Rolling Jazz Thread 2023

dang that nduduzo album is fun

so the winter jazzfest marathons were a really good time, though riddled with a constant sense of FOMO. I was talking to a friend who commented that the experience forced you to decide if you wanted to hear new artists or just artists that you knew you already liked. I opted for the latter this go round.

Saturday night in Manhattan underlined how spreading out venues complicates the experience. Most of the early evening was centered downtown by Les Poisson Rouge, Bitter End and Zinc Bar, which means there was a barricade of bodies blocking the smaller clubs and making it nearly impossible to see smaller sets with Doug Wamble and Endea Owens.
The bigger ticket events at LPR were pretty satisfying tho: Immanuel Wilkins set focused almost entirely on his first album.
Donny McCaslin with Jason Lindner, Tim Lefebvre and Mark Guiliana brought a fuckton of chaotic energy and skronk.
The Joel Ross set with the Parables ensemble (featuring Wilkins, Marquis Hill, Kalia Vandever and the superlative flutist Gabrielle Garo among others) was a lovely opportunity for individual exploration and some pretty melodies ("prayer" in particular is very memorable) but, much as when i saw this same set at BRIC jazzfest, i couldn't help but wish for more playing from Ross.
I regretfully called it an early night and missed the Lakecia Benjamin / Mobetta Brown doubleheader at City Winery in favor of pacing myself for the next few nights.

Sunday in Brooklyn was a bit more jampacked, starting out and centering primarily at the Williamsburg Opera House, a venue I've never been in. Capacious, well lit, very comfy, maybe a little too hot on the sound but a nice place to catch a show. I began with the last half of Black Lives from Generation to Generation, a melting pot supergroup of Andy Milne and Stephanie McCay and David Gilmore and EJ Strickland and like ten other people. Suitably raucous and spirited.
Next up was Julius Rodriguez, who put out one of my fave jazz albums from last year. His set was high speed and playful and multivalent, weirdly evoking Prince's Under the Cherry Moon for me. Very young, very excited crowd; I think this kid is going to be very big.
Brandee Younger played with a trio and tested out some new material that sounded downright transcendent.
I regretfully bailed from there early to try to catch a bit of Makaya McCraven's set at Supreme Ingredients, a 20 minute walk away that I recognized as located at the now departed Output once I got there. Absolutely overpacked. I ended up watching four really great songs from the stairwell.
Stumbled back to the Opera house with a stop by National Sawdust where Surya Botofasina was hosting a memoriam for Meghan Stabile and I stepped up to the balcony just as Ravi Coltrane took a five minute solo. Nice timing.
Got back to the Opera House in time for the latter 2/3 of Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn's Pigments. I was wondering how they'd pull this off live given that the (beautiful) album has long gaps of instrumental only work and Dawn is a bit of an attention draw. That led to some cognitive dissonance with Dawn in an inverted black tutu and a rhinestone balaclava shuffling at center during reflective synth sequences. She is, nonetheless, a star and sounded gorgeous. Probably could've used a multimedia projection to fill in some of the gaps though.
it's likely churlish and the apex of point missing to accuse the Sun Ra Arkestra of being disjointed but they seemed a bit out of it. 11.30 pm start time for a lot of that crew seems like elder abuse. Somehow Allen is still up there squealing, Knoel Scott is somersaulting on the stage, Tyler Mitchell is gamely plucking away at the bass solos. It was all slighly wonkier than usual and a bit logy but you get the moments with legends when you're available not when they're necessarily at their best.

for reference: https://www.winterjazzfest.com/marathon-map#/2023-01-13

Who else went?

I just simplify my FOMO by not going at all.

Donny McCaslin with Jason Lindner, Tim Lefebvre and Mark Guiliana
This would have been my go-to in the familiar names department.

They were raucous and banged around a lot. McCaslin commented how it had been a long time since the four of them had played together publicly and that he liked the "danger" of the combo.

I know i just missed this, but anything interesting happening in NY this friday or saturday? i’ll be in town, would be nice to check a set

Just looking now. David Murray at the Vanguard, maybe? Haven’t seen him in ages myself.

Or maybe The Houston Person Quintet at The Birdland Theater.

Or even Al Foster Quartet 80th Birthday Celebration at Smoke.

Those three in roughly increasing order of preference for me.

forksclovetofu - great report, thank you. You mentioned a few intriguing performers that I haven’t heard before. I’m gonna check out Julius Rodriguez first. Then probably Brandee Younger.

That new David Murray band - Marta Sanchez on piano, Luke Stewart on bass, Kassa Overall on drums - promises to be pretty great. Murray's usual thing is to take a band to the stage before bringing them into the studio, so I hope there'll be an album down the road.

I can’t see going uptown— Murray might be it, Saturday late show. Need to do a bit of coordinating before I commit tho—! I’ll be in Chinatown area from around 330-onward. Thanks for the advice!

tbh yr preferences are mine, too, but I like Murray and have never seen him live.

Cool, sounds like a plan!

Meaning, enjoy yourself! I doubt that I myself will be there.

Excerpts of this new Kenny Barron album are so damn good that I haven't yet caught many of Kevin Whitehead's words, though I gather that he likes it too:
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/16/1149021094/nea-jazz-master-kenny-barron-shines-playing-solo-on-the-sourc

Friday - Fucking astonishing lineup: https://roulette.org/event/improv-nights-a-tribute-to-derek-bailey-2/
Saturday - Shara Lunon (vocals, electronics) Jennifer Choi (violin) Nate Wooley (trumpet) James Brandon Lewis (tenor sax) Oscar Noriega (clarinets) Shahzad Ismaily (bass and electronics) Ches Smith (drums, vibraphone, electronics) at The Stone

For Julius Rodriguez, try
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bsH3DjCjaA

For Brandee, try
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCNqhzkSk58

That Roulette set lineup btw is:
John Zorn sax
Bill Frisell guitar
Jim Staley trombone
Dave Taylor bass trombone
Laurie Anderson voice, violin, electronics
Mary Halvorson guitar
Ikue Mori electronics
Craig Taborn piano
Joel Ross vibes
Brian Marsella piano, synth
Brandon Lopez bass
Kate Gentile drums

$25 ticket!

hooooly shit

Wow

it's like going to Big Ears but in pill form

my bad, that's the Thursday line up. Here's friday and saturday. I'm likely going saturday.

JANUARY 20
John Zorn sax
Bill Frisell guitar
Matana Roberts sax
Caroline Davis sax
Mary Halvorson guitar
Wendy Eisenberg guitar
Craig Taborn piano
Brian Marsella piano, synth
Patricia Brennan vibes
Henry Fraser bass
Brandon Lopez bass
Kate Gentile drums

JANUARY 21
John Zorn sax
Bill Frisell guitar
Caroline Davis sax
Immanuel Wilkins sax
Jim Staley trombone
Amir Elsaffar trumpet
Wendy Eisenberg guitar
Arturo O’Farrill piano
Patricia Brennan vibes
Henry Fraser bass
Jorge Roeder bass
Francisco Mela drums

I like that Saturday line-up. Haven’t seen Jorge in ages, outside of the occasional Julian Lage video. I guess he still lives in Brooklyn though.

Nate Chinen's take on jazzfest, looks like his journeys were similar to mine
https://www.wrti.org/arts-desk/2023-01-17/past-is-prologue-thrillingly-as-the-winter-jazzfest-marks-its-return

shoulda woulda coulda done this nublu set but ya gotta pace yourself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eepvgiUj9Bo

Shouldn't admit this but I've yet to make it to Nublu.

it's a nice space, good a/v, lots of room to move around and see the set from various viewpoints, artists clearly like being there, vibe has always been positive

I've always heard good things about it but ... I don't go to Brooklyn.

...or the LES, anymore.

lol, it's in manhattan!
http://nublu.net/

what's wrong with the lower east side exactly other than everything that still shouldn't stop you?
you don't do anthology any more fer instance?

But I probably will again, this year, I hope. Fellas, it's a new day!

Last time I went to Anthology Susan Sontag was still alive for me to see her there.

And Michael Musto was standing across the street. Hope I didn't end up in any blind listicle.

Which ILX0r etc etc etc?

What kept me away? Parenthood then pandemic. When I used to run into Morbius I would sheepishly sort of apologize that I couldn't keep up wiith his rate of filmgoing (anymore). He would smile and say "I can imagine, I can imagine."

Actually I went to the not-so-lower East Side a few months ago to use that week's MUBI GO ticket.

I was confusing it with National Sawdust, which I also have yet to visit.

NS can put on a great show
let's get you out this year

Something to look forward to. I'm in!

Probably should follow some of these places on social media.

I did sometimes get out to Barbès and especially to Shapeshifter, both of which I should also follow, I guess. And to my friend's Tuesday night jam session that is now at...Bar Bayeux...but used to be...somewhere else.

Halyards

And before that, Fifth Estate.

Part of me wants to say that the last time I was there was exactly seven years ago, so I could ask Ben Monder about Bowie and Tony V, but I probably went a few times after that.

Okay I'm done.

We now return this thread to its regularly scheduled content.

I went to Nublu once or twice; saw the Hedvig Mollestad Trio there about seven or eight years ago, probably.

they've remodeled

I admit that I find the name “NuBlu” so off putting that I would have a hard time walking into the place. Why that stupid name!

she's kind of a kook, isn't she? i've liked some of her music in the past

I listened to the JD Allen record that unperson mentioned in his recent column, it is phenomenal and moody, perfect for my bike ride on this foggy Sunday. big recommendation.

Greg Osby has made his first album in 15 years. There is some discussion, in the linked article, of the #metoo-ish accusations which led him to leave Berklee.

“I had a beef with a school in Boston where I was teaching, and I had to get legal. I had to let the lawyers do the talking.” This is how Osby broaches the subject of his dismissal from the Berklee College of Music, which followed accusations of sexual misconduct.

Osby had joined the faculty at Berklee in 2008, as a full-time professor in the Ensemble Department. At some point he began dating a woman who’d previously been a student, though she was no longer enrolled. After the relationship ended, she brought her complaint to Berklee administrators, claiming that he had pressured her for sex. Osby resigned in 2012, and at the time he decided not to contest the charges.

This is where the situation might have remained, if not for a story in the Boston Globe on Nov. 8, 2017, during the first wave of coverage around the #MeToo movement. The article, by Kay Lazar, a public health and accountability reporter, bore the attention-grabbing headline ‘Berklee let teachers quietly leave after alleged sex abuse, and pushed students for silence.’ Osby, having granted Lazar an hour-long interview, was damningly cited in the piece.

“Only an idiot would sleep with students, and I am not an idiot,” read the most egregious of his quotes. “I would not do that. But after they graduate, it’s open season.” Another quote implied that the former student wasn’t attractive enough to be a credible accuser. Osby was swiftly renounced on social media. At a moment when entire industries were beginning to reckon with systemic problems — most pointedly, the lack of consequences for sexual harassers and abusers — this was a story that resonated in jazz, and in the broader realm of music education.

...

Berklee, through its Office of Media Relations, declined to comment on Osby’s departure. But Osby — who says that during his four years on faculty, “I didn't write one new song, because I was that beat down” — spoke freely about the situation. Regarding his brief relationship with the former student, whose identity has not been disclosed, he says: “For better or for worse, she became obsessed. And I withdrew, which didn't sit well; the idea that I didn't return any phone calls or emails really infuriated her. It got to the point where I was almost a victim of being stalked. And the last time that I saw her, she more than inferred that I would pay for it.”

After the Boston Globe story, Osby sought legal action against his accuser for defamation. The case was settled in his favor. “I kept every email, and I kept every text message,” he says. “So that's how my case was won. Because I had hard evidence. It wasn't my word.” By contrast, he says Lazar had made no recording of their interview — a crucial factor, in light of the incendiary quotes at the heart of the story.

Osby says he issued a complaint to the Globe, which invited him to submit an open letter. He did, but it never ran. He also sent in a statement to the paper’s “Fresh Start” initiative, which allows individuals to appeal older stories that have had an adverse impact on their lives. Again, the effort led nowhere. Absent a defamation lawsuit against the Globe, which Osby deems a financially ruinous prospect, that’s probably where it stands.

There has to be a better way to phrase that.

“He has a great knack for picking amazing younger musicians and grooming them,” Carrington affirms."

Moor Mother has a new album coming out on Anti- next year and the first track has just been released — it's a collaboration with Nicole Mitchell on flute and Nduduzo Makhathini on piano:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1OBIgFHFqQ

I'm in love with this brand new Ambrose Akinmusire album Owl Song, it's a trio with Bill Frisell (!) and Herlin Riley (!!). I've never been into him before, but I've had a big Frisell year and this fits perfectly with all the minimal, ambient Scandinavian jazz I've been listening to. And it's cool to hear Herlin in this mode (all the low end is left to the drums too, since there's no bass or piano).

Yeah, it's a really good record.

Heh glad you like it, I wasn't sure.

Also, I'd been ignoring these Youtube recommendations for a "StickPeople" podcast, but it turns out it's Lenny White + Mike Clark + David Garibaldi + Michael Shrieve + Greg Errico all interviewing another musician, which is really cool.

Also this Paul Motian documentary is on Youtube in full:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9DkKTbyobA