Bigmouth Sighted in Greenfield

How does music reach people? I’ve been asking myself that question since Chris Lightcap and his quintet, Bigmouth, connected with 100 people at the Arts Block in Greenfield on Thursday, April 21. It was the ninth concert in Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares’ fourth season.

Playing music from their two most recent Clean Feed releases, Deluxe (2010) and Epicenter (2015), the band had the rapt attention of all present. The audience reaction, which included lots of yelps, applause, unsolicited clapping (in clave) and a standing ovation, was one indication of approval. Post-show reaction and CD sales provided other gauges of success.

What was it about the music that so captivated us? The high level of musicianship was certainly one factor. All four sidemen are potent improvisers, first-call veterans who also compose and lead ensembles. The band: Tony Malaby and Chris Cheek, tenor saxophones, Craig Taborn, keyboards, Gerald Cleaver, drums, and the leader on bass, has developed an uncanny rapport after more than six years together. Their familiarity with the material helped and Lightcap’s repartee with the audience was relaxed and unforced.

But lots of the ensembles we present meet those criteria. What made this concert so memorable was the material. With the exception of the encore, Lou Reed’s All Tomorrow’s Parties, the compositions were penned by Lightcap. Though varied, the pieces all featured strong melodies, hooks that enabled us to follow and anticipate the contours of each song. Sometimes the melody was full blown; other times it was merely a repeated phrase or motif. The pieces were often anthemic and had this bursting quality, a full flowering that had a spiritual dimension. On more than one occasion I had the sensation of flying and felt a sense of becoming.

Another secret to their success was a kind of pop sensibility that is irresistible when stretched so creatively. It was interesting to note how closely the live performance adhered to the recording.

The two tenors interacted in delicious ways, finishing each other’s thoughts, twining around the compositional pole, engaged in harmony, sweet and tart. The sturdiness of each song allowed the soloists to stretch without having to worry about breaking the song structure. In fact, Malaby, who was masterful throughout, got the loudest reactions as he rose through the stratosphere.

The 46-year old Taborn is a modern master, regarded as one of the top pianists in jazz. His work on both acoustic piano and Rhodes provided color and rhythmic propulsion throughout the 80-minute performance. My one regret was the lack of solo space for drummer Gerald Cleaver, who has powered many of the best small groups of the past 15 years. His only solo turn was a brief foray with keyboard ostinato during the encore.

The band had performed the night before at Williams College, Lightcap’s alma mater. He told us that as an undergrad his mentor, Andy Jaffe (who was in attendance), took a van full of students to the very first Magic Triangle Series concert at UMass in 1990 featuring Steve Turre, Bob Stewart, Mulgrew Miller and returned two years later to see Ed Blackwell with Dewey Redman and Cameron Brown. Those early jazz experiences had a major impact on the young bassist.

Lightcap has absorbed the history and is giving us his version of the story, doing what the greats do.

Allos Musica Brings the World to Hampshire College

Between the shruti box, the harmonium, the accordion and circular breathing through the clarinet, James Falzone’s Allos Musica Ensemble had the drone down. Their concert, produced by Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares, filled Hampshire College’s Music Recital Hall with deep resonance on Thursday, April 14. On the shruti box travel case was the sticker “Drone Not Drones.” I liked that.

The shruti box, a small, bellowed drone instrument, is usually played with hands Falzone explained to Jason Robinson’s Amherst College students the next day, but since he needs both to play the clarinet, he conceived and commissioned someone to fashion a bike lock and foot pedal into a system that allows him to play it with his foot.

The 75-minute concert, attended by about 50, was super sonorous, filled with material from the Ensemble’s brand new recording, Gnossienne. The quartet performed three of Erik Satie’s Gnossienne, a series of traditional dance melodies from Brittany (far-west France, where Celtic influence is strong), music from the Balkans, West Africa and the Middle East, and originals by Falzone. The music, like Falzone’s lovely composition, "A Shadow for Thomas Merton", is clearly derived from specific musical traditions that have been mixed into a wonderfully complex casserole of distinct yet fully blended sound.

The extraordinary percussionist Tim Mulvenna, whose ‘kit’ included djembe, talking drum, (West Africa), bodhrán (Ireland), riq (Middle East), bendir (North Africa), bells and cymbals, approaches these traditional drums his own way. He has rigged snares on his bendir and he plays the instruments unconventionally.

All evening I marveled at the pianistic dexterity of his fingers, and other unconventional ways Mulvenna made contact with his drums. Once you have the tradition under your fingers, you are free to serve the demands of the music in creative ways.

Ronnie Malley, who grew up playing the considerable store of percussion instruments in his home before moving to electric guitar and finally the oud, shared his belief that all music instruction should begin with rhythm. I love this idea; it’s true there can be no great music without rhythmic surety. Malley’s performance on oud and vocals had a deep and melodious charisma about it.

Accordionist Jeremiah McLane lives in Sutton, Vermont, the only member of the band not from Chicago. His New England roots extend into extensive study of Celtic and French music (where he met Falzone) and of course the accordion itself. McLane told stories of dealing by Skype with a master Italian craftsman who was making an instrument for him, without benefit of a shared language.

When the conversation turned to Myron Floren, the legendary accordionist of the Lawrence Welk Show, Mulvenna said that he toured with Floren as a teenager. In his seventies, Floren would dust the youngsters by playing at impossible tempos. The accordion, which McLane reminded us, is a wind instrument, joined naturally in the family of sustained sound.

Falzone exists easily in multiple musical worlds. He visited last year when Jazz Shares produced the Renga Ensemble, his new music clarinet sextet. Allos Musica had a very different sound and effect. Falzone is actively involved with liturgical music, jazz, contemporary classical, pure improvisation and folk music from many places, and works often with artists from other disciplines. He blurs, smudges, uses sfumato to make disparate elements meld into one arresting body of work.

“Allos means ‘otherly’”, Falzone writes in the liner notes, “and the ensemble which bears its name has always been a medium through which I synthesize and amalgamate seemingly disparate musical worlds.”

The band’s deep study of traditional practice, combined with its crazy level of musicianship and erudition, meant that we got to have a true multicultural experience at Hampshire College. Thanks to Marty Ehrlich (a long-time hero of Falzone’s) for making it happen.

Bobby Bradford-Hafez Modirzadeh Quartet Makes History

The spirit of Ornette Coleman and Ed Blackwell was in the air throughout Hafez Modirzadeh and Bobby Bradford’s two-day Amherst residency. Their visit culminated with a Magic Triangle Series concert on Thursday, where tenor saxophonist Modirzadeh, cornetist Bradford, along with bassist Ken Filiano and drummer royal hartigan, transfixed 100 people in Bezanson Recital Hall with a transcendent 80 minute performance. Bradford, the 81-year old Los Angeles-based patriarch, was a dear friend and musical colleague of Ornette and Blackwell. Modirzadeh spent lots of quality time with Ornette, picking his brain and getting valuable feedback from the alto master. hartigan studied extensively with Blackwell at Wesleyan University.

So there was reverence for Ornette’s indomitable spirit and wonder at the elliptical nature of his thinking, and stories about the time he left his horn at an Italian airport with $50,000 dollars stuffed into the bell (returned safely), and the time Ornette followed someone’s smoking sax solo during a cutting contest by playing his horn with his right hand in his pocket.

The concepts of spirit and reverence were omnipresent during the visit, which also included a well-received class visit and concert at Amherst College, sponsored by Professor Jason Robinson.

During the Magic Triangle concert, hartigan, a 1981 UMass graduate, paid tribute to one of his mentors, Fred Tillis, with a touching speech. Dr. Tillis, responsible for much of the flowering of multicultural arts on campus and now 86, came to the stage to greet each musician. hartigan is a master of West African drumming traditions and began his composition, “Wadsworth Falls”, with an Asante rhythm and praise song, with Tillis’ name inserted. I teared up.

When I first contacted Modirzadeh at his Bay-area home about bringing a band to Amherst, he said he wanted to invite Bobby Bradford. I was thrilled because: 1) of his historical importance to the music; 2) he has never been to our area; 3) he has strong ties to two of my local heroes, Terry Jenoure and Marty Ehrlich; 4) his reputation for having enriched his Los Angeles jazz community for so long; 5) he can really play.

Over the two days, Modirzadeh displayed heartfelt deference, born not only out of health and energy concerns, but by the sheer thrill of spending an extended period of time with a respected elder. He peppered Bradford with lots of questions about Ornette among other subjects, and understood the significance of the occasion enough to professionally record both concerts.

Dennis Steiner’s Archive Project also preserved Thursday’s concert for posterity.

At a dinner in their honor at the home I share with Priscilla Page, we had the opportunity to introduce the musicians to members of our music-loving community. Jenoure and Ehrlich got to catch up with their old friend (there’s now a photo of the three of them floating somewhere on the internet), while they reminisced about the extraordinary series of John Carter records they made together in the 1980s. When scheduling a Thursday band rehearsal at UMass or Amherst proved daunting, my home became the woodshed. I loved seeing how the music comes together.

Ping Chong, the great theater artist, who along with Talvin Wilks, is in residence with the UMass Theater Department preparing their new work, “Collidescope 2.0”, is a friend of Hafez and a long-time colleague of his sister, Leila. We all met up at the Hangar on Thursday after the performance and the theater rehearsal for one more celebration.

As the A-Team’s ‘Hannibal’ Smith used to say, “I love it when a plan comes together.” It’s not often that one’s expectations, fueled by months of anticipation and preparation, are fully realized. Yes, the music was sublime, but being close to the spirit that informs the music, that exceeded my wildest dreams. Another peak experience.