theloniousbach

[theloniousbach]

LISTENING TO THE VILLAGE’S ELDERS

GEORGE COLEMAN with Spike Wilner, John Webber, and Joe Farnsworth, SMALLS JAZZ CLUB, 22 JUNE 2025, 6 pm set

BERTHA HOPE with Ben Wolstein and Eric Binder, MEZZROW, 23 JUNE 2025, 6 pm set

It is highly unlikely, actually, that either GEORGE COLEMAN or BERTHA HOPE live in Greenwich Village. It is but slightly more possible, but no sure thing, that the Village is the center of jazz in New York City (Brooklyn? Uptown?) and that they could stand as elders of that broader metaphorical village. But they are elders, 90 and 88, respectively and still, on the basis of these gigs on successive nights doing strong vital work.

GEORGE COLEMAN plays about quarterly at SMALLS JAZZ CLUB and owner Spike Wilner puts together a worthy band including claiming the piano chair. He reported on social media that Coleman had called with set list ideas and was raring to go. He had had a haircut and probably had the remaining ones dyed. He plays sitting and doesn’t see well if at all, but he plays marvelously still and doesn’t look like they woke him up from in front of the television in the day room at the nursing home. The years fall away when he plays—his solos spin on and on and he can’t help but start playing along on the second choruses of his band members’ solos. He looks to advance the music and, in particular, his engagements with drummer Joe Farnsworth underscored how rhythmic his playing is. He’s from Memphis and played with both Ray Charles and BB King, so the blues are deep and he swings hard. Of the tenor players between John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter in the Miles Davis Quintet, he was both more recorded and probably less esteemed than Hank Mobley, Sam Rivers, and Joe Henderson, each of whom composed and led important albums. That’s heady company and in any case Miles saw him as the best fit. Here he is 60 years later, still playing, with vigor and invention.

I did not know that BERTHA HOPE was still active, but, though there was a cane leaned against the wall and she got lost in one story, she was spry and did not look like she’d be 90 next year. She checked her phone for tune ideas from some memo/note there and not on a piece of paper or napkin. She too is still at it more than 60 years later, husband Elmo died in 1967. He was a quirky protege of Thelonious Monk and is often mentioned with Herbie Nichols and, yes, BERTHA HOPE. She played I Hear A Rhapsody well, fitting the tune’s structures, but it was mostly her own tunes which were rich and complex without losing an unrelenting swing. Though not as distinctive as Monk, I could hear the lineage, most importantly in her independent conceptions. She, like the others, still sounds fresh with innovations still to absorb. It was only on the first tune but, instead of solos or showcases, she traded ones. Like Coleman, she was thoroughly engaged in what her solid band was doing. They were solid, well able to hang with her but she was the one with far more to say.

Hope was until know just a name I’d read or heard on the occasional recording. But here she was vibrant and alive. Like Coleman, she was irrepressible.

[theloniousbach]

FAVORITES, OLD AND NEW, AT MEZZROW

LORIN COHEN with Larry Fuller and Carmen Intorre, 22 JANUARY 2025, 7:30 and 9 pm sets

GEORGE CABLES with Sean Conly and Jerome Jennings, 20 JUNE 2025, 6 pm set

I saw LORIN COHEN and his bandmates on Wednesday at Blue Strawberry here in St Louis. That was billed as Larry Fuller’s gig and this one was equally so the bassist’s, but it was the same top notch band of players who so impressed me this week. Live in person was of course better as their collective roar was palpable, but the stream showed their power and, if anything, just how prominent COHEN is. That is, he was bigger in the mix than Fuller and drums are always higher in the Mezzrow stream. It is fun to consider Fuller et al in the same synapse as dear old GEORGE CABLES who also has a full, robust touch that drives well curated tunes.

So, a balance sheet:

—Piano—GEORGE CABLES is a revered figure, a veteran and a survivor, whom I enjoy seeing every chance I can. So it is a testimony to how impressed I am with Larry Fuller that I make the comparison. Cables’ opening Echo of a Scream from his new album and inspired by a David A Siquirro’s MOMA painting had a left hand figure that drove things and Fuller does that too with Cohen to sink up with.

—Bass—LORIN COHEN was more of a force than Sean Conly. Conly is a steady pro, but, even on Fuller’s gig live on Wednesday, COHEN is relentless and indefatigable.

—Drums—Intorre was more of a presence on the stream than live, but Jerome Jennings does nice little things, a bit of cymbals here and a whole tune done with just his hands.

—Tunes—Cohen had compositions which were nice vehicles. He curated tunes from bassists, Ray Brown (Fuller’s old employer) and Sam Jones, which deserved to be played. He also closed both sets with Monty Alexander’s Look Up and found gems like Dizzy’s Tin Tin Deo, Embraceable You (nicely fragmented), Just In Time (done in St Louis), Invitation, and a Billy Higgins tune. Cables played Cedar Walton’s clockwise and a ballad as well as that standard with hand drumming and highlighted young Alcoris Sandoval’s A Journey to Agartha. But then there were treasures new and old from his own songbook. Celebration was properly jaunty for Juneteenth and the Siquirro painting piece is new. But the highlight was his exquisite Helen’s Song.

Cables is at Mezzrow for three other sets which I won’t miss when they hit the Smalls Live Archive. I don’t see any other recent Fuller or Cohen there, but I will be on the lookout for anything they do.

[theloniousbach]

LARRY FULLER with Lorin Cohen and Carmen Intorre, BLUE STRAWBERRY, 18 JUNE 2025

What a surprise! What a treat! The BLUE STRAWBERRY has not been on my radar as a jazz venue, so I noticed this among the local gigs on the JamBase website. LARRY FULLER rang a vague bell and I triangulated sources to remind myself that he’d done an in studio gig on my old friend’s Jazz Spectrum radio show when Fuller received the key to the city of Toledo in 2022. His pedigree is very strong—Ray Brown’s last pianist in a line that includes Benny Green, a line shaped from Brown working with one of the very very best, Oscar Peterson. Listening to his recordings ensured that it would be a solid straightahead set.

It was solid and straightahead all right, but also astonishingly powerful. In the room, he was every bit a Ray Brown pianist with powerful chords, lightning fast runs, but charming moments of subtlety both at full volume and quietly. I thought of Peterson early on. Old Devil Moon galloped along, including with an intricate figure in sequence with bassist Lorin Cohen (completely up to playing with a pianist used to Ray Brown’s formidable technique and taste), but somehow it was the slinky occasionally whispering line of Lil Darlin’ that in time roared that did it. It was Peterson-like but it was also the entire Count Basie band, the trumpets at the top of the right hand, saxophones in among the thumbs and index fingers, and trombones with the rest of the left hand. Yet it somehow also captured Basie’s own very spare piano work. Milestones, filigreed up before digging into the theme; It Might As Well Be Spring; and a blues were in there too.

But the other highlight of the first set was a quite lyrical Jane’s Theme, made all the more special because it was Jane Fuller (probably) whom I talked to first. I played the Jazz Spectrum card with her and her husband, but we had had several moments before the band hit the stage to talk about Toledo, the tour, Larry’s presence on the New York scene, and such.

The highlight of the second, slightly shorter set, was a breathtaking Wheatland, from Peterson’s Canadiana Suite with Ray Brown. It’s not simply a magnificent tune done well taking me to those spaces on the northern plains, but I could and did suggest that I was at this gig because of that tune and that oft-told gig when 8 or 9 year old me insinuated himself on stage behind a speaker column during their set at UMKC. That moment defined jazz for me and I keep coming back to that moment, now more than 60 years later.

The second set started with Just In Time and had a standard I couldn’t name, Never Let Me Go, Salt Peanuts, and a blues to close. Great opportunities for all of them to show their ample chops. Carmen Intorre is a strong drummer, right in sync with the others, but it was Cohen and, especially, Fuller who commanded almost all my attention at this very special show.

[theloniousbach]

TWO QUARTETS WITH TENOR SAX

Eric Alexander with MIKE LEDONNE, Joe Webber, and Kenny Washington, SMALLS JAZZ CLUB, 16 JUNE 2025, 6 pm set

Joe Lovano with EMMET COHEN, Russell Hall, and Kyle Poole, LIVE FROM EMMET’S PLACE 56, 17 MAY 2021

I was committed to the MIKE LEDONNE set even after Eric Alexander replaced Nicole Glover. That she had sidewoman gigs with Caili O’Doherty and Ledonne in the space of a long weekend in fact prompted my earlier survey of her work with O’Doherty, Spencer Murphy, and EMMET COHEN, but not Ledonne this time. Still Alexander is a longtime collaborator with Ledonne and has caught my ear recently. Ledonne can be heavy handed—and I thought he was this time too (but to be fair, he swings well and puts together a fine set), but Alexander is lithe and deft. He can go toe to toe with the pianist as in the cooking opener, a cowritten tribute to Harold Mabern. He also navigated the ballad with skill and dug into JJ Johnson’s wonderful Lament. The real treat was to see Kenny Washington stretch things out. He is a consummate trio player, starting with Bill Charlap and Peter Washington, whom I often see at Mezzrow. This may be the first time I’ve seen him in a quartet. He was as subtle and complex as always, but he also could let the throttle out some. It would have been fun to see how Glover and he interacted, but I’m glad to give my attention to Alexander.

In the wake of Monday’s Smalls set, the session with Joe Lovano from the LIVE FROM EMMET’S PLACE moved to the top of a short list. Like Alexander, Lovano has a wide tonal range and doesn’t force things. He’s been hard to pin down as he is so versatile. This set, primarily of his tunes, did absolutely nothing to clarify things as he invoked Charlie Parker twice (Bird’s Eye View and Charlie Chan), Coleman Hawkins (a Body and Soul contrafact), Ornette Coleman and Dewey Redman (Fort Worth), and Ben Webster (Big Ben) as well as Johnny Hodges on a very nice Star Crossed Lovers. Lovano is in no way derivative, except in the sense that everyone draws on the entire tradition to find their own voice. And Lovano has a voice, but his breadth and depth is impressive. EMMET COHEN too listens big. He opened with Willie the Lion Smith and Fats Waller, anticipating the name checking tributes to follow. He also plays big but with his own range of dynamics that is beyond Ledonne’s. A feature of these early LIVE FROM EMMET’S PLACE sessions is to see just how telepathic his original trio with Russell Hall and Kyle Poole was.

[theloniousbach]

ARIANA CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL AT FRIENDS OF MUSIC, ELLIOT UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHAPEL, 15 JUNE 2025

European Tradtion Art Music is distinctive in part by its curation. There are scores for starters which define a repertoire documented now by recordings but even earlier by a hierarchy of ensembles, conductors, and performers savored by critics with discerning ears but also a terminology akin to food or wine writers. I’ve read the terminology and tried somewhat unsystematically self-train my ears. But the fact is, I rely on the curation primarily to know what work I am listening to. I know the big names, but I can’t discern the difference between a regional radio symphony in Germany from the cut out bin from the Berlin Philharmonic on Deutsche Grampohon. I’m enough of a snob—or compulsive completist—to want to hear works in their entirety and not the same old excerpts.

This FESTIVAL, for that’s what it was, deprived me of most of my guard rails as a listener. Only that these very talented student ensembles—a few working quartets, many rehearsing together just this week—were just as satisfying as hearing their mentors, the Arianna String Quartet fit my sense of things. Even there, as good as Arianna is, their place in the received hierarchy as from St Louis and UMSL would be different if they were associated with Juilliard or the Curtis Institute. Some listeners might know the difference.

That there wasn’t a program was far more disconcerting. With spoken introductions, I rarely got the composer/opus/number/key quadrafecta. Still, that there is even a Verdi string quartet was a revelation. I knew somehow of Gideon Klein and maybe even his trio but certainly his death in the Holocaust. There were two from Papa Haydn on Father’s Day whereas last year everyone played him. Certainly he is foundational and perhaps the place to start pedagogically. While he’s close to my historical sweet spot, I was glad to hear Prokofiev, some dramatic Grieg, and Dvorak.

I think the Grieg was a third movement, but which one? Seeing only that movement that was so rousing we applauded prematurely in the middle and got to have so much more, I can only wonder where it fit in the arc of the piece as a whole. Still, the little snippets kept the focus on the young players and that’s what we were celebrating. That each of the eight ensembles got their 10ish minutes is right and showed the breadth of their accomplishment.

While there was an interval, it came after all had played and served to set up what was actually an encore—all 31 of them playing a conductorless chamber orchestra version of a middle Beethoven string quartet. John McGrosso, Arianna’s first violin, explained that they do that to underscore and provide a challenge for the listening and attention that is required in chamber music (and life) to share responsibility, give and take the lead and support, and contribute to a common vision. That framework made that encore particularly meaningful.

https://www.youtube.com/live/jmVp6yERz84?si=8PXDr-JlN8lOM-6V

[theloniousbach]

“…AND ON TENOR SAXOPHONE, NICOLE GLOVER…” with

CAILI O’DOHERTY, Tamir Schmerling, and Cory Cox, SMALLS JAZZ CLUB, 12 JUNE 2025, 6 pm set

SPENCER MURPHY, Stacy Dillard, John Chin, and Josh Davis, SMALLS JAZZ CLUB, 12 MAY 2025, 9 pm set

EMMET COHEN, Russell Hall, Kyle Poole and singers Michael Blume, Bryan Carter, Richard Cortez, J Hoard, and Vuyo Sotashe, LIVE FROM EMMET’S PLACE, episode 60 celebrating PRIDE, 14 JUNE 2021

When I discovered the Palladium/Wayne Shorter LIVE FROM EMMET’S PLACE with NICOLE GLOVER, I also saw this PRIDE celebration. With the CAILI O’DOHERTY gig on the SMALLS LIVE calendar and a projected gig with Mike LeDonne tonight (now Eric Alexander will be on tenor) as prompts, I found the SPENCER MURPHY gig in the Smalls Archive. It makes sense to observe a favorite tenor player as a side woman.

After a Palladium gig, I got to know her late night pre-jam session trio gig at Small’s where she was intense and adventurous. She had to be tough and the edge served her well. That first trio had some rough edges, but she continued to play trio, now with Tyrone Allen and Kayvon Gordon who gave her more space. I’m sure she still leads, but she’s the youngest member of Artemis which Renee Rosnes leads as a collaborative ensemble of composers and players. She has room to breathe—and similarly these gigs provide a range of contexts to hear her just enough out of the glare to shine when she steps into the spotlight for her solos.

SPENCER MURPHY’s was the most familiar, a gig with just four tunes stretched over the hour, one being her Blues for Mel Brown. CAILI O’DOHERTY’s was a focused suite for the pianist’s mother with up to 13 themes. It wasn’t completely through composed, but the compositions were to the fore. And with EMMET COHEN even her opening number with the band was a standard, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, but then she took solos after singers, including punchy tunes like Let The Good Times Roll and Sir Duke.

SPENCER MURPHY, like Glover, ran a late night pre-jam session slot at Smalls before leaving town. His approach was to be very welcoming starting with his band. So the opener was John Chin’s Undercover which included keyboard effects which approached but didn’t exceed the limit for such things. But it was a swirling tune and Glover showed some Pharoah Sanders growl I haven’t heard from her. Stacy Dillard on soprano was the other horn and they made a good team stating themes and complementing their respective solos. The other tunes were Shorter’s Edda from the early ‘60s, Glover’s blues, and Murphy’s own moody and quiet Taking the Pain to close. This was a familiar version of Glover, extending the post-bop tradition blowing and listening but not leading with intensity.

CAILI O’DOHERTY’s Suite for Gearodin was completed before her mother died of cancer, so she got to hear it. The work was supported by Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Program. Though the compositions were to the fore this was jazz without a hint of New Music. It was quiet and reflective, only occasionally flat out swinging, but it was jazz with space for all to add their own voices. That is, it wasn’t composed through, but, unlike Murphy, the themes were very focused. Glover has recorded with O’DOHERTY on Quarantine Dream that is nicely robust for both of them.

The EMMET COHEN gig was the most far afield as there were exclusively standards and even singers. Again, her showcase was I’ve Got You Under My Skin which they all stretched out on but had the song’s structure as a constant reference point. It was good to hear Cohen’s original band as Russell Hall is a meaty bass player and Kyle Poole is tasty and right. I heard them with Melissa Aldana, but Glover is a better fit with them. After that opener the show was given over to two or three song sets by singers, gay men bending the gender expectations of the Great American Songbook. Of course, women have done the same thing if not always with the same agenda. Good songs should be sung—and these were great songs, but there was more than a little camp. There are far more women jazz singers, soit makes sense that they name checked Holiday, Simone, and McCrae. Glover got focused solos on several of them with Just One Of Those Things being the standout. She came as close to having fun as she lets on on Let The Good Times Roll and Sir Duke. She wasn’t exactly slumming here and certainly not on The Nearness of You, Cheek to Cheek, The Boy Next Door, and My Man. Neither was Emmet Cohen who has a strong grasp of the standards and dug in effectively and often.

I guess I won’t see Glover with Mike Ledonne (and Kenny Washington) tonight, but the layers of her music continue to unfold.

[theloniousbach]

KAVITA SHAH with Randy Ingram, Francois Moutin, and Johnathan Blake, MEZZROW, 8 JUNE 2025, 6 pm set

KAVITA SHAH is a singer, but with Francois Moutin on bass and Johnathan Blake on drums and cymbals, this one was immediately can’t miss. And I’ve enjoyed Randy Ingram when I’ve seen him as he’s probably just as good as other people I’ve adopted. But he hasn’t played often enough or grabbed me to go into the must see category.

But Moutin and Blake sure have. They’re each big players, so I wanted to see the fireworks. Blake was magnificent, particularly because he reeled it in to fit the band, the venue, and the tunes. But there were many moments when he had my full attention. Moutin though is completely irrepressible, roaring up and down the fingerboard as if he were going toe to toe with Jean-Michel Pilc with Ari Hoenig hard on his heels. He and Shah have a basically duo album, though there are sit ins with Sheila Jordan (Martial Solal too), so there are connections to Jordan’s duets with Harvie S.

KAVITA SHAH is a thorough jazzer, an improviser with minimal scat singing per se and no vocalese. She has a strong mid-range voice, a bit too strong on Chick Corea’s You’re Everything particularly compared to Flora Purim’s original. But she improvises with her band and does sophisticated arrangements. Blackbird was special, poignant by being vulnerable and resilient. It probably should have been the end of the set as it wrapped up very near the top of the hour. The just one more was a 15 minute take on East of the Sun and West of the Moon with everyone not rushing their solos. It was strong but anti-climactic. She referenced Billie Holiday (Easy Living and God Bless the Child) and took on a Herbie Hancock/Stevie Wonder collaboration which managed to sound like both of them. The opener was Blame It On My Youth which hinted at the magic to come.

If Shah puts together bands even almost as interesting as this one, I’ll gladly see her again. And I now have my eye out for Ingram. More Moutin and Blake would be great too, particularly if Blake can allow himself to roar.

[theloniousbach]

A NIGHT* IN THE WEST VILLAGE, MOSTLY MEZZROW

GLENN ZALESKI with Dave Baron and Adam Aruda, 6 JUNE 2025, 9 pm set

JILL McCARRON SOLO, 6 JUNE 2025, 11:59 set

HELEN SUNG with John Ellis, Marty Jaffe, and Kush Abadey, 7 JUNE 2025, SMALLS JAZZ CLUB, 6 pm set

*Both GLENN ZALESKI and HELEN SUNG had the Friday/Saturday runs so I can pretend that I could have seen all this in one night. ZALESKI has been growing on me lately with an approach that is both adventurous and laconic while SUNG so often works with John Ellis and each is smart and compositional without losing a drive. I’ve seen JILL McCARRON in trios, so seeing what she would do in the late solo slot drew me to her set.

GLENN ZALESKI is lanky with a preppy, boyish face. He stretches out and looks away rather like Brad Mehldau does. He has a similar clever light touch, in this case it was almost too light. Adam Aruda was not overplaying but the drums overshadowed Zaleski for much of the set. But he settled in, taking off in particular on Joe Martin’s 5 x 3 which grabbed me with its bluesy riffs. That tune was with Sullivan Fortner’s more introspective but quirky Ballade examples Zaleski offered that “New York is great right now,” that this is another Golden Age. Maybe, but I like the idea that tunes get played by others, that they aren’t just personal vehicles. The next tune was Charlie Haden’s First Song from the Quartet West book which means that Alan Broadbent gave its chords their first caress. Just as he opened with Duke Pearson’s Is That So on which he didn’t quite settle into, the bebop closer, Charlie Parker’s Passport, did cook.

JILL McCARRON’s playing stood up well without a rhythm section. She chose appropriately to say her piece and move on, getting in 11 tunes rather than the usual six, sometimes eight. And they were quite well chosen tunes. She drew on Ray Bryant, Herbie Hancock, Clifford Brown (Joy Spring!), Hampton Hawes, Wayne Shorter, and Bobby Timmons as well as probably Skylark, Days of Wine and Roses, and On Green Dolphin Street to close. She often sings a song or two a set. I’m not sure how good an idea that is as her voice is only passable, but When Lights Are Low was better than Lee Konitz’s idea that players should sing as a vehicle to unlock their playing. And Every Time We Say Goodbye was pretty good. It’s a magnificent tune, so that gives one a leg up but it also sets certain expectations. So pretty good is, well, pretty good.

HELEN SUNG is only occasionally at Smalls, so it pays to catch her when she is, particularly as she brings along John Ellis and his smart, airy sax work. She’s classically trained so her work is informed and adventurous, witness her Re/Conception which takes George Shearing and makes him more complicated and Sunbird After Albenez. The Spanish elements of the latter were fun for all concerned, including Kush Abadey. Time Loop too seemed to have movements but also an infectious off kilter groove. That is, Sung digs in and plays jazz rather than New Music. Indeed she preceded Time Loop with If I Fell which avoided kitsch and swung.

I might well have caught each of these gigs anyway, but putting them together added a worthwhile momentum.

[theloniousbach]

EMMET COHEN with Nicole Glover, Sasha Berliner, Russell Hall, and Kyle Poole with Miki Yamanaka, LIVE FROM EMMET’S PLACE, 22 MARCH 2021

LIVE FROM EMMET’S PLACE, a refuge during Lockdown that I didn’t visit enough, is coming to an end in the Fall. I caught individual tunes, especially the Footprints that I’ll include here, but my first full show was with ANAT COHEN last week. So there’s a whole cache to explore that will pose getting You Tube Premium as there were 12 ad interruptions over these 100 minutes. EMMET COHEN brought lots of players, veterans and up and comers alike, to his apartment in Harlem and started streaming them. Brilliant!

This one is a fitting place to start. Like EMMET himself, Nicole Glover is a bright young face of jazz. If anything, I’m a bigger fan of hers than of Cohen who is the right mix of smart prowress and deep respect of the tradition/s. Both though are discoveries of Lockdown, though I guess I saw him and this rhythm section as part of a workshop with Marquis Hill and Melissa Aldana at Jazz St Louis. This show falls on the heels of my discovery of Glover as part of Palladium, a Wayne Shorter repertory ensemble, that performed Speak No Evil in its entirety at Smalls at the end of 2020. She took on the tenor role with respect but not undue reverence; she was totally her own voice. I’m sure I’d begun catching pre-jam sessions at Smalls with a trio which matched her power but didn’t let her tone it down. Still she was perfectly capable of pinning one’s ears back.

Here she, with Sasha Berliner who was also on the Speak No Evil gig, dig into the deep deep Wayne Shorter book with EMMET COHEN and his good old trio (Russell Hall with his purple Jimi Hendrix hat and probing lines and Kyle Poole’s infectious pulse. I suppose Cohen has outgrown them (certainly Glover outgrew her rhythm section at that same time) but they were good together.). They gave her room to breathe and the tunes, certainly meaty and challenging, have a space that her usual spikier repertoire didn’t.

The right material was there, even Getting to Know You which was evidently on Shorter’s first album. The closer was the later Meridanne—A Wood Sylph which Berliner did solo with interesting effects, a suggestion of the way New Music composers—and let’s think of Shorter that way at least occasionally—find the vibraphone expressive. The standard When I Fall in Love was for trio, but otherwise Lester Leaps In, Contemplation, and This is For Albert were tunes he brought into Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers while ESP was from the Miles years. Just as Glover was less frantic and rambunctious than I’ve heard her, Cohen didn’t quite have the same swagger as he did with the ebullient Anat Cohen. Glover is shy to the point of being almost dour. She plays intently and oh so well and then disappears.

About two thirds of the way through this Footprints, Cohen makes a seamless hand off of the piano chair to Miki Yamanaka suggesting parallels in their playing—smarts, power, thorough grounding. She is wry but clearly has fun. Glover seemed to relax too. It’s quite a gem.

Yamanaka posted on social media about hanging out with Glover ahead of a duo set. I commented hopefully about mashing up their bands as they both often play with Tyrone Allen and they could bring along both Kayvon Gordon for Glover’s part of the evening and Jimmy Macbride for Yamanaka’s. I got a thumbs up from Yamanaka herself. Obviously their collaborations go back a ways.

The main thing though is I’ll go back to EMMET’S PLACE again and often.

Footprints: https://youtu.be/3UrKpUwcfBE?si=IH-T74IhLNl6G2Dw

The whole gig: https://www.youtube.com/live/gOqHHAemAWA?si=t3vnVEqhvxbNJFfY

[theloniousbach]

ARI HOENIG with Gadi Lehavi and Ben Tiberio, SMALLS JAZZ CLUB, 2 JUNE 2025, 6 pm set

I’ve written about this band dozens of times as their mix of ARI HOENIG’s roller coaster drumming at once careening completely under control rhythmically and able to fall right into the tune as a tune with quite fine tunes, both original compositions and well curated standards suits my mix of grounded adventure. So besides that synopsis of their appeal, what to say this time?

—The tunes that grabbed me were Hoenig’s new arrangement of Benny Golson’s Whisper Not and his own very very appealing Alone, lush and patient. For a drummer led band—and Hoenig can be bombastic—there are many many moments of quite lyrical playing (and Hoenig often writes for just that).

—Gadi Lehavi grows as a source of that lyricism, a worthy counterpoint and complement to Hoenig. Unlike Jean-Michel Pilc who, if anything, white knuckles even more than Hoenig, Lehavi anticipates the start stops and cushions and smoothes.

—Ben Tiberio got a solo on almost every tune when he is sometimes either low in the mix or more wrapped up in ensemble playing. He too added to the mellow moments.

—Much as I treasure ARI HOENIG, I had a moment of doubt, that his complications made the music too cerebral, that he sacrificed the swing. The obits for Al Foster all commend him for keeping that going even when Miles Davis had him pushing a lot of grooves. I’m listening to him in homage just as I went on a Donald Bailey tear, both the Jimmy Smith and Hampton Hawes eras. Of course, Hoenig is extremely rhythmic so the beat doesn’t get lost. But it’s a question to return to next time—and I know there will be a next time.

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HOLLY BOWLING, THE ATOMIC PAVILION, 1 JUNE 2025

HOLLY BOWLING spectacularly came to wide attention 10 years ago as part of the run up to the Fare Thee Well shows that marked the last time Mickey Hart, Billy Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh would play together. She contributed a solo piano version of the Louisville 7/18/74 Eyes of the World, the whole band portrayed with her ten fingers. During Lockdown, her Wilderness Sessions took her, a keyboard, some effects, a van, a drone, and cameras to spectacular locations where she unfolded sets of Grateful Dead and Phish tunes weaving in and out of one another. But she also does playing in the band and was a treasure everytime she participated last summer in Professor Lesh’s final seminar in the Terrapin Clubhouse/Darkstarathon videos. She listened sympathetically and helped drive jams in a way not seen in this music since Bruce Hornsby who nonetheless had the presence of Jerry Garcia to incorporate. Bowling much more than held her own with Grahame Lesh, Stu Allen, Daniel Denato, and Lebo.

But we got a chance to see her in her element in a rather cozy outside show at THE ATOMIC PAVILION under 2.5 miles from my house. A Yamaha grand piano, some looping and echo effects, and some devices for getting at the strings inside the piano to resonate. But the instrument itself played that hard has overtones galore to ring into the night. That’s not to say that there wasn’t also spaces for the music to breathe and moments of subtle delicacy, simply that the majesty of tunes heard through state of the art sound systems starting with the Wall of Sound came from that piano with only occasional alterations.

I wish I knew the Phish tunes that were in conversation with the Grateful Dead music I know so well. I couldn’t tell what was a jam and what was Phish music. That is, for example, The Wheel emerged after several minutes to open, but was there a full blown other tune before it. Her own The Thief Is Insatiable segued out of that opener. Friend Mike recognized the next tune, Hurt from Nine Inch Nails via Johnny Cash.

And then the fun really began, a jam that began here 20 minutes into the first set with Lost Sailor and ended at the end of the second set with Saint of Circumstance. Not seamless, there was a set break and, again, a full stop after St Stephen and the following tune to open the set break. But she kept returning to themes, opening and closing parentheses. So, The Wheel came back into the end of the first set medley and St Stephen came back with the William Tell Bridge in a big big closing sequence that included Cryptical Envelopment into a deep and very strong The Other One which dissolved into the Stephen>Tell which in turn led to a wonderful and roaring The Eleven (with The Other One, my highlights of the night). Maybe she took us back to The Other One but it might have been something Phish-y before Althea with an interesting vocoder type loop/fx. There was certainly some Phish before the concluding Saint of Circumstance. The encore was not the Dead but energetic and fitting.

I spent some time, particularly when the Phish tunes were on thinking about how this was and was not like Keith Jarrett’s solo piano concerts which were certainly more structured than I wanted to believe with motifs, themes, and even specific tunes and not spontaneous compositions. They appealed to my young ears seeking other kinds of soundtracks to chase after thoughts. I somehow feel compelled to add that beer was the drug (and a depressive at that) and the music was and always has been the thing that alters my mind. Jarrett drew on folk songs and major keys for gospelly vamps and some of the same kinds of overtones rather than what has been called by Ethan Iverson “the real bebop.” Bowling isn’t doing jazz either, but she is drawing on a different repertoire of folk songs that fill the air and letting them ring and resonate..

The crowd was too old and too small with under 150 tickets sold. But that and her practice of going to the merch table after gave it a familiar Focal Point/Jazz St Louis feel. I guess I’m not shy about talking to musicians always leading with thanks. For HOLLY BOWLING it was for those Wilderness Sessions and especially Terrapin Clubhouse. I did ask if Phil Lesh was ill at the time and she said no. He was every bit his age, but still completely alert, wryly funny, trying new things. She spoke movingly and was moved in the moment.

I had bestowed my mantle of Deadhead fandom to Joe Russo’s Almost Dead but now I will also rely on HOLLY BOWLING to keep this repertoire alive.

[theloniousbach]

BRUCE MOLSKY, FACEBOOK LIVE, 30 MAY 2025

I stumbled on this, joining about 20 minutes into the first set. The set break lasted too long. Still in the 40 minutes we had with this master musician, he touched on Joseph Spence, a Little Hat Jones blues, a Swedish waltz>a Senegalese kora tune from a collaboration he was part of, and an old English ballad with Carrie Rodriguez as he played lots on his new Froggy Bottom guitar. But that’s really his second or even third instrument. He played a Metis fiddle medley that ended with a recasting of Whiskey Before Breakfast with a couple of extra measures in the B part which suggests the name Spirits at Sunrise. He also did two versions of Bonaparte’s Retreat, neither “by” Aaron Copeland and closed with an old time fiddle set. No banjo.

BRUCE MOLSKY always commands our attention, so it was so good to find him.

[theloniousbach]

EMMET COHEN with ANAT COHEN, Yasushi Nakamura, and Joe Saylor, LIVE FROM EMMET’S PLACE, 26 MAY 2025

LIVE FROM EMMET’S PLACE was, rather like Jorma Kaukonen’s Quarantine Concerts, a lifeline during lockdown—a chance for an artist to keep working and to build a connection to an audience. I have taken too little advantage of EMMET COHEN’s efforts; indeed, this is the first full episode I have watched despite my esteem for his vigorous playing. Like Kaukonen (and Larkin Poe who did some similar streaming in that first year), he is also warm and charming, someone you are comfortable being with.

I have a belated list of episodes with such players as Rudresh Mahanthappa, Jeremy Pelt, Nicole Glover, Joe Lovano, Miguel Zenon, Christian McBride, and Dr Eddie Henderson to catch up on (and I’m considering You Tube Premium to avoid the persistent ads—15 in these two hours). The production values are strong, better than my old reliable Smalls Live. That’s another reason to catch up. Alas, the series, now monthly, is coming to an end because, well, gee, having a full band in your little condo has an impact on the neighbors.

I watched this one all the way through because only ANAT COHEN exceeds EMMET in showing such unbridled joy in playing this music and appreciation of their collaborators. Both beam in delight at what unfolds. Though she lost her voice, she couldn’t help but croak enthusiastically. Of course, they are both master players chock full of technique and deep flexible engagement with the tradition, all in the service of a joyful swing. Much as I like Nicole Glover for her smarts and technique, she doesn’t have this kind of fun. Emmet and Anat have infectious fun.

ANAT’s clarinet is not stuck in trad jazz/Dixieland/swing. Tunes like Sweet Georgia Brown or Eubie Blake’s Memories of You or Ellington’s The Mooche were given thoroughly modern rides. She lives part of the year in Rio so brought a familiar pre-Bossa Nova (Bossa Velha?) tune and, as he did all night, Joe Saylor added layers of rhythmic complexity with a light touch. I don’t think he was particularly constrained by the neighbor situation, but drumz iz drumz. They also did her lush Purple Piece. The home stretch was a bebop tune (Yasushi Nakamura was a rock here and elsewhere; his solos had drive and melodic invention), Cry Me A River, and something Latinish which ended with a chorus of Happy Birthday as Emmet turned all of 35 just a few days before.

I’m glad I finally visited EMMET’S PLACE and I’ll return. It’s comfortable with a friends hanging out vibe. I’ll adjust to the longer sets and enjoy the longer time as riches to be savored.

https://www.youtube.com/live/Dj5Ifo7dNW8?si=SBqRKyzxnLs9VC_-

[theloniousbach]

CANTOR TOBY GLASER/DOUG LEVINE, RODEF SHALOM (Pittsburgh), 29 MAY 2025

This was to be a garden party to honor CANTOR TOBY GLASER as he moved back to his native Australia. The weather was iffy enough to move things inside to the sumptuous sanctuary of this well-established and prosperous Reformed congregation. They have a Biblical garden which we got to tour at the interval and have welcomed the traumatized Tree of Life Congregation and a Reconstructionist one. There was a chamber orchestra rehearsal in a small sanctuary.

They also have a vigorous music program with a series that included this performance as well as a choir that the Cantor nurtured. I spoke with a member of the choir who herself is a member of a Conservative congregation that doesn’t have a choir, so she sings here. She opined that most modern liturgical music is pretty lame, but that GLASER has done a good job bringing in a wide array of music into the worship.

He also is clearly a jazz buff and with keyboard partner DOUG LEVINE ran through a nice run of standards in a crisp 35 minute first set. We left after that quite happy to get Sylvia home and our own supper in our bellies.

Since they were in the sanctuary, they could have used the grand piano but instead LEVINE had the keyboard he planned to use outside. He/they were quite capable, but it wasn’t quite jazz. That is, LEVINE was reading, switching pages even in the middle of his own solos. He had flourishes that were clearly improvised but his accompaniments rarely took into account GLASER’s own flourishes. He has a fine voice, good instincts, and even better taste (he name checked Kurt Elling, Birdland, Frank Sinatra but also Diane Kral, Nat King Cole). But he’s a cantor, though with a different accompanist he might be able to let loose.

Still, it was wonderful to hear the likes of Lullaby of Birdland, The Best Is Yet To Come, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Angel Eyes, Embraceable You, and especially Autumn in New York done so capably. It wasn’t cabaret nor musical theater, but it just missed being jazz.

I didn’t bring my gig notebook and didn’t think it was going to be “anything to write home/here about.” But it was.

[theloniousbach]

BLACK POPULAR MUSIC AND JAZZ: TWO EXAMPLES

ORRIN EVANS with Mwanzi Harriott, Luques Curtis, and Mark Whitfield Jr, SMALLS JAZZ CLUB, 10 MAY 2025, 9 pm set

RUSSELL GUNN+BLACKHAWK (Andre Hayward, Kevin Bales, Kevin Smith, and Jeremy Clemons), JAZZ ST LOUIS, 22 MAY 2025

I streamed ORRIN EVANS set in the afternoon before seeing RUSSELL GUNN in person. I thought they’d be separate writing prompts. But EVANS with young guitarist Mwanzi Harriott showed me how his rhythmic drive and compositional focus has a pop element that intersected with GUNN’s arrangements of Ellington and Earth Wind and Fire. Both are fine players and effective soloists, but I heard more sonic coloration and effect. Not strictly compositional but virtuosity as secondary to the story and impact.

EVANS’ Red Door is catchy, but often his work, epitomized by the Captain Black Big Band, is, I realize, is quirky and rhythmically insistent. Different than but in the same synapse as Andrew Hill and Abdullah Ibrahim. Harriott is not a rocker playing jazz, but he is not Freddie Green or Joe Pass. He plays plenty of chords but they were punchy. His sound reminded me a little of Pat Metheny. Still he accentuated a soulful side of Evans and gave Mark Whitfield Jr lots to play with behind the kit. He combines churning and fire with a light touch. Still he seemed to enjoy making things gritty. When Luques Curtis emerged in the quieter parts, his grooves were strong.

Similarly RUSSELL GUNN was, what one pal, called a historian/arranger which captures the curatorial character of that gig. After a swinging opener to settle in, he muted for Ellington’s East St Louis Toodle Oo, keeping in that early style while helping us remember that this was the Black popular music of the time. As a native of E St Louis, Gunn rambled amusingly about what the hell Ellington was doing in town. That Andre Hayward brought a trombone to the mix both evoked the 1920s big band while bringing that fresh voice to more modern material. His conversations with Gunn over last choruses were highlights, but also part of GUNN’s nice habit of digging in for duets with both bassist Kevin Smith (on Marcus Miller’s Mr Pastorious recorded by Miles Davis) and drummer Jeremy Clemons (EWF’s Fantasy as a closer). Fantasy was more than catchy as there was much to dig into harmonically. Gunn also included a contrafact on a Janet Jackson tune that was around when his daughter was born and deserved a celebratory anthem. It had so much going on that the band had been surprised when he copped to that source material. Gunn plays strong but his curatorial powers really stand out. He wanted us to think about the Black experience and to tell that story with a tableau of its various soundtracks, name checking the heroes he did. He’s a wiry voluble fellow and that activity added to the story he told.

[theloniousbach]

TRIOS AT MEZZROW ONCE AGAIN

JEB PATTON with Peter Washington and Billy Drummond, 16 MAY 2025, 9 pm set

ALAN BROADBENT with Harvie S and Billy Mintz, 19 MAY 2025, 6 pm set

Once again and not for the last time. JEB PATTON is always welcome at MEZZROW but is not a regular like ALAN BROADBENT. Still he commands stellar rhythm sections like this one—Peter Washington is spectacularly reliable and Billy Drummond does subtle rhythmic things especially with cymbals sometimes too forcefully. Still they’re a good team, living in their oxymoronic tensions. PATTON is strong with big hands but not powerful (I’m still playing at contraries), rather lithe and fluid. He knows the tradition, starting with Monk’s We See and honoring all the intricacies. There were two bebop tunes, Hot House and Parker’s Bloomdido, the standard My Ideal, and a nice All God’s Children Got Rhythm to close. His solo tune before the Parker was Prelude in D and felt like an exercise but Yardbird rescued it. His Orfeo’s Wish was better, a moody bossa. Washington sightread it throughout and yet he swung it readily. Drummond’s cymbal work is always magical and he was generally well modulated, having different kinds of fun with the bossa and the closer where he definitely had rhythm.

Putting the music on in the living room knowing that E wouldn’t mind, I explained that ALAN BROADBENT was predictable. I knew that was immediately wrong, but it took me a while to settle on reliable instead. And sometime while the latest gig is fresh, I will lean into the taste, command of the repertoire, and this band’s interaction. They are never predictable, but they were in fact particularly not so with this gig. I might have thought things would be back to a normal as this was the first time in a few months that the regular trio was together. Don Falzone had filled in the last couple of times to the point that I wondered if Harvie S had moved on (he did “fire” Broadbent for calling him Harvie Schwartz as his birth certificate says. Right after that Broadbent called Arthur Schwartz’s By Myself and the next to last Haunted House was credited to Harvie not Arthur). Before the Falzone gigs, there was one with a substitute for Billy Mintz. But they were back to firing on all cylinders, the engine purring reliably. But unpredictably enough, the repertoire was remarkably fresh. I’ve heard them do the opener East of the Sun and probably the closer You Stepped Out Of A Dream. Broadbent honors Charlie Parker often enough but Yardbird Suite seemed new as did Stairway To The Stars and both Arthur Schwartz tunes. All fine and exactly if not precisely what I expected.

[theloniousbach]

PAVEL ILYASHOV/JEFFREY KURTZMAN, BRAHMS: Violin Sonata No 1 in G minor and Scherzo in C Minor, FRIENDS OF MUSIC, ELIOT CHAPEL, 18 MAY 2025

Once again, I have missed the chance to see a former student play in this series. He was in a critical thinking course with me as he bided his time as a child prodigy heading off soon enough to Cleveland for the Curtis Institute. Right at the end of the course, he let on that if he didn’t play music that he’d want to be a paleontologist. Well then…would you like to join a reading group that had its roots in a Darwin class? We spent that summer meeting a few times on GG Simpson’s The Meaning of Evolution.

The program started an hour later than normal AND they swapped places with dreaded sopranos whom I fear nearly much as Italian American waste disposal executives from New Jersey. So I relied on the livestream (the Brahms begins around the 56:00 mark).

Pavel had a big tone and confident manner as a teenager and he still does. So Brahms suits him, including the slurred notes in the second movement of the Sonata. It’s a rich piece developing three related melodic themes and being Brahms there’s plenty for the pianist to do. Brahms was in his mid-40s and that experience showed.

The Scherzo is from when he was 20 and wrote a movement of a joint sonata with his mentor Robert Schumann and another composer. It has survived unlike the other movements but it is busy and unsubtle. Musically, it was an odd finale. But friend Bob explained that the recently widowed pianist insisted. But, with that backstory, the explanation of the FAE sonata standing for “frei aber einsam (free but lonely)” was a little creepy.

The Scherzo wasn’t creepy but a little rough. The mature Sonata was fully rewarding.

https://www.youtube.com/live/j80cxaiCVm4?si=bmcVqrWhbS3FCF5Q