Piano Makes the World Go Round

“A World of Piano”, a series of three solo concerts over three days, has had 15 editions over 31 years. The latest iteration, featuring Angelica Sanchez, Marta Sanchez and Wayne Horvitz, took place February, 26, 27 and 28 at the Northampton Arts Trust building. “A World of Piano”, a co-production of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares and the Northampton Center For the Arts, has been interrupted over the years by regime changes at the Center, as well as their change of address from South Street to the Arts Trust at 33 Hawley Street. With building construction now complete, and four consecutive years under our belt, we hope to continue the series for the foreseeable future.

Curated by Glenn Siegel, president and co-founder of Jazz Shares, the series seeks to operationalize the title of Phineas Newborn Jr.’s 1962 Contemporary album by presenting a variety of approaches to the piano.

Angelica Sanchez was a last minute replacement for Arturo O’Farrill, who got stranded in San Diego by the east coast blizzard after performing with Ephrat Asherie Dance. Sanchez, who was part of the 2012 piano series, has performed many times in the Valley with Omar Tamez, Terry Jenoure, Wadada Leo Smith, James Brandon Lewis and her own ensembles. (Her Nonet comes to western Mass in October.) On Thursday, she sounded as good as I’ve ever heard her. There was a flow to her playing that seemed organic, and her compact, 50-minute set was presented without pause. She started her performance with a few sparse notes that slowly decayed, calling us into the space as if we were part of a Buddhist prayer ceremony. As the intensity thickened and thinned, themes, phrases and ideas floated past in endless procession. Though she was improvising, there was an inevitability to the music that had a storyteller’s logic. Sanchez zipped into town in time for sound check, then out again, back to her home in Rhinebeck, NY where she teaches at Bard. It was a blessing to be able to call in a last minute favor from a friend.

Marta Sanchez, who is unrelated to Angelica, is a fabulously talented 43 year old pianist from Madrid, who has called New York home for the past 15 years. Her profile rose considerably after she joined David Murray’s Quartet in 2022. Murray’s band regularly tours the world, and Sanchez can be found on the saxophonist’s two latest releases: Francesca (2024) and Birdly Serenade (2025). Not all pianists have a solo practice, so I asked her partner, saxophonist Caleb Curtis about her. Not only has Sanchez devoted considerable energy to playing alone, I learned, but she just recorded a new solo album: For the Space You Left. On the release she lists her instrument as “prepared piano”, and indeed on Friday she put magnets and tape on some of the strings and used electronics to alter the instrument’s sound. The juxtaposition of metallic, dampened, and buzzing notes with the piano’s natural tones sounded exceedingly fresh, and her impressive technique, honed by years of classical training, served the music well. Conceived during a MacDowell residency, the compositions were both distinct and succinct, resulting in an evening of impressive études.

An elder statesman at 70, Wayne Horvitz has led a gloriously varied life in music. Although forever linked to the NY “downtown” scene of the 80s and 90s that gave us John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Bobby Previte, Marty Ehrlich, Fred Frith and so many others, Horvitz has lived more than half his life in Seattle. He has created a body of work that is consistently excellent across a wide spectrum of music. After his show on Saturday, Josh Miller and I gushed about his avant-jazz-funk-rock bands Zony Mash, The President and Pigpen. The recording he gifted me, Music For 10 Musicians, should be filed under classical/new music. He has composed for film, theater and dance, produced dozens of recordings and hundreds of concerts at his Seattle nightspot, The Royal Room, and was the force behind The Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet, which made Voodoo (Soul Note), one of my favorite records. His concert featured a liberal amount of electronics, including a small keyboard. These elements were expertly woven into the fabric of an evening that was dreamy, subdued, and rich with detail. A section when he generated a harmonium-like drone brought Alice Coltrane to mind, and allowed the mind to transcend the insanity of the day.

Pianist Kate Molloy, a close family friend of Horvitz’s from Seattle, and Matilde, her vocalist friend, made the trip from Rochester, NY where they are students at Eastman. The post-concert hang at our house was very sweet. Ron Stabinsky, who performed at the 2023 piano series, made the five hour drive from his home in central Pennsylvania to attend the last night of the series. Others drove from Vermont and the Berkshires to share in the musical bounty, examples of the reach and impact of A World of Piano.

A Day's Work: Kenny Warren's Sweet World

The discrepancy between expertise and reward is nowhere larger than in the jazz world. The point was driven home by a comment made by trumpeter Kenny Warren, who remarked how strange and wonderful it was that he could perform a prestigious concert one day and be back moving furniture for a living the next. Most people with even a modicum of talent who devote their life to a worthwhile pursuit find adequate compensation. But throughout the arts, and especially in creative music, the gap between mastery and opportunity is gaping.

I mused about that while entranced by the music of Kenny Warren’s Sweet World on February 5. His trio, featuring Christopher Hoffman, cello, and Nathan Ellman-Bell, drums, treated 50 of us to a very satisfying evening of Warren’s original compositions at CitySpace in Easthampton, MA. Nary a microphone on stage, the all-acoustic, 70-minute set consisted of material from their 2023 self-titled release, and an equal number of newer pieces they hope to record this summer.

In the main, the music had clear rhythmic structure, filled with exciting “bass” lines that grooved. The compositions had distinct personalities with strong hook-filled melodies. There were periods of open playing, sparking animated conversations between the musicians. The band was tight, nailing tricky endings and complex unison passages. And most of all, they played with the joy that results from creativity unleashed.

There was a slinky-ness to a lot of the music, played within a limited band of relaxed energy and sonic territory. With the exception of a short section of circular breathing, Warren steered clear of extended techniques, choosing instead to highlight his beautiful tone and a lithe, expressive approach to his instrument.

I first met Warren when I presented Slavic Soul Party! at UMass in 2017. He has been a part of Matt Moran’s new-jazz exploration of Roma music since 2008. The scales and phrasing that characterize Balkan music, and related forms like Arab maqam, have seeped into Sweet World, with “Angels Migration”, and "Q To Canal Light Show" providing thrilling reference to non-Western traditions. Dressed in black, Warren’s understated on-stage persona reinforced his relaxed attitude, but one with clear musical intention. Like fellow trumpeters Kirk Knuffke, Nate Wooley and Shane Endsley, Warren was profoundly influenced by Ron Miles while growing up in Denver. Warren shares Miles’ humble life-stance.

Christopher Hoffman is among a small throng of jazz musicians shining a spotlight on the cello. (See Tomeka Reid, Lester St. Louis, Daniel Levin, Marika Hughes, Erik Friedlander, Akua Dixon, Hank Roberts…) He walked with a swagger on “Respectfulee”, a bebop-inflected tribute to Lee Konitz, and provided a highly syncopated backbone for a slithering “Pigeon Rich”. Hoffman’s hand-in-glove work with Warren mirrors his essential role in the bands of Henry Threadgill, Anat Cohen, Tony Malaby and James Brandon Lewis. I hope his new job at the Kent School in Connecticut won’t impede his performing schedule too much.

A transplanted Brooklynite like Warren, Nathan Ellman-Bell is a tasty drummer who has been working with the trumpeter since the late teens. Currently subbing in the Bobby Darin-inspired Broadway jukebox musical, Just in Time, Ellman-Bell is a charter member of Brass Against, a New York-based, horn-heavy energy machine that cover songs by Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Soundgarden and Black Sabbath, and write their own anti-establishment themes. A graduate of the Idyllwild Arts Academy (CA) and the Peabody Institute (Baltimore), Ellman-Bell drilled into tunes he knew well, making them feel inevitable. It is always great to be able to widen my circle of good drummers.

Even as paying gigs for artists like Warren, Hoffman and Ellman-Bell trickle in, the intrinsic rewards of unleashing creativity pile up.

“I play music because I love to play music, and because no one tells me I can’t,” Kenny Warren writes in the notes accompanying Sweet World. “No one is asking me to make another record. I will almost certainly lose money on it, like I have with every other record I’ve ever made. And it’s not going to change the world. It’s simply for the joy of making live art with and for the people I love. It’s silly and absurd, and sweet. It makes me feel good, and hopefully it will make some other people feel good too when they listen to it. Maybe it will make somebody wonder, or make them want to try something weird and beautiful, if, inshallah, they have the space to do so. I’m taking the good with the bad. I’m trying to live a life guided by love and honesty, even when the world fills me with existential dread. I have to believe that in dark times, simple acts of humanity are akin to acts of resistance. Sweet World.”

Anna Webber Nonet at the Iron Horse

It’s exciting to watch the emergence of a major talent, and over the few last years we’ve had a front row seat for Anna Webber’s full flowering as an instrumentalist, composer and bandleader. For this listener, confirmation of her inclusion among the top echelon came on January 22, when she led a nonet in the world premiere of a new book of compositions at Northampton’s venerable Iron Horse.

“it’s easier to imagine the end of the world…”, is the working title for material to be recorded next week, after two performances at The Jazz Gallery in New York. Taken from a quote by philosopher Fredric Jameson (“It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than an end to capitalism”), the half dozen pieces encompassed a variety of styles, expertly played by an all-star band that included: Yuma Uesaka (clarinets), Ingrid Laubrock (tenor and soprano sax), Ryan Easter (trumpet), DoYeon Kim (gayageum), Mary Halvorson (guitar), David Virelles (piano), Chris Tordini (bass), Ches Smith (drums) and Webber (tenor and soprano sax, flute). The nine musicians hail from five countries.

Webber’s first Jazz Shares concert was with her Simple Trio (Matt Mitchell, John Hollenbeck) in 2018. She has since performed with pianist Eric Wubbels (2020), the David Sanford Big Band (2022), the Max Johnson Trio (2023), and her quintet Shimmer Wince (2024). So we’ve had ample opportunity to bear witness to her growth as an artist. Her Nonet represents another leap forward.

Webber co-leads a big band with Angela Morris, so we know she can write for large ensembles. But the music we heard on Thursday was downright compelling: complex without being ponderous, rhythmically rich, with lots of angles and rock n' roll energy. She used chimes, gayageum (Korean zither) and contrabass clarinet to produce unique textures, and each composition had a clarity of purpose and a point of view. The music moved from high octane density to delicate two person exchanges. One driving section, played loud and pan-tonally by all nine members, was directly followed by a whispered trumpet/piano interlude. We exhaled, cleared our minds and marveled at the intensity that just flew by. The pace of the concert, and an ever changing combination of instrumental colors, kept our ears glued to the (very crowded) stage.

A couple of audience members referred to Mary Halvorson, Ingrid Laubrock and Anna Webber as “the trinity”; other bandmembers: Ches Smith, David Virelles, Chris Tordini, also have well-established careers and have played in the area multiple times. But DoYeon Kim, Yuma Uesaka and Ryan Easter were all wowing us for the first time.

DoYeon Kim, is a traditionally trained Korean artist with advanced degrees from both the New England Conservatory of Music and Berklee’s Global Jazz Institute. Mentored by Joe Morris and Mark Dresser, she has brought the gayageum into the world of creative music, demonstrating yet again, jazz’s appetite for innovation and inclusion. Hitting strings with the vigor of Eddie Van Halen, Kim played with abandon as she flicked between blues and Asian scales.

Yuma Uesaka brought three clarinets, including his massive contrabass, situated an octave lower than the bass clarinet. His solo on the contrabass was nimble and vibratious as he filled the 47-year old Iron Horse with deep resonant sounds. He was the glue guy, contributing a reedy complexity to the sound stew. A classmate of UMass professor Jonathan Hulting-Cohen at the University of Michigan, the 35-year old reedist will be back in June with Max Johnson’s Sextet, while talk is under way to bring his cooperative quartet, Tropos, next season.

Ryan Easter was a revelation. He has a gorgeous tone and possesses all the tools we associate with Wooley, Evans, Knuffke and Ho Bynum. He is not only an adventurous trumpeter, but a fleet tongued MC with the band Wrens (Elias Stemeseder, Lester St. Louis, Jason Nazary). He founded the Trap Music Orchestra in 2014, described as “synchronizing the aural lineage of Black diasporic music around the modern library of the trap music branch of hip-hop, in the orchestral style made legendary by greats such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Charles Mingus.” It was nice that Amherst College music professor Darryl Harper and Easter, who met years ago at VCU, had a chance to catch up after the show. 

I can only imagine the logistical and financial challenges Webber faced putting this project together. From writing a Chamber Music America New Works grant, to developing a budget and schedule, the non-musical part of being a bandleader is thankless and its own skill set. Webber seems to excel at that, too, and along with her burgeoning skills as a composer, instrumentalist and leader, we have every confidence the 41-year old Canadian wunderkind will be shining a light deep into the future.

For those who want more, Webber will be back with John Hollenbeck’s GEORGE, March 17 and Max Johnson’s Sextet, June 4.