Newport 2011, part 1

After a long hiatus, here hopefully is the beginning of a short burst of activity. I was at the Newport Jazz Festival on Sunday, and will be writing in detail about it soon. In the meantime, you can read the various reviews, or you can listen to it online at NPR's music site. This is so cool. I highly recommend starting with Miguel Zenon's Puerto Rican songbook set, which was beyond fantastic, and then tickling whatever fancies you have. More soon...

The Bad Plus, Berklee, 9/17/10

The usher who introduced The Bad Plus at Berklee lauded their "avant-garde populism" and career longevity. (Their new album, Never Stop, celebrates their tenth year together touring, and is the first to eschew covers of pop tunes, relying wholly on the band's originals) If you can get past the inherent contradiction of that descriptor, both were on display Friday night. The band started the set with Ethan's free ballad "2pm", then the band went into a run of their most familiar originals: "And Here We Test Our Powers of Observation", "The Empire Strikes Backwards", and "Anthem for the Earnest". (Possibly also three of the best jazz song titles ever) I don't think I've been to a jazz show where so many people cheered after the first phrase of so many tunes. The second half was devoted to the material on the new album: "People Like You", "Beryl Loves to Dance", "You Are", fashion ditty "Never Stop", and "The Radio Tower Has a Beating Heart". The guys gave each tune backstory recently on NPR's Blog Supreme.

The second half was vintage Bad Plus- tremendously tight, with forms taking hairpin turns through tremendously virtuosic meter change. Some tongue in cheek playing- Ethan pounding away in the "Never Stop" transitions, free jazz power balladry on "Radio Tower", and a downright loopy illustration of "Beryl". The first head of "People Like You" was quiet to the point of shy, then the tune built to a point of bombast, before bassist Reid Anderson reeled it in with a few beautiful lines. I've reviewed TBP a few times in the past, and in this music I have little to add.

But the first half was different from anything I've heard them do. From early in "2pm", the comfort with both the music and each other led to some really transcendent music making, from the way pianist Ethan Iverson and drummer Dave King hooked up on and built an idea together, the kind of hookup Herbie and Tony Williams or McCoy and Elvin knock you out with. Reid followed with a solo that reminded you of Charlie Haden, again, in passion and tone rather than content. The band has frequently talked about its passion for Keith Jarrett's American Quartet, and it was on display here. That kind of brilliance- in my notes I wrote "kinetic transcendence"- was obvious throughout. There was an elasticity to the breaks and transitions in "Anthem", as if they could have stopped on a dime.

For encores, the band played their cover of "Flim", then an abuse of "Have You Met Miss Jones" that changed speed every six bars or so. Here perhaps was the kicker- if you got past the goofyness of the conceit, when the band settled on a tempo it really swung. Despite my enthusiasm for the band, I wasn't sure they had it in them (Sorry guys) to the point that I'd happily stay for a set of "Perdido" and "Nardis". Not that that'll happen anytime soon, right guys? Guys???

Kurt Rosenwinkel and OJM, Berklee Performance Center, 9/15/10

The president of Berklee, on hand to kick off the Berklee, er, Beantown Jazz Festival, quoted no less than Bill Frisell in describing Kurt Rosenwinkel as one of the most distinctive voices on guitar today, playing brilliantly and wearing no particular influence on his sleeve. Last night at Berklee, Rosenwinkel took his most distinctive playing to a venerable setting, painting his playing and writing on top of a big band, in this case the Portugese OJM (Orquestra Jazz de Matosinos). The concert consisted of seven of the nine charts on their new album, Our Secret World.

I have to admit I stupidly slept on Rosenwinkel in my time in New York- when I was there he was playing at Smalls a lot- so listening to his records in preparing for this concert has been a pleasant discovery. Frisell is not overstating; his improvising is at once thoughtful and virtuosic. I bumped into a former student who is studying at Berklee, and she said in his afternoon workshop Kurt talked a lot about guitarists paying more attention to the sound of the guitar, and trying to be musical and thoughtful in even the most mundane parts of your practicing. You can here it in his playing- his block chord intro to "Zhivago" was lovely, a warm tone and clever dense chords lingering in a wash of reverb. And his lines are remarkable, smart, clean and at once studied and kinetic. While Kurt took most of the solo turns, there were a couple of saxophone solos (the band was introduced, but I couldn't catch names through the thick Portuguese accent of the conductor and the fuzzy acoustics of the room). They were solid players, clearly very competent and checking out all the hip New Yorkers- the tenor player owed a lot of his phrasing choices to Donnie McCaslin. The rhythm section was generally solid, with the drummer shining on the brighter tempos and a little sluggish on the slower waltz "Cloister".

While I came out a much bigger fan of Kurt, I can't say I loved the show. Part of the problem was the charts- Kurt writes twisty, abstract tunes, which are inherently hard to arrange. (having not once but twice written terrible charts on Joe Henderson's "Inner Urge", I understand both the attraction and the peril of this work) "Zhivago" was the most successful chart, with Kurt's long but lilting waltz form embellished attractively with lots of twisty counterlines, and a nice Kurt plus saxophones soli just before the final restatement of the head. But the title track was more the norm- I felt like the tune was hard to grab onto, and then there was a lot of dense writing thrown on top of an already dense tune, which left me more confused than happy as a listener. And the writing favored long pads and, with few punches in the brass against the melody, which especially in a tall room like Berklee can make the band sound wishy-washy. (The band didn't help by being very casual with the end of notes. Even at the end of some of the tunes the cutoffs weren't clean)

In addition, I thought there was a sameness to a lot of the writing- brief intro, Kurt playing the melody doubled by a saxophone, Kurt solos, with backings coming in somewhere in the second half of the first chorus, then a little writing- usually development, only one tune, "Deja Vu" had an old fashioned shout chorus, then the head out. There were beautiful nuggets in the writing- the middle of "Cloister", with the drums only barely present and an ethereal melody, shimmered and glowed, leading to an inspired bit of blowing by Kurt, and the aforementioned "Zhivago" was a lot of fun- but my ears screamed for more space and clarity. It reminded me of some of Kenny Wheeler's and Dave Holland's lesser big band work in both good and bad ways. The good- ambitious representations of challenging music, with a lot of harmonic richness and brilliant blowing by the frontman. The less good- a certain monochromaticism and muddiness in both writing and ensemble playing. That said, there was some great music made, and I hope both sides pursue this collaboration further- there is room to expand here.

John Mayer/Michael Franti, TD Garden, 2/24/10

There's a famous New York Times review of either Gershwin or Ellington, where NYT's classical critic pans him visciously. It's often held up as a case not of the critic being wrong, but of the Times sending the wrong guy. I often feel like that when I go to pop concerts- I don't get into singalongs, or an artist bringing people onstage, or most of the conventions of the form. I would rather hear someone play the new stuff, not the hits. So maybe I'm the wrong critic. But that said, a few words about tonight's show:

- Michael Franti and Spearhead have been touring for ten years, this being their biggest tour ever. (Amazing what a top 20 single will do, even now). Their music has that comfortable, lived-in feeling of a band who like playing together for that long. The set (which I was late for) covered some of Franti's better known songs- "Yell Fire", "Hey Hey Hey", and "Hey (I Love You)", the tremendously catchy radio hit. The last was much faster than the recording, and Franti brought kids up from the audience to sing and dance along in a wonderfully cute Sesame Street moment. (A seven year old white girl upstaged him.) I have nothing but the highest regard for Franti the public person, and his latter day hippie vibe went over great tonight.

- John Mayer is for real. He brings out equal levels of admiration and resentment among musicians, and I've been in the former category for some time. (see this post from ages ago. Still my favorite Mayer record.) He opened with the current hit "Heartbreak Warfare", but the set jumped through all of his records, hits and obscurities alike. (hits included "No Such Thing", which he said he wrote in the Berklee dorm, "Half of My Heart", Why Georgia Why", "Waiting on the World" and "Who Says" as the encore. Un-hits included "Good Love is on the Way", "Who Did You Thing I Was" and a covers of "Ain't No Sunshine" and "Message in a Bottle") For me, the best moments of the set were when he was riffing at the end of a tune- playing an improvised guitar duet, or jamming out. His tangent at the end of "Assasin" was perfect, playing off the pointallistic mbira-ish opening of the tune. He played a short solo set with his electric, and the solo "Who Do You Think I Was" and an improvised, looped intro to "Neon" were worth the whole price of admission. Both he and the band seemed most alive in these moments- the hits weren't quite mailed in, but for me they didn't have the spark of this music.

- While Pino Palladino wasn't on the gig, drummer Steve Jordan was, and he was a literal force of nature. He was the only player besides Mayer to get a feature solo; more than half of it was just a groove, leaving the high hat open just so through most of a measure to make it much funkier. The crowd went nuts for a long 3/4 hemiola and the bigger banging, but that first bit for me was amazing. It almost reminded me of a rock version of the famous Max Roach hi-hat solo; what would happen if you had only the little stuff, could you still kill it?

- Mayer's singing and guitar playing continues to evolve and improve. His delivery in most of the songs he sings is very free, and you can tell the set is not the same each night. Most of his guitar playing was tasteful to tasty, owing a lot to B.B. King and the like for sure, but not gratuitously so. (His solo on "Ain't No Sunshine", a tune I love, did sadly devolve to, er, something Mayer has overshared on in interviews.)

- Speaking of which: Mayer has deservedly gotten into some hot water this month for his dumbass comments in Vanity Fair and Playboy. (I won't link, but they're not hard to find. I felt bad for Franti in this mess. He's getting the shot of a lifetime, something he's been working on forever, and now he has to take questions about the stupid stuff John Mayer says, and he can't really answer them well because it would mean criticizing the meal ticket.)

Specifically in the Playboy interview, he said some things about sex and race that were at best impolitic, at worst racist, and no doubt stupid. Salon.com gave him the "crazy of the week" award for it. I joked on my Facebook page today if I would come out more wowed by Mayer the musician or annoyed by Mayer the cretin. It was mostly the former, thankfully, BUT... Coming out of "Waiting...", itself a shameless lift of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", he riffed by singing a re-written "Change is Gonna Come", punning "Change" to mean money, joking about being born near a Toys R'Us. I'm sure a lot of the audience didn't catch the reference to the Sam Cooke song, but I sure did, and I resented turning a sort of anthem of civil rights into a dumb joke. John, haven't you filled your "saying dumb S&*(t" quota twice already this month? Don't do that, not now. Cut it out.

(Jazz nerds in the house, I promise an overdue, glowing review of Fred Hersch's solo set last week is coming by Friday...)

Wayne Shorter Quartet + New England Conservatory Philharmonia, Jordan Hall 10/24

New England Conservatory chose to close the celebration of the 40th year of its jazz program with a tremendously ambitious program, pairing Wayne Shorter's groundbreaking quartet with symphony orchestra, for five of Wayne's pieces. The quartet played a long opening set, then after intermission the stage filled with a huge orchestra (studio orchestra personnel, which for the uninitiated means huge everything- almost twenty brass, an equal number of winds including saxohpones, harp, and seemingly double sections for all the strings). Warning: serious music geekdom ahead. I'm assuming the Globe's writer was there, and hopefully he'll give us a great layman's review on Monday, which I'll link to.

I've written at some length about Wayne's quartet before. This performance never quite achieved the electricity of the Newport performance, but was remarkable nonetheless. I started to get a sense of the set construction for the first time- the band is working from music, long long charts, which seem to hit certain themes and vamps at certain places. My best guess is that the chart sets the arc of the set, and the band fills in the details liberally. I also noticed Danielo Perez doubling Wayne more on melodies. Any remaining sense of "soloist" was completely gone in this music, almost as if the band was coming at Ornette's idea of "Harmelodic" equality from a radically different direction.

The orchestral set opened with "Orbits", originally recorded on Miles Smiles in 1963(?). I realized after the show that there is a large ensemble version of this on Alegria, but I don't know how closely this hewed to the album. I do know that it makes Wayne's reworking of "Children of the Night" on High Life (a masterpiece in my mind) look conservative by comparison. The four bar hook from the original "Orbits" opens the piece, and really isn't heard again, and the rest of the tune is seemingly gone. The set also included "Prometheus Unbound", "Midnight in Carlotta's Hair", and "Forbidden Plan-It".

Hearing Wayne's ideas spread out across such a huge canvas as an orchestra is remarkable- Wayne's reputation (deserved in my opinion) is of a curious genius, a mystery inside an enigma, who's genius is ill served by all the transcriptions and Real Book versions of his tunes. So to hear his lines and harmonies so explicitly is a treat. Several of the pieces used some really interesting voicing tactics- my favorite was when the tuba would double the basses for one statement of a theme, then when the theme repeated would jump up into the middle of the voicings, like Gil Evans would do, to great effect. I really hope that a publisher releases a book of his orchestral pieces- I think it will be a treasure trove of goodies for the many players and composers who puzzle over Wayne's music. And having Wayne floating his own playing over these orchestrations, clearly relishing the opportunity, and Blade lighting fires under the orchestra made it that more exciting.

That said, the composer/arranger in me couldn't help feeling a little dissatisfied with the charts. I was talking to an orchestra member before the concert, and he said he liked the charts, but they were "dense". And they were- Wayne and/or whoever helped orchestrate the music leaned heavily on a dense, "studio" sound. Almost every major theme was played by the french horns, usually doubled by some combination of trumpet, saxophone and/or flute. The strings primarily played the role that a piano would in a jazz quartet, "comping" riffs, occasionally breaking out (really complex and sixteenth-notey) counterpoint. There was a lot of counterpoint between the horn/high string melodies and the cellos and basses, who had tremendously difficult answer statements to many of Wayne's themes. In other words, as fascinating and varied as the themes were, the orchestration was fairly monochromatic, blunting some of the impact. The impact was further blunted by Blade's playing- not his fault, the sonic realities of a drum set is that it will obliterate anything strings are doing, which was the case here. It was clear the orchestra worked very hard to get this complicated music happening, and then we couldn't hear it.

(One saxophone-geek side note: music schools, when you do studio orchestra-ish music, PLEASE don't put your classical saxophone students in the group, use jazz players instead. I can't begin to describe how silly the classical alto player, sounded doubling Wayne at spots, swinging like a brick. Perfectly good for Ravel, but not for this music. But I digress...) NOTE: This was an incorrect assumption on my part, and the saxophonists were all jazz majors- see comments below. My apologies- I didn't love how it sounded clearly, but I jumped to a poor conclusion.

The closing piece, "Forbidden Plan-It", originally on Phantom Navigator, brought the orchestra and Wayne to the fore, with Blade and Danielo playing very little. It was my favorite piece of the set- while there were more exciting moments in some of the other tunes, there was beautiful interplay between Wayne and the orchestra, and his remarkable lines and harmonies shined throughout the piece.

Nitpicking aside, this concert was a remarkable experience, and NEC deserves all the plaudits it can get for putting together not just this concert, but a remarkable week of events to celebrate it's seminal and still vital jazz department.

(More thought on the few other NEC events I made this week, including today's Blade/Perez/Pattatucci masterclass, soon)

Florencio Gonzalez Big Band @ Ryles

After all the hulabaloo online this past month about a recent big band canon (more on that later), I was excited to see a young big band live for the first time in awhile.  I stumbled on Ms. Gonzales in researching my "gigs to see" post for March, and was really struck by the music I heard.  I caught a (short) second set at Ryles last night.  While I didn't hear anything that would vault her onto Mr. Kirchner's must hear list, Ms. Gonzalez is a fine young writer well worth following.  

The set opened with an arrangement of Sonny Rollins' "Blue 7" that sounded like it had evolved out of a school writing project- very smart dissonant opening, harmonized melody, solos with various backgrounds, sax soli, and out.  (across the chart Florencia showed a cheeky way with endings.)  She followed with "a 12 tone tune" (she actually never gave any chart titles from the stage, which was mildly annoying, especially for a reviewer).  It was an interesting piece, shifting temops and feels while keeping the pitch material present, mixing in short solos throughout.  There were some nice spots, particularly towards the end when a groove started after a slow unison band line, but the piece as a whole didn't quite hang together.  The soloists here did a nice job of using the more atonal language of the piece to build their solos around. (Maybe they read Ethan's request on this.)  Trombonist Ryan Drayson (forgive me, I'm going by my notes) stood out.

The last two pieces were the best of the set, introduced as a tango and a chacarerra (sp?).  The tango leads off her website, but was a little quicker this evening.  Both tunes were orchestrally bright and rhythmically engaging, with sharp writing throughout.  Overall the solos here were workmanlike- for my taste too often the solos didn't necessarily take the music anywhere, but the soloists themselves were engaged and solid, if not wildly interesting.  The huge band, augmented with a lot of extra woodwind players, was generally tight, quite an accomplishment with some very daring charts and I'm sure not much rehearsal time.  I'm excited to see as Ms. Gonzalez continues to evolve what she writes, because there is much here to enjoy.

Wayning thoughts

(Note: I had a version of this post ready to go a couple of days after the concert, and my hard drive got wiped.  So, here is how I remember it, plus the lucky addition of a run-in I had with one of the band's members, the great Danielo Perez)

A night after Wayne Shorter celebrated his 75th birthday in New York, his great quartet played a packed house in Boston.  Both Dave Douglas and Ben Ratliff covered Wayne's Carnegie Hall hit beautifully, and I feel like I gave my best shot at a nuts and bolts review of this group at Newport this summer, so below are just a few thoughts I had at the show, and after.  

One thing that struck me this time around was how much better Patitucci sounds with this band than he did when they first started playing.  I remember several folks who saw them with me in '03 mentioning that no one, including John, was exactly clear on what his role was, because this band doesn't use a bass player in the conventional sense.  At this gig, he and Danielo especially were bouncing ideas off each other, moving back and forth.  Patitucci also bowed much more this last time, not just during "solos", creating a very broad thick texture for the others to paint on.  

The word I kept coming back to in listening to the band was "cinematic".  Ratliff in his review mentioned some of the tunes the band touched.  I felt like I recognized bits, and certainly heard when pieces of forms returned, but I couldn't name anything they played this time out specifically.  But I could easily imagine this music underneath a fight scene on film, or an earthquake, or a noir horror theme.  And I mean that literally- I don't know if the timing would work, but it felt as good for the movies as anything Danny Elfman does.  Wayne's love of movies is well known, and to me this band feels like it's able to bring that love to the fore, without ever quoting the "Superman" theme.  (as Wayne is wont to do)

Today I bumped into Danielo Perez at a local coffee shop as he was finishing business at New England Conservatory.  We chatted a little about the gig, and working with Wayne, and here is (not verbatim) what he has to say about it right now:  

"I don't know if I have words for it.  I feel like I've gotten more patient.  Like I'm uncovering something- rubbing and rubbing at it until it shines.  (puts his sleeve on his briefcase and rubs it in circles.)  I can't explain what it is I'm finding, but I think I understand now.  It's like I'm walking in several different dimensions at the same time, just with everything..."

I hope to see him again soon and try to pin him down, but for now I'll chew on that...

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette @ Symphony Hall 10/27/08

Walking into Symphony Hall, I was wondering what I could write about this concert. I've seen the Standards Trio multiple times, and they've always put on a brilliant, beautiful, and fairly predictable show. Lots of standards, at least one ten minute vamp at the end of a tune The inevitable tension of "Will Keith freak out at the audience?" Basically, every trio record ever recorded, plus a little drama. This has been the knock on Keith for years, especially among musicians. For his part, Keith insists, as he restated in concert notes distributed at the doors, that the point of the trio, even after 25 years, is that the vessel of the presentation is so much less important than the content.

He proved it tonight. Whether planned or not, the first set was mostly movie themes: "Green Dolphin Street" (people forget it was a movie, after all) "Someday My Prince Will Come", a beautiful dark ballad I didn't recognize, before moving to a blues. Keith opened the concert with a big, billowy piano introduction, almost Chopin-ish, before moving into a beautifully swung performance. The band took "Prince" at a really hard, medium-slow tempo, and for most of Keith's solo, Jack kept a 2-beat brush pattern going, and was dropping little bombs through his pattern, turning a cute waltz into a pretzel of a tune. The ballad (can anyone who was there help me with the name) was gorgeous, with the band using a much more elastic time sense than I'm used to. Keith would lead into the bridge with almost a pregnant pause, with everyone landing in the bridge literally seconds behind where you'd expect it. At times it reminded me of how the Motion trio plays ballads.

The second set started with another ballad I didn't recognize, before moving into "Innocence", a Keith original from the European quartet days, which really surprised me. Keith proceeded to tear it up, taking on of the most virtuosic solos I've ever heard from him or possibly anyone else, rolling in, around and through the changes at lightspeed. He further surprised with his first encore, taking "When I Fall in Love", the warhorse of warhorses for this group, from the usual reverence the trio shows it and swinging it really hard, with Keith almost not stopping his solo for Gary to come in, then coming back after the bass solo swinging even harder.

Keith himself even seemed surprised with how the night went, saying after Innocence- "I can't say anything about this group that matches what you just heard." I can say that to their usual brilliance, they added the element of surprise, something I hope they'll keep in the book.

Paul Motion Trio at the Vanguard 9/2/08

A trip to the Vanguard can feel a little like a pilgrimage- the place basically looks the same as it has for many years- only a few pictures on the wall seem to change. Everywhere there are references to all the amazing albums made there. It seems doubly so when the Motion/Frisell/Lovano trio play there. At this point, their two week run at the end of every summer is often their only one in the states, and over thirty years they have built a reputation as on of, if not the, best small group in jazz.

So when tenor saxophonist and longtime Motion collaborator Bill McHenry walked on the stage with his horn, it felt like going to a high Mass and seeing someone with a yamulkah on the altar. No explanation was ever given, and the band went through an hour of its typical music- several Motion originals recognizable from their albums, as well as "Good Morning Heartache", Body and Soul", and "Misterioso". But my concert companion and I were more than a little jarred by it. (I don't know if this was a one night thing; the Vanguard website still lists Lovano for the whole run)

The music, was needless to say, different. Both Motion and Frisell are angluar, even sometimes jagged players, and Lovano's big gruff sound and long, full twisty lines have always been a great counterbalance, connecting thread. McHenry has a slightly smaller, darker sound, and plays in short, jerky bursts more than lines, which gave the music a feeling of a lot of the same thing. Early in the set was very effective- it was obvious that everyone was listening tremendously hard, and the interplay and ideas kicking around were remarkable. And of course, Frisell and Motian are old hands, and can toss off brilliant music together in their sleep. But as the set went on Motion and Frisell seemed to move more towards how they would play if Lovano were there, and it left big holes in the music, all rough and no smooth. McHenry is a very, very good player, and to his credit I never once felt like I was listening to someone play like Lovano. And perhaps further into the run, they'll establish more common ground.

I'd be interested to hear who knows what, and if Lovano will be back for any of the run.
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Newport Jazz Festival, Saturday 8/9, Fort Adams State Park

I haven’t been to the Newport Jazz Festival in more than fifeen years. I have lots of warm fuzzy memories from that weekend- it was the summer that the living members of Miles’ 60s band reunited to tour, Jack Dejohnette played a set with unannounced guest Bobby McFerrin, and so on. I also remember a small crowd- rain scared a lot of people away. So I was in no way prepared for my trip back today. I hope I don’t sound nostalgic or old fogey, but everything seemed much… bigger. More parking, longer walks from parking, a ginormous main stage, with big lights and video screens, and two side stages to boot, both just off the main entrance.

I got in just in time to see Brian Blade and Fellowship on the larger side stage. Blade was the second busiest man at the festival, leaving his band and immediately moving to the big stage to play with Wayne. (the busiest easily was Chris Potter, playing six sets with four bands this weekend, including a turn with Herbie on Sunday.) Fellowship (Blade, reedmen Myron Waldron and Melvin Butler, pianist Jon Cowherd, bassist Chris Thomas on bass, and budding jazz god Kurt Rosenwinkle on guitar) is promoting its new album, seemingly forever after Perceptual, their second. I’ve never heard the band live, and liked but didn’t love that record, and have real reservations about both Waldon and Rosenwinkle, so I was very curious about what I’d hear.

I was floored. Blade writes big, open sweeping tunes for this band. The heads generally have very slow melodic rhythms, and the rhythm section always emphasizes big beats, so that even at very fast tempos it doesn’t feel fast. This gives most of the tunes a big, open, almost epic feeling, suggesting wide open spaces; comparisons to the Pat Metheny Group seem inevitable, and not at all bad, but Blades tunes feel somehow earthier, with more soulful (stylistically, that is). In most of the tunes, the blowing is very contained- one solo, usually less then 100 bars- and for the most part the soloists took the role of actors fleshing out roles in the music rather than showstoppers chewing up the scenery turns. Blade, true to form, set up a beautiful, light cushion for the tunes to glide on, dropping his occasional patented bomb for good measure. Blade’s feel was remarkable for how triplety it was. In a time where to my ears many drummers are playing a straighter, more even “swing” it really stood out, sounding very fresh and not at all anachronistic. (I could spend a week talking about what Blade was doing with the time, and maybe after I absorb the new album I will.) The feel gave the soloists huge room to play with, against, around the time, which all did in different ways.

One major complaint about the festival- while the three stages were a great chance to serve more people's tastes, could we be a little more careful about how you put things together? Is it absolutely necessary to have Wayne's band and the Iverson/Haden/Frisell trio running opposite each other? Likewise, Aretha and Lettuce at once? Why not program for contrast instead of stylistic redundancy? (Okay, that's not fair, but why not spread like acts out instead of concentrating them? Wouldn't that make more people happy? I for was was very pissed at having to choose between the two above, especially since Ethan is a friend and Wayne is, well, my hero. Not fair) Anyhow, I did hear a tune plus of the Iverson/Haden/Frisell trio. They opened with Charlie's gorgeous "First Song", and continued with "Sub-Conscious-Lee", which has been a mainstay of recent Frisell sets. I wasn't there enough to say much, except that I think I get completely why Charlie loves playing with Ethan. Haden is a natural romantic, as evidenced on the gorgeous "Nocturne" and the Quartet West music notably, and Ethan often approaches playing from the big-R Romantic point of view. He wears his deep study of European classical music on his sleeve in every solo, even in the wackiest Bad Plus moments, and that sensibility worked beautifully as a contrast to Charlie's spacious approach.

The Wayne Shorter Quartet (Wayne, Danielo Perez, John Patattuchi, Blade) is perhaps the most heralded band of the 21st century, and the most inscrutable. The play a mix of Wayne’s great old and new compositions, sort of; good luck finding more than four bars of a time of “Footprints” or “Mascalero”, or anything. (And new tunes, you're guess is as good as mine.) I saw this band six years ago in Boston, and was left frustrated- you could hear the potential, and obviously the talent, but it never seemed to quite gel. So several years and hundreds of gigs later, I was very curious to hear what was happening.

The answer was, a lot. I hit the set a little late, and it felt just like the '03 gig did- bursts of tremendous energy individually, but no coherence. As the set went on, though, the band connected in a series of patters, melodic, harmonic, rhythmic or all of the above, and the results were magical. Everything connected on a level that I've honestly never heard before. There was a spot where the band would play 4 bars, then lay out as Wayne carried forward whatever they just did, then they did it again. The compositions themselves were vintage Wayne- beautiful and singable and angular and thorny all at the same time.

I can safely say that that set was the first time in my life I've heard something that felt unbelievably new, and five years ahead of what anyone else is doing. Even when I could tell you exactly what was happening- Danielo was playing this, Wayne was here, Blade's beat was like so, etc., I still don't feel like I got what I was hearing. (And I can only imagine the bulk of the crowd, coming of a singer's smooth jazz set) I was talking to my dad, a jazz fan from the mid-fifties on today, about how jealous in a way I was of him- he heard Miles in the 60s and Ornette and Brookmeyer and Getz and whoever when they were still new and fresh and sometimes outlaw, being confused and amazed and threatened all at once. That set was the first time in my adult life that I've felt like that. I almost feel like no critical judgement of this band is fair, since we need five years to catch up with them. I'm excited to try. (I'm friendly with Danilo from my NEC days, and hope one of these days to pin him for ten minutes to talk about Wayne's music and band. If I do, I'll post it here.)

After Wayne's set I felt full, like I'd just eaten a huge gourmet meal. But in the interests of you dear readers (and justifying the $90 I'd paid to come) I popped across the lawn to see the quartet of Dave Holland, Chris Potter, Eric Harland, and Gonzalo Rubalcaba. The set was all band originals, some of which I recognized from albums, some I didn't. This set was jazz-nerd heaven; the tunes were generally twisty, clever and complicated, the playing fierce and athletic. I wrote about Dave and Chris in a duo awhile back, and there's little I can add except they both still play at that level. Harland, who I loved in the SFJazz Collective earlier this year, is a fantastic, ferocious drummer (and a good writer), and everything he played seemed to crackle.

Rubalcaba, however, was the highlight of the show for me. When he hit the scene as a Cuban wonderkind fifteen-plus years ago, he was a firestorm of virtuosity, and no one knew quite what else. (If you can find it, see Marcus Roberts' skewering of GR in a blindfold test at that time. I thought the critique was as usual over the top, but not entirely unfounded) Hearing him this weekend, the virtuosity is still obvious, but there was a warmth and grace to everything he played that softened and humanized even the most obtuse blowing. One hopes we see more of him in these parts in the near future.

Other notes from bits I caught:

- I heard a little of Chris Botti on my way to get food. The less I say about it, the better. But... Chris gave an effusive intro to his drummer Billy Kilson, comparing his musical personality to- Yo-Yo Ma! Chris, I like Billy a lot, and am glad he has that gig, but back off the hyperbole a little, please?

- Trumpeter Christian Scott, who closed the smallest stage, was recording his set for a CD/DVD connecting his Newport set to the great Miles set at Newport which happened 50 years ago. Gotta love record labels. Maybe for that reason I was ready to hate it. But I didn't- his sextet channeled Miles not sonically, but in their attempts to explore and stretch the music. The two tunes I heard were dense and crunchy and even noisy- the guitar player played with a tone that I think of as indie-rock, and the second tune would've been at home on a Tortoise album. (At least until the blowing started) I thought initially that Scott was overblowing, but he found a full clean sound by the second tune, and everyone in the band played well. Definitely the pleasant surprise of the day.

- Aretha Franklin put on a Vegas-y set with a union big band backing her. Her rhythm section and singers were tight, the band was not; there were a couple of moments that struck me as near train wrecks due to miscommunication. I stayed for the first four tunes- a Sly Stone medley (?!), "Natural Woman", an old school version of "Cherokee", and something I didn't know. The highlight was Cherokee- she used the long melody against the fast changes to swoop and float and sing her ass off. She still sounds as good as she ever has, but only in spurts; I fear her health is catching up with her. But 75% of Aretha is so much better than 200% of all her progeny.

The Globe's overview, which touches all the stuff I couldn't see, is here.

UPDATE: NPR recorded all of Sunday's concerts, and is streaming them online. Listen here. I haven't checked any of it yet, but soon...

Stevie Wonder @ Comcast Center, Sunday 6/22

First of all, how the hell did this not get any press in Boston? (Okay, there was one puff piece in the Globe) It's Stevie Wonder, dammit, who last year, in the eyes of Boston's senior rock critic, "delivered one of the finest evenings of music this writer has had the pleasure to attend." Who's barely toured since I was ten. Who... anyway, had Darcy not blogged about it (great links here, btw), I would've missed it entirely. Thankfully, we braved the perils of Route 140 (Comcast is the old Great Woods, a nice facility with good sound and only one one lane road in and out. Sigh.) Here are the Globe and (crappy) Herald reviews.

There's not a ton I can add to Darcy's review- the show was only (only!) two hours and change, with any possibility for an encore stuffed by the obligatory guest singing radio contest winner. (who, thankfully, did NOT sing "I Just Called", opting for a somewhat frazzled medley of "Living for the City" and "Superstitious".) Stevie came out and chatted for a few minutes, mostly about the Celtics and their recent success. Stevie is a big Lakers fan, so this was very generous, or maybe just wise. The pacing of the show was also still a little ragged- after blowing the doors off at the beginning of the show, the middle sagged with too many ballads in a row- the bathroom lines suddenly got longer. At the end though, he lit the place on fire at the end with a run of "Superstitious", "Sir Duke", "I Wish" and "Do I Do". (I still can't get past the video for the last one.) And given how tight the band is now, the thought of what they'll sound like on the back end of this tour is pretty mind-blowing. The band, while seemingly bloated at thirteen players, never played like it- the balance, both in volume and density was mostly perfect.

Nitpicking- I could've used even more harmonica, especially after, on "Spain", Stevie blew everyone out of the water with his short harp solo. And I would've loved to see "As" and "Overjoyed" on the menu, but with a catalog as big as his, that's whining. If you can get to it, go now.

Certain Trumpets- Ralph Alessi and Bill Frisell w/Ron Miles, 4/23/08

I am on the new BoltBus back to Boston after a couple of delightful, sunny days in New York. The highlight, musically, was bouncing across the Village to see two of my favorite trumpet players, Ralph Alessi with his band This Against That at the Jazz Gallery, and Ron Miles with the Bill Frisell Quintet at the Vanguard. Both shows were better than solid, both well attended, and they offered a remarkable study in contrasts.

Ralph is one of my most important teachers, ever, from our time together at Eastman, which makes reviewing him difficult. He is a remarkable trumpeter, combining brilliant acrobatic technique with a compact, focused sound and a focus that keeps even the most outrageous trumpet feats from feeling like showboating. Last night he was workshopping some new music before a trip to Europe. The band was fantastic- the rhythm section of Drew Gress and Mark Ferber was a great study in contrasts, with Ferber's stacatto, hyperactive snare offset by Drew's huge sound and thick, careful bottom-heavy playing. Ravi Coltrane, who I haven't heard in years, sounded fantastic; his technique, always solid, is approaching superhuman, and his attention to motif and development reflects his dad's passion without ever sounding derivative. The four tunes had an open unfinished feel that sometimes offered pleasant surprises, and sometimes made transitions feel too long and aimless. Ralph's tunes are twisty, abstract and prickly; they force the listeners to pry their way into the structure rather than revealing themselves. Even the catchiest of the tunes had a twisty 4-3-3-4 beat structure, simple and thorny all at once.

By contrast, the Frisell quintet (Bill, Ron Miles, Tony Scherr, Chris Cheek, and Rudy Roystein) put everything out on the table like a picnic lunch. The last couple of times I've seen Frisell he's eschewed the looping, feedback-y solo turns everyone associates with him for very clear statements of very clear heads, here a tune from Blues Dream who's name I've forgotten, a bebop blues, "Sub-Conscious-Lee" with a wonderful counterline, and a couple of old pop tunes I didn't recognize. Like Sonny Rollins' band, the quintet would play the head three or more times, drift into a solo, then play it again, rollicking through, everyone clearly enjoying it. Rudy Roystein, a Denver based drummer best known for his work on Ron's solo stuff, swung his tail off, simple and straightforward, light and clear while Tony Scherr provided his usual huge bottom of the band.

For me, the high point was Ron's playing. I am an unabashed fan from when I first heard him on Bill's quintet record, through his solo work (though the Stone/Blossom record was uneven). A friend who studied with him said he talks incessantly about clarity, and it's obvious in how he plays. It's clear hearing him that, like Ralph, he can do just about anything on the trumpet, but he is rarely elliptical, sometimes rolling a single motif through two or three choruses of a tune, just letting it swing.

Better late than never part 1- The SFJazz Collective @ Berklee, March 2008

The SF Jazz Collective at the Berklee Performance Center: This group is a superband, a collection of all-star talent thrown together for a tour, seemingly a staple of jazz since the Hot Sevens. I was more curious than excited going into this gig- a group featuring Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, Stefon Harris and Miguel Zenon, for starters, knowing full well that this level of talent, and egos, doesn't always translate into great music. But the creators of this project have a really smart model- they get the group together for two full weeks of rehearsal before hitting the road, and split the book between band member originals and music of one great jazz artist, this year Wayne Shorter.

The covers provide an anchor for both audience and artists (though some of the arrangements were pretty daring and not at all conventional). Dave's arrangement of Aung San Suu Kyi, a tune I've always loved, was a highlight. (Partially because, after years of trying, I finally figured out where the extra beat is) The originals highlighted the diversity of approaches of the group- the fairly straightahead blows offered by Renee Rosnes and Lovano, a clever, twisty Wayne-inspired Dave Douglas tune (too clever for its own good), an anthem offering electronic overdubs and an unbelievable Lovano solo from drummer Eric Harland, and thorny math-jazz from Robin Eubanks. At this particular show Zenon, playing to a hometown Berklee crowd, and Lovano were the highlights. Joe was clearly feeding off the energy of his bandmates and the audience, and put forth the best playing I've heard from him in ten years easy.

A Berklee honors band opened, a guitar/piano/bass/drums quartet, playing generic modern jazz in a pretty generic way. (Down to generic song titles- “Desire”, “Solace”, etc.) Good players, but a clear lack of vision in both writing and playing.

Trio M @ Brookline High School

Myra Melford, Matt Wilson and Mark Dresser are three tremendously accomplished musicians, recording artists, grant winners, etc. who I've admired on record for years, and seen play before in much bigger or trendier venues. So it was a little jarring at first to walk into a little workshop room in a high school, replete with silly high school in-jokes and pictures of teenage big bands on the wall, and 2-Liters of soda in the hallway and be greeted (I was late) by Myra's swirling cluster lines and the sound of Matt's drums. Wilson said towards the end that this gig was a somewhat last-minute, and I guess there was a perfomance/workshop session with the high school jazz ensemble beforehand.

Another jarring thing walking in was how quiet this band was. I've never taken enough note of Mark Dresser's playing, but Matt and Myra have always struck me both live and on record as big, brawny players. (Anyone who saw Matt's wacky quartet at the old Detour can back me here) Matt played primarily with brushes and "swizzle sticks", and while Myra was certainly aggressive, she didn't pound the piano the way I've seen her do in the past. (The rather quiet sound system probably contributed to this too. And Matt did wear a really, really loud orange shirt.) The quietness of the quartet highlighted the equality of voices in the trio- through the first tune I heard, there was a level interplay between Mark and Myra, no solo and accompaniment, but a two voice conversation.

With the exception of "Be Melting Snow", a tune I know from a Same River Twice album, the tunes were simple on the surface, with striaghtforward melodic lines and gospel-ly, traidic harmonies. The last tune, "Freakonomics", even had a quasi- calypso 3/2 groove. "Snow" was more twisty, starting with out of time bass/piano unisons and spreading out into bigger harmonies from there. At the end of the tune, a thorny 8 beat groove served to punctuate everything that preceded it.

Myra's improvising continues to fascinate me. When she plays she hunches her shoulders and wrinkles her face like she's writing at an old typewriter. Her lines alternate between clear single-note melodies and these clustery, whirling lines. It's not simply gestural- there's a direction and shape to the lines, but the individual notes serve the color first and the harmony a distant second. It reminds me a little of shape note singing, or what it might sound like on the piano.

Trio M's tour continues in New York and points west- details on Myra's Myspace page.

Tickets for this concert were provided by DL Media.

Winter Jazz Festival @ The Knitting Factory, 1/12/08

Before Saturday night, I haven't been to the Knitting Factory since late 2001, the last time I played there. Since then, of course, the booking policy has changed radically, emphasizing indie rock and booking jazz and avant musics- the mainstays of the club when I lived in New York- once in a blue moon. That said, I had a strange sense of deja vu walking in- everything looked, and felt, and even smelled the same. The bands on the signs were different, but everything was in the same place, and the beer list was almost unchanged. Even the renovation of the Tap Bar (they took out the wall that used to divide it into two rooms) didn't change the feel at all for me.

The festival, primarily an artist showcase for APAP, a international association of presenters in town for a convention, did nothing to dispel my nostalgia. Several of the old Knit mainstays- Dave Douglas, Don Byron, and Wayne Horowitz, to name three- anchored the bill, buffered by young lights like Matana Roberts, JD Allen and the Bjorkestra. I'm no longer able to digest six hours of music all at once, and the Patriots game was stuck in the middle for good measure, but here's what I heard: (Ben Ratliff has a good review, catching a lot of the big names I missed)

- I caught the first few tunes of Travis Sullivan's Bjorkestra. I'd heard some about the band, and remember really liking Travis when I met him a few years back at someone's party. Bjork's music invites reinterpretation- probably one reason why so many jazz musicians are smitten with her- but putting pop tunes, not matter how conducive to big band, can be tricky or worse. (has anyone else ever heard Duke's misbegotten "I Want to Hold Your Hand") The Bjorkestra handles the material nimble- it does a nice job capturing the flavor of the songs without aping the original baldly or taking things way far afield. There is a floating figure that weaves its way around the vocal on "Joga", back and forth through the sections, like tying a bow around the piece. The soloing was solid but unmemorable, and Becca Stevens handled the impossible job of singing Bjork with aplomb. I had to move on, but enjoyed what I heard.

- I'm both a friend and a fan of Matana Roberts, so I was excited to hear her Coin Coin project, a band created to perform a series of long works (five and counting) shaped largely from Matana's study of her ancestry. (for much more, see her blog) The band played a shortened version of the second piece/chapter, Mississippi Moonchile. The piece was a swirling stew of spirituals, blues shouts, folk themes, and improvisations, with themes popping up and then bouncing out, only to reappear and flesh themselves out later on. At times Matana would stop playing and read from interviews she's done with an older relative, often returning back to one things she'd said, bringing a stream of consciousness feel to both the spoken word and the music. It almost feels like your standing in the middle of a version of her family history, watching facts and stories, sounds and emotions swirl around you out of time. It was clear that this was an abridged version of the piece- there were sections that you could tell wanted to breathe more, and Matana was sometimes calling directions to the band to push the music forward, but even so it was a riveting performance.

- I caught the tail end of Don Byron's set, and honestly didn't know what to make it. Ratliff called it salon music, and that seems right- intimate, straigtforward songs with Byron commenting tastefully around the lyric.

- David Murray's set seemed to have the most buzz around it, and he certainly didn't disappoint. He came out firing with a tune of his, a clear but open form, which he obliterated as soon as he started blowing. I will admit I've never been a David Murray fan, but for the first time I clearly saw the attraction- his sound is huge, if unfocused for my taste, and he has built a unique, brawny tenor language. There's a harmonic logic to some of his blitz-like playing that is really interesting, and god can the man play it up high. As I was leaving the set, another man, clearly a fan, came out shaking his head. "Man, David is playing SOME horn; ain't nobody gonna cut him. Nobody." And if you approach jazz from that mindset, it's easy to see why David Murray could be your man. I don't, so I came away impressed but ready to move on.

- I hopped downstairs to catch the last two tunes of Brad Shepik's trio set. For those of us who were first introduced to Brad in the off its hinges Tiny Bell Trio, it can be a little jarring at first to hear him playing straightahead, modern guitar, but he's damn good at it. I heard more of a Metheny influence that in the past, but that could just be me. That said, the tunes drew me in, and the playing was really tasty. I was really glad to have heard it.

- Shepik was followed by Hypercolor, a guitar trio featuring drummer (and son of the great composer) Lukas Ligeti. The set was again, the Knit I remember, off-kilter fusion tunes in odd meters played with reckless abandon. The guitarist Eyel Maoz was playing with a grungy, almost Dick Dale sound, adding to the raucous air of the group. I have a feeling that I used to be much more into this music than I was Saturday night- it had a ton of energy, but for me not much else.

- Following Murray upstairs was Zimology, a quartet of South African musicians led by saxophonist Zim Ngqawana. Didn't care for it at all. Zim can clearly play, but the tunes lacked any coherence, the blowing was pretty standard "weird/avant" stuff, and he alternated seemingly willy-nilly between horns and sing/shouting, even making noises by running his finger over his mouth like we all did as kids. Plus, on a night where the sets were short, he started late (not his fault) and ran way over (his, and the club's fault). I was excited about seeing Chris Dave's trio, but couldn't because I had to go catch my train before his set even ended.

So, as with most of these deals, I came away knocked out and underwhelmed all at once. Part of me says I should've missed the game, seen the big names and bailed before midnight, but I enjoyed the game too (and the outcome, certainly), so I'm not complaining.

Meshell Ndegeocello @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, 1/11

While a big chunk of the jazz world migrated to the IAJE in Toronto, I hopped down to New York this weekend, primarily but not exclusively to hear the incomparable Meshell. (especially since I missed her hit in Boston this summer.) First, I'd not been to this venue, either by its new name or when it was NorthSix, but I like it a lot. Apparently the changes the Bowery Ballroom made when they bought it have made a huge difference- it's sleek looking and, far more important, good sounding, and the sightlines are solid. (Well, except when middle-aged drunk people shove their way in front of you to get a better look. Sigh)

Her show was really great; a slightly pared down band of two guitars- Oren Blowdow providing primarily colors and sheen, the other soloing more- Mark Kelly on bass and drummer whose name I'm afraid I missed was tight and responsive. The music was split between items from her most recent effort (my brief review here) and stuff I hadn't heard before, but I guess she's been touring with. (some, including "Mass Transit" and "Lock and Load" is on her myspace page) As I mentioned in my album review, this music is sonically and rhythmically harder edged and "punker", for lack of a better word, than anything I'm used to from her, and even blunter lyrically- "Lock and Load" opens with images I see as scared soldiers exerting control, "Sloganeer" probes the mind of a young suicide bomber. That said, she is still as funky a bass player as ever- she opened the show just playing half notes on bass behind an instrumental, and I could feel the room shake, and her bass openings on tunes like "Top Shelf" were at once fleet-footed and so full of bottom that everything vibrated. All that said, Matt Kelly was a fantastic second bass- I can't imagine a more intimidating gig for a bass player, and he was more than up to it, never second guess, always laying it down. I was saying to my friend and former N$V mainstay Sasha, she makes me rethink most of what I'm doing every time I hear her, and that's a great thing.

The opener was a local jam unit called Pimps of Joytime. I'm not really the best person to be reviewing jamband stuff, so I'll be brief. First, they're not bad; the rhythm section was really solid, and the singer had this Prince-ish flasetto that was impressive. But, to my ears they're not as good live as the stuff on the web- the solos go nowhere, and the tunes without the bells and whistles were pretty generic- struck me as second-rate Santana circa 1972.

And- this is what got to me- the leader, who my radar said was even whiter than I am, had this drawly jive-talking schtick between tunes that I couldn't buy at all. I know for me, being a white musician who plays leads a band where the influence of black funk music is pretty obvious, and where you're trying to attract an audience that digs that, the choices you make in how you present yourself are tricky. How do you acknowledge your debt to that style with out sounding like a stylistic tourist or voyeur, or worse a sycophant? I don't have an answer, but I'm pretty sure that wearing aviator sunglasses and talking like a pimp with a drawl isn't the way to do it.

But- so as not to end on a dark note, the venue is cool, and Meshell is on her game, and her game is always at a Patriots kind of level. (I had to sneak that in, 17-0 and all) Check her when she's coming your way.

Maria Schneider @ Berklee Performance Center, 11/17/04

There's very little I can say about Maria Schneider at this point that hasn't been said better by someone else. She is, almost without a doubt, the most important "jazz composer" in the past twenty years. The new album, Sky Blue, has catupoulted her critical assessment into a whole new category- BBC Music called her one of the important composers in her generation. Not jazz composer, just composer. A whole generation of players, writers and big band leaders are, or have been, in the business because they heard Evanessence, her first album.

In this day and age, it's always fascinating to hear an "art" big band live. Big band music is one of the few places in jazz or improvised music where a live show can feel like a "greatest hits" rock show- the band plays the charts as they are written (that's kind of the point), even if they're old, and it's possible to go in knowing every note of every chart, and consciously or subconsciously comparing what's happening to what you're used to hearing on your stereo. And, like most of my writing peers, I know most of Maria's records really well.

That said, a live show of this music is also illuminating. The modern big band album (the modern orchestral record, and pop records too) is a completely artificial product, in that you can mix, master and tweak it to make a flute sound louder than a trumpet section. (Or make Fergie in tune...) While the sound engineer in a live setting can do wonders, and did- Maria listed him as the 19th member of the band- you get a truer sense of what a chart really sounds like, what the composer imagines and implements in real time. (The chance to play these charts, or sit inside a rehearsing band, affords a different but equally valuable experience. While you don't get the whole picture of a piece, you can hear relationships and a physical sense of things that no mixing board can capture. If you care about Maria's or really any big band music, I would beg, bribe or cajole my way into one of these experiences, even if only with a local college band. The amount I've learned sitting in the sax section playing Basie, or Bob, or Maria is invaluable.)

If none of this music had ever been recorded, this show would've knocked the audience's socks off. All of Maria's strengths- her amazing orchestration, her ability to completely integrate the soloist into a composition, and of her soloists to complement what she writes, her phenomenal (and possibly underrated) knack for counterpoint- shone here. (Obviously, it's not absolutely acoustically "pure"- Maria lists her sound engineer as the 19th member of her band, and he was spectacular.)

The concert spanned all six of her albums, including two numbers from the new "Sky Blue". The highlight of the show was "Cerulian Skies", a piece she wrote for Peter Sellers' recent Mozart festival. On the album I have to admit that the piece confused me- it builds beautifully on a tremendously simple theme from the opening through Donnie Macaslin's burning solo, then stops for an extended piano/accordian duo, which on the recording kills the momentum of the piece. But live, it seemed to flow better, building slowly again to the climactic alto solo by Charlie Pillow.

A standing ovation brought an encore, an arrangement of "My Ideal" that dates back more than twenty years to her Eastman days. It's a lovely, really really good college band arrangement, complete with shifts from ballad feel to double time to 3/4 and back, and a 5 flute(!) soli in for good measure. It was a fascinating close after an evening of phenomenally forward looking music, to be reminded of exactly how much ground Maria has covered, and really unearthed, in a fairly short span of time.

NOTE: Maria continues a weeklong run at the Jazz Standard in NYC tomorrow night. If you can, go- this venue seems to treat her really well, she has a larger version of her band, and it'll kill.

Did I mention the Red Sox won yet? Again!

Okay, now that we have that taken care of, I can pretend to think like a human again. (By happy coincidence, I wandered into a bar on Bowery after my Saturday evening engagement- see below- that was (gasp) a Red Sox bar. So I had friends right off the bat, who all cheered and groaned at the right times. While this post-season was nowhere near as nail-biting as 2004, it certainly had its moments.

Anyhoow, highlights, lowlights and otherlights of this weekend's jaunt to NYC:

The very good- spending time with my blog hero Darcy, hearing a fair bit of the indie-rock that has been so talked about in the blogosphere recently. The recent Arcade Fire disc jumped up my to-buy list as a result. I never run out of friends to see in New York, or leave having a bad time with them.
- lots of time to listen to records in transit, and read. Between train and bus rides I finished Ben Ratliff's new book on Coltrane. I recommend it, and will try to talk more about it soon. (review here, first chapter here)
- New York restaraunts. Dinner at Jellado, brunch at Gasgogne, fantastic coffee at a place in Carrol Gardens whose name I promptly forgot- something about leaves. One could get used to this.

The good- Michael Cain, who is mentioned here occasionally, wrote music for a play at the Public called The View from 151st Street, so I went to see it, naturally. It was a good play, with some exceptional acting and powerful, if uneven writing. The music, which this evening featured Liberty Ellman on guitar, was an interesting mix of live and recorded tracks and sounds, overall very effective. (There was a short, recorded solo piano piece in the middle of the first act that was amazing, reminded me of what took me about Michael's music in the first place) I often thought on the more hip-hop based material that the bass player could've played a fair bit less, but I find myself saying that a lot lately.

The less good- I got in early enough on Friday to trek down to The Stone on Friday night
to see Steve Bernstein and the Millennial Territory Orchestra. I'm not the world's biggest Bernstein or Sex Mob fan, but I've always left his shows entertained. Not tonight. The charts, such as they were, sounded like sloppier, less funky cutouts from Bill Frisell's Unspeakable albums. The one good chart was for a singer (didn't catch the name) who didn't have much of a voice or use the mike well. Some good players- Peter Apflebaum, Ben Allison, Ben Perowsky, Art Baron- were pretty much wasted.

I understand better than many the challenge that is putting a large ensemble show together in any context- there's never enough planning, or rehearsal, or promotion. But here I was embarrassed for the musicians, annoyed at paying even the modest $10 I did, and left before the set ended.

Don't mean to end on a down note, especially when there's so much to look forward to in Boston this week- and not just the Red Sox rolling rally. Caetano Veloso is here Friday, The Bad Plus Friday and Saturday. Full listings tomorrow.

Beantown Jazz Festival, Saturday 9/29

With the demise of the various newspaper jazz festivals (both the Globe and the Phoenix sponsored series as late as 2002), the Beantown Jazz Festival has emerged as Boston's sole big jazz event. It has more than held up its end, shifting from one stage and little smooth-jazz outfits to three full stages of music, local and national acts, and for the second year in a row, a blowout opening night full of jazz legends. (Globe review of friday night here) The weather cooperated as well- 70 degrees and sunny- and as a result the MC announced before the last act that the day had seen 70,000 people at the festival. I don't know if I trust that number, but there were a lot of folks, many more than last year. (It was set up almost identically to last year's festival, again to good effect.)

I missed the first set of acts in favor of (sigh) errands, and walked in to the sound of Greg Hopkins' big band. The band is a lot of grizzled Boston vets, playing Greg's straight-ahead, hard-swining Herman-ish charts. The band was strong and tight, but hampered by sound problems, a running theme of the day. Bill Pierce's feature on "Body and Soul" was lost in a haze of unintentional reverb and distortion.

I wandered over to hear Conrad Herwig's "Latin Side of Miles" Project. Their album got some play on jazz radio here, and I wasn't wowwed. "Sketches of Spain" aside, I've never heard much Latin in Miles' playing, and putting "Solar" and "So What" to montunos and other Latin grooves seems to me just a ploy to sell records. So I was skeptical walking in.

(Aside: There's an interesting theory that puts forth in Paul Tingin's good book Miles Beyond that- I'm paraphrasing- while Miles was omnivorous in his listening, and used instruments, grooves and ideas from all over music, he was interested in the sound, not the context. Unlike, say John McLaughlin, there's nothing particularly Indian about his use of the sitar other than the sitar itself. I think this is surely true of Miles' relationship with Latin music; while he used "Spanish modes" and Latin percussionists, he had very little interest in "Latinizing" his music. He wanted those sounds. Which is why I'm very skeptical of these kinds of concept albums)

I was less skeptical walking out- the rhythm section, anchored by drummer Robbie Amin and percussionist Pedro (insert Mets joke here) Martinez- was amazing. Solos would float seemlessly through half-time and double-time, various feels (I'm a dilletante when it comes to the nuts and bolts of Latin music, so I won't even try) and beats. The horn players- Herwig, trumpeter Brian Lynch and the underappreciated Craig Handy- in turns floated over and barreled through the grooves with clear, straightahead playing. Everyone sounded good- how could you not with those kinds of grooves? I still thought the Miles/montuno connections didn't especially work- Lynch wrote an arrangement of "Solar" with a great, grooving intro and interlude which made the actual melody of "Solar" seem superfluous. That said, the music as a whole strong, much better than I expected.

The next act was on paper the highlight of the day- the legendary vibrophonist Bobby Hutcherson and his quartet. Bobby looked sharp and energized, and sounded... I'm not really sure. The sound on this set was especially bad- no mikes were on for the first two tuned, and through the set you could only hear Bobby maybe a third of the time. I know it's outdoors, and I know vibes are notoriously hard instruments to mike, but c'mon guys! This was amateur hour. What I could make out was a set of old standards- "I Love You for Sentimental Reasons", "Old Devil Moon", etc. that swung elegantly.

Across the way you could really, really hear the Berklee Rainbow Band. The band looked the part- tremendously diverse racially, ethnically, and gender-wise. The music, though was something of a throwback to the Buddy Rich/Maynard Fergeson sound of the seventies, complete with Rich's unbelievably overwrought "Mercy Mercy Mercy" chart. The soloists, especially the lead alto and tenor players, were very solid.

A family party kept me from hearing all but a few minutes of the last bands, Charles Tolliver's big band and Mike Stern's quartet. Tolliver's big band suffered from the aforementioned sound problems, and a clear lack of rehearsal. Some of the charts were very notey and intricate, and much of the detail got lost. The band's character, both in it's playing and in the charts, reminded me of McCoy Tyner's big band of the 80's and 90's. A very pentatonic harmonic sensibility (Tolliver's own playing harkened back to Woddy Shaw), good writing at the edges, and a lot of solid blowing in the middle.

A couple of more asides- I've learned that at these free outdoor festivals, if you care at all about hearing what's actually being played, the best places to be are 1) right in front of the stage, where you can hear the real sounds, or 2) next to the sound booth, where you'll hear what the sound person hears. Not the #2 helped that much this weekend.

And Beantown Jazz planners, would it be too much to stagger the start times at the different stages a little bit, as many festivals do? Every band, on three stages, started at the same time, the whole day. Why? One of the nice things about these festivals is sampling different acts, which this program impedes.

By any reasonable measure- crowd size and enthusiasm, vendors, quantity and quality of music- the weekend was an unabashed success. Heck, they had one stage booked with nothing but big bands, a feat in and of itself. Here's hoping next year they keep up the quality of booking, and improve the quality of the sound crew.

FONT Opening Concert @ CIM, 9/15

Having heard a lot about the Festival of New Trumpet Music over the past few years, without actually seeing a single show, I had no idea exactly how DIY it is. Maybe it was the venue- the Center for Improvisational Music is a newish space, not too far from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It looks like an refurbished rehearsal space- it seats 75 or so and has a nice piano and a very comfortable, "lived-in" feel. To me, it's a direct extension of it's curator, Ralph Alessi's, personality, complete with a couple of kitchy, weird posters on the wall. (Note: I studied with Ralph for two years at Eastman)

Ralph opened the concert with his brass Extensions Ensemble. They took the name literally- the first piece was a sound collage where, due to multiphonics and other tricks, four guys sounded like ten. It was quiet, fierce, focused music. The highlight of the piece was a solo turn by Peter Evans, the other trumpeter in the group, whose extended technique had all the trumpeters in the audience beside themselves. The second piece, I'm guessing by Ralph, was an angular, modular piece with a lot of room for blowing. Here was Ralph's turn to shine; hi fired through in a more conventional sense, with searing lines up, down and around the horn.

Next up were Cecil Bridgewater and drummer Warren Smith, who offered an improvised tribute to Max Roach. Both toured with Max extensively, and offered praise for Max's generosity, musical and personal, and force of will. The music that followed was a little scattered, sneaking in several themes associated with Max, including "Bebop" and "Drum Along", which Max often opened his concerts with. I was completely unfarmiliar with Warren, and listening to him was a joy. He seemed to anticipate everything- mood and feel shifts, hits, climaxes- and then carry them an extra mile. Taylor Ho Bynum, the co-curater of FONT with Dave Douglas, said that anyone doing a benefit should always ask Warren first, because then everyone else will want to play, and I saw exactly what he meant.

Taylor followed with a solo improvisation, another formidible display of extended technique. He threw his body from side to side through the piece, playing to one wall, then suddenly the other. I'm not sure it was conscious or not, but I thought it was interesting, and definitely changed my perception of the performance. Some might find this distracting, but it brough me more into the physical space of the performance, hearing the sound bounce off one wall, then the other.
Next up was Douglas, in trio with Warren and Extensions tubist (and occasional Douglas consort) Marcus Rojas, performing a piece Dave described as a tribute to Lester Bowie. It was a 12/8 blues-ish piece, with Rojas filling a more tradition bass line role. Almost needless to say, Dave sounds great. The concert closed with a return of all the featured trumpeters, Rojas and Smith playing a free piece which morphed into a blues. Douglas and Alessi took a joint solo to begin the blues, which highlighed both the similarities and clear differences in their playing and approaches. (I found this especially interesting because there was awhile five years ago where it seemed like Ralph was the designated sub or replacement for all of Dave's sideman work- Don Byron, Uri Caine, etc. It was obvious both why the sub made sense, and how different the two of them are.)

The concert was a benefit for the groups that the various musicians here are affiliated with- FONT and CIM, as well as Smith and James Jabbo Ware's outreach non-profits. Dave mentioned that he hoped this was the beginnings of more and better collaborations among these and other groups involved in creative music. If it means more music like this, I'm all for it.