Saturday April 21, 2010

10pm

Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
New York, NY

Buy Tickets

Ranked #7 in Jazz Albums of 2011, Denver Post

Ranked #8 in the 2011 Rhapsody.com Jazz Critics Poll

Ranked #9 in Jazz Albums of 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer

Ranked #11 in the 2011 JazzTimes Critics Poll

“With this new band (and on the album of the same name),
the alto saxophonist Mahanthappa merges his own Indo-jazz fusion
with swaths of electrified domestic fusion. The result is effective and bracing.”

- Steve Futterman, The New Yorker

“There’s a broad current flowing from the subcontinent here, evident in the
sinuous melodic line of a song like “Playing with Stones,” or the
mridangam and kanjira playing of the percussionist Anantha Krishnan.”

- Nate Chinen, New York Times

“an irresistible momentum that carries along motifs taken from here and there…but all of Mahanthappa’s interests jostle one another throughout the album, subsumed in the rippling silk of his saxophone timbre.” – Geoffrey Himes, The Washington Post (CD review)

“The compositions artfully blend knotty subcontinental rhythms and modern jazz harmonies, with a dash of bluesy honking thrown in for good measure.”
- Aaron Leitko, The Washington Post (show review)

“Manhanthappa’s reverse engineering of his Indo-American heritage…is only one element that has distinguished his growing prominence over the last few years. The other is his breathtaking sound and inventiveness as an alto saxophonist.“

- Jon Garelick, The Boston Phoenix

“If there’s such a thing as accessible avant-garde music, this is it.”

- Bret Saunders, The Denver Post

“One of the more consistently innovative and restless creators currently
at work in New York…a kinetic mix of heady jazz, electronica and elements
from Indian traditional styles.”

- TimeOut New York

]]> http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2012/02/03/widespread-acclaim-for-rudresh-mahanthappas-samdhi-upcoming-carnegie-hall-debut-2/feed/ 0 http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2012/02/02/bassist-composer-linda-oh-releases-sophomore-album/ http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2012/02/02/bassist-composer-linda-oh-releases-sophomore-album/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:07:13 +0000 Matt http://fullyaltered.com/fa/?p=2802

Out May 22, 2012 on Greenleaf Music

Featuring DAYNA STEPHENS (saxophone), FABIAN ALMAZAN (piano), RUDY ROYSTON (drums)
and special guest: JEN SHYU (voice)

With her debut CD, Entry, bassist/composer Linda Oh asserted herself as a unique new voice on the modern jazz scene. On her follow-up, Initial Here, Oh draws deeply upon her rich cultural heritage and broad range of inspirations to further define her musical autobiography.

“This album tells a story about identity,” Oh says. “Cultural identity and musical identity. I wanted to go in a few different directions to explore some more extreme emotions.”

Born in Malaysia to Chinese parents and raised in Western Australia, Oh arrived in New York five years ago with a love of jazz, early training in classical bassoon, and an adolescence spent playing electric bass in Aussie rock bands. All of that experience surfaces on Initial Here, from the in-the-tradition ballad playing on “Mr. M” to her buoyant electric basslines on “Deeper Than Happy” and the mournful bassoon woven throughout “Thicker Than Water.”

The quartet that Oh assembled to realize this eclectic blend of material are all equally adept at integrating diverse influences. Dayna Stephens is a graduate of both Berklee College of Music and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and is also a skilled bassist in his own right. Cuban-born pianist Fabian Almazanwas a classmate of Oh’s at the Manhattan School of Music, where the two quickly formed a musical bond; Oh continues to perform in Almazan’s thrilling trio. And Rudy Royston has become the drummer of choice for artists as diverse as powerhouse saxophonist JD Allen, groundbreaking guitarist Bill Frisell, and forward-thinking bassist Ben Allison.

Despite her thoroughly modern sound and individual approach, Oh expresses a deep love for more traditional jazz. That comes to the fore on “Mr. M,” a languid ballad dedicated to Charles Mingus, and on the quartet’s searching rendition of “Come Sunday,” a result of her excursions into playing in church settings.

Still, pieces like “No. 1 Hit,” which takes a sardonic look at the balance between personal expression and popular acceptance, exemplify Oh’s skill at integrating complexity and accessibility, with its sinuous melody and taut rhythmic force. Balance is also key to the paired emotional outpourings of “Deeper Than Sad” and “Deeper Than Happy.” The former is a stunningly moving dirge, while the latter employs Oh’s elastic electric bass on a joyous tune inspired by her infant niece’s ecstatic reaction to a television cartoon.

Family emerges as a major theme on Initial Here. A trip to Malaysia and China to visit long-unseen relatives made an enormous impact on the compositions for the album. It was Oh’s first trip to either country as an adult, and only her second time back in Malaysia since her family relocated to Australia when she was three years old.

“It was an eye-opening trip,” she recalls. “It was nice to go as an adult and to hear the more personal stories that people never would talk about when you were a kid. And we visited Penang, Malaysia, where my great-grandfather was an artist and sculpted a temple. That was really inspiring to see.”

“Thicker Than Water,” which features vocals in Mandarin Chinese and English by the gifted multilingual vocalistJen Shyu, is the most direct result of that journey. Essentially a duet between Shyu and Oh, emoting soulfully on both bowed bass and bassoon, the piece is a tribute to Oh’s grandmothers and other female forebears. “They had it really tough,” Oh explains. “They went through a lot and here I am playing music for a living. The immigrant mentality of picking up your whole family and moving to another place for a better life is something very deep and special, and I connect with that sense of always having to work harder because of what our family did for us.”

The hope of a better life for one’s family is also central to the jubilant “Desert Island Dream,” which reflects the optimism of the new world offered by Australia in the combination of Almazan’s shimmering Rhodes and Stephens’ wistful tenor. “Little House,” featuring Oh’s agile electric skills, is a wry look back at that move, recalling the home in Perth where the future bassist found the heat and humidity of Malaysia replaced by Australia’s early morning chill. The tune’s frenzied climax features an eruption of strings, showcasing another aspect of Oh’s compositional talents. She has been writing increasingly for a combination of jazz quartet and string quartet, and will debut a new commission for the Jazz Gallery in April.

Oh’s classical influences also make an appearance in the quartet’s impactful rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s “Something Coming,” from West Side Story. Their take was inspired by the stark version by pianist Ran Blake and vocalist Jeanne Lee. In its final moments, the quartet transitions into a small piece of Stravinsky’s piano work “Les Cinq Doigts (The Five Fingers).”

The opening track, “Ultimate Persona” deals most directly with the idea of personal identity, inspired by the landmark Ingmar Bergman film Persona. It begins the album with a driving rhythmic figure inspired by an Indian polyrhythm cycle. “Persona is such an amazing, powerful film because it goes through so many ups and downs,” Oh says. “I wanted something that intense to start the record. It’s about striving to be something beyond what we are.”

The Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Greenfield Foundation are proud to announce that Composer-Pianist Vijay Iyer is the winner of the $30,000 Greenfield Prize, awarded this year in the field of music. Iyer will receive the award at a special celebration dinner on April 1, 2012 in Sarasota, FL. Serving on the jury that selected Iyer were Linda Golding, past president of Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. music publishers and founder of The Reservoir; Jennifer Koh, solo violinist and prolific recitalist, and Limor Tomer, general manager of concerts and lectures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

“The Hermitage is very excited to announce Vijay Iyer as the 2012 Greenfield Prize winner in music,” remarked Bruce E. Rodgers, executive director of the Hermitage. “We look forward to April 1st, when we present Vijay with the Prize, and begin the two-year process of working with him to provide whatever support he needs to realize his commission and goals.”

“I’m honored, delighted, and surprised by this award,” said Iyer. “It’s rare and astonishing for my work to be embraced on such a scale, and it’s a particularly special honor coming from the Greenfield Prize’s interdisciplinary perspective.  This award will make a tremendous difference in my life in the coming year.  It enables me to focus less on ‘career’ and more on art and community, two powerful and interrelated forces that can nourish and sustain us all.  For this opportunity I am tremendously grateful.”

“Vijay Iyer is a perfect recipient for the Greenfield Prize,” continued Rodgers. “The goal in creating the award was a means by which a groundbreaking, enduring work of art could be created. He has told us he is interested in bringing improvisation into a format where classically-trained musicians are empowered to make choices and real-time decisions but in a very structured way. The Greenfield Prize will buy him time to sit down and think about music. That is exactly what we want this gift to allow and we look forward to April, 2014, when the work will be premiered at La Musica Music Festival.”

The Greenfield Prize was established in 2009 by longtime Sarasota residents Bob and Louise Greenfield, through the Philadelphia-based Greenfield Foundation. The Prize consists of a $30,000 commission of an original work of art, a residency at the Hermitage, and a partnership with a professional arts organization to develop the work plus assistance in moving the work forward into the American arts world. A distinguished six-person panel consisting of some of the most highly respected authorities in American art select each Greenfield Prize recipient. Three voting members on each jury are joined by a producing partner representative, Joni Greenfield of the Greenfield Foundation and Hermitage Executive Director Bruce E. Rodgers who facilitates. Since its inception, past prizewinners include playwrights Craig Lucas and John Guare, composer Eve Beglarian and visual artist Sanford Biggers.

About the Greenfield Foundation: The Greenfield Foundation is based in Philadelphia, PA, but funds charitable initiatives across the country.  Its president and most of its trustees are members of the family of Louise and Bob Greenfield of Sarasota, Florida. Its net income, which exceeds $500,000 a year, is devoted to improving quality of life through contributions to not-for-profit institutions in the arts, education, health care and other services. The foundation originates and participates in innovative projects, which have a ripple effect beyond the immediate impact of the expenditures.

For more information on the Greenfield Prize, visit the website at www.GreenfieldPrize.org. For more information on the Hermitage Artist Retreat, visit the website at www.HermitageArtistRetreat.org or contact Executive Director Bruce E. Rodgers at 941-475-2098.

The Raw Edge of Rock Girding The Communication of Jazz

April 26, 2012 via Bee Jazz

Featuring JOZEF DUMOULIN – Keyboard (Belgium), PATRICE BLANCHARD – Electric Bass (Martinique/NYC) & RUDY ROYSTON – Drums (NYC)

The simple act of “plugging in” is easy to take for granted, but it provides power, illumination, charge; the same could be said for connecting a power cord or for the meeting of creative minds. On Plugged In (Bee Jazz), his fifth album as a leader, French-born, Brooklyn-based saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh discovers the spark of inspiration provided by both, assembling an exhilarating electric quartet and collaborating with the jaw-dropping Belgian keyboardist Jozef Dumoulin.

The result is an album that is all about electrifying connections – that between Sabbagh and Dumoulin, the intense grooves forged by Martinique-born bassist Patrice Blanchard and American drummer Rudy Royston, the conjunction of the electric and the lyrical, the raw edge of rock girding the sophisticated communication of jazz.

Sabbagh first encountered the keyboardist on record, knowing as soon as he heard Dumoulin’s unique approach that he wanted to work with him. “I heard something really pure in Jozef’s playing that I connected with,” Sabbagh recalls. “He was using a lot of effects, but at the same time he had a really distinct, original voice, and a degree of lyricism that is quite rare in an electric context.”

Dumoulin’s solo on the album’s perpetual-motion opener, “Drive,” highlights exactly why Sabbagh became so enamored of the Paris-based keyboardist. His ferocious howl approaches the overdriven force of an electric guitar, a sound that has inspired the saxophonist in the past: a member of the saxophonist’s long-running quartet, along with bassist Joe Martinand drummer Ted Poor, is the never-predictable guitarist Ben Monder, whose ability to coax a surprising array of colors from his chosen instrument is echoed by Dumoulin’s similarly virtuosic skillset.

“Ben and Jozef both have a very strong voice, harmonically as well as sonically,” Sabbagh says. “They sound like somebody singing, and that’s something I’m attracted to on any instrument. It’s something that I seek in my own playing.”

As a composer, Sabbagh achieves that singing quality via a propensity for rock-tinged pieces that embrace the accessibility of pop music without eschewing intellectual rigor. The anthemic “Special K”, with its infectious, memorable melody is a prime example, the type of tune that will send listeners scrambling into the recesses of their memory for a forgotten scrap of lyric. “I like writing quasi-pop tunes,” Sabbagh says. “The human voice is an inspiration to me.”

The two came together via a grant from the French-American Jazz Exchange program administered jointly by Chamber Music Americaand the French American Cultural Exchange, bringing Dumoulin to New York for an intensive ten days of rehearsal, gigging and recording. Sabbagh and Dumoulin each composed half of the repertoire, agreeing not to check in on one another during the writing process. “I had no idea what he was writing and he had no idea what I was writing until he flew to New York,” Sabbagh says. “We trusted that we would make it work once we actually got together.”

Not only did they make it work, but Plugged In is a powerfully cohesive album comprising fourteen diverse pieces. “One emphasis of this project was showcasing Jozef’s writing and my writing and the similarities and differences between them,” Sabbagh explains, “so I wanted to have a variety of material.” The pieces they chose reconcile Sabbagh’s pop-centric, song-like approach with Dumoulin’s headier, more conceptual style without the record ever feeling schizophrenic. The keyboardist’s ethereal “Ronny” seems to flow naturally from the saxophonist’s African-influenced “Jeli,” Sabbagh’s languorous “Minor” from Dumoulin’s simmering “UR”, which takes a free hand with the chords of “All the Things You Are,” leaving little trace of the well-worn standard.

Both composers get their fair share of the spotlight due over the course of the album’s fourteen concise tracks. Rather than indulging in lengthy, rambling improvisations, Sabbagh and company focused on playing brief, taut, impactful statements. “I like the idea of trying to get to the essence of the songs, saying what you have to say and then moving on,” Sabbagh says. “I think having one song that’s really different from the one before and the one after, like rock albums often do, keeps you alert and listening. And I like making albums as opposed to a random collection of songs.”

The session is possessed of the excitement its creators were feeling during its recordings. The date marked Dumoulin’s first visit not only to New York but to the States; Sabbagh was fresh off playing a week at the Village Vanguard in Paul Motian’s New Trio, alongside frequent collaborator Ben Monder (the legendary drummer, sadly, passed away two months later). That experience stood out, even among the other greats with whom Sabbagh has performed or recorded, including Victor Lewis, Bill Stewart, Billy Drummond, Andrew Cyrille, Daniel Humair, Guillermo Klein, Ben Street and many others.

March 27, 2012 on Sunnyside Records

Featuring Donny McCaslin, Gary Versace, Christian Howes, Dana Leong, Stephan Crump & Clarence Penn

Joel Harrison’s latest CD, Search, finds the critically acclaimed composer/guitarist challenging himself compositionally, using extended forms and techniques borrowed from many of his favorite classical composers. The end result transcends style and genre – the writing is stunning, and cements Harrison as one of the most important contemporary composers of the day.

The compositions flow seamlessly, instantly immersing the listener in a coherent, rich, dynamic sound world.  Pieces such as “Grass Valley and Beyond” and “The Beauty of Failure” have rich, memorable melodies that stick with the listener long after the album ends.  Complex rhythmic motion is a hallmark of the multi-layered, emotionally wrenching “A Magnificent Death,” which Harrison describes as the centerpiece of the record. This 15-minute mini-epic tells the story of a close friend who died in 2009. The piece opens with an austere repeated arpeggio in the strings and piano, then transitions to a melody layered over a circular 5/4 groove. Saxophonist Donny McCaslin plays a spell-binding solo. From there the band dissolves into a compelling solo piano interlude from Gary Versace, that could easily stand on its own as a fully-notated keyboard piece. By the end all the various threads of the piece come together in a moving finale as virtuosic as it is cathartic.

Harrison is known for seeking unusual sources for cover tunes amidst his own composing, as on his George Harrison project Harrison on Harrison and his truly “alt-country” project Free Country featuring Norah Jones, Uri Caine and longtime Paul Simon keyboardist/accordionist Tony Cedras. Few others could convincingly juxtapose The Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post” with a little-known 1937 choral motet, “O Sacrum Convivium” by 20th century classical giant Olivier Messiaen. Harrison claims he is not attempting any sort of grandiose statement by this apparent collision. “I simply love both pieces of music, and felt that their addition to the project balanced the four tunes I penned and added to the flow of the album.”

In fact, Harrison is deeply rooted in the music of The Allman Brothers, among others. “Live at the Fillmore East has been one of the most important records of my life,” he says.  ”At heart I may be more a blues than a jazz player. The Messiaen piece is an astonishingly lovely melody with chords that sound like they might have come out of jazz harmony. It seemed like a piece Paul Motian might have written.” The influence of Motian is not surprising, as Harrison’s previous Sunnyside release The Music of Paul Motian sought to re-contextualize the great drummer’s oeuvre with the Joel Harrison String Choir, made up entirely of string instruments and devoid of drums.

The stellar cast of players that Harrison has assembled here shows his deep immersion in the New York jazz scene, while demonstrating a sensitive ear for what types of players would work well for the music. Each band member contributes a singular sound and wide-ranging ability. Violinist Christian Howes and cellist Dana Leong, both classically trained and longtime Harrison collaborators are considered by many to be two of the top improvisers in the world on their respective instruments (Leong takes a ripping solo on “Whipping Post”). Donny McCaslin, the towering tenor saxophonist of immense technique and grace is used by everyone from trumpeter Dave Douglas to saxophonist Dave Binney to composers Maria Schneider and George Gruntz. Gary Versace, a multi-instrumentalist equally versatile on piano, organ and Fender Rhodes (among many other keyboard variants), is frequently called upon by everyone from jazzy pop chanteuse Madeleine Peyroux to drummer-composer John Hollenbeck. Stephan Crump, a sensitive and unique accompanist and bandleader also supports the likes of pianist Vijay Iyer, guitarists Jim Campilongo and Liberty Ellman and singer-songwriter Jen Chapin. Clarence Penn is the drummer of choice for multiple Grammy-winning composer Maria Schneider and celebrated trumpeter-composer Douglas. All are bandleaders in their own right. What all of these players share in common is an ability to give voice to the composer’s intentions, no matter what the style, and to get to the heart of the compositions. They are all extremely technically adept, yet their chops are secondary to the finesse and soul that they bring to this gripping new project.

The title illustrates Harrison’s philosophy for life. “Search”, he explains “is what I do everyday as an artist and human being. The older I get, the more I realize how much I have to learn, and how little time there is to do so. Keeping open, inquisitive, finding new possibilities is what art and life are all about.”

Out March 13 via Winter & Winter -

Featuring HENRY HEY (piano, minimoog synthesizer, fender rhodes piano, prepared harpsichord, voice), SKÚLI SVERRISON (electric bass, voice), CALEB BURHANS (electric five string violin, electric guitar, voice), JOHN HOLLENBECK (drums, percussion, crotales, voice)

After tackling American maverick composer Charles Ives and receiving a Grammy nomination for it, vocalist Theo Bleckmann now takes on the mysterious songbook of British pop recluse Kate Bush. This project goes beyond merely re-creating Kate’s Bush music, taking it into other realms of sound and interpretation. Bush’s œuvre is indeed mysterious and often enigmatic in nature: unusual song forms, oracular lyrics amd unpredictable meter- and harmony-changes are an anomaly in pop music, making it the perfect vehicle for Bleckmann’s distinctive, interpretive spirit and interest in the unusual. Even though Bush still remains a household name, it is fair to say that her music is not your usual run-of the mill boy-meets-girl/boy-loses-girl fare. Her use of British and Irish myths, her references to psychology, literature and film, her meticulously multi-layered productions and her unusually high voice make her idiosyncratic body of work challenging for other artists to interpret.

Bleckmann first heard Bush as a young teenager and was immediately intrigued…”her music has this thing that I love in art: you’re instantly drawn into someone’s universe without really knowing why but somehow understanding everything in your heart.” A lot of teenage pop heroes came and went, but Kate Bush remained a constant in Bleckmann’s life. “Her songs and records never became obsolete  –I now realize that the way she layered sound, speech and music became a major influence for my live electronic looping aesthetic.”  For “Hello Earth!,” Bleckmann chose songs that warranted a different interpretation.

Joining him in this venture are long-time collaborators percussionist John Hollenbeck and electric bassist Skúli Sverrisson, and keyboardist Henry Hey and violinist/guitarist/vocalist Caleb Burhans, who can also be heard on Bleckmann’s “Berlin” CD. “When I set out to do this, I knew right away that these were the perfect musicians for this kind of project. Hollenbeck, a brilliant composer and arranger of his own, contributed his vast orchestrational palette and ideas to the music, including the use of crotales which greatly shaped the sound of this record. Sverrisson and Bleckmann also go back many years and have worked together in various configurations (including Laurie Anderson’s band). Sverrisson’s profound sense of sound and layering and his compositional instincts became essential to the music. Keyboard wizard (and newly appointed musical director for George Michael) Henry Hey, whom Bleckmann worked with here for the first time, contributed a vast array of sounds and possibilities, transforming and bringing to life Bleckmann’s initial ideas. Caleb Burhans is perhaps one of the most sought after young musician/composers on the NY downtown scene today “I wanted someone who could play many different instruments, loop, improvise and sing, which pretty much eliminated everyone but Caleb. For the recording I chose to overdub myself and add more harmonies, but in performance Henry Hey and Caleb Burhans play AND sing.”

“Hello Earth!” is a journey into Kate Bush’s world through Bleckmann’s voice and interpretive vision: “Running up that Hill”, which open the record, gets a mysteriously ambient treatment.  The lyric suggests switching gender in order to fully experience the other, which is where Bleckmann’s journey begins. “Suspended in Gaffa’s” thumping waltz feel is now a suspended multi-metric virtuosic vehicle for the band, with Bleckmann proclaiming in jolting harming: “I want it all”. “And dream of sheep”, a song about being lost and shipwrecked at sea, turns into an ambient dream through Bleckmann’s use of vocal looping and Sverrison’s spherical bass playing then segueing into the unsettling “Under Ice”; a tale of entrapment under ice (a definite choice of song for Bleckmann who once was a competitive figure skater in his teens). “Violin” turns into a distorted death metal thrash, echoing the lyric’s destructive fierceness.

The title track,”Hello Earth” keeps most of its original elements, including the inclusion of the Georgian folk song “Zinzkaro” in which the violin is now taking over the main melody while Bleckmann provides the harmony. “All the Love”, however, gets a more radical transformation, again stripping away a lot of the original, Bleckmann stretches the original melody and harmonies and inserts a vocalise into the middle. The last verse is delivered over a static vocal and violin loop, bringing out the song’s fragility and feeling of regret. Set in a “Berlin bar”, “Saxophone Song” probably gets the most jazz treatment, while “Army Deamers” has been completely stripped of most of its original accompaniment and turned into an antiphonal drinking song as a lament over a lost generation of soldiers.

The record closes with Bush’s most well know (and covered) song “This Woman’s Work”. Here, Bleckmann accompanies himself with looped voices leading us out of the initial gender switching “Running up that Hill” to his exit by singing “make it go away, make it go away…now”. Bleckmann treats Bush’s music as he would  that of Charles Ives, Thelonius Monk, George Gershwin, Guillaume de Machaut, Joni Mitchell or any other composer he takes on: with love, respect and an insatiable curiosity for new possibilities.

]]> http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2012/01/21/theo-bleckmann-releases-hello-earth-the-music-of-kate-bush/feed/ 0 http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2012/01/20/pete-robbins%e2%80%99-transatlantic-quartet-releases-live-in-basel-working-with-all-european-musicians/ http://fullyaltered.com/fa/2012/01/20/pete-robbins%e2%80%99-transatlantic-quartet-releases-live-in-basel-working-with-all-european-musicians/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:35:49 +0000 Matt http://fullyaltered.com/fa/?p=2654

Out February 7th via Hate Laugh Music

Featuring MIKKEL PLOUG – Guitar (Denmark), SIMON JERMYN – Electric Bass (Ireland/Brooklyn) & KEVIN BROW – Drums (Canada)

Alto saxophonist and composer Pete Robbins has united a quartet of musicians with far-flung origins from across North America and Europe. Recorded at the end of one of their numerous European tours,Live in Basel documents a band focused on the interaction of its members.

The quartet is rooted in the time Robbins has spent in Copenhagen. After spending half of 2002 in the city, Robbins has returned frequently in the intervening years. His first acquaintance from the group was Kevin Brow, a drummer originally from Toronto living in Copenhagen. Bassist Simon Jermyn, an Irish ex-pat to New York, was introduced to Robbins by Brow. On the following visit to Copenhagen, Jermyn introduced Robbins to guitarist Mikkel Ploug, Jermyn’s classmate from conservatory in the Hague. “Mikkel and I have talked extensively about booking,” says Robbins. “He tours constantly, and he served as my inspiration to start booking European tours.” Since 2007, the Transatlantic Quartet has performed about 70 times in various European clubs and at festivals across the continent. “European audiences are really hungry for jazz music and creative music,” Robbins enthuses. “They’re very receptive to sounds that they haven’t necessarily heard before.”

This warm reception is reflected in Robbins’ decision to document the band in a live setting. His sixth album as a leader, Live in Basel is his third consecutive live album with as many different groups. As such, he has a keen awareness of the pros and cons of live recording. “You lose the ability to be a little more selective about how you put the album together, and you can’t do multiple takes,” says Robbins, but what does come across is the potential of Robbins and company to “blast the place down” when they choose to.

“I’m always looking to have a contrast from one record to the next,” says Robbins, and the relative directness of the Transatlantic Quartet is quite different from the free improvisation of the Unnamed Quartet and the timbal density of siLENT Z. “Do the Hate Laugh Shimmy (Fresh Sound, 2007) had a lot of layering and doubling,” he explains. “siLENT Z had a lot of stuff going on! It was refreshing to go into an environment where it was less about orchestration and more about interaction.”

Robbins describes the tunes in the Transatlantic Quartet’s repertoire as “probably the most ’straightahead’ record I’ve done since my first one, Centric,” and laughingly adds, “maybe not by any normal standards of ’straightahead!’” After playing extensively with the quartet, Robbins adapted some of his earlier repertoire for this group. Live in Basel revisits two tunes from Waits and Measures(Playscape, 2006): “There There,” which begins with swirling strings before open snare and toms, along with Robbins’ breathy, meditative alto, announce the theme; and the disjointedly funky “Inkhead,” whose interlocking parts benefit from the clarity of this quartet setting. Robbins also wrote new pieces for the quartet he describes as “messages of optimism.” The opening “Eliotsong” is dedicated to keyboardist Eliot Cardinaux, with Brow’s kinetic breakbeat alternately locking into and dancing around Jermyn’s bassline. Ploug’s subtly effected guitar provides a perfect foil for Robbins’ focused and controlled alto tone. “Hope Tober,” written for guitarist Adam Tober, closes the set with anthemic quality: a soaring melody from Robbins, chiming guitar from Ploug, and the rock solid foundation of Jermyn and Brow, with a brief flurry of freedom reminiscent of Robbins’ Unnamed Quartet. The arc of the set, and echoed within each piece, is expansive and powerful.

An acclaimed saxophonist and composer, Robbins counts similarly polyglot improvisers and composers like John Zorn, Craig Taborn and Mark Dresser among his colleagues. A native of Andover, Massachusetts, he graduated from New England Conservatory where he studied with George Garzone, George Russell and Paul Bley, among others. Bley calls Robbins “a real force” in jazz. Following his studies, he moved to Brooklyn in 2002 where he quickly became “a welcome presence on the creative music scene” (Time Out New York). He has received grants from Chamber Music America to pursue his compositional endeavors. Live in Basel is a testament to Robbins’ artistic breadth. “I don’t want to commit to any one stylistic approach,” he says, “because one is not inherently better than any other. What really matters is the execution.” Fittingly, while the Transatlantic Quartet will give CD release concerts in Europe in spring 2012, the New York album release event will also serve as the launch of a new group, the Reactance Quartet.

Iyer is Also The Cover Story
of the February 2012 Issue of JazzTimes

Accelerando is the follow-up to the Vijay Iyer Trio’s Grammy-nominated Historicity – voted the No. 1 Jazz album of 2009 around the world, including in the DownbeatInternational Critics Poll, The Village Voice Jazz Critic’s Poll, The Los Angeles Times and by The New York Times

“Truly astonishing, the Vijay Iyer Trio makes challenging music sound immediately enjoyable.” – National Public Radio

“[a] pillar of contemporary jazz…dynamic and revelatory” – Village Voice

“…a stunning album…” – Paste

Pianist-composer Vijay Iyer’s career has moved on an ever-accelerating arc over the past decade and a half, with the Indian-American artist earning a slew of international honors for his intrepid, multi-hued vision of 21st-century music. The latest chapter of this compelling story in contemporary jazz comes with the Vijay Iyer Trio’s Accelerando, an album driven by the visceral, universal, intoxicating experience of rhythm. To be released in March 2012 by the German independent label ACT Music + Vision, Accelerando sees Iyer and his telepathic trio mates – bassist Stephan Crump and drummerMarcus Gilmore – go both deep and wide. They light up material that ranges from a brace of bold Iyeroriginals and pieces by great jazz composers (Duke Ellington, Herbie Nichols, Henry Threadgill) to surprising interpretations of vintage and recent pop and funk tunes (Michael Jackson, Heatwave, Flying Lotus). Absorbing and infectious, this is jazz about not only the mind but the body.

With an advanced education in the hard sciences and his facility for complex music, Iyer could have been pegged as a “cerebral musician.” But, he insists, “I actually experience music on a visceral level, the way most people do. Dance is just a bodily way of listening to music – it’s a universal response. Jazz has always had some sort of dance impulse at its core. Bebop grew out of swing, which was a dance rhythm that became art music. I never want to lose that foundation of rhythmic communication in my work. That’s what Accelerando is concerned with, that physical reality of music. For me, music is action.”

Iyer has played with Memphis-bred bassist Stephan Crump since 1997 (when the pianist had first moved to New York City) and with Marcus Gilmore since 2003 (when the drummer, grandson of legendary jazz stickman Roy Haynes, was still attending New York’s LaGuardia High School). The overwhelming response to the trio’s 2009 album, Historicity, gave these musicians the opportunity to hone their group interaction in front of audiences around the world for two years. Iyer says: “We found more possibilities for spontaneous arrangement, textural and timbral extremes, and ensemble interplay. Our approach is less and less soloistic lately; it’s more about developing a collective energy and momentum. When you hear us now, you can tell that it’s us.”

As very contemporary musicians, Iyer and his trio mates have a wide purview when it comes to a group approach to rhythm. “The way we come to rhythm is inspired by Bud Powell and Max Roach, Ahmad Jamal, Ellington and Monk, but it is not limited to that,” he says. “There is the way James Brown approached it, and the way Jimi Hendrix, the Meters or Earth, Wind & Fire did it; there is the influence of Indian music, African music, Javanese gamelan. There is a whole world history of groove and pulse to draw on, and we do. When it comes to co-articulating a groove and thinking about the subtle dimensions of the beat, we aim to push and pull, to incorporate as many different ideas of orchestration, touch and dynamics as we can so that the rhythm breathes just like a body does.”

The range of material on Accelerando – from Ellington to Henry Threadgill to Michael Jackson to Iyer’s compositions – is dizzying, wonderfully so. Among Iyer’s original compositions, “Optimism” starts with a buoyant feel, but its crescendo “means that it builds way beyond anything hinted at by the opening material,” Iyer explains. “It erupts from the light to the visceral, and we have to push ourselves physically to achieve that.” The album’s title track was initially the final movement of a suite Iyer wrote for choreographer Karole Armitage that was performed in Central Park. “I’m interested in tempo as a structural element,” he says, “and this was an experiment to see if a constantly accelerating pulse could be the basis for dance. Luckily it worked.  It was an amazing experience to write something for dancers and see it realized.”

One of the highlights of Accelerando is Iyer’s ingenious version of Threadgill’s “Little Pocket-Sized Demons.” The kaleidoscopic original version included two tubas, two guitars and a French horn. “It took a leap of imagination,” Iyer says. “The original has this carnival vibe – polyphonic and surreal. It was hard to express all that counterpoint with just six hands.  We used arco bass to thicken up the sound and spread the beat to evoke the tubas. Thread came to a rehearsal and gave us pointers, which was so inspiring. Like Monk, Henry has this composer’s approach, but he is also someone, like Monk, who played in the church. You can hear that communicative power when he plays.  His relationship to the beat is profound.”

The soulful Ellington piece “The Village of the Virgins” comes from his 1970 ballet The River. Reducing his orchestral sound to the trio format “involved sleight of hand,” Iyer explains. “It both is and isn’t the original.” Herbie Nichols’ “Wildflower” is “a tune I really love,” Iyer says. “He was influenced by Duke and the stride pianists and by Stravinsky and Prokofiev. There is a lightness and elegance in spite of this harmonic darkness. It’s dissonant, but it makes you smile. It’s inspiring when someone reconciles the seemingly irreconcilable.” The album’s version of the Michael Jackson ballad “Human Nature” is a trio extension of Iyer’s solo piano arrangement heard on his 2009 album, Solo. “Interpreting a song like `Human Nature’ is about telling your own story, like Miles did not long after the original,” Iyer says. “That one or the Heatwave song or the Flying Lotus track were not obvious choices for a piano trio. But it’s good for us to reach beyond ourselves to different musical approaches and even beyond our instruments. It leads to discovery – and that’s the sound I really like.”

The Association of Performing Arts Presenters features jazz – its leaders, masters and music – at annual performing arts industry conference in New York City

Dingman is Joined by Three of LA’s Finest Musicians:
JOSH NELSON (piano), HAMILTON PRICE (bass) & ZACH HARMON (drums)