Just Friends: Advancing On a Wild Pitch in Greenfield

Bands produce better music when it’s made by friends. That’s not always the case, of course. There was no love lost between Stan Getz and Chet Baker, for instance, and tensions within various Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis ensembles have been well documented. Despite conflict, those ensembles made some beautiful (and important) music, but because jazz is highly interactive and requires such intense listening, it stands to reason that musicians who get along off the bandstand will have a better chance of making good music on it. Moppa Elliott’s quintet, Advancing on a Wild Pitch, is a case in point.

Bassist and composer Moppa Elliott, joined by friends Sam Kulik (trombone), Charles Evans (baritone saxophone), Danny Fox (piano) and Christian Coleman (drums), made some outstanding music for the 60 of us gathered at Hawks & Reed in Greenfield, MA on May 3. Playing material from their 2024 release, Disasters, Vol. II, on Elliott’s Hot Cup imprint, the quintet tore through the music with a surplus of spirit and technique.

The music, all written by Elliott, largely consisted of what we used to call light swingers: mid-tempo, toe tapping pieces with straightforward form. Recalling the luxurious, bottom-heavy sound of Gerry Mulligan’s Quartet with Bob Brookmeyer, Advancing On a Wild Pitch treated us to a satisfying and mellifluous evening. It was a standard deviation away from Elliott’s iconoclastic, polyglot band Mostly Other People Do the Killing (originally featuring Jon Iragabon, Peter Evans and Kevin Shea.)

The compositions we heard on Saturday, like many of Elliott’s pieces, were named after cities and towns in his native Pennsylvania. His current obsession highlights places in PA that have endured man-made disasters of one kind or another. There is no shortage of misfortune; Disasters, Vol. III is coming soon.

“Powelton Village” and “Cobb’s Creek” began the concert. They were places where John Africa’s anti-capitalist, Afro-centrist MOVE organization had confrontations with the Philadelphia Police Department. In 1985, the mayor and the police dropped two bombs on their Cobb’s Creek home, killing 11 people and destroying an entire city block. These pieces, and the others, were not programmatic, they didn’t reflect the title’s subject matter. They had, in fact, a relaxed demeanor and were full of low register cheer.

“Marcus Hook”, a small borough along the Delaware River, was the unfortunate location of a 1975 collision between two tankers carrying oil and chemicals that created a 50-mile oil spill and a fire that raged for three days. The piece was a slow blues featuring succinct solo statements from Fox and Evans. “The Donora Smog” commemorates an industrial town south of Pittsburgh that was the site of a rare weather event in 1948 when pollution from a steel mill and a zinc works plant combined with fog to create a toxic smog that killed upwards of 70 residents over several days. It provided easy listening, sending us back to the pre-revolutionary jazz of the early 1950s.

There were other disasters on the bill: a coal mine explosion, a train collision, a poisoned water supply among them, all delivered with élan and the polish of conservatory trained musicians.

The provocative premise of Elliott’s Disaster series is in keeping with his puckish nature. He named his celebrated band, Mostly Other People Do the Killing, by lifting a phrase of Leon Theremin's discussing Josef Stalin. A series of remarkable MOPDtK album covers faithfully mimic the design of classic records like Ornette Coleman’s This is Our Music (This is Our Moosic) and Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert (The Coimbra Concert). And in 2014, they produced Blue, an uncanny note for note recreation of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, that stumped experts in blindfold tests and resulted in many heated discussions. Elliott’s inclusion of Jorge Luis Borge’s short story, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”, as the only album note, sent a sly message about hero worship and the role of re-creation in art.

There was little irreverence displayed as the band relaxed before and after the show. Just the usual banter, jokes and needles between friends. Elliott and Charles Evans grew up together in Pennsylvania, and the baritone saxophonist took over for Elliott as band director at Tuckahoe (NY) High School. Elliott and Kulik met at Oberlin and live near each other in Queens, NY. (Kulik lives in Astoria, where I went to high school. Elliott lives in Sunnyside, where I spent the first 10 years of my life.) The Danny Fox Trio has released two recordings on Hot Cup Records. Bonding over the jazz canon and a love of baseball, this group of same-aged dudes all get along. You can hear it in the music.  

Keep Your Friends Close: Joe Fonda Quartet Plays Northampton

Bassist Joe Fonda is a working jazz musician, defined as someone who earns most of their income from gigging. For all but a chosen few, that’s a tough row to hoe. A handful are gainfully employed on Broadway, late-night TV, in military bands and a variety of commercial work; a small-percentage have achieved commercial success. But Joe Fonda is an independent contractor, chasing down gigs where ever they appear. Because he brings good energy and virtuosity to every musical situation, because he is open minded and open hearted, and because he is flexible and has a ton of experience, he is constantly working and often gets invited back.

Joe Fonda made his latest visit to the Pioneer Valley on April 18, when he brought his Quartet to the Parlor Room in Northampton. Alongside Kenny Wessel, guitar, Sam Bardfeld, violin, and Rob Garcia, drums, Fonda shared his joy of music making with 70 lucky souls.

This was Fonda’s 11th Jazz Shares appearance, and his first as an outright leader. (He has co-led performances by the NU Band, Conference Call, New Origin Trio and the Satako Fujii/Joe Fonda Duo.) He keeps getting the return call because he’s deeply musical, never fails to lift the bandstand, and has become a friend.

The 90-minute set was filled with Fonda originals that gave the band room to swing and fully express themselves as mature musicians. He told me that for some time he has wanted to write compositions “in time” and work them out with a band of his choosing. This Quartet fulfills that wish. The band knew the material from the inside out and nailed the exacting heads and endings. They soloed with distinction and created a group sound that was a thing.

Fonda is a long-time fan of keyboardist and bandleader Joe Zawinul. “Syndicate” was inspired by the great fusionist and provided Fonda the opportunity to expand his technique by playing endless series of 16th notes designed for the electric bass on its bigger acoustic cousin. Fonda’s funky bass line, clearly heard and articulated, was one of the evening’s many highlights.

Another memorable moment came when Wessel saved the day by catching Fonda’s bass after he lost control of it. Fonda will occasionally rake his strings, then shake his instrument to increase its resonance. As he was jiggling, the neck slipped from his hand, and Wessel, who was situated slightly in front of the leader, averted catastrophe with a nice grab. The crowd gasped, the band laughed, and hardly a beat was missed.

When not rescuing errant instruments, Kenny Wessel was creating conditions for the band to thrive. His mood-creating guitar fills offered delicate curlicues and massive sound washes, and his solos and twining statements with Bardfeld were expressive and bold. On the groove oriented pieces, he brought to bear his 12 years of experience with Ornette Coleman’s free-funk juggernaut, Prime Time. He and Fonda are touring Europe this fall with Thomas Heberer and Lou Grossi as the NU Band.

Like Fonda and Wessel, Sam Bardfeld is a graduate of Wesleyan University, known for their strong music focus. The violinist has gone on to perform and record with a dizzying array of musicians, including: Bruce Springsteen, Willie Colon, Anthony Braxton, Red Clay Ramblers and Steve Bernstein. In his Downbeat review of Bardfeld’s The Great Enthusiasms (Kris Davis, Michael Sarin), Bill Milkowski characterized Bardfeld’s playing as “combining a touch of Stuff Smith's playfulness with a Charles Ives aesthetic.” An accurate summation. Bardfeld made a key intervention during soundcheck, when he suggested that he move to the other side of the stage, away from the guitar. That allowed for proper sound separation and a satisfying listening experience.

I wish I had read Rob Garcia’s bio before he arrived, so I could have talked to him about his role in creating a thriving, community-based Brooklyn jazz scene through Connection Works, Brooklyn Jazz Underground and the Douglass St. Music Collective. I would have also liked to ask him about being an ordained minister and his holistic healing practice. Looking forward to next time. Garcia kept the Quartet tight all night. He read down meaty compositions with lots of tempo shifts and mood changes, all while propelling the band higher and higher. He gifted me his latest recording, his 10th as a leader, Works, (Michel Gentile, Daniel Kelly), which sounds fantastic.

Because he has spent much of his 40 year career engaging with some of the world’s fiercest improvisors, Joe Fonda has been typecast as an avant-guardist. So it was great to hear this crowd pleasing Quartet play “in the pocket” for much of the evening. We responded to the music because everything about it was life affirming. A number of people, including members of the band, encouraged Fonda to record this project. Perhaps another visit is in the offing.

The Natural Flow: Stephan Crump's "Slow Water" at the Shea Theater

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 Whatever you call it: chamber music, new music, or jazz, what composer Stephan Crump has created with “Slow Water”, his 70-minute suite in celebration of H2O, is beautiful and evocative. Two days after performing it at Roulette in Brooklyn, his sextet: Patricia Brennan (vibes), Carrie Frey (viola), Erica Dicker (violin), Jacob Garchik (trombone), Kenny Warren (trumpet) and Crump (bass), shared the music with 75 avid listeners at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls, MA.

Inspired by “Water Always Wins”, a book by science writer Erica Gies about humankind's relationship to water, Crump’s work unfurled with unhurried majesty and a deliberate brilliance. The piece was largely through-composed with improvised interludes, and it showcased how much emotional punch you can pack into slow tempos.

The book, whose subtitle is, “Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge”, lays out the precepts of what Gies calls the Slow Water movement. In the midst of our ubiquitous built environment, the book asks the radical question, “what does water want?” Gies reminds us that water’s true nature is to flex with the rhythms of the earth: the slow phases absorb floods, store water for droughts, and feed natural systems. Figuring out what water wants—and accommodating its desires within our human landscapes—is now crucial for survival.

Without lyrics or program notes, the relationship between the music and the message was left to the individual. Song titles like “Sediment & Flow” and “Pooling”, shed some light on Crump’s distinctive melodies and deliberate rhythms. “Eager”, a lumbering paean to the critical role beavers play in directing water, was built on a series of pleasing two-note figures passed around by bass, brass and vibes. “Dusk Critters” began with the uneven pattering of Brennan’s vibes before the others entered with scurrying phrases.

Crump was at the center of it all. It was his concept, compositions and band, after all, and his bass lines framed each piece. On “Outflow” he played a series of simple, slowly formed notes that provided the basis of the music. Situated between the strings and brass, he cued the ensemble with his body language and facial expressions. His mic work with the audience was eloquent and engaging.

The concert largely conformed to Crump’s excellent 2024 recording on Papillon Sounds. (Violist Joanna Mattrey and violinist yuniya edi kwon are on the record.) The musicianship, all told, was outstanding. Frey, who is currently writing her dissertation on the Wet Ink Ensemble, and Dicker, who has performed throughout the world in various Anthony Braxton ensembles, are integral parts of the New York contemporary music scene. They are part of a growing number of instrumentalists who are high functioning in both the written and improvised music worlds.

Similarly, Jacob Garchik is comfortable in multiple music contexts. Over the last 19 years he has written hundreds of arrangements and compositions for the Kronos Quartet, and has performed and recorded with Miguel Zenón, Mary Halvorson, Anna Webber, Henry Threadgill and John Hollenbeck. He also co-leads Brooklyn’s premiere Mexican brass band, Banda de los Muertos. Born in Denver, Kenny Warren has lived in New York since 2002, where he is active on the experimental, jazz, folk, and world music scenes. His trio, Sweet World, with Christopher Hoffman and Nathan Ellman-Bell, will perform in next season’s Jazz Shares.

This was the fourth Jazz Shares appearance by Patricia Brennan, including her Quartet appearance at the Institute For the Musical Arts in 2022. As the music demanded, she put aside her note-bending pedals and jaw dropping technique and instead spent the evening distilling the musical essence of every note. She told me she loved playing that way.

Together, the ensemble breathed life into the written material.

In contrast to the complex, demanding compositions of say, Ingrid Laubrock, Steve Lehman or Matt Mitchell, Crumps’ “Slow Water” oozed with the direct, unfettered style of a Wendell Berry. It was uncomplicated, long form music and required patient listening, but the rewards were considerable. “If you listen carefully, the music is yours,” writes John Corbett in his handy book, “A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation”. I’m glad I invested the effort to listen with intent. I felt rejuvenated and relaxed after the concert, as if I’d just taken a walk in the woods.