Eat Local: Dr. Julian's Yes Yes

The vibrancy of a jazz scene can be measured in multiple ways. Certainly by the amount of jazz activity in a given locale. Also by the number and quality of the local musicians who play the music. Audience is critical to maintaining a scene, and an infrastructure of presenters, venues, radio stations, record stores, and jazz instruction is critical to the health of a jazz ecosystem. By all those metrics, the Connecticut River Valley is thriving.

That point was driven home on September 24 when Dr. Julian’s Yes Yes performed for 70 listeners at the Community Music School of Springfield. Percussionist Julian Gerstin led a septet of outstanding, mostly local musicians: Jason Robinson (sax), Paul Austerlitz (bass clarinet), Haneef Nelson (trumpet), Andrew Wilcox (piano), Wes Brown (bass), and Ben James (drums). I consider our jazz catchment area to extend from Hartford to Brattleboro. Nelson and Wilcox live in Hartford, Robinson and Brown are in rural Massachusetts, and Gerstin and James hail from Brattleboro, so the full 80 mile traverse was covered. (Austerlitz lives in New York.)

“Yes to jazz, yes to world music,” Gerstin wrote. “Yes to tradition, yes to new ideas. Yes to sophistication, yes to funk. Dr. Julian’s Yes Yes has it both ways.” The music consisted of smartly written originals by Gerstin, almost all of which had a Caribbean feel. The rhythms were mixed with a healthy dose of “soul jazz”, that 1950s era development pioneered by Horace Silver, Cannonball Adderley, Stanley Turrentine, Jimmy Smith and others, that melded hard bop, blues-tinged funk and dance-like rhythms into a winning formula. The septet leaned in to the recipe and delivered a fervent, yet polished 70 minutes of music.

Gerstin is an ethnomusicologist with a PhD from UC Berkeley who has studied the folk traditions of Ghana, Cuba, Brazil and especially Martinique. He has taught at Wesleyan University, Clark University, Marlboro College and Keene State College, and is closely associated with the Vermont Jazz Center, where he teaches, leads ensembles and serves as Board President.

On one piece he played tanbou, a Martinican drum he sat on. The instrument had a beautiful, earthy tone and it was fascinating to watch him alter the drum’s pitch with his barefooted heel. He also played shekere, a dried gourd covered in a hand-knotted net of beads, but mostly he performed on congas, which he played with precision and panache.

The three piece horn section, often playing in unison, delivered a real punch. Their lines were piquant, elastic and propulsive, with modern and often surprising horn solos layered on top. I heard Robinson quoting Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” and channeling Coltrane, whose centennial was the day before. Nothing beats the sound of a bass clarinet, and Austerlitz, who also has a PhD in ethnomusicology, was masterful. Nelson, who has his doctorate in composition from The Hartt School, was a last minute replacement for Don Anderson. It always seems like a miracle to a non-player like me that one can nail charts with so little prior exposure to the material. I guess that’s what makes you a professional.

Wes Brown, whose professional experience includes work with pianists Earl “Fatha” Hines and Anthony Davis and saxophonists Bill Barron and Anthony Braxton, was indispensable to the music’s forward momentum. Not withstanding a feedback issue that only surfaced during the performance, Brown’s deep round tone and island funk-filled note choices raised the bandstand.

Over the last 18 years, Jason Robinson has done as much to invigorate our local jazz scene as anyone. From his perch teaching at Amherst College, he has instigated tons of formal and informal musical connections. He’ll play the music of Julius Hemphill with Marty Ehrlich’s saxophone quartet on November 8 in Easthampton, and present his 17-piece Janus Orchestra in Florence on February 6, paying tribute to another Valley icon, Yusef Lateef.

We opened our 15th season two weeks ago with Terry Jenoure’s Septet, The Portal. Jenoure and bassist Avery Sharpe have lived in western Massachusetts for many years, and cellist Wayne Smith, guitarist Brandon Ross and bassist Joe Fonda used to live in the Valley. Opening our season with two bands with such deep local roots says all you need to know about the health of our little corner of the jazz universe.