Invoking the Gods: Harris Eisenstadt October Trio

One of the most disparaging things you can say about an artist is that they “dabble”. In a biological context, the term refers to ducks who feed in shallow water. We connect it to amateurs with light commitment and a lack of serious intent. 

Percussionist Harris Eisenstadt, who performed on 10/10 with his October Trio at the Institute For the Musical Arts, doesn’t dabble. Over the last 15 years or so, he has engaged in a deep dive into the fathomless wellspring of Afro-Cuban religion and music. Along with bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck and pianist Angelica Sanchez, Eisenstadt shared prayers for the orishas with 50 congregants in Goshen, MA on Saturday.

Splitting his time between trap kit and a set of three sacred two-headed batá drums, Eisenstadt gave us improvised instrumental versions of songs dedicated to the deities (orishas) of Santeria, the Cuban cosmology that emerged from the Yoruba people of west Africa. The hourglass-like batá, ranging in size from the mother drum (Iyá), to the father (Itótele) and baby (Okónkolo), are traditionally played by three people, but as has become the convention in jazz settings, the drums sat tied together in front of the seated Eisenstadt. Mauricio Herrera used the same set-up with Patricia Brennan’s Quartet at IMA a couple of years ago.   

It was the band’s debut performance, there was scant time to rehearse, and Sanchez and Schoenbeck had only met once in a large ensemble. In lesser hands, the results could have been tepid or tentative. But these uber-accomplished mid-career artists did what professionals do: they dug in, listened hard and played their asses off, albeit at low volume and with muted intensity. The music rarely rose above a whisper and there was lots of space. The contrast with last week’s drummer-led group at IMA: Ches Smith’s electric-fueled Clone Row, could not have been more pronounced.

Eisenstadt came in a day early to lecture in Jason Robinson’s class at Amherst College, and we invited him to join me, Priscilla Page, Marta Ostapiuk, and our friend, the cultural historian Ivor Miller, to break bread and facilitate connections. Miller, whose father, biologist Lynn Miller, was a founding faculty member of Hampshire College, is one of the foremost scholars/chroniclers of Cuban religious and musical practices. He and Eisenstadt had a lot to talk about, spending a considerable amount of time exchanging books, links and stories. 

Eisenstadt, who was born and raised in Toronto and lives in Brooklyn with Schoenbeck, was dressed all in white, a year-long requirement for recent initiates into Santeria. He introduced each piece, giving us thumbnail descriptions of each orisha. The music, which made passing references to the melody of each prayer, was subtle and slightly ambiguous. Eisenstadt’s light hand kept a steady pulse without ever locking into a conventional groove.  While I wished they had opened the floodgates a bit more and maybe sang a piece or two, the contemplative reverence they evoked allowed me to concentrate on the trio’s sonority, which was beautiful. Eisenstadt’s touch on batá was pure caress, and he used the six drum heads at his disposal to create beautiful melody.

Frank Zappa referred to the bassoon’s “medieval aroma”, and like bagpipes and accordions, the instrument is often linked with a particular musical genre or repertoire. But Sara Schoenbeck is changing all that. She’s at the forefront of a group of creative bassoonists who are finding new uses for its peculiar low end buzz. Harris told me she’s constantly getting calls from composers and bandleaders who need a bassoonist who can read, improvise and play with soul. Her duo concert with pianist Wayne Horvitz at IMA a couple of years ago was memorable, as was her performance with fellow bassoonist Michael Rabinowicz in Jeff Lederer’s band in Brattleboro in August. Check out her 2021 self-titled Pyroclastic recording, a stunning series of duets with Roscoe Mitchell, Nels Cline, Mark Dresser, Nicole Mitchell and others. An interlude, where she played only the “mouthpiece” (the bocal and tenor joint), was other-worldly, calling forth the animal antecedents of the music. Over dinner, Sara told us the heartbreaking story of her bassoon getting stolen last year.

Since 2012, when she performed as part of A World of Piano, Angelica Sanchez has become a leading light of her generation, a regular visitor to the Valley, and a good friend. Now tenured faculty at Bard College, Sanchez has recent duo recordings with Chad Taylor and Marilyn Crispell, and trio records with Tony Malaby/Tom Rainey, and Michael Formanek/Billy Hart. She’s playing the Berlin Jazz Festival next month with bassist Barry Guy, and the Walker Arts Center with trumpeter Rob Mazurek in December. Her Nonet recording, Nighttime Creatures, was voted one of the best releases of 2023. She’s a cliché-free, no-nonsense improviser who’s not interested in impressing you with technique or facile pretty notes.  She invariably opts for the least traveled path, which is never the easy way.

Eisenstadt speaks fluent Spanish, has visited Cuba 13 times, and is part of New York’s Afro-Cuban religious music scene. For the 50-year old percussionist, this is clearly not a passing fancy. As his knowledge deepens and he continues to explore this world, I look forward to the continued flowering of his ideas in this realm.

A Bunch of Barnstormers: Ches Smith Clone Row

There are artists content to make a life in music by mastering one particular sound or approach, and working it. Others - like Ches Smith, who brought his latest project, Clone Row, to the big barn at the Institute For the Musical Arts in Goshen, MA on October 4 - are explorers, always on the lookout for new musical challenges.

Featuring Mary Halvorson and Liberty Ellman (guitars), Nick Dunston (bass, electronics) and Smith (drums, vibraphone, electronics), Clone Row has enough current to conjure Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time, or the orbits of Jimi Hendrix and Sonny Sharrock. But because Ches Smith has such wide vision and ambition, this band has its own sound.

Marc Ribot, who wrote the liner notes for the new record, remarks that Smith’s latest endeavor is a composer’s project, and indeed the level of coordinated intricacy in the writing is remarkable. Electric instruments don’t need to breathe, and the sound world they created was dense, filled with non-stop vibrations. Smith sometimes provided two simultaneous rhythm streams: drum kit or vibes, alongside electronic beats. When the guitars shimmered and twined, and Dunston added additional electronic washes, the air became saturated with sound. We left dazzled and spent. Then, after a concert with little space between notes, we entered the October silence of a Goshen night. 

Just as on the record, the concert bolted from the gate with “Ready Beat”, a driving fusillade that began and ended with some very tasty programming from Smith, and we were off and running. While the multi-threaded complexity of the music was sometimes staggering, the composer’s knack for writing ear-capturing melody and rhythm, the superb sound separation in the room, and the prodigious talent on stage, produced a deeply satisfying musical experience. We were witnessing something impressive and newly made.

Clone Row is Ches Smith’s latest project of distinction. His previous recording, Laugh Ash, is an extraordinary amalgam of contemporary classical, electronic and improvised elements, written for large ensemble. We All Break (2021), highlights Smith’s 20-year immersion in the music of Haitian Vodou. His trio, with newly minted MacArthur Fellow Craig Taborn and violist Mat Maneri (who was in town last week with Lucian Ban), has produced two “chamber-jazz” masterpieces on ECM and Pyroclastic. Then there is his long-running solo project which highlights his enduring interest in electronics and vibes. That's not to mention his singular contribution to Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog, Tim Berne’s Snakeoil and Secret Chiefs 3. Smith is as busy and productive as one person can be. He’ll be at the Iron Horse with Anna Webber’s Nonet in January and back in the Valley in May with Ralph Alessi’s Quartet.  

Speaking of ambition, Smith put together a packed two week tour in support of the self-titled album, including performances at Edgefest (Ann Arbor), Earshot (Seattle), SF Jazz, Angel City Jazz (LA), and stops in Vancouver, Denver, Chicago, Portland and Minneapolis. Saturday’s western Massachusetts gig was second on their itinerary.

Ches Smith first met Halvorson in 1998 in Trevor Dunn’s Trio Convulsant, and the drummer knew Ellman from the Bay area, but despite their mutual admiration, the two guitarists had not worked together. Smith’s intuition to pair Ellman’s more conventional, R&B approach with Halvorson’s awkward bentness was prescient, producing streams of charged interaction.

Ellman, perhaps best known for his long tenure in Henry Threadgill’s Zooid, has made music with Myra Melford, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris, Steve Lehman, Somi, Nicole Mitchell, Ledisi and Michele Rosewoman, and has released four highly regarded records as a leader on Pi Recordings. He served as producer and mixing engineer on Threadgill’s Pulitzer Prize winning record, In For a Penny, In For a Pound, and has engineering credits on albums by Sam Rivers, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Steve Coleman and Tyshawn Sorey. I first met him at UMass in 2004 when Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd presented “In What Language”, and again with Jason Robinson’s Janus Ensemble in 2014. Now back on the west coast after time in New York, Ellman sightings are not as frequent as I’d like.

Like Smith, Halvorson is everywhere. Her concert in Holyoke last month with her sextet, Amaryllis, was a singular event. After she gets off the road with Clone Row, she takes her band to Europe for 14 dates; she was just on the Continent last month touring with Tomeka Reid’s Quartet. On the go and going places, Halvorson has won Guitarist of the Year honors in the DownBeat Critics Poll for the past nine years, and is a 2019 MacArthur Fellow.

Nick Dunston’s plate is also full. Ribot called him “my favorite bassist of the new generation.” I’m inclined to agree. At 29, he’s the youngster in the band, yet has seven releases as a leader, the latest of which is the Afro-surrealist-anti-opera COLLA VOCE. He holds the bass chair in Amaryllis, has been commissioned to compose for Wet Ink Ensemble, Bang On a Can and JACK Quartet, and has already worked with many of the most creative musicians on the planet. I met him eight years ago when he performed with Jeff Lederer, Mary LaRose, Joe Fiedler and George Schuller in Carol Smith’s backyard at a Jazz Shares party. Dunston went to school with Jeff and Mary’s daughter, Hallie.

It is a joy to watch outsized talent blossom in real time. May Ches Smith and his band of renowns continue to reap all the rewards for their good work.

Bartók Lives: Lucian Ban & Mat Maneri's "Transylvanian Dance"

The October 1st Jazz Shares concert at the Northampton Center For the Arts, featuring Lucian Ban (piano) and Mat Maneri (viola), was not only a transcendent musical and visual experience, but a history lesson and a testament to the human urge to preserve and celebrate cultural expression. Dubbed “Transylvanian Dance”, the concert drew from the groundbreaking work of Béla Bartók, the Hungarian composer who recorded and transcribed thousands of folk songs from Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and North Africa beginning in 1904.

The program of songs were augmented by visuals projected on a large wall behind the musicians.  They included Bartók’s still photos of people and their villages, his schematic drawings of the dances, his written transcriptions of the songs, as well as song lyrics and vintage videos of dancers, all in a series of gorgeous black and white images that moved and faded into one another. Throughout the performance we also heard a number of field recordings made by Bartók, preserved on wax cylinders using his Edison phonograph. Ban and Maneri brought life to the images, providing a soundtrack to the lives we glimpsed. Using source material gathered long ago and far from here, the musicians seemed to be in improvised conversation with the visuals behind them. Special thanks to Jason Robinson, who flawlessly ran the projections.

The evening began with archival audio. (Wax cylinder technology meant recordings topped out at just over a minute.) Maneri entered from the side, playing along with the melody. Ban soon joined him on stage and they transitioned to “Lover Mine of Long Ago”, accompanied by images that began with a photo of a woman, who was so strong and beautiful it took my breath away. As her face moved close-up, this nameless woman, who reappeared throughout the evening, looked straight at the camera, unflinching in the face of the new technology.

“Transylvanian Dance”, performed without projections, was next. Aided by a rollicking left hand piano figure, Maneri made the folk melody soar, before the two of them bee-lined to the 21st century in improvised flight that never lost sight of the tune’s framework.

From the stage, Ban and Maneri spoke with passion and authority about Bartók’s work and the importance of the culture he preserved. One point they made, which they reiterated in later conversation, was about the universality of folk music. Of course there is great variety and regional difference, sometimes even from county to county. But the impulse to sing and dance, subjects like love and sorrow, and the scales, melodies and treatment of the music itself, is shared across the world. Maneri, who is conversant in American blues, Arabic, North Indian, and Greek music, shared his surprise when he discovered the striking similarities between sounds made by people from disparate parts of the planet.

Mat Maneri is one of the more interesting figures in creative music. Matthew Shipp called him “one of the five greatest improvisers on the planet.” His mentors, his father Joe Maneri and Juilliard String Quartet co-founder Robert Koff (with whom he studied for over 25 years), provided him with a firm background in microtonal music from around the world, as well as Baroque and modern classical forms. Through his father’s long teaching career at the New England Conservatory of Music, Mat was immersed in the place. Ran Blake, Gunther Schuller and countless students were frequent guests at the family home.

In the 90s, Mat reinvigorated his father’s performing career by organizing and playing with him on recordings for ECM, Leo and hatART, now acknowledged by critics and fellow musicians as among the most important developments in 20th century improvised music. Mat told me the only poster he has in his home is of his 2004 UMass duo concert with his dad. His playing on Wednesday was exquisite, especially when he was barely touching the strings. His control of tone and the variety of what visual artists call ‘mark-making’, made clear that Shipp’s pronouncement was not hyperbole. His ingenious placement of a compact mirror on his viola case allowed him to see the projections behind him.

Lucian Ban was raised in a small village in northwest Transylvania, in the region where Bartók did his most extensive research and collecting of folk songs. Since 2013, when he and Maneri released Transylvanian Concert (ECM), Ban has continued his deep dive into the subject matter. He was granted full access to the Bartók archives in Budapest and permission to use his photographs in performance and on the packages of recordings. The duo’s two latest recordings on Sunnyside, Cantica Profana and The Athenaeum Concert, both featuring the great 81-year old British reedman John Surman, cover more of these preserved folk melodies. Ban and Maneri both marveled at the ease with which Surman interacted with the songs, and they expressed gratitude for the opportunity to have performed with him over the last five years. Ban’s piano was the rebar that supported Maneri’s flights of fancy. His technique of reaching into the keyboard to dampen the strings produced a marvelous variety of textures.

I’m thankful Ban and Maneri are shining a light on the world Bartók preserved. Acknowledged as the father of ethnomusicology, Bartók believed that music that was “pure”, or only one thing, is never as rich as music that mingles. Jazz is a living entity precisely because it is open to deep exchange with a wide variety of sources. Ban and Maneri are living it.