All By Himself: Roger Clark Miller in Greenfield

One man bands – a single individual making all the sounds emanating from a stage – is a centuries old tradition. The advent of looping technology has updated the practice, but it still involves all the limbs in intense coordination. The guitarist and composer Roger Clark Miller, who became famous in the early 1980s as co-founder of the avant-punk band Mission of Burma, has been experimenting with the concept since pioneering his “maximum electric piano” in 1987.

Miller presented his “Dream Interpretations For Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble” at Hawks & Reed on January 12th as part of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares 12th season. Sitting in his “cockpit” around three lap-steel guitars on stands, along with his 6-string Stratocaster, Miller employed a bevy of foot pedals and stomp boxes to create a dense soundscape of abstract but musical portraits of the composer’s dreams.

The 45 minute set, shared with 55 listeners, was divided into discreet, numbered dream interpretations, which Miller occasionally detailed from the stage. Dreams are often fantastical and episodic, with non-linear leaps that belie conscious scrutiny. That description served as an apt metaphor for the music we heard on Friday. Grooves, set up by a loop, would come and go. Likewise, melodies and patterned sounds would float across the room with a randomness we associate with the unconscious mind. Miller told me he has kept detailed dream journals since 1971. Of course, all dreams are deeply personal, and the fact the music was strictly instrumental meant it was not programmatic in any direct way. Still, the overall effect had the loose trippy logic of a hallucination.

Many of the pieces we heard were recorded and released in 2022 on a well-received album on Cuneiform Records. “The eruptive musical textures Miller creates are evocative of both the manic psychedelic feedback Jimi Hendrix infused into his yearning solos and the transformative discipline that Robert Fripp uses to turn the raucous into the meditative,” Scott McLennan wrote in The Arts Fuse. Three days after his Greenfield concert, Miller was headed back to his hometown studio, Guilford Sound in Vermont, to record a new set of dream interpretations.

Although the original incarnation of Mission of Burma lasted only four years (1979-1983), it's hard to overestimate the impact the band had on American music. The list of groups influenced by the Boston-based ensemble reads like a hall of fame roster of 1980s-90s rock ‘n roll: Pearl Jam, Hüsker Dü, Foo Fighters, Yo La Tango, Fugazi. But Roger Miller’s musical interests have always been wider than the rough-edged music of Mission of Burma. Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, the group he co-founded after Burma, was an experimental band with jazz and 20th century classical musical underpinnings. Subsequent compositions for movie soundtracks and chamber orchestra, his solo work for prepared piano, and his career writing for and accompanying silent films with his Alloy/Anvil Orchestra, reveal a musician with divergent interests and serious ambition. Throughout it all, his humble, self-effacing demeanor runs counter to the rock guitar hero stereotype.

There were a few raised eyebrows when we first announced this concert. On the surface, Miller does not fit the profile of the typical Jazz Shares artist. But raised as a pitcher, I was used to throwing curve balls and keeping batters off balance, and I knew our long-time shareholders were open-minded enough to roll with it. Not getting locked into stylistic straightjackets or limited by the confines of genre keeps us young and flexible. Throughout my presenting career, the emphasis has always been on quality and innovation. By those criteria, hosting Roger Clark Miller was no stretch at all. Seeing a one man band creating meaningful orchestral music alone on stage playing guitars, pressing pedals and turning knobs in real time, was immersive and satisfying.

To Build a Band: Ember Brings It to Amherst

The added oomph that a working band can provide raises the music to new heights. Chance encounters and new configurations of musicians can be exciting and result in flying sparks, but most advances in jazz history come from the sustained excellence of stable ensembles. It stands to reason, of course, that the more a group works on something – whether it’s double-plays or marching in formation – the more precise they get. But creative musicians not only have to master the technical elements en masse, the best continually innovate and invigorate the music, while deepening relationships with each other.

Ember, Caleb Wheeler Curtis (sax, trumpet), Noah Garabedian (bass) and Vinnie Sperrazza (drums), are developing a body of work and forging a group identity that makes for fireworks on stage. The trio has been together for about five years and have three releases to their name, but becoming a true working band is not only about longevity and the number of gigs played, but its willingness to come together to make a collective statement.

Ember is doing just that. Everyone in the band is the leader and everyone composes for the ensemble. Their Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares performance at The Drake in Amherst on December 14, provided a glimpse of what an ensemble coalescing sounds like. The group played a wide-ranging set of music drawn from their latest recording, August in March (Imani Records), for 60 attentive listeners.

The band can swing. “Angular Saxon” (Sperrazza) and “Break Tune” (Curtis) evolved into burners, revealing an almost casual virtuosity. Curtis was flying across his straight alto saxophone, cleanly articulating notes, tossing out impactful phrases with alacrity. He juxtaposed those runs with elongated, split-toned honks that cut across the brisk tempo, heightening tension.

The three can write tunes. “Floatation Device and the Shivers” (Curtis) and “Sam Cooke” (Sperrazza) have a pop directness that’s easy to like, and have hooks I’ve been humming since Thursday. Each of the compositions had personality and a point of view.

The band all gets along. Hanging out after the concert, the musicians launched into a pun-filled comedy routine that had Priscilla Page and I in stiches. I suggested they find a way to incorporate the material into their performance. Thus far, this democratically run ensemble has only recorded original work, but there is talk their next project might involve arranging the compositions of others. I’m sure the selection process will be lively, but without acrimony.

Caleb Curtis was my point of contact for this concert. I met the 37-year old, Ann Arbor native when he performed with the Michael Musillami Trio +3 in March, 2022. Curtis is smart, curious and very talented. His main instrument is the straight alto, also known as the stritch, made famous by the great reedman Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Curtis also played trumpet and the sopranino sax, a smaller cousin of the soprano. Building on Eddie Harris’ late-1960s innovation, Curtis inserted a saxophone mouthpiece into his trumpet to create an otherworldly sound on what’s called a “reed trumpet”. Curtis is quite knowledgeable about the history and variety of saxophones, running the entire family down for us during dinner. It’s little surprise he is friends with Jon Iragabon and Scott Robinson, two practicing scholars of all things sax-related.

Vinnie Sperrazza is a witty and engaging guy from Utica, NY (also home to drummer Jimmy Wormworth and saxophonist JR Monterose), who like his Ember-mates, now lives in Brooklyn. Like Curtis and Garabedian, Sperrazza is well versed in both current and historic jazz recordings, and his thoughtful writing on the music can be found on his Substack, Chronicles. “Mashups, juxtaposition and collage are part of American culture, modern life, and are basic flavors in jazz,” Sperrazza wrote in his tribute to Billy Hart. The Ember concert in Amherst, with varied tunes moving from one to the other without pause, embodied that sentiment. Sperrazza played with a rock edge, while giving the music exactly what it needed across mood and tempo. In energy and attitude, he reminded me of a young Jim Black.

Noah Garabedian is among a cohort of young-ish bass players (Max Johnson, Mali Obamsawin, Brandon Lopez, Kim Cass), who are reinvigorating the bottom end of jazz ensembles. He certainly did that for Ember. Using his own small amp, he produced one of the deepest, fattest bass sounds I’ve heard in years. On his slow blues, “Snake Tune”, his walking bass line provided the backbone for his bandmates to accent and embellish. Other Garabedian originals, like “Easy Win”, and “August in March”, are short understated snapshots that do not draw undue attention to the composer, and are all the more powerful for that. Raised in Berkley, California, Garabedian is the musical director for the dance show, “Rhythm Is Life,” featuring choreographer and world-renowned tap dancer Dormeshia, and recently released Consider the Stars Beneath Us, featuring Dayna Stephens, Carmen Staaf and Jimmy Macbride.

Pulled in so many directions while paying Brooklyn rents amidst dwindling opportunities to play, makes keeping a band together tough sledding. That Ember has persevered and continues to thrive, is a testament to their drive and vision. Jazz Shares is happy to play a small role in the evolution of a real band.

Echoes of a Bygone Era: Robin Holcomb Solo at IMA

Fame comes in all shapes and sizes, and is pursued differently by each of us. The pianist, vocalist, lyricist and composer Robin Holcomb, who gave a magical performance at the Institute for the Musical Arts on December 3, has earned a good deal of fame in her life, despite her lack of hunt for it.

A self-described recluse, Holcomb has nonetheless amassed accolades and a loyal contingent of fans over her 40 year career. A few of the 40 folks who made their way to Goshen, MA on a dark and stormy night, told me they were touched by her 1990s Elektra/Nonesuch recordings and couldn’t miss the opportunity to see her live. Quietly, out of the limelight, the fame-adjacent Holcomb has made a career sharing her unique response to early American music with all who will listen.

“The late Hal Wilner, his own kind of genius, deserves so much credit for trusting Robin on his many projects in homage to different artists,” wrote Holcomb’s husband, pianist and composer Wayne Horvitz. “At Hal’s invitation, she was often the least famous person on stage, in the company of Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed and Bono and Elvis Costello and Martha Wainwright and many, many more. But as Hal said one morning, after a very long night, on the bus back to the airport in Dublin, ‘here comes Robin, the only one whose music always comes fully baked to these half-baked affairs’”.

The songs Holcomb shared with us on Sunday were small finished gems, four minute pieces of polished perfection that illustrated the human condition in all its expression. IMA’s rustic wooden barn was the perfect venue to experience the music’s plaintive, 19th century aesthetic. She took liberties with a few “covers” by Stephen Foster and Doc Pomus, but otherwise performed original work.

Her piano playing was at once simple and layered, beautiful and tart. Her timing and touch were exquisite, and the note choices and voicings were modern and complex, qualitatively different from typical singer-songwriter fare. She performed a piece without vocals, and elsewhere gave herself ample space to stretch out and highlight her considerable, if understated, piano technique. I heard her voice as fragile, but sure of itself, and her straightforward delivery was offered without adornment or embellishment. Holcomb was there to deliver a lyric. That said, the effect was poignant and potent.

“Satie goes to Appalachia, Morricone goes to the Knitting factory, and you, dear art-folk fan, die and go to heaven,” was how the Village Voice described her impact.

I often have trouble discerning lyrics in live music settings, and on Sunday I wished the vocals had been a bit higher in the mix. But thanks to her recent solo recording, One Way or Another, Vol. 1, and her book, Lyrics, both of which I took home with me, I have been able to sit with many of the pieces she performed in concert. The feelings of that evening continue to simmer.

Holcomb gave us several pieces from song cycles she wrote inspired by Rachel Carson and the utopian communities active in the Pacific Northwest in the late-1880s. In “Copper Bottom”, she sings:

Set me up there with my daughter

I lost my voice around the corner

Don’t confuse me with my laughter

I won’t return the morning after

Don’t come looking for my blessing

I’m not coming back to the colony

no, never

Her rendition of Doc Pomus and Herb Abramson’s “I’ve Got That Feeling”, was reconfigured from a stock, 1950s-era blues about lust, to a haunting folk song that featured a mildly surprising, but very welcome swell of volume on the piano.

Holcomb, who had an avid interest in Civil War songs growing up, told us she has a love/hate relationship with Stephen Foster, before playing two of his compositions, including the oft-covered “Hard Times Come Again No More”. Her interpretation had an ache that seemed relevant to us all, whether we find ourselves on the prairie or in the parlor.

Holcomb was raised in and around Santa Cruz, CA, before she and Horvitz spent 1977-1987 in New York, where they played with the likes of John Zorn, Marty Ehrlich, Syd Straw, Bill Frisell, Butch Morris, Arto Lindsay, Elliot Sharp and many others. They’ve lived in Seattle since. They were in New York for Horvitz’ four-day Stone residency, so we were happy to extend a Jazz Shares invitation for Holcomb to perform in western Massachusetts. Horvitz, who played at IMA last April with bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck, joined his wife at the end of her set, utilizing tasteful electronic drones from his laptop, as well as playing piano and harmonica.

Holcomb has achieved her fame without fanfare, in her own way, on her own terms; it’s all the more durable for that. She is living proof that you can’t fake authentic. While a general public blinded by pomp and pizzazz has had trouble recognizing this in large numbers, her peers have had an easier time of it. William Parker called her music “a map that guides us to the house of the sages.” “Have I heard this before?” her long-time collaborator Bill Frisell wrote about her new solo recording. “Not like this. Everyone. Please LISTEN. Listen closely. We need this.”