Friends Assemble: Amedola/Greenlief/Cline at The Parlor Room

About three-quarters of the way into the 80-minute performance by Scott Amendola (drums), Phillip Greenlief (reeds) and Nels Cline (guitar) at The Parlor Room on September 18, the mood turned from thorny energy to profound spiritual grace. Summoning the provocative uplift of John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler and other 1960s-era ministers of sonic healing, these three long-time West Coast comrades dialed down the cacophony and created an opened-hearted requiem for a dying world.

When bassist Trevor Dunn had to bow out of the tour at the 11th hour to be with his ailing mother, guitarist Nels Cline stepped into the breach. Greenlief had introduced Amendola to Cline in the 1990s, while all three lived in California. The drummer and guitarist have been close collaborators since, most notably as two-thirds of the Nels Cline Singers. Thirty year shared histories have their benefits: comfort with not knowing what comes next, and confidence that deep listening and experience will provide a road map. Such was the case on Thursday, as the trio manufactured meaning from chards of spiky electronics, braying saxophones and crackling drums.

Fans of Cline who were expecting the sweeping mood music of Lovers, the pristine duet filigree with Julian Lage, the infectious hooks of Wilco, or jazz licks heard on his latest project, The Consentrik Quartet, were rudely awakened. Instead they got  gnarly grit and audacious skronk layered on top of driving rhythms and abstract reeds. The juxtaposition of the music’s hard edge and Cline’s polite demeanor and generous spirit was startling. In the best jazz tradition, the 69-year old guitarist weaved superb stories. Over dinner, then breakfast the next day, we reveled in tales of his relationship with Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono and Duane Allman’s guitar, all delivered without ego or pretense. Cline is a humble superstar, completely open to the next musical adventure.

It was remarkable that Cline was free to participate in an eight city tour that took the band to New York, Philadelphia, Providence, Northampton, Portland, Keene, Bar Harbor and Potsdam. I began discussions with Amendola some 18 months ago to craft this concert, only to have to pivot a week out. Amendola, who studied at Berklee and lives in Berkeley, has been in the Bay Area for decades. From his home base, he launched his career with TJ Kirk (Charlie Hunter, Will Bernard, John Schott) in the 1990s, before hooking up with Cline later in the decade. Throughout his career, including on releases under his own name, Amendola has gravitated towards guitarists. In addition to Cline, Hunter, Bernard and Schott, he has recorded and toured with Henry Kaiser, Pat Martino, Jeff Parker, Elliott Sharp and Bill Frisell. Amendola’s use of electronics, which he plays through an amp and manipulates with pedals, lets him interact with guitarists on multiple levels. While it was sometimes difficult to differentiate Amendola’s electronics from Cline’s, his drumming was utterly distinct and delivered with rock and roll directness. 

One of Phillip Greenlief’s first recordings was Collect My Thoughts, a duo with Amendola, released on Vinny Golia’s L.A.-based Nine Winds label in 1995. Greenlief, who moved to Bar Harbor, Maine a couple of years ago, had been an integral part of the Bay Area creative music scene since the late 1970s, and has extensive history with SF-improvisers like Fred Frith, Jon Raskin, Lisa Mezzacappa, Gino Robair, Kyle Bruckmann and Trevor Dunn. He played alto and tenor saxophone and clarinet with controlled abandon, and his circular breathing allowed him to keep up with the uninterrupted flow of his bandmates. He asked if there are any high quality pipe organs in the Valley, laying the groundwork for a potential trio concert with Lantskap Logic, featuring organist Evelyn Davis and guitarist Fred Frith. Turns out there are a half-dozen beautiful pipe organs in Amherst, Northampton and Holyoke. More music ahead!

There is something reassuring seeing three old friends creating music together. From the stage, Greenlief told us that each night the music is different, yet the comradery and trust between them is a constant, and an enduring testament to the power of working relationships.

Tone Presence: Darius Jones Trio at the Shea Theater

Your sound makes you, you. Apart from phraseology and note choice, your sound is your benchmark, the personal stamp that distinguishes you from everyone else. Just as a person’s gait, fingerprint and facial expressions are unique, the timbre produced on your instrument can be a clear identifier. We rejoice in the distinctive sounds coaxed from the alto saxophones of Paul Desmond, Johnny Hodges, Eric Dolphy, Sonny Criss, Oliver Lake and Arthur Blythe. You can add Darius Jones to that list.

Giovanni Russonello called Jones’ sound “widely dilated, yet so rough it could peel paint — he could make a living off his tone alone." It put me in mind of Terrence McKenna’s proposition, that “from a species perspective, the job of each individual is to be unlike anyone’s who’s living or has ever lived.”

The Darius Jones Trio, with Chris Lightcap (bass) and Jason Nazary (drums), kicked off season 14 of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares on September 13 at the Shea Theater with an incisive evening of original music. Having performed the previous two nights in Chicago (Sound & Gravity Festival) and New Haven (Firehouse 12), the Trio was primed to inhabit Jones’ malleable compositions; 90 of us listened in on their conversation.

The concert drew from the alto saxophonist’s latest release, Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye), with a series of distinct explorations that unfurled with unhurried intensity. On “We Inside Now”, Jones delivered long, plaintive notes that hung in the air like blue trails. He resisted the urge to speed the tempo or embellish the tune’s simple melody, opting instead to concentrate on that penetrating tone of his, moving from multi-phonic growls to notes of honeyed melancholy.

“Jones has a big, fleshy, lived-in tone, with a vibrato that owes as much to Johnny Hodges as it does to Albert Ayler,” Ed Hazell wrote in Point of Departure. “It’s defiant, vulnerable, proud, and weary; there is laughter and sobbing in it. He imbues simple melodies and phrases with huge emotional weight.”

“We Outside”, also began at a relaxed tempo before Lightcap and Nazary upped the ante by accelerating into a driving double-time with flecks of funk. Jones responded in kind with a fusillade of split-tones and staccato attacks. Without a microphone in sight, the trio filled the venerable Turners Falls venue with deep-hued vibrations.

Maybe because he is not as well-known as his bandmates, Jason Nazary was a revelation. The 41 year old drummer accompanied Jones on a Jazz Shares concert in 2017, and has worked with Jones for the better part of a decade in his trio and the cooperative quartet, Little Women. He also performed with the late Jamie Branch as Anteloper, and is part of Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones. His fills and accents were spot on, fresh and consistently devoid of cliché. Within the modest trio configuration, there was plenty of space for showy display, but Nazary never resorted to attention grabbing. For someone with copious experience with beats and electronics, Nazary seemed to revel in the acoustic sound of his instrument.

People still talk about Chris Lightcap’s Bigmouth concert in Greenfield in 2016. The same penchant for ear-grabbing hooks prevalent in his writing could be heard in his bass playing on Saturday. Situated between sax and drums, Lightcap was very much in the middle of things, and his resonate sound, abetted by a new Jazz Shares Markbass amp, gave us a harmonic anchor. His arco playing on “No More My Lord” dovetailed deeply with Jones’ careening wails. A bonus: we got to meet Lightcap’s son, Sebastian, a UMass student, at the show; we’ll see the bassist again in November with Jon Irabagon’s Quintet.

From the stage, Jones shared his thoughts and some history about, “No More My Lord”, known through Alan Lomax’s 1948 recording of Henry Jimpson Wallace at the Parchment Farm (MS) prison. Jones reflected on the brilliance of the music, the humanity of the person who created it, and the system of oppression that birthed it.

The career of the 47-year old saxophonist is advancing on multiple fronts. He is beginning his second year as Assistant Professor of Music at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. In 2024, he joined the Roulette Intermedium Board of Directors, and became a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble. His 2023 recording, fLuXkit Vancouver (its suite but sacred), was listed among the best releases of the year by NPR and The Wire, and he was featured on the cover of The Wire in April, 2024. His 13 recordings as a leader include compositions written for four voices, string quartet, small ensembles, and duets with Matthew Shipp. Darius Jones has big thoughts and large aspirations concerning music. Don’t be surprised to see him garnering major awards and prizes in the years ahead. His sound precedes him.

The Long, Winding Road: Two Brass Hit Plays Holyoke

The 24th and concluding concert of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares’ 13th season, featuring the cooperative quartet, Two Brass Hit, traveled a circuitous route to completion. The event, originally scheduled for January 16, hit its first speed bump when trumpeter Herb Robertson passed away suddenly on December 10. The concert was the brainchild of drummer Phil Haynes, and was to feature Robertson, fellow trumpeter Thomas Heberer and bassist Ken Filiano. Soon after Haynes enlisted Nate Wooley to replace Robertson, the drummer developed a serious health issue that forced a postponement. Finally, on June 18 at Holyoke Media the concert came to fruition. The spirit of Herb Robertson inspired some of the most impassioned playing of the year, and was the perfect note to end the season.

Subtitled “Herb Robertson Lives”, Two Brass Hit delivered a 70-minute clinic on the art of improvisation. After the show I asked Heberer if some of the material was worked out in advance. There were sections when the two trumpets swirled in harmonious, baroque-like counterpoint, which I was sure was pre-conceived. No, he told me, they were just listening and reacting to each other in real time.

Over his 40 year career, Haynes has a substantial history with the saxophone (Dave Liebman, Vinny Golia, Ellery Eskelin), and with strings (Drew Gress, Jim Yanda, Hank Roberts), but it seems he has developed a special relationship with the trumpet, and those who play it.

It began with trumpeter Paul Smoker (1941-2016), who was a mentor at Coe College in Iowa and the person most responsible for Haynes’ musical development and subsequent career success. Just after graduating in 1982, Haynes joined Smoker’s Trio. His recording debut with the Trio, QB, with Anthony Braxton, was named the #1 recording of 1985 by critic Kevin Whitehead. Young Haynes was soon part of  the composer’s cooperative, Joint Venture, (with Eskelin, Gress and Smoker), and continued to play with Smoker until his passing. He has made it his mission to keep the trumpeter’s legacy alive.

His relationship with Robertson spans 35 years and is also deep. “Herb Robertson revolutionized my approach to improvising,” Haynes wrote to bandmates before the concert. “I can listen back and hear my conceptual approaches before first working with Herbie – in Brooklyn, NY, around 1990 – and then everything I’ve done since.” Like Smoker, Robertson’s impact on the jazz world exceeds his place in the public eye. Here is the effect he had on Nate Wooley.

Wooley was the perfect stand in for Robertson. Although he didn’t employ Robertson’s bag of toys, his risk taking and off-the-chart chops were in keeping with the much missed New Jeresyan. A thought leader (see, Sound American) and a restless musician who has translated the Columbia Icefield into sound and reinterpreted Wynton Marsalis’ early Columbia recordings, Wooley never sounded less than amazing. There are things he does on his instrument that no one else can do, but his point is never to wow for wows sake, but to advance the music. He’ll be in Springfield on November 23 as a special guest with Jon Iragabon’s Quartet.

Thomas Heberer, Wolley’s equally gifted front-line partner, was a great match. They had played together in larger ensembles, but never in this intimate a setting. We remarked over dinner that while two tenor bands are common, two trumpet frontlines are rare, and when they do occur they are usually cutting contests. If you’re listening with eyes open it’s impossible not to compare players of the same instrument, but there was no hint of competition on Wednesday, only an energetic conversation that became deeper as the evening unfolded. At one point I opened my eyes wanting to know who was making a particularly arresting buzzing sound. Neither trumpeter had the instrument to his lips, and it took me a confused minute to realize Heberer was vocalizing. I’ve been beguiled by the German trumpeter since 2006 when he performed at UMass with the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra. I was further smitten when I heard him perform alone with a dancer at the Vision Festival some years ago.

Filiano is a fixture. Because he brings so much musicality and good spirit to every band he’s part of, he often gets invited to participate. He’ll be back in January with Vinny Golia’s Trio. In fact, Filiano and Haynes go back 30 years to their time together in the Vinny Golia-Paul Smoker Quartet. Without resorting to strict time keeping, the rhythm team kept the pulse strong and the environment rich. There was ample space for different subsets of the quartet to interact, giving everybody a chance to showcase their considerable talents.

Haynes played his chocolate-brown, custom-made Ayotte drum kit, coaxing rich, beautiful  tones that matched the dark shells. In addition to playing with brushes, sticks and mallets, Haynes struck his instrument with a set of plastic strips in each hand, creating a rumbling cacophony played with a refreshing lack of precision. He was a constant source of creative energy and having fun in the process.

"The straight line is godless and immoral" said the Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. He believed that straight lines, often found in architecture and rational design, were constricting and devoid of the organic qualities found in nature and the human spirit. The path leading to this first performance by Two Brass Hit was anything but straightforward, and the music we heard in Holyoke overflowed with twists and turns. Maybe because of that the music sounded fully ripe.