Back in the Valley: Marty Ehrlich Trio Expanse

Marty Ehrlich, extraordinary reed player, music scholar, storyteller and friend, returned to the Connecticut River Valley on December 16 to perform with his trio at the Blue Room in Easthampton, MA. This Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares event was a homecoming of sorts for Ehrlich, who taught at Hampshire College and lived part time in the Valley for 15 years, before retiring in 2019.

Although they have played together over the years, Ehrlich’s Friday performance with Trio Expanse: Matt Pavolka, bass and Mark Ferber, drums, was their first as a threesome. With one rehearsal under their belts, the musicians nailed a program of Ehrlich originals and one Julius Hemphill tune , with precision and élan.

Since producing the Marty Ehrlich Quintet (Tony Malaby, Michael Cain, Michael Formanek, Bobby Previte) in 1997 as part of the Magic Triangle Jazz Series, I’ve had the honor of presenting his large ensemble (“A Trumpet in the Morning”) in 2014, and his Philosophy of a Groove Quartet (with James Weidman, Jerome Harris, Chris Beck) and Duende Winds (with Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, Sara Shoenbeck), both in 2018. The breath of his imagination as a composer, instrumentalist and bandleader, is impressive. We discussed having his next western Mass visit be a duo, a context in which he also excels. In May, he’s playing with pianist Kris Davis as part of his week at The Stone. Hmmm.

Speaking of The Stone, Ehrlich introduced his piece “Stone”, with a beautiful story about Irving Stone, who befriended musicians like William Parker, Mark Feldman and Roy Campbell, and with his wife, attended thousands of jazz concerts in New York from the 1970s until his passing in 2003. A retired City employee, Irving once rented Town Hall for his friend Ornette Coleman, who complained that he wanted to be recognized for being more than a jazz artist. Part of the concert, featuring a new trio and a string quartet, was released as Town Hall, 1962 (ESP-Disk). John Zorn named his club after him.

Many years ago, Marianne Faithfull, for whom Ehrlich worked briefly, told him he should do stand-up. Indeed, his comedic timing and his storytelling skills are well above average. His musical phrasing, primarily on alto saxophone and clarinet, were also outstanding, producing streams of mini-melodies in voice-like patterns that went on for minutes on end. Ehrlich played flute and soprano saxophone on one tune each, but left his bass clarinet home.

I love hearing Ehrlich in trio format. It allows his compositions to shine, while providing a showcase for his considerable chops. For it to work, of course, you need a strong rhythm section. Ehrlich’s Trio Exaltation, with John Hébert and Nasheet Waits, might have a higher profile, but his new Trio Expanse is strong and supple.

Bassist Matt Pavolka deserved all the solo space he got, and then some. I was flabbergasted to learn that although he dabbled in high school, he only got serious about the bass while at Berklee; he entered college on a trombone scholarship. Growing up in Bloomington, Indiana, Pavolka had a solid music education at home (his father was a professional trombonist) and in school (he studied with David Baker). His facility on his instrument, his easy navigation of the material, and the wealth of his ideas, proved he was well prepared for the moment. I have him on records by Ohad Talmor, Noah Preminger, Guillermo Klein and Alan Ferber, and was glad to hear him live for the first time.

I first met Alan Ferber’s twin brother Mark when he performed with Linda May Han Oh in Miro Sprague’s Trio in Greenfield in 2014, and it was great to spend some quality time with him. Ferber was looking at the 25th anniversary Magic Triangle Series book we produced and saw Alex Snydman in a crowd photo. He taught Alex in LA many years ago and didn’t know he grew up in western Massachusetts. I love those points of coincidence. Ferber was completely comfortable with the material, hitting every signpost with precision and understated flourish.

I had the sense that both Ferber and Pavolka, a generation younger than Ehrlich, relished the opportunity to work with a veteran whose career involves the best musicians of our time. Hearing him share jazz lore and personal stories about Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams and Julius Hemphill were precious.

Since retiring from Hampshire, Ehrlich has immersed himself in preserving the legacy of the great alto saxophonist, composer and conceptualist, Julius Hemphill. Both have a connection to St. Louis; Ehrlich was born there, and Hemphill moved there in 1968, where he helped launch the Black Artists Group. Ehrlich worked with Hemphill from 1978 until his passing in 1995, and spent a good part of the pandemic organizing Hemphill’s archives, now housed at NYU’s Fales Library. In 2021, Ehrlich curated, supervised and wrote extensive liner notes for The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony (New World Records), a critically acclaimed 7-CD box set of previously unreleased Hemphill material.

The night after their Easthampton performance, Trio Expanse played at Brooklyn’s Bar Bayeux. “The two gigs were a great shot in the arm for me,” Ehrlich wrote. “Great to play in front of the Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares family.” Ehrlich is now off to Poland, where he is recording with Michael Bates Acrobat and the Lutoslawski String Quartet. Hopefully, now that his scholarly labor of love is complete, Ehrlich can turn his attention back to the stage, where he continues to dazzle.

Spiritualized: Andrew Lamb & Newman Taylor Baker at The Blue Room

Although artists like Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams had incorporated religious themes into their music for decades, the concept of “spiritual jazz” gained steam after 1965 when John Coltrane released his epic, A Love Supreme. At the same time, artists like Albert Ayler, Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders were reaching for the ecstatic in their quest to imbue the music with spiritual uplift.

Tenor saxophonist Andrew Lamb is cut from that same cloth. The 64 year old tenor player follows in the hallowed footsteps of those ancestors, as well as musicians like Lonnie Liston Smith, Azar Lawrence and Don Cherry. Lamb’s performance with drummer Newman Taylor Baker on Saturday, December 3 gave us new insight into the power of sound to cleanse and renew the soul.

Their hour long flight at CitySpace’s Blue Room in Easthampton was an unvarnished, unbridled and unapologetic foray into the free jazz universe; days later, the vibrations still reverberate. The unleashed energy had a cleansing effect on this listener; it was catharsis by fire music.

Baker began the evening in a low patter that built towards Lamb’s entrance, which was rough and full-bodied. That pattern held throughout the performance: a solo statement on drums, then the saxophone would join. Perhaps it was a stamina thing. Lamb moved slowly and sat down when not playing.

When he was playing, the music bounced off the room’s tin ceiling and swirled around the space with no need for on-stage amplification. A fusillade of notes, covering the entire range of the horn, came with little mooring to mode or melody until well into the concert, when Lamb started to testify with the blues at his back.

But within the gale force was a softness, expressed especially by Baker, who used nuance and subtlety during much of his alone time. He played the drums by hand for an extended period, creating swing patterns at modest volume. He slapped his thighs, arms and chest, a technique called “hambone”, at an even lower volume. At a whisper, he made his cymbals ring celestially. We listened.

Baker, who turns 80 next year, has led a full life in music. He has recorded extensively with Billy Harper, Matthew Shipp, Henry Grimes and Billy Bang, and has history in music theater, having collaborated with Diedre Murray on multiple projects, including the Obie Award winning, “Running Man”. Other theater credits include work with Ntozake Shange, Leroy Jenkins, Jeanne Lee and Henry Threadgill.

Baker was in Threadgill’s Sextett in the late 1980s. He told me that after getting off the road with Threadgill, his chops would be noticeably better. Reading down complicated drum parts, learning patterns he wouldn’t necessarily have come up with on his own, expanded his vocabulary, which he brought to other situations.

Until he discovered the washboard in 2010, Baker was the quintessential side man. His deep dive into this 19thcentury tool of drudgery gave him an opportunity to organize his own concept. Using expended shotgun shells on four fingers of each hand, customizing the physical instrument and adding microphones, effects pedals, and amplifiers, Baker has extended the washboard language, which he’s used in all manner of jazz, world, blues and new music contexts.

Andrew Lamb is a special individual. He is soft spoken and full of love. His spiritual essence is unassuming, but palpable. His playing felt like a quest, a search for attainment. Tracing a lineage through saxophonists like Charles Gayle, David S. Ware, Frank Lowe and back to Coltrane, Lamb intoned cascading lines of psalm-like notes, playing with energy and feeling.

Growing up in Chicago and Jamaica, Queens, he alluded to being different than most children, and being bullied repeatedly for it. He told me that one of the reasons he loved to play football, was it provided a socially sanctioned way of exacting pay back to his tormentors. Lamb is quick to credit the Creator in liner notes and in conversation, and although he is by no means ascetic, he has a religious air about him that fits him naturally. Now residing in Nyack, NY with his wife, Lamb has forged his spiritual stance through plenty of real world experience.

He has worked steadily, if quietly over the years. He first came to my attention in the mid-1990s with the release of Portrait in the Mist, a wonderful Delmark recording featuring Warren Smith (on vibes), along with Wilber Morris and Andrei Strobert. Subsequent recordings on Engine and NoBusiness Records kept him on my radar. He had a critical reputation but was only peripherally in the public eye, making him a perfect candidate for inclusion on the Jazz Shares schedule.

The joy of being able to provide an appreciative audience, some money and respect to artists like Andrew Lamb and Newman Taylor Baker, is why we do what we do.

“A World of Piano” in our Corner of the Universe

“There are eighty-eight keys on a piano and within that, an entire universe,” wrote pianist and writer James Rhodes. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Valley audiences heard three distinct points in the piano macrocosm, as Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares presented “A World of Piano” at the Arts Trust in Northampton. Lafayette Gilchrist (Nov. 17), Ron Stabinsky (Nov. 18) and Marilyn Crispell (Nov. 19) each gave breathtaking solo recitals, filled with intrepid improvisation at all levels of intensity and complexity.

“A World of Piano” was a revival of a series I first produced for the Northampton Center for the Arts in 1995 (Jaki Byard, Stanley Cowell, Paul Bley) and every year from 2003 to 2012. After a final concert by Dave Burrell in 2013, the Center lost their Old School Commons space and the series went dormant. Until now. Kelly Silliman, Program Director of NCA, was excited to partner with Jazz Shares to bring the series back to life, and so we began the further exploration of the piano-sphere.

I had known Lafayette Gilchrist primarily through his work with the great tenor saxophonist and bass clarinetist David Murray, with whom he has worked since the turn of the century. “He plucked me from obscurity,” Gilchrist told me. The long time Baltimore resident played with rhythmic assurance in multiple styles, much of it imbued with the blues. His playing brought to mind Jaki Byard and Dave Burrell, two expansive pianists who draw from the entire history of jazz. I loved his tendency to play a phrase then stop for a split second, adding drama and giving our ears a chance to catch up. It made me think of Artur Schnabel’s words, “The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides!” His program of originals was full of ear catching melody drawn from the piano lineage. Gilchrist is a beautiful soul, open and easy, and he made lots of friends on his first tour through New England, which also included stops in Boston and Portland, Maine. Thanks to jazz protector Ann Braithwaite for her help in organizing his visit.

Ron Stabinsky, unfamiliar to the vast majority of concertgoers, is best known in the jazz world for his work with avant-garde trumpeter Peter Evans and Moppa Elliot’s ensemble, Mostly Other People Do the Killing. For the past four years, he has been a member of the influential rock band the Meat Puppets, and is one of the most in-demand classical pianists in central Pennsylvania. Stabinsky, who possesses enormous technical skill and plays convincingly in many genres, is a charming and disarming music nerd. From the stage, he told us he was going to improvise like he does at home, and not like he is performing for an audience. He seemed to be able to play whatever was in his head, which was by turns, florid, eruptive, swinging and emotive. His work straddled contemporary music, romantic-period classical, blues, swing and other styles. He ended the program by playing two of his favorites: Horace Silver’s “Peace” and Thelonious Monk’s “Introspection”. Stabinsky is a long-time fan of “A World of Piano”, having made the four-hour trip from his home near Scranton to see pianists Matthew Shipp, Cooper Moore and Dave Burrell, along with his Northampton friend, Dick Moulding. “I really can’t put into words how deeply I enjoyed playing on this reintroduction of my favorite piano series,” Stabinsky wrote. Even though his visit was short, (he returned home after the show for an early Puccini rehearsal), the chance to meet his partner Mary, and his friend Doug, gave us a chance to get some insight into a really nice, very talented individual.

Marilyn Crispell is also a fan of the piano series. She played it in 2004, and for the last two years she’s been a dues-paying member of Jazz Shares. Her protean talent was on display at 33 Hawley St., as she wowed a crowd of 75 with her piano explosions. Shareholder Ron Freshley told me he felt the vibrations through his chair. But there were also periods of aching beauty, reinforcing Frederick Chopin’s insight that, “After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.” Her improvisations seemed fully formed, as coherent as any written music, with ideas coming in torrents. Crispell is a self-effacing person. Her hair, like that of her upstate New York neighbor Carla Bley, obscured her face while she played. Her preference to angle the piano and lower the stage lights, emphasized her modesty. When Jazz Shares live streamed her trio, Dreamstruck in October, 2020, she insisted the cameras focus on her hands. Long-time Jazz Shares member Julie Orfirer’s solution to the lack of “face time”: “I just closed my eyes and followed the paths.”I love that Crispell’s demure on stage demeanor sits so comfortably with her loud, disruptive playing. Priscilla Page and I are so happy to call her a friend.

Gilchrist and Crispell stayed at chez Siegel/Page, and Jazz Shares board members Nancy Goldstein and Marta Ostapuik had the musicians in their homes for delicious pre-concert meals. We are western Mass. ambassadors, ensuring our region remains a welcoming place for cutting edge creative musicians, and their music. Three concerts in three days gave us a needed boost of piano bliss, which we hope to continue annually.