Jazz Shares Hosts the Jaimie Branch Quartet

Above Giovanni Russonello’s December 1 New York Times article about the added burden of being female in the marginalized and male-dominated world of jazz, was a large photo of the trumpeter Jaimie Branch. The newspaper piece makes the point that although gender discrimination is alive and well in jazz, the ship is starting to right. Over 100 of us got to see Jaimie Branch in the flesh on Saturday, January 20, as Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares presented her Quartet at the 121 Club in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

The subject of gender never came up during Branch’s visit, but the burden of being a creative artist in the time of Trump did. On the first anniversary of the would-be dictator’s ascent to power, Branch and her ensemble, Lester St. Louis, cello, Jason Ajemian, bass and Mike Pride, drums, gave a spirited concert of wall-crumbling proportions.

Coinciding with women-led resistance demonstrations held throughout the country, the concert reinforced the notion that we will no longer conform to norms that do not serve human needs. The band blasted through melodies found on Branch’s heavily lauded debut recording, Fly or Die (2017, International Anthem), infusing them with the same force that brought down the stone perimeter of Jericho.

The themes from the 35-minute recording were stretched and expanded over the course of the 80-minute concert, resulting in a suite-like journey through a range of moods. Although there were sections of intense swing, molasses paced walks and searing beauty, much of the evening was spent in an abstract, fever dream from which we were reluctant to wake.

I kept thinking of the Pauline Oliveros concept of Deep Listening as I watched Branch’s closed eyed expression while the other musicians played. “Hear with your ears, listen with your heart,” was Oliveros’ guiding principle. On a promotional video for Fly or Die, Branch says, “I like to listen to the first five seconds of whatever happens, like really pay attention, to just turn on your ears right away and then ‘whoosh,’ like scattering that to a million different pieces. You can get into this zone, you’re almost looking at everything from above, you’re able to hear everything, you’re able to play what you want effortlessly, it’s like a teleportation space.”

Branch’s star is certainly rising. The record (released on both CD and LP) is on its fourth pressing (“It’s about to break even,” she laughed.) It seemed to show up on everyone’s Top 10 list of 2017. She will be a featured soloist in an upcoming performance of Julius Eastman’s “Trumpet,” part of an important three-week retrospective of the late composer’s work at The Kitchen. The gigs are starting to materialize.

These shows in New York, Easthampton and Philadelphia were the young cellist Lester St. Louis’ first opportunity to be on stage with Branch. (Tomeka Reid usually has the cello chair.) He acquitted himself superbly. Chad Taylor, the drummer on Fly or Die told Branch, “Just that name, it sounds like he can play.” Yes, he can. St. Louis will also take part in the Julius Eastman retrospective. It turns out Priscilla Page and I saw him play cello as part of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ celebrated New York production of “An Octoroon” in 2015.

Chad Taylor had a gig with David Murray on Saturday, so we got to hear Mike Pride, a forward-thinking young veteran with an already impressive discography and a plan for the future. A mellowing wild man, he nevertheless played possessed, unbridled. He augmented our 4-piece, Gretsch Catalina Club kit, with extra drums, cymbals and little percussion to produce waves of rhythm, always in concert with what was going on around him. For the last two years he has put real bread on his table playing large American venues opening for Amy Schumer, with Jason Roebke and Schumer’s brother, Jason Stein.

Jason Ajemian is featured on Fly or Die, and is integral to the success of the project. His history with Branch goes back to their time together in Chicago. The bassist now lives much of the year in Talkeetna, Alaska, (population 900), where he is a pilot and airplane mechanic. Like the rest of the band, he is a committed non-conformist, although on Saturday his role and his sound production largely followed jazz convention. For a unique listening experience, check out his 2014 Delmark release, Folklords.

One thing’s for sure: the shape of jazz to come will look and sound different than what came before. Given our current political situation (and the lack of collective imagination that has led us to where we are) we certainly need something new and different. As always, artists will lead the way. Jaimie Branch is one of them.

So Happy Together: NU Band in Easthampton

Communion. That’s the word that kept coming to me as the NU Band delivered a masterful performance on January 12 at the 121 Club in Easthampton. The deep connection between the band members, between the musicians and the 70 of us in attendance, and between audience members, was palpable and profound.

The concert, number six in Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares sixth season, featured Mark Whitecage, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute; Thomas Heberer, trumpet; Joe Fonda, bass, and Lou Grassi, drums. The quartet, with Heberer replacing the late Roy Campbell in 2014, has been intact since 2003. On the bandstand and off, the group seemed to revel in concentrated and consecrated affinity.

Often the musicians would face each other while playing; there were times when the bells of trumpet and saxophone were a mere two or three feet apart. Although there were jaw-dropping solos throughout, it was the interaction amongst the members that was most inspiring. From Fonda singing background riffs that Whitecage then used to support a trumpet solo to their seamless joint navigation of tricky tempo changes, the NU Band is an ensemble in sync.

And not only simpatico, but a band of equals. Over two, well-paced sets of original material, all four musicians contributed compositions, with each author introducing his own pieces. The band – in their 80’s (Whitecage), 70’s (Grassi), 60’s (Fonda) and 50’s (Heberer) – share an extroverted, post-bop expressiveness that elevated all present.

The band connected with the audience, as well. Afterwards, they expressed what almost all visiting improvisers report: that Valley jazz audiences are attentive, knowledgeable and invested, and considerably larger in number than they’re used to. Feeding off the crowd’s energy, the band delivered streams of heart-felt, life-affirming sounds.

The person-to-person loop was also manifest among audience. Thanks to the set break and our usual after-concert reception, there was ample opportunity to catch up with friends and meet new ones. Musicians also often comment on the community we’ve built.

Back to the solos. Late in the evening, Thomas Heberer began a piece unaccompanied, with a boggling display of extended technique. Is it just my imagination, or is it true that no instrument has undergone such a substantial expansion of its recent vocabulary, as the trumpet. Nate Wooley, Peter Evans, Jaimie Branch (next in the Jazz Shares queue), Taylor Ho Bynum and Axel Dörner all come to mind. Heberer’s use of voice, circular breathing, bee-like buzzing, all made for a riveting solo, continuing after his lips left the horn. Yelps and applause ensued.

Our old friend Joe Fonda, who has been to the Valley each of the last six years (with Conference Call, Barry Altschul, Karl Berger, Michael Mussilami and OGJB Quartet), also elicited excitement with his solo of slaps, double-strumming and other never before seen techniques, all while building a coherent musical statement. There’s a funny Mutt and Jeff juxtaposition of towering bass and diminutive bassist. But his spirit is so large and infectious, we are no longer surprised by Fonda’s joyful lifting of the bandstand.

What a thrill to hear Mark Whitecage play. The evening’s opening number, Five O’Clock Follies, established his deep be-bop lineage. He sailed through the up-tempo romp with an effortlessness that belied respiratory challenges. The final piece of the night, Grassi’s The Last of the Beboppers (Clean Feed’s Pedro Costa’s description of Whitecage,) also featured the alto saxophonist swinging his 80-year old ass off. In between, he played dark chocolate clarinet and, on his original, Prayer for the Water Protectors, a Native American flute. He’s waiting to get his hands on a fujara flute made from PVC pipe. Reason enough to have him back.

NU Band is a cooperative ensemble, but Fonda and Lou Grassi chase down gigs and firm up details. Grassi is a journeyman in the best, most noble sense of the word. Generating work by germinating relationships with producers, label chiefs and many fabulous musicians (he was a good friend and long-time collaborator with the Valley’s David Wertman), Grassi has carved a productive career out of unforgiving material. His crisp drumming gave the evening its backbone, its architecture.

Coming together in community to share a sublime moment or two. That’s what Jazz Shares means to me. Thanks to musical warriors like NU Band for helping us transcend the ugliness around us and inspire us for the fight ahead.

‘Tis the Season: Mars Williams Ayler Xmas Visits Holyoke

Context matters. What we understand, and how we feel about it, is shaped by what surrounds it. Take, for instance, the venerable Christmas carols that Mars Williams and his all-star sextet delivered to about 90 revelers at Gateway City Arts on Friday, December 1.

We all know the songs: “O Tannenbaum”, “Noël”, “12 Days of Christmas”, “Good King Wenceslas”. We’ve heard them our whole lives, in banks, churches, super markets and on sidewalks. But it seems safe to say that none of us has heard them through the filter of the distinctive lightening rod that was Albert Ayler. A 1960s titan of the New Thing in jazz, Ayler had a blues drenched attitude on the tenor saxophone that writer Larry Kart called, “the largest human sound I ever heard.”

Most Christmas jazz music has little spiritual power. Mars Williams’ Ayler Xmas was quite the opposite. I heard these beautiful themes as if for the first time, imbued with a potency missing from Perry Como’s work. This was a cleansing, an antidote to the cheapening of this music by corporate and consumer interests.

The Chicago tenor saxophonist Mars Williams has been channeling Ayler for eight years with his band, Witches & Devils. “A lot of Ayler themes sound like spirituals,” Williams recently told the Hampshire Gazette’s Ken Mauiri, “and a lot of his melodies are based on gospel and Scandinavian folk songs, and a lot of Christmas music came out of that area. To me, it’s a perfect marriage.”

The sound produced by Joe McPhee, tenor sax, pocket trumpet, Jeb Bishop, trombone, Joe Morris, guitar, Nate McBride, bass, Chris Corsano, drums and Mars Williams, was inundating. The three horns played sweetly, like some off-kilter Salvation Army Philharmonic. Then the three horns caterwauled with escalating energy, stoked by the fabulous rhythm section. Williams’ wide vibrato and controlled altissimo shrieks bore an uncanny resemblance to Ayler’s distinctive sound.

There was a centrifugal trajectory for much of the evening. A full-throated, “traditional” opening would speed up, then launch to the heavens. In the middle of this unbridled energy, the ensemble took a page from the playbook of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and performed a “sound piece.” Williams played thumb piano, toys and little instruments, while the band colored the proceedings with subdued, abstract gestures. It was a welcome respite to the fun-filled cacophony that preceded it.

Williams had an “aha moment” years ago when he picked up his saxophone while listening to Christmas music and realized the affinity between the worlds of Albert Ayler and the ubiquitous carols. The seasonal melodies, including the Hanukkah song, “Ma’oz Tzur”, were woven, medley-style, with Ayler themes like, “Truth is Marching In,” “Spirits” and “Bells”. The fit was seamless and made perfect sense.

Williams’ Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares concert in Holyoke was the first of ten, each with a different line-up. His December 10th gig at the Hungry Brain in Chicago, where An Ayler Xmas (Soul What Records, 2017) was recorded, will feature his home-boys from the record. His performance in Antwerp will be with four musicians he’s never met.

Joe Morris and Williams have met, but had never played together. The veteran guitarist, who has an extensive discography and a long list of accomplished former students, thrived in this setting, issuing two extraordinary unaccompanied solos and some of the most interesting comping I’ve heard in a long time. After the show Morris told Williams how easy and fun it was. “There was so much for me to do,” he said.

For all the free blowing and loose togetherness within the pieces, the arrangements required precision, some at break-neck tempos. Although Williams had sent the musicians charts in advance, the two-hour rehearsal prior to the concert was essential to the bands’ tight performance.

The virtuosity of the musicians, and their embrace of Williams’ vision, meant that the music was full of passion and good tidings, never trite or sentimental. The music, finally rescued from its drab misuse, transformed into free, spiritual music.