A Large Helping of Sound: David Sanford Big Band in Florence

It goes without saying, that organizing a concert for big band is a heavy lift. You don’t just pick up a saxophone, gather a few friends and blow. The logistics, not to mention the finances, are daunting. So if you are a composer and arranger in the 21st century, and your “instrument” is an aggregation of 20, your gigs are few and far between. Such is the fate of David Sanford, a lauded, but under recognized master of the large ensemble, who gave a life-changing concert at the Bombyx Center for Arts & Equity on Sunday. The event was part of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares’ 11th season.

David Sanford, the Elizabeth T. Kennan Professor of Music at Mt. Holyoke College, was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the highest recognition of artistic merit in the United States. But mention his name to the average jazz fan and you’re likely to get a blank stare. You will search in vain for Sanford’s name among the big bands in the Downbeat critic’s poll. But for my money, Sanford writes and arranges circles around better known ensembles led by Maria Schneider, Wynton Marsalis or Christian McBride. It has everything to do with exposure, of course. Sanford doesn’t have the resources of Jazz at Lincoln Center or the juggernaut that is the Maria Schneider Orchestra. Hopefully, the well-received release last year of A Prayer for Lester Bowie (Greenleaf), will help to elevate Sanford’s standing among big band royalty.

But on September 11, in sleepy Florence, Massachusetts, 180 of us heard an extraordinary mass of sound organized in extremely creative ways by the David Sanford Big Band. Drawing from jazz, rock, blues, funk and experimental music, Sanford’s writing had us leaning in with our ears pinned back.

In April at UMass, I presented Adam Rudolph’s GO: Organic Orchestra with Brooklyn Raga Massive. Rudolph’s 30-person ensemble emphasized strings, percussion and flutes, and floated through Bowker Auditorium on a world-music vibe. Sanford’s outfit was more like some hip, roaring Stan Kenton band: five trumpets, five low brass (trombones and tuba), five saxophones and rhythm section.

The energy tunes, including “poppit” and “Full Immersion”, brought us face to face with a powerful machine firing on all cylinders. The room was ablaze. On the latter tune, simultaneous tenor saxophone solos by Anna Webber and Lee Odom brought the house down.

There were lots of friends, family, colleagues and students of Sanford’s in the audience, who offered yelps of delight, dialogue, applause and laughter throughout the evening. “We love you, David”, rung through the sanctuary. In fact, it was a love fest all around. Sanford has long time relationships with many of the people in his band, about half who are original members from 2003. Some are among his oldest and closest friends. Others, like tubist Joe Exley, was a last minute COVID-related replacement. Lee Odom, who Sanford first heard playing at Ornette Coleman’s memorial, and Anna Webber, now living in Franklin county, are both more recent collaborators. Towards the end of the evening, Sanford introduced the members of the band with descriptions of his personal connection to each.

Then there is Hugh Ragin. The veteran trumpet player was a mentor of Sanford’s from his time in Colorado, and remains a valued collaborator. Sanford was deferential throughout the evening, happy to have his teacher on the bandstand. The 71 year old trumpeter led the band in his original, “The Moors of Spain”. Its catchy, loping melody was the most straight ahead piece on the program, and a perfect respite to the density of many of Sanford’s compositions. Ragin, who has extensive performing credits with Roscoe Mitchell and David Murray, was a dynamic soloist throughout.

There were other outstanding soloists, including trombonist Jim Messbauer and alto saxophonist Ted Levine. But the real star was the band itself, who executed Sanford’s vision as one precise and supple unit. They performed the night before in New York as part of the Festival of New Trumpet (FONT). If they sounded this good after one rehearsal and one concert, imagine if they were criss-crossing the country like the big bands of yesteryear, bringing the joy to towns large and small.

Carried Away: Jazz Shares Season Begins with Pneuma

The range of the clarinet is similar to the human voice, so one might worry that an ensemble of three clarinets and voice would have a limited palate. But as 50 listeners witnessed at the Parlor Room on Friday, in the right hands, that configuration can yield expansive results.

Clarinetists James Falzone, FrançoisHoule, Michael Winograd, and vocalist Ayelet Rose Gottlieb are Pneuma. They kicked off the 11th season of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares in Northampton, MA on August 19, with a deep, 60-minute concert of chamber jazz.

Pneuma means “wind”, “breath”, or “spirit” in ancient Greek, and Gottlieb intoned wind-inspired poetry by Christina Rossetti, Izumi Shikbu and Forugh Farrokhzad that projected a sense of longing and bitter sweetness. “Do you hear the darkness blowing?”, asked Farrokhzad, the late modern Iranian poet. “Who has seen the wind?” asked Rosetti, the English poet from the 19th century.

I appreciated that both Gottlieb and Falzone recited the poems beforehand, giving us clear access to the words. Gottlieb’s voice soared above the clarinets to deliver lyrics, then blended with them to spar and parry. Her beautiful instrument had depth and gravitas, and she was unafraid to let loose, producing worlds of wordless sound that brought feelings of freedom and playfulness. Gottlieb told us she conceived of Pneuma while grieving the loss of her grandfather, who played clarinet. Her piece “Passing Through/Lament for Harry”, was the impetus to form the band.

The Jerusalem-born vocalist now lives in Montreal, and has closely collaborated with John Zorn, Anat Fort, and the string quartet ETHEL. Her latest project, “13 Lunar Meditations: Summoning the Witches”, is a song cycle about the moon and our connection to it, based on writings by women and girls from around the world. Over dinner, Gottlieb told me how as a 16-year-old in Israel she was forever changed after meeting the legendary saxophonist and educator Arnie Lawrence, who brought her into his band, taught her to be a professional singer, and shaped her fearless approach to music making.

Michael Winograd is regarded as one of the best working klezmer clarinetists today. He performs regularly in Amherst at Yidstock, the Yiddish Book Center’s annual festival of new klezmer music. Like many in the field, Winograd is funny and quick-witted. He joked that he wanted to include “Someday My Blintz Will Come” on the evening’s set list. He told us he has always wanted to form the “Make a Knish Foundation”. His formative teacher was Sid Beckerman, whom he met at Klez Kamp as a 14-year-old. Winograd is a serious musician with chops, whose Semitic note bending added complexity and a certain melancholy to the stew.

During a wonderful clarinet workshop at the Northampton Community Music Center organized by Evan Arntzen, François Houle ran down his list of influences, which included John Carter, Perry Robinson, Don Byron, and especially Bill Smith, who was a mentor. Houle was born in Montreal and has lived in Vancouver since 1990. He is the only band member who didn’t attend the New England Conservatory of Music; he went to McGill University and Yale. The bulk of his best work can be found on Songlines, a label also based in Vancouver. Like Winograd and Falzone, Houle is a master technician, whose off-the-chart facility shone during sections of rapid, jagged, poly-tonal unison playing. That brilliance sat in winning combination with his emphasis on tone and emotion.

I first met James Falzone in Chicago in 2013. Since then, Jazz Shares has presented his six-piece celebration of the clarinet family: the Renga Ensemble (2014), his Arabic and European folk music quartet: Allos Musica (2015), and his duo with bassist/vocalist Katie Ernst: Wayfaring (2019). Each project was distinct in instrumentation and orientation, but shared a commitment to mixing authentic music traditions in fresh ways. Falzone has a natural-born divinity that shines. He is a first rate teacher (now a Dean at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle), a creative and immensely talented musician, and a kind and considerate human being. I hope to see him every few years forever.

Except for a few brief introductory solos, it was difficult to tell who was playing what, so I closed my eyes and made it impossible to find out. The resulting sound became one living, breathing thing that vibrated through heart and soul. This concert, postponed by the pandemic, came right on time for me, and was an auspicious start to another season of live music.

Mixing it Up: Pitching and Presenting Jazz

Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares is in discussion to bring Knuckleball to western Massachusetts next season. Led by cornetist and composer Stephen Haynes, the band of six horns and a drummer conjures images of slow, dancing baseballs moving every which way. The allure of the knuckleball, which makes life so difficult for both batters and catchers, is its unpredictability, and the thrill that comes from not knowing what direction it will take.

And it’s not just knuckleballs that are unpredictable. The whole art of pitching seeks to obfuscate and surprise. Here is how Amherst poet, Robert Francis described it:

His art is eccentricity, his aim How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at, His passion how to avoid the obvious, His technique how to vary the avoidance. The others throw to be comprehended. He Throws to be a moment misunderstood. Yet not too much. Not errant, arrant, wild, But every seeming aberration willed. Not to, yet still, still to communicate Making the batter understand too late.

Jazz improvisers adopt a similar stance, and the more I think about it, my own programming philosophy owes something to that attitude. Like the musicians I present, throughout my career I’ve tried to “avoid the obvious and vary the avoidance”.

I feel sorry for presenters who won’t challenge their audience, who can’t introduce lesser-known artists or those breaking with convention. These producers are often hemmed by financial concerns, the need to put “butts in seats”. Their first option is always the safe choice. When you’re forced to “give the people what they want”, you can only get what they already know. It’s easier to hit a ball when you know what’s coming, but good hitters can put the ball in play even when fooled by a pitch.

I pitched in high school (William Cullen Bryant in Astoria, Queens) and college (SUNY, Oneonta). Maybe that explains my inclination to keep audiences off balance by mixing in curve balls. The cadre of folks who regularly come to my concerts have learned to embrace the unfamiliar; they don’t always need to know what’s coming next. I remember the great New Orleans clarinetist, Alvin Batiste describing the learning process as moving, “from the known to the knowable.” As I see it, my job as curator is to expand horizons, to move people beyond their already known.

I suppose everyone gets labeled, and long ago I became the “avant-garde jazz producer in western Mass”. So every once in a while I’ll present someone like Steve Kuhn or Chris Anderson, Queen Esther, the Curtis Brothers or Ricky Ford, artists firmly rooted in “the tradition”.

Just when folks think they have me pigeonholed, I’ll present Dave Douglas with a “country” singer (Aoife O’Donovan) playing Christian hymns, ragtime piano player Reginald R. Robinson or Joe Fonda’s From the Source, featuring a tap dancer (Brenda Bufalino) and a vocal body healer (Vicki Dodd). You know, throw a change-up.

I love when we get to hear an instrument not part of the typical jazz lexicon: a theremin (Rob Schwimmer) or a contra bass saxophone (Anthony Braxton) or a harpsichord (Jamie Saft). We got to see an ondes martenot (Suzanne Farrin) for the first time, as part of Sarah Manning’s Underwater Alchemy. After we’ve presented a string of conventional rhythm sections, out of left field we’ll throw a clarinet sextet (James Falzone’s Renga Ensemble) or a bass duo (The Marks Brothers). We’ve presented concerts of solo soprano saxophone (Sam Newsome) and solo drums (Milford Graves, Andrew Cyrille, Tyshawn Sorey), as well as large ensembles playing free jazz (William Parker’s Little Huey and Alan Silva’s Celestrial Communication Orchestras). Our listeners are intrepid, they are prepared for anything.

If you rely on the majority of jazz presenters and radio programmers as your sole source of information, you could come away believing that little has changed in 60 years. That presumption is patently false, of course, and robs the music of the vibrancy that is its hallmark. Pitchers who only throw fastballs when they are behind in the count will not be successful, and jazz that is trapped in stylistic boxes will lose the rule-busting urgency that has been fundamental throughout its history.

Some of the most exciting new developments in jazz have taken place at the intersection of African-American music and various traditions outside the U.S. That’s why I’ve made an effort to hire musicians who can introduce us to scales, instruments and musical practices from the Philippines (Susie Ibarra’s Electric Kulintang), India (Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Dakshina Ensemble, Joel Harrison’s Multiplicity), the Balkans (Slavic Soul Party), China (Jason Kao Hwang’s Burning Bridge), Cuba (Michaele Rosewoman’s New Yor-uba, Román Díaz’ Rhumba Ensemble), Iraq (Amir ElSaffar’s Two Rivers Ensemble), Brazil (Rob Maszuk’s Sao Paolo Underground),Japan (Miya Masaoka’s Brew), Guadeloupe (David Murray and the Gwo-Ka Masters) and Europe (Instant Composer Pool Orchestra, Uri Caine’s Goldberg Variations). It doesn’t all swing like Basie, but it expands your mind.

I would often listen to WMUA, the student and community radio station at UMass, and come upon extraordinary sounds. I was so grateful for programs like Michael Ehlers’ “The Transnational Jazz Conspiracy” and Max Shea’s “Martian Gardens” that insisted on the latitude to be fearless in their programming. Nothing was off-limits, everything was on the table: from the outer realms of sound, to beauty and mystery of breathtaking proportions. They programmed for listeners with open minds, folks who didn’t need to like everything or understand it all.

I claim that same curatorial freedom when presenting live music. I’ve always wanted to be the guy who could throw any pitch at any time.