Finding Inspiration in All the Right Places: Jeff Lederer's Schoenberg On the Beach

Inspiration comes in many forms and from myriad sources. For reed man Jeff Lederer, the impetus to create has emanated from sea chanties, Shaker vision songs and Albert Ayler, among other wellsprings. The 61 year old reed player’s latest bolt of innovation has come from the early vocal music of composer Arnold Schoenberg.

We heard the fruits of his notion on October 1, as Lederer and six close musical friends gave new life to Schoenberg’s music at the Shea Theater, as Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares offered its second concert of the season. The event marked the release of Schoenberg on the Beach, a new recording on his little (i) music imprint. Sunday’s concert concluded a tour that also stopped at the Lilypad (Cambridge), Firehouse 12 (New Haven) and Roulette (Brooklyn).

Despite Schoenberg’s reputation as a purveyor of dark, brooding music, what we heard in Turners Falls was, for the most part, a buoyant and swinging affair, full of chance-taking whimsy at various tempos. Each piece was introduced by the extraordinary vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, whom we first met as part of Mary LaRose’s Eric Dolphy project two years ago. In keeping with the classical roots of this venture, Lederer left his tenor saxophone home and devoted himself exclusively to flute and clarinet. The all-star band also included Hank Roberts (cello), Chris Lightcap (electric bass), Michael Sarin (drums), Noel Brennan, aka àrkturéyé, (electronics) and Mary LaRose (vocals).

The concert, which mirrored the contour of the recording, began with “On the Beach”, a rocking tune that featured a sinewy cello solo. What a treat to hear Hank Roberts for the first time. The veteran was a mainstay on the New York downtown scene in the 1980s alongside Mark Ribot, John Zorn and especially Bill Frisell, with whom he still works. Roberts, who has lived in Ithaca, NY for decades, will be back in the Valley on November 4 with Tim Berne and Aurora Nealand.

The lyrics by Rilke, Goethe, Nietzsche and others, were harder to decipher live than on the recording, so it was helpful that Lederer provided programs that included the written poems. They included a poem by the late 19th-early 20th century German writer Wilhelm Weigand. It read, in part: “Oh summer evening/Holy golden light/The gently glowing meadow lies ablaze/Not a sound breaks this peaceful silence/And all is merged into one emotion…”

It seems that Schoenberg, who fled Nazi Germany in 1934 and eventually settled in Los Angeles, had a strong attraction to the beach, and some of Schoenberg’s early vocal music that Lederer used for inspiration contained seaside themes. Brooklyn’s Coney Island holds a similar allure for Lederer. During the minute-long segues between pieces, the turntablist àrkturéyé altered early field recordings taken from a Riverside Record, CONEY ISLAND IN STEREO: The Thrilling Sounds of the World’s Greatest Amusement Park. Concurrently, we watched projected film footage from Coney Islands’ Luna Park, shot by Mack Sennett in 1912.

Lederer’s arrangements of these works by Schoenberg and his student Anton Webern, (whose pieces are also included in the project), are modern and full of jazz life. Much of the project’s joi de vivre was provided by LaRose, the irrepressible chanteuse who seemed to channel the forward thinking vocals of Jeanne Lee and Sheila Jordan. LaRose’s playful, insouciant approach to the material was vastly different from how Schoenberg heard it. When you add her all-black attire and her movements to the music, the buttoned-down constraint of the original was lovingly blown up.

Jeff Lederer is not only one of the nicest persons in jazz, he is a dependably restless musical soul, with quick wit and limitless imagination. Lederer’s Palisades High School calculus teacher in Los Angeles was Lawrence Schoenberg, Arnold’s son. Lederer and LaRose have longed lived in Brooklyn, and since moving to the East Coast he’s become drawn to Coney Island. And so the beach and Arnold Schoenberg become his latest points to jump off, while musical connections and creative thoughts just keep springing from Lederer’s fertile imagination.

Noah Preminger Quartet Opens Jazz Shares Season

Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares got off to a fast start as it began its 22-concert race to June, 2024 with a blistering performance by the Noah Preminger Quartet on September 21 at the Parlor Room in Northampton. This band of virtuosos: Max Light, guitar, Kim Cass, bass, Dan Weiss, drums and Preminger, tenor saxophone, shot out of the gate with some serious post-bop momentum on their way to a 70-minute first place finish.

The band was on a New England mini-tour, with stops in Boston (Scullers) and Old Lyme, CT (Side Door Café). It began on Thursday before 70 rapt listeners. We were treated to a set of Preminger originals that were intricate, memorable and evocative. The only pieces not penned by the leader were a composition of Light’s dedicated to his two cats, featuring an impossibly fast, yet hummable unison guitar/tenor line, and an unhurried, “Way Early Subtone”, part of Duke Ellington’s movie score for “Anatomy of a Murder”. The 1959 film was directed by Otto Preminger, who was a cousin of Noah’s grandfather, Jack. (See Preminger Plays Preminger, Newvelle Records, 2019.)

Noah’s other grandfather, Lenny, “a colorful New Jersey mobster”, according to Preminger, was also memorialized with a piece called, “You’ll Never Win”, a phrase he repeated often to his grandson. By the end of the tune, the melody’s five note core, played over and over, was imprinted in my head. Grandpa’s negative messaging seems to have had no lasting effect on the 37 year old saxophonist, who has forged quite a successful career. Preminger has already released 20 critically acclaimed albums as a leader, tours often and teaches at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge. His playing was strong, sure footed, rooted in the blues, and followed the hallowed lineage of tenor greats past. His steel-tipped sound grabbed the attention, and his compositions connected with the ear.

The bassist Kim Cass, who performed with vibraphonist Patricia Brennan at a Jazz Shares concert last February, is Preminger’s most constant collaborator. I can see why he’s a favored colleague. His one unaccompanied solo provided a textbook example of how to build a coherent musical statement. From rapid, delicate pizzicato patter, and bowed whale-like moans, to a seductive bass line that cued the band’s entrance, Cass laid it down. I was impressed that he got to the Valley early to play 18-holes of disc golf at the Northampton State Hospital course. He’s devoted to the sport and plays everywhere he travels.

This was my first encounter with Max Light, who met Cass and Preminger at the New England Conservatory in the early 2000’s. This was a nice introduction. The guitarist was full of fleet, crowd pleasing runs, played at moderate volume. (The sound mix in the room was beautiful all night.) He also added nuance to the music, using a variety of techniques to set moods of different colors. While in Boston, Light, Cass and Preminger furthered their studies with weekly gigs led by trumpeter Jason Palmer at Wally’s, the legendary Mass Ave. club. Preminger and pianist Kevin Harris are carrying on the tradition; they’ve led the house band at Wally’s on Friday and Saturday for years.

Dan Weiss is one of the elite drummers, and he showed out at the Parlor Room on Thursday. Throughout the evening, he would drop the time for a moment or two, before locking back in to propel the band to new heights. He constantly used provocative accents to fill spaces between the phrases of others, while his unaccompanied solo began with the simplest of elements, adding complexity and volume as he went. It was hard to pry my attention from him. His next appearance at Jazz Shares will be in the spring with his trio, featuring Miguel Zenón and Matt Mitchell.

After three months of administrative work to make season 12 of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares a reality, what a blessing to bring people together again to share jazz music in real time. An appreciative audience and appreciative musicians, along with the music itself, are the real payoffs.

"It's truly amazing what you've built." Preminger wrote me after the gig. “Haven't seen this sort of commitment to creative music from such a large, consistent audience anywhere!”

The shareholders, business sponsors and board of directors of Jazz Shares should be proud of what we’ve built.

Teaching By Example: Ran Blake and Dominique Eade Play Springfield

“Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” So wrote George Bernard Shaw in his 1905 play, Man and Superman. But pianist Ran Blake and vocalist Dominique Eade, who have spent much of their adult lives teaching at the New England Conservatory, can also do. That much was apparent to 60 listeners who braved heavy rain on May 20 to bring down the curtain on Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares’ 11th season.

The concert at the Community Music School of Springfield, in Blake’s hometown, took place almost four years to the day of their last visit in 2019. Due to illness, Blake had hardly performed in the interceding years, but the venerable 88-year old iconoclast was in fine form on Saturday, as was his running mate, Dominique Eade. Blake seemed genuinely grateful to be performing again in Springfield.

Their beautifully paced recital was grouped in small sets of three or four compositions. Each of the six sets (with an intermission) were medley-ed, with songs moving seamlessly from one to another; the music flowed like a dream.

At Ran’s urging, he and Dominique supplied programs, which both helped us identify melodies and get a sense of Ran’s life in Springfield, MA, where he spent his early years. He titled the concert, “Storyboarding Springfield”, and dedicated it to Classical High School (now condos). The program thanked many of his teachers, family friends, neighbors and musical collaborators by name, and included little reminiscences’ like, “Spiral Staircase and Red House at Art and Capital Theatres”, and “Mulberry Cemetery late at night”. Before the concert, Blake and Eade visited his childhood home at the corner of Union and Mulberry, which was sold by Ran’s family to the Parker family, who occupy the home today.

There was a deep simplicity to the music, but the bare essentials were all we needed. Ran was never florid in his playing, and on Saturday he chose his notes carefully, played them emphatically, and, of course, they were all the right notes. There was adventure and risk taking in the music, with Dominique darting around melodies, leaping octaves and displacing beats, while taking liberties with Gershwin, Arlen and Lane.

The highlights were many. “Portrait”, music and lyrics by Charles Mingus, unfurled slowly with blues inflections. “Painting my own pictures in tones/I’ve painted all mother earth”, Eade sang at the lower end of her register. There were country music heart tugs like “Lost Highway” and “The West Virginia Mine Disaster”, and a set dedicated to Thelonious Monk’s benefactor, Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, including “Pannonica” (Monk), “Nica Noir” (Blake) and “Nica’s Dream” (Horace Silver).

Dominique’s solo performance of Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints”, accompanying herself on thumb piano, was stunning. Her rendition of Rogers and Hart’s “To Keep My Love Alive”, a humorous song from A Connecticut Yankee about a wife murdering a succession of husbands, was period-appropriate coquettish.

Not only can Dominique Eade do it, over more than three decades she has taught many others to do it, too. Among her former students at NEC are Roberta Gambarini, Michael Mayo, Rachel Price, Sofia Rei, Sara Serpa, Luciana Souza, Naledi Masilo and Aoife O’Donovan, all great and very different singers. “The key is showing people what is possible, not how to sound,” Eade said in a profile on the NEC website.

Ran Blake has been synonymous with NEC for over 40 years, where, with Gunther Schuller, he started the Third Stream Department, now known as Contemporary Musical Arts. The number of illustrious musicians who have been touched by Blake is too large to list. In an extensive interview with Robin DG Kelly, Blake shares details of his life: his early years in Springfield, MA and Suffield, CT, meeting vocalist Jeanne Lee at Bard College, his time at the legendary School of Jazz in Lenox, MA, working at Atlantic Records, his admiration of Monk, Houston Pearson and Abbey Lincoln, his work for Soul Note Records and his career at NEC.

Most of Blake’s great recordings have been in solo or duo contexts. (The Short Life of Barbara Monk, a 1986 quartet date, being one exception.) His memorable duo records include collaborations with Anthony Braxton, Jaki Byard and Enrico Rava, and especially with great female vocalists like Jeanne Lee, Sara Serpa, Christine Correa and Dominique Eade.

“If you’re lucky, you experience brain wave alignment, which is something that you feel profoundly in a duo,” Eade said in her NEC profile. Stars and brain waves were certainly aligned for Ran Blake and Dominique Eade on Saturday, as they taught us all lessons on creativity and perseverance.