More Than Notes On a Page: Music Follows Fellowship

Because the music is largely improvised, and depends heavily on the listening skills and collective decision making of its participants, jazz is a relationship-based art. Those relationships extend to listeners and producers, as well as musicians. Collectively, we shape the music and dictate its outcomes.

The importance of relationship was highlighted as the Jessica Pavone String Trio came to the bucolic grounds of the Institute for the Musical Arts (IMA) in Goshen, MA on June 9, as part of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares’ 10thseason. The point was also underscored by a week-long residency by Terry Jenoure’s Sextet that included work at IMA, the Shea Theater and the Northampton Center for the Arts.

Pavone’s trio: Aimée Niemann, violin, Abby Swidler, violin and viola and Pavone, viola, are on an extended tour in support of their new release, …Of Late (Astral Spirits). Sandwiched between dates in Chicago and New Haven, the Trio provided 20 local listeners with a glimpse into the unique sound world of Jessica Pavone, who composed and arranged an hour of dense, sometimes unsettling music.

Although the music was scripted, the musicians retained the latitude to choose notes, determine entrances, and create sounds within compositional parameters. The pieces, drawn mostly from the new recording, all had distinct points of view. There were the long, bended notes played in unison on the disquieting, “Done and Dusted”, for instance. Or a composition that summoned some ancient, from-the-gut country music. The band decided against electric lights in the barn, save for the tiny lamps on their music stands. By the finale, “Hidden Voices,” which slowly introduced vocals into the mix, the evening’s natural light had faded, and we sat in stunned silence as this mysterious, otherworldly music washed over us and the darkened space we occupied.

Reviews are typically confined to what transpires on stage, but the music evolves as the musicians grow, and much of that growth takes place off the bandstand. The opportunity to share meals, stories, and histories creates a web that holds the music. We introduced Jessica, Aimée and Abby to IMA and two early champions of elevating women in music: Ann Hackler and June Millington. We talked about Leroy Jenkins, the great violinist, who mentored both Pavone and our dear friend, Terry Jenoure. We discovered that Jessica’s parents graduated from the same high school I did: WC Bryant, in Astoria, Queens. In a jazz world of meager financial returns, evenings like this are priceless.

Meanwhile, from June 5-11, the violinist and vocalist Terry Jenoure invited five musical friends to spend the week in western Massachusetts to create music. Using funds provided by a South Arts’ Jazz Road Residency grant, Jenoure brought together Anglica Sanchez (piano), Joe Fonda (bass), Avery Sharpe (bass), Wayne Smith (cello) and Reggie Nicholson (drums) to perform at the Jazz Shares annual meeting/party at IMA, rehearse and interact with area artists at the Shea Theater, and give a culminating concert at 33 Hawley St, in Northampton.

For the Jazz Shares event, Jenoure divided the musicians into three groups of two, each improvising for about 15 minutes. The duo of Jenoure and Fonda segued seamlessly to Sanchez and Smith, before giving way to Sharpe and Nicholson. The pairings were inspired, and the music they produced unfolded spontaneously, but with an inevitability that seemed preordained.

Jenoure’s concert at the Northampton Center for the Arts had all six musicians on stage and featured a piece dedicated to Jenoure’s father, Maurice, who recently passed. Developed during the residency, the piece, “Letters From Papa”, included excerpts of her grandfather’s letters sent from Canada to her grandmother in Jamaica.

It was instructive to see the music grow as the group cohered. The six musicians had varying levels of familiarity with each other. Jenoure has known Sharpe, Fonda and Nicholson for decades, while Sanchez and Smith are newer colleagues. As they shared meals, made music together, and relaxed in the country, the group cohered. That’s how bands are formed. For me and my wife Priscilla Page, the chance to spend time with our out-of-town friends (Fonda, Sanchez, Nicholson), was a joy.

On a side note, Jenoure is also a superb visual artist. She has curated, “Syncopate: Homage to Jazz”, up through July 2 at Gallery A3 in Amherst.

On another side note, Felipe Salles and Lois Ahrens produced a fantastic concert, “Tiyo’s Songs of Love” with Zaccai Curtis, Avery Sharpe, and Jonathan Barber on June 12 at Bombyx in Florence, which we were also privileged to witness.

I titled a small book marking the 25th anniversary of my Magic Triangle Jazz Series, “Close to the Music.” That’s been my life’s ambition, to stay close to the music and help nurture it any way I can. Strengthening the web by spending time with creative friends and engaging with their music, is what it’s all about.

Producing Ups and Downs: Caroline Davis Quintet and Then Some

A fabulous April 22 concert by the Caroline Davis Quintet concluded an eventful two-week sojourn for this writer. On April 10, for the first time in my career, I missed a concert I produced. Home recovering from a mild bout of COVID, with the equally ill Priscilla Page by my side, producing duties fell to Jason Robinson and other members of the Jazz Shares board of directors. By all accounts, the concert by bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck and pianist Wayne Horvitz was thoroughly enjoyed by the 55 folks who filled the barn at the Institute for the Musical Arts. After multiple postponements because of the pandemic, it was ironic that the virus prevented me from experiencing it.

Then on, April 21, the final curtain came down on the Magic Triangle Jazz Series, the upstart annual event I helped found in 1990. The Series was a collaboration between the then-vibrant student and community radio station, WMUA-FM, and the University’s Fine Arts Center. It’s first home was Hampden Theater, a professionally staffed, jewel of a black box theater in the southwest residential area of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, shuttered in 1998. The Magic Triangle (and its sister program, the Solos & Duos Series) produced 151 concerts in its lifetime, the last one on Thursday at Bowker Auditorium with a performance by Adam Rudolph’s GO: Organic Orchestra and Brooklyn Raga Massive. I was moved by the outpouring of appreciation for all the music we have brought to Amherst over the years, and we were rewarded with a transcendent performance by Rudolph’s band of 30, which included large percussion, flute and string sections. With assurance and a sense of adventure, Rudolph’s ensemble pointed us toward a musical future influenced by Indian, Latin and jazz improvising traditions.

Which brings us to Friday’s concert at the Community Music School of Springfield, featuring alto saxophonist and composer Caroline Davis. Her group: Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet, Julian Shore, piano, Chris Tordini, bass and Alan Mednard, drums, stopped in Springfield on their way home from a residency at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY.

Their performance featured material from last year’s release, Portals, Volume 1: Mourning (Sunnyside), dedicated to Davis’ late father. The music was dense, but not heavy, the compositions complex, but lyrical. Modern harmonies and precise rhythmic shifts were everywhere, leavened by a focus on melody and form. The young veteran, Jonathan Finlayson replaced Marquis Hill for our Jazz Shares concert; the rest of the band is on the record. (The recording also includes a well-utilized string quartet.)

Despite the exacting nature of the compositions, the band was relaxed on the bandstand and off. Over a homecooked meal before the show, Tordini recounted a tough early gig at the Newark Airport, which necessitated a subway ride, to a PATH train, to a car ride, all for the pleasure of playing for a distracted airport restaurant audience. Not to be outdone, Shore reminisced about a gig that required a plane ride from New York to Cleveland for an annual gathering honoring police who died in the line of duty. In a giant arena, thousands of under-rehearsed amateur bagpipers and snare drummers (along with twirling young girls in identical dress and wigs), created such a din that Shore and the rest of his rhythm section spent the performance with their hands over their ears. Nobody seemed to notice they weren’t playing.

The storytelling continued on stage, as Davis shared her experiences creating this beautiful body of work from her loss. The music was full of drama, with a soaring quality that was taut, expressive and profound. This was my first opportunity to hear Mednard, a young drummer who plays with Jeremy Pelt and Ben Allison, among others. He read down the heads with the skill of a classical percussionist, then proceeded to fill and accent his way through the evening with riveting clarity. He never got a chance to solo, but was so on point all evening, it hardly mattered.

Caroline Davis gives me confidence about the future of our music. She is well prepared and serious about her craft. Before the gig I saw her off to the side meditating, her way of “getting right” before engaging in a vital activity. The facility in her playing, the emotional impact of her compositions, and her easy command as a bandleader, all point to a musician poised to make a real contribution in the decades ahead.

In Search of Sound: James Brandon Lewis Trio at the Shea Theater

It’s not always possible to see a star rise in real time. It is often only in hind sight that we can ascribe importance to an emerging talent. But in the case of James Brandon Lewis, the jazz world has reached a consensus, and we can now say with certainty that the Buffalo-born tenor saxophonist is a legitimate force in the field. We got first hand confirmation as Lewis and his Trio: Christopher Hoffman, electric cello and Max Jaffe, drums, performed at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls on Thursday, March 10 in a concert produced by Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares.

Lewis, now 39, is serious about everything he does. That includes writing prose and poetry, conversing, researching and playing the tenor. His performance at the Shea established the point. The 70-minute set was filled with simple, direct statements delivered with power and conviction. Lewis’s music had a spiritual effect on this listener, as small nuggets of melody were woven in endless variation. Much like the preacher who seizes on a theme then spins corollaries, Lewis emphasized his point with run after dazzling run, using the declarative power of the blues to do it. He stood grounded, with feet shoulder width apart, sermonizing in broad brawny tones, delivering combinations of emotion-packed punches. That searching quality we associate with Coltrane and Ayler is also present in the music of James Brandon Lewis.

Lewis’s father is a minister and he grew up in the Church, where “he found out what it meant for music to brush against the holy spirit,” as Giovanni Russonello wrote in the New York Times. That spirit-infused attitude has been a constant as Lewis has emerged into the limelight.

Seeing Lewis’s Trio with Luke Stewart and Warren Trae Crudup III at the Vision Festival in 2016 was a stop-in-my-tracks moment. Two years later, Lewis was back at New York’s Vision Festival, sharing the stage with legends Dave Burrell, Kidd Jordan, William Parker and Andrew Cyrille. The symbolic torch passing was hard to miss.

Last year, he was voted the top rising tenor saxophonist by critics in Downbeat. This year he earned the top tenor player award by critics in Jazz Times, and his release Jessup Wagon, was recognized as the record of the year. Whatever that all means, Lewis’s star has clearly risen.

Although the Trio is relatively new, they have already gelled. Jaffe said playing in the trio is natural, “like breathing.” We are awaiting the results of a completed studio recording.

Jaffe earned his Masters from Cal Arts last year and was a long-time member of Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones and the experimental rock collective, JOBS. The drummer has been on the road with Ava Mendoza, Peter Evans and Rubblebucket, among others, and was through these parts in October, playing in Steph Richards Quartet. He pushed the band into ecstatic territory without playing loudly, using dynamics and the lower sonic end of his drum kit to provide all the energy the band needed.

Hoffman is an in-demand cellist and who is into his second decade as a member of Henry Threadgill’s Pulitzer Prize winning ensemble, Zooid. He is also part of Anat Cohen’s Tentet and Rudy Royston’s Flatbed Buggy, and has performed at Jazz Shares concerts led by Tony Malaby (2015) and Josh Sinton (2019). He can be heard (along with Kirk Knuffke, William Parker and Chad Taylor) on Lewis’s celebrated Jessup Wagon. Hoffman’s electric cello, played while standing, looked like the stick bass favored in lots of Latin bands. His use of pedals brought another dimension to the proceedings, changing timbre and attack to anchor and provoke.

James Brandon Lewis is a curious soul, who draws inspiration from many sources. Jessup Wagon channels the myriad accomplishments of George Washington Carver, who designed the wagon that brought his innovative farming techniques to poor Black southern growers.

In his wonderful liner notes that accompany the recording, Robin D. G. Kelley summed up an attitude shared by both Carver and Lewis: “The lesson is clear,” Kelley wrote, “remember the old ways, learn the new ways.”