Paying Tribute: Terry Jenoure & The Portal

Well, another kickoff concert to begin another Jazz Shares season. But if presenting our first event of Season 15 was not exciting enough, the concert also served as a crowning achievement in Terry Jenoure’s celebrated career. Her septet, The Portal, unveiled the world premiere of “Unlocked”, delivering a riveting performance before a standing room audience at the Northampton Arts Trust on September 12.

The Portal: Terry Jenoure (violin, vocals), Angelica Sanchez (piano), Wayne Smith (cello), Avery Sharpe (bass), Joe Fonda (bass, flute), and Reggie Nicholson (drums), formed during the pandemic in 2020, first as three smaller units (Sanchez and TJ/Sharpe, Smith and TJ/Fonda, Nicholson and TJ), before coming together as a sextet on Letters from Papa (2023). For this project, Jenoure added Brandon Ross (guitar), a dear friend and trusted colleague for over 50 years. In fact, all these musicians are friends with long interlocking histories. In a wonderful article by Bill Shoemaker in Point of Departure, Jenoure talked about how clarinetist John Carter taught her “how to assemble people who had a heart connection.”

Love and community were the dominant themes of the evening. A majority of the 140 folks crammed into the Flex Space were friends of the musicians. All but Nicholson live, or have lived in the Pioneer Valley. The producers, Glenn Siegel and Priscilla Maria Page, count Jenoure among their closest friends; the rest of the ensemble are also close compadres.

“Unlocked: Homage to the Prisoner and the Key That Frees”, pays tribute to Jenoure’s brother, Vinny, who passed away in June. The music and lyrics, written during a recent residency at The Blue Mountain Center (NY), referenced her brother’s rough end-of-life journey, his mental health challenges and especially his love affair with music, all infused with love and delivered with conviction.

The piece began with slabs of agitated cacophony, before settling into a mellower space as the spotlight moved from musician to musician for short solo features. It was a nice way to introduce us to each instrumentalist. Jenoure’s first vocal foray was a phantasmagoria of grotesque and riveting images, creating a disturbed world where bodies behave in all sorts of unusual ways. A later story, set to a Latin rhythm, focused on Vinny’s sublime relationship with music and his deep understanding of its power to move the soul. There were highly charged sections highlighting Jenoure’s Puerto Rican and Jamaican heritage, and moments of fractured swing as Jenoure seemed to conjured the spirits of Leroy Jenkins and Billy Bang, fellow violinists with whom she has long history.

The leader introduced the musicians to the contours of each composition during two rehearsals at the Institute For the Musical Arts, providing a loose framework for the band to work their magic. Fonda remarked how much more alive the material became in performance, and it was clear the ensemble was keyed in and keenly responsive. We heard music filled with pathos and virtuosity; Jenoure told me she felt her brother’s spirit in the room. The next day, the group did it all again for posterity in Warren Amerman’s West Springfield recording studio.

Jenoure is a widely published writer, with essays and articles in The Sun, buddy’s knife, and her own book, “Navigators: African American Musicians, Dancers, and Visual Artists in Academe”.  She’s an accomplished visual artist. Her dolls and illustrations have been shown widely, including at the Smithsonian and A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton. She conceived and starred in theater productions like “My Bronx” (Eggtooth Productions) and “Lydia On the Top Floor” (UMass). Next to her on Saturday, Jenoure had a table full of colored scarves, which she waved and crumpled in a kind of transubstantiation ritual for her brother. These props were a natural addition for someone so comfortable across multiple disciplines.

Except for a turn at the end, Sharpe stuck to electric bass, lending a 1970s vibe to the blues and salsa sections, especially. The instrumentation, basically a string ensemble with drums, was unique, and supported Jenoure’s voice in ways both delicate and provocative. The decision to form a band featuring violin, two basses, cello, guitar, piano and drums was not to create a particular instrumental voicing or fulfill some compositional imperative, but because those were the instruments her friends played. Being able to make music on a high level with those with whom you have a heart connection, is one manifestation of genius.