stream of sound that ebbed and flowed, by turns beautiful and ominous.

The band is called DECADES, a reference to the fact its members were born in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Although the idea to form the trio was Robinson’s, Weiner was the project instigator, the one with playing experience with both bandmates. He was in the center, he acted as fulcrum, as scaffold. Playing a variety of shakers, hand drums and little instruments, as well as drum kit, he moved the proceedings “from planet to planet,” as Sun Ra might put it. As befits someone who has performed and recorded with Harry Belafonte, Jon Lucien and Andy Statman, Weiner was able to groove in multiple supple ways.

Robinson, who left his other axes at home, juxtaposed his gorgeous tone on tenor with rainbows of multi-phonics and slap-tongued belt slaps. His clarion announcement of “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall,” sent shivers up spines. As Weiner manipulated the pulse, Robinson and Goodrich called and responded, stating melodies before painting over them.

I was honored to find out that when Robinson first travelled from California in 2008 to begin his work at Amherst College, I was the first person he contacted. Robinson has since presented his celebrated Janus Ensemble at my UMass Magic Triangle Jazz Series, wrote an essay celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Series, performed solo at our annual Jazz Shares summer gathering, and now serves on the Board of Directors of Jazz Shares. It’s the like-mindedness of people like Robinson and Weiner that makes my role in the music feel so worthwhile.

I was also interested to learn that before relocating to Austin, Texas five years ago, David Goodrich had attended multiple Magic Triangle concerts. He told me that watching Joe and Mat Manieri in 2004 was a peak listening experience, right up there with seeing Ali Farka Touré at Johnny D’s. It is always good to remember that the boxes we put artists in are our own, and rarely correspond to how musicians look at their world. Goodrich, who is known for his work with Chris Smither, Peter Mulvey and other folk and country singer-songwriters, had no trouble mixing it up with two master improvisers. At one point, he turned to his amp and interacted with it, coaxing feedback that he used to create a welcome wash of sound. Later, I was pleasantly disoriented when he picked up a one-string diddley bow to play a funky, blues inflected bass line.

Well, one concert down, seventeen to go. The next will be Thursday, September 27 at Bezanson Recital Hall, UMass, when we get to hear Angelica Sanchez, who we know can play the piano, compose and arrange for a nonet of some of the world’s best improvisers.

Jason Robinson, Bob Weiner and David Goodrich are integral members of an open-minded community of music lovers. The beat goes on.

All the Magic: Dave Burrell at UMass

It’s not easy to establish an original sound on your instrument; it’s especially difficult on a percussion instrument like the piano. The number of jazz pianists I can readily identify in a blindfold test is small: Thelonious Monk, Jaki Byard, Cecil Taylor, Abdullah Ibrahim, Ran Blake, Don Pullen. Dave Burrell is another.

On Wednesday, May 2, Burrell performed a solo concert on the beautiful nine-foot Steinway in Bezanson Recital Hall. It was the concluding event of Season 29 of the UMass Magic Triangle Jazz Series.

Like Byard, the whole history of jazz piano is at the tip of Burrell’s fingers, which he uses as raw material for elaborate storytelling. His approach has a clunky feel, with an upright mien that runs counter to today’s prevailing aesthetic. His tendencies hew closer to the off-kilter plunk of Monk than the refined filigree of Ahmad Jamal. Burrell’s left hand was often emphatic, in the tradition of James P. Johnson and other stride piano masters, giving each piece a strong backbone.

On his composition “Black Robert,” he was not afraid to play the jaunty theme slowly, pressing it into our brains. Once made memorable, Burrell began to add to and alter the melody, digressing from, but never abandoning his original intent.

On his rag, “Margy Pargy,” he upped the ante by doubling the tempo. Other times, even on lush rhapsodies, things would devolve into a churning, vibration-heavy maelstrom. The massive energy Burrell produced on stage stood in stark contrast to his quiet, understated demeanor off the bandstand.

After a standing ovation, Burrell ended the evening with a lesson in creative deconstruction, giving a moving performance of Harold Arlen’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the only piece not written by the pianist. Because the melody was so familiar, we got exceptional insight into Burrell’s taffy-like manipulation of the composer’s intent. Even at its most abstract, shards of the song were audible.

Burrell is not overly technical, not interested in wowing audiences with speed and prowess. His aim is deeper and more profound: to move us, to reveal what it means to be human. The simplicity of his compositions drew us in, and before long we found ourselves listening to music full of complex harmonies, subtle rhythmic displacement and considerable dynamic range.

Born in Middletown Ohio in 1940, Burrell has lived in Hawai’i, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Sweden, where he retreats to a rural cottage with his long-time partner, the poet and writer Monika Larsson. He travels widely. His interests are equally broad.

He has written an opera Windward Passages, with libretto by Larsson, that explores conflicting sentiments around Hawaiian statehood. During a small, public listening session the night before his concert, Burrell talked of his daily pilgrimage to the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, where he served as composer-in-residence. His research there on the Civil War yielded Turning Point (No Business), a crowning achievement in a career filled with them. He has written a score to accompany Oscar Micheaux’s silent film Body and Soul and has adapted Puccini’s La Bohème. He is currently exploring the Harlem Renaissance and worked a couple of unrecorded compositions into his UMass performance.

Another crowning takes place on May 23rd when the 23rd Vision Festival, one of America’s most important creative music gatherings, honors Dave Burrell with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Previous recipients include Muhal Richard Abrams, Milford Graves and Joe McPhee. Burrell will celebrate the evening with a set featuring his old mate Archie Shepp, who will play with William Parker for the first time. Another set will pair Kidd Jordan, 83, and James Brandon Lewis, 35, on tenor saxophones. Darius Jones, Steve Swell, Harrison Bankhead and Andrew Cyrille are other royalty that will share the moment with him.

In 2005 and 2013, Burrell performed at A World of Piano a solo series produced by the Northampton Center for the Arts. As time passes, each visit becomes richer, each performance more wondrous. Long live Dave Burrell.