A Layered Approach: Dimensionality Plays Goshen

I often think of the Art Ensemble of Chicago descriptor: “Great Black Music-Ancient to the Future”, as an unending river of sound, fed by thousands of musicians, known and unknown, who have devoted their lives to elevating the magic property of music. We are all part of this immense unfolding history that is deep and powerful. Dimensionality, the band we heard on October 3, is one important musical drop in that glorious bucket. The quartet: Andrea Wolper (voice), Ursel Schlicht (piano), Ken Filiano (bass), and Lou Grassi (drums), filled the big barn at the Institute For the Musical Arts in Goshen, MA with a creative spirit inspired by the late pianist Connie Crothers.

Artists are tasked with using the vast reservoir of previously made music to create something new, something of their own making. Dimensionality channeled Crothers’ originality and spontaneity, evoking her essence without quoting her directly.

When Crothers first heard Lennie Tristano’s “Requiem”, she dropped her music education at UC Berkeley and moved to New York to study with him. And even though she built her own identity as a player and composer, she remained deeply committed to his work for the rest of her life. As Giovanni Russonello wrote in his NY Times obituary, Crothers, like Tristano, possessed “a densely layered pianism and a faith in free improvisation.” In addition to having two dozen recordings as a leader (including a duo with Max Roach), and concert appearances around the world, Crothers was a dearly valued mentor and friend to many. “She supported so many people by going to their gigs, encouraging them, connecting musicians to other musicians, advocating for musicians,”  Andrea Wolper recalled in the obit.

Dimensionality formed in 2017, a year after Crothers’ death, to pay honor and keep her spirit alive. The ensemble’s first performances were at German jazz festivals in Göttingen and Schlicht’s hometown of Kassel. While Schlicht was the driving force behind the formation of the project, the band operates as a collective, and, in fact, Wolper served as the point person for this Jazz Shares concert.

Much of the music was freely improvised. It was open, and open-hearted, and had a narrative quality that carried me along. Wolper split her time between an impressive variety of mouth sounds and lyrics by herself, Kenneth Rexroth and others. An actress, activist, author and poet, Wolper has found joy improvising with people like Jay Clayton, Frank London, Vinny Golia and William Parker. In fact, Wolper and Filiano are on Parker’s brand new collection of songs: Waltz For Gregory. Wolper exuded a quiet assurance, and her surefooted note choices and sense of time made clear we were in the presence of a true professional.

Her husband and long-time musical partner Ken Filiano is a regular Valley visitor, whose last area performance was with Bill Lowe’s Signifyin’ Natives octet in 2021. The bassist has overcome loss of hearing in his left ear and loss of function in his right hand, which required surgery almost a year ago. We’re glad he is back on the scene, because his infectious positivity has impact both on and off the bandstand. He was his usual masterful self, and his use of electronics added layers to the sound palette. Closing my eyes eliminated the distraction of watching his gear fiddling, and allowed me to focus on the complexity and beauty of his contributions.

Lou Grassi is an athletic 79 year old with unerring touch. His unaccompanied solo statement, which introduced one of the pieces, began with him playing two flexatones, a 1920’s invention consisting of two wooden balls striking a sheet of metal. The sound, which can be bent by applying thumb pressure on the metal, is familiar to consumers of classic cartoons, and brought  waves of smiles and chuckles from the assembled. Like he did with his table of rattles and IMA’s vintage Craviotto drum kit, Grassi made music with the flexatones. As he kicked the band into an exuberant groove, I was reminded of Gary Giddins’s observation: “Swing is liberating only when it’s an option; if someone tells you to swing or else, it’s tyranny.”

Ursel Schlicht, who lived in New York from 1995-2013, studied with and conducted extensive interviews with Crothers, and wrote about it as part of her book on female jazz musicians, It’s Gotta Be Music First. Schlicht was instrumental in helping the ensemble achieve what Crothers called “band merge”. She received the Hessian Jazz Prize in 2025 for innovative playing, intercultural projects and commitment to equality in jazz. Now that her children are finishing high school, Schlicht should have more time to “play out” in Europe and the States.

“It’s dimensional”, Crothers used to say about making creative music. On this tenth anniversary of her passing, Dimensionality is proudly advancing Connie Crothers’ legacy, taking the music to Rochester, NY (BopShop) and Ann Arbor, MI (Edgefest) in the coming days, adding  to the great river of sound.

Eat Local: Dr. Julian's Yes Yes

The vibrancy of a jazz scene can be measured in multiple ways. Certainly by the amount of jazz activity in a given locale. Also by the number and quality of the local musicians who play the music. Audience is critical to maintaining a scene, and an infrastructure of presenters, venues, radio stations, record stores, and jazz instruction is critical to the health of a jazz ecosystem. By all those metrics, the Connecticut River Valley is thriving.

That point was driven home on September 24 when Dr. Julian’s Yes Yes performed for 70 listeners at the Community Music School of Springfield. Percussionist Julian Gerstin led a septet of outstanding, mostly local musicians: Jason Robinson (sax), Paul Austerlitz (bass clarinet), Haneef Nelson (trumpet), Andrew Wilcox (piano), Wes Brown (bass), and Ben James (drums). I consider our jazz catchment area to extend from Hartford to Brattleboro. Nelson and Wilcox live in Hartford, Robinson and Brown are in rural Massachusetts, and Gerstin and James hail from Brattleboro, so the full 80 mile traverse was covered. (Austerlitz lives in New York.)

“Yes to jazz, yes to world music,” Gerstin wrote. “Yes to tradition, yes to new ideas. Yes to sophistication, yes to funk. Dr. Julian’s Yes Yes has it both ways.” The music consisted of smartly written originals by Gerstin, almost all of which had a Caribbean feel. The rhythms were mixed with a healthy dose of “soul jazz”, that 1950s era development pioneered by Horace Silver, Cannonball Adderley, Stanley Turrentine, Jimmy Smith and others, that melded hard bop, blues-tinged funk and dance-like rhythms into a winning formula. The septet leaned in to the recipe and delivered a fervent, yet polished 70 minutes of music.

Gerstin is an ethnomusicologist with a PhD from UC Berkeley who has studied the folk traditions of Ghana, Cuba, Brazil and especially Martinique. He has taught at Wesleyan University, Clark University, Marlboro College and Keene State College, and is closely associated with the Vermont Jazz Center, where he teaches, leads ensembles and serves as Board President.

On one piece he played tanbou, a Martinican drum he sat on. The instrument had a beautiful, earthy tone and it was fascinating to watch him alter the drum’s pitch with his barefooted heel. He also played shekere, a dried gourd covered in a hand-knotted net of beads, but mostly he performed on congas, which he played with precision and panache.

The three piece horn section, often playing in unison, delivered a real punch. Their lines were piquant, elastic and propulsive, with modern and often surprising horn solos layered on top. I heard Robinson quoting Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” and channeling Coltrane, whose centennial was the day before. Nothing beats the sound of a bass clarinet, and Austerlitz, who also has a PhD in ethnomusicology, was masterful. Nelson, who has his doctorate in composition from The Hartt School, was a last minute replacement for Don Anderson. It always seems like a miracle to a non-player like me that one can nail charts with so little prior exposure to the material. I guess that’s what makes you a professional.

Wes Brown, whose professional experience includes work with pianists Earl “Fatha” Hines and Anthony Davis and saxophonists Bill Barron and Anthony Braxton, was indispensable to the music’s forward momentum. Not withstanding a feedback issue that only surfaced during the performance, Brown’s deep round tone and island funk-filled note choices raised the bandstand.

Over the last 18 years, Jason Robinson has done as much to invigorate our local jazz scene as anyone. From his perch teaching at Amherst College, he has instigated tons of formal and informal musical connections. He’ll play the music of Julius Hemphill with Marty Ehrlich’s saxophone quartet on November 8 in Easthampton, and present his 17-piece Janus Orchestra in Florence on February 6, paying tribute to another Valley icon, Yusef Lateef.

We opened our 15th season two weeks ago with Terry Jenoure’s Septet, The Portal. Jenoure and bassist Avery Sharpe have lived in western Massachusetts for many years, and cellist Wayne Smith, guitarist Brandon Ross and bassist Joe Fonda used to live in the Valley. Opening our season with two bands with such deep local roots says all you need to know about the health of our little corner of the jazz universe.

Paying Tribute: Terry Jenoure & The Portal

Well, another kickoff concert to begin another Jazz Shares season. But if presenting our first event of Season 15 was not exciting enough, the concert also served as a crowning achievement in Terry Jenoure’s celebrated career. Her septet, The Portal, unveiled the world premiere of “Unlocked”, delivering a riveting performance before a standing room audience at the Northampton Arts Trust on September 12.

The Portal: Terry Jenoure (violin, vocals), Angelica Sanchez (piano), Wayne Smith (cello), Avery Sharpe (bass), Joe Fonda (bass, flute), and Reggie Nicholson (drums), formed during the pandemic in 2020, first as three smaller units (Sanchez and TJ/Sharpe, Smith and TJ/Fonda, Nicholson and TJ), before coming together as a sextet on Letters from Papa (2023). For this project, Jenoure added Brandon Ross (guitar), a dear friend and trusted colleague for over 50 years. In fact, all these musicians are friends with long interlocking histories. In a wonderful article by Bill Shoemaker in Point of Departure, Jenoure talked about how clarinetist John Carter taught her “how to assemble people who had a heart connection.”

Love and community were the dominant themes of the evening. A majority of the 140 folks crammed into the Flex Space were friends of the musicians. All but Nicholson live, or have lived in the Pioneer Valley. The producers, Glenn Siegel and Priscilla Maria Page, count Jenoure among their closest friends; the rest of the ensemble are also close compadres.

“Unlocked: Homage to the Prisoner and the Key That Frees”, pays tribute to Jenoure’s brother, Vinny, who passed away in June. The music and lyrics, written during a recent residency at The Blue Mountain Center (NY), referenced her brother’s rough end-of-life journey, his mental health challenges and especially his love affair with music, all infused with love and delivered with conviction.

The piece began with slabs of agitated cacophony, before settling into a mellower space as the spotlight moved from musician to musician for short solo features. It was a nice way to introduce us to each instrumentalist. Jenoure’s first vocal foray was a phantasmagoria of grotesque and riveting images, creating a disturbed world where bodies behave in all sorts of unusual ways. A later story, set to a Latin rhythm, focused on Vinny’s sublime relationship with music and his deep understanding of its power to move the soul. There were highly charged sections highlighting Jenoure’s Puerto Rican and Jamaican heritage, and moments of fractured swing as Jenoure seemed to conjured the spirits of Leroy Jenkins and Billy Bang, fellow violinists with whom she has long history.

The leader introduced the musicians to the contours of each composition during two rehearsals at the Institute For the Musical Arts, providing a loose framework for the band to work their magic. Fonda remarked how much more alive the material became in performance, and it was clear the ensemble was keyed in and keenly responsive. We heard music filled with pathos and virtuosity; Jenoure told me she felt her brother’s spirit in the room. The next day, the group did it all again for posterity in Warren Amerman’s West Springfield recording studio.

Jenoure is a widely published writer, with essays and articles in The Sun, buddy’s knife, and her own book, “Navigators: African American Musicians, Dancers, and Visual Artists in Academe”.  She’s an accomplished visual artist. Her dolls and illustrations have been shown widely, including at the Smithsonian and A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton. She has conceived and starred in theater productions like “My Bronx” (Eggtooth Productions) and “Lydia On the Top Floor” (UMass). Next to her on Saturday, Jenoure had a table full of colored scarves, which she waved and crumpled in a kind of transubstantiation ritual for her brother. These props were a natural addition for someone so comfortable across multiple disciplines.

Except for a turn at the end, Sharpe stuck to electric bass, lending a 1970s vibe to the blues and salsa sections, especially. The instrumentation, basically a string ensemble with drums, was unique, and supported Jenoure’s voice in ways both delicate and provocative. The decision to form a band featuring violin, two basses, cello, guitar, piano and drums was not made to create a particular instrumental voicing or fulfill some compositional imperative, but because those were the instruments her friends played. Being able to make music on a high level with those with whom you have a heart connection, is one manifestation of genius.