On Top of the World: Mary Halvorson at the Magic Triangle Jazz Series

Mary Halvorson has the world on a string. Six strings, actually. The 37-year old Brookline, Massachusetts native has spent the last dozen years creating a unique compositional and playing style that has catapulted her into the upper echelon of the jazz world. The guitarist led her ensemble, Reverse Blue, in a meaty, provocative evening of music at Smith College’s Sweeney Concert Hall on Monday, March 27, as the Magic Triangle Jazz Series continued its 28th season.

The band, Chris Speed, tenor saxophone and clarinet, Eivind Opsvik, bass, Tomas Fujiwara, drums, and Halvorson, performed 70 minutes of original music for about 300 people. Drawn from their 2014 Relative Pitch release, Reverse Blue, the concert featured the knotty, off-kilter approach that has distinguished Halvorson’s sound.

Although there is plenty of precision in the music, there is a constant feeling that the wheels are about to leave the rails. Of course, in the hands of these accomplished artists they never do, but that uncertainty fuels the excitement of listening. The music sounds at once familiar and disorienting, rhythmically assured and harmonically ambiguous.

At times Halvorson and Speed played tricky unison lines; at other points they played intricate contrapuntal passages. Just like beach tension, where waves move one way and the undertow pulls in the opposite direction, the ebb and flow created shifting landscapes. On more than one occasion, Opsvik would change his rhythmic allegiance from Fujiwara to the “front line” players, creating a two-at-once feeling. Wherever the bassist locked in, he was spot on.

The venerable Sweeney Concert Hall was designed for choirs and chamber orchestras, not drum kits. After some readjustment from the sound technician, we could better hear the guitar and reeds. But being able to readily hear Fujiwara was its own reward. His playing was precise and articulate. He swung the band, providing just the right accents and colors. A word to the wise: Fujiwara’s quintet, The Hook Up, (featuring Halvorson), will conclude the Magic Triangle Jazz Series with an April 27 concert in Bezanson Recital Hall at UMASS.

In the recent past, Halvorson has been the subject of cover stories in Downbeat and Jazz Times, and major articles in the New York Times and NPR. Right after her Northampton gig, she was off to Europe to perform John Zorn’s Bagatelles. She has a week-long engagement at the hallowed Village Vanguard with her octet in July. Next January she has a month-long residency at The Stone. Despite all the acclaim and opportunity that has come her way, Halvorson is humble and unpretentious.

After spending some time with Halvorson’s parents, it’s clear why her head is not too big and on straight. Craig and Karen still live in Brookline and made the trip west (along with Tomas’ mother, Chantal). I first got to know them when they all came to Greenfield to hear Thumbscrew, the cooperative trio Mary and Tomas co-lead with bassist Michael Formanek. They are educated, down to earth and generous (Mr. Halvorson treated us all to drinks at the Hotel Northampton after the performance.)

“When you see Mary Halvorson on stage, she doesn’t look like much of a trailblazer,” begins a November NPR feature. “She plays sitting down. She’s small, and mostly hidden behind her hollow-body guitar and glasses. But then she starts to play. And the sounds coming out of her amp are anything but conventional.”

Thanks to Smith College Professor Steve Waksman this Magic Triangle concert was offered free to the public. That explained the larger crowd and allowed the curious and uninitiated to check out the music at no cost. In these days of corporate-fueled groupthink, our political and aesthetic imagination has shrunk. Just as our national debate is truncated, the music we are exposed to is exceedingly narrow. So it was important, especially for those folks who left early with furrowed brows and puzzled countenance, to understand there are many ways to organize sound.

In It For The Long Haul: The Michael Musillami Trio

Conviction and commitment. Those are words that come to mind thinking about the Michael Musillami Trio, which enthralled over 100 of us on Saturday, March 11. The concert at the 121 Club at Eastworks in Easthampton was a Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares event.

The Trio has been together for 13 years. They have five recordings as a threesome and another four with added guests. Joe Fonda (bass), George Schuller (drums) and Musillami (guitar) have logged so many shared miles of collective performance they can anticipate each others’ gestures and direction. Musillami has kept the Trio together through turbulent personal times, the bottom falling out of the record business and now the rise of fascism in the United States. He has invested personal fortune to keep Playscape Recordings, the wonderful record label he started in 1999, afloat.

Coming out the other side of those tribulations is a real working trio with over 80 tunes under their belt and a thirst to add more. The 80-minute concert included previously recorded Musillami compositions like Uncle Fino’s Garden (a nice uncle who happened to be a safecracker) and Old Tea (dedicated to his son who committed suicide.)

Another set of tunes chronicled Musillami’s recent journey through an aneurysm and subsequent brain surgery. Pieces like MRI Countdown and Nurse Rose that recall the trauma, will be recorded and released within the year. The band seemed equally assured on both the old and new tunes.

Assurance. Your trusted band mates creating a comfort level. Countless days on the road, countless hours in rehearsal and on the bandstand, a shared history. That assurance is the reward for putting in the time and energy. There are no shortcuts to forging a group sound and creating chemistry.

We are the beneficiaries of all that effort, as three profoundly self-possessed musicians thrilled us with their sense of invention.

Joe Fonda, who was in the area last week performing with Oliver Lake, Graham Haynes and Barry Altschul at Amherst College, is a magnetic performer and magnificent bassist. An extended, unaccompanied solo late in the set unleashed the loudest spontaneous applause of the evening. His earlier arco solo was brooding, blues-like, ancient. The pings he produced playing below the bridge of his instrument provided the perfect accompaniment coming out of Schuller’s note-bending solo.

George Schuller’s bent notes, especially audible during solos and subdued sections, resulted from a unique technique of handling the cymbal after striking. Stick rubbing on drum skins produced similar undulated sounds. His time, whether playing in a rock, swing, funk, Latin or free vein, was as impeccable as his dynamics. Schuller is the son of the late composer, conductor, historian, educator and NEA Jazz Master Gunther Schuller, and has spent considerable effort to preserve and disseminate his father’s legacy. He is also an astute historian of the music. We had a great time, long into the night, discussing musicians, bands, recordings, and his on-going projects.

What a pleasure to hear Michael Musillami, who only lives in Longmeadow, MA, but works in the other direction at the Hotchkiss School in the northeast corner of Connecticut. Without the pedals and effects that occupy many contemporary guitarists, Musillami’s well-articulated notes, tart and sweet, kept us engaged all night. His intricate compositions provided a sturdy framework with an open floor plan.

He told me this was his first concert in the area in over a decade. For someone that close and that talented, it makes no sense. But where are the opportunities? That’s the big question everyone’s asking. That the Michael Musillami Trio has persevered despite the lack of a good answer shows an inspiring conviction and commitment.

OGJB Quartet: Telling Stories Through Sound

Over the years many people have urged Barry Altschul to write a memoir. The 74-year old drummer, composer and bandleader has certainly led an eventful life. The subject of collecting stories came up over drinks at the High Horse after the OGJB Quartet (Oliver Lake, Graham Haynes, Joe Fonda and Barry Altschul) gave a spirited performance at Amherst College’s Buckley Recital Hall on Sunday, March 5. The concert kicked off the 28th season of the Magic Triangle Jazz Series.

Altschul told us how as a 12-year old, he introduced himself to Louis Armstrong after an outdoor concert. “Let me give you a piece of advice,” Armstrong told the budding drummer, “if your wife isn’t your biggest fan, fuck it.” The Bronx-born percussionist graduated from Taft High School with Larry David (“sarcastic even then”), along with a crazy dude named Kramer. He told us about an early crossroads experience, having simultaneous offers to join the bands of Chick Corea and Jimi Hendrix. Paul Bley, his boss at the time, told him “you’re a jazz drummer.” He went with Chick. We heard stories about an alto saxophonist named Gambino who sounded just like Bird and never left Sicily, about Philly Joe Jones and Art Blakey sharing drum secrets with him, and his life-long friendship with Roy Haynes (Graham’s father and grandfather of fellow drummer Marcus Gilmore.)

When I asked Joe Fonda, who lived in the Valley in the second half of the 1970s, if he had ever played in Buckley, he told me he had not, although he had a peak experience hearing Altschul play there in 1975 with Anthony Braxton.

More history was made on Sunday, as the Quartet played a 70-minute concert to over 250 people. The collective, whose first recording is due next month on the outstanding Finnish label, TUM, has only performed live a handful of times. But the veteran band (Lake is 75, Fonda, 62 and Haynes, 56) played with a loose cohesiveness, while exploring originals by all four members of the ensemble.

In creative music, terms like “front line” and “rhythm section” lose meaning. Figure and ground constantly shifted within each piece. So did roles. Neither alto saxophonist Oliver Lake nor trumpeter Graham Haynes play a lot of notes or hog the spotlight. But each has a distinct and easily identifiable sound that lent personality to each composition.

Highlights included Just a Simple Song, a beautiful ballad written by Altschul that began with a haunting unaccompanied solo statement by Haynes. Another high point was a Haynes composition, Bamako, a spiritual journey featuring Haynes on the West African stringed ngoni, Altschul on thumb piano, Fonda playing arco bass and Lake reciting an original poem. The finale, Listen to Dr. Cornel West, written by Fonda, was the most overt swinger of the set, anchored by an insistently funky bass line. In general, the music was delivered in knots of sound in sure-footed, but shifting meter. The engaged listener was rewarded with a coherent, well-balanced evening of music made by four active modern masters.

Although jazz musicians come in all types and shapes, it should come as no surprise that many are master storytellers. They are, after all, contemporary griots, itinerant world-travelers, constantly accumulating experiences across cultures. Their job is to communicate feelings, translate emotions into sound. Let’s hope Barry Altschul puts down his drum sticks long enough to pick up a pen and share some anecdotes.