David Adler
September 2001

New York @ Night
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By David R. Adler

Quote of the Month

"His music hints at the secret truth that New York is sad before it is busy, and that it is a kind of inverted garden, with all the flowers blooming down in the basements." — Adam Gopnik on Bill Evans, New Yorker, 8/13/01

Raven-O at Wilson’s

On August 1, Raven-O, jazz vocalist and one of New York’s most glamorous drag queens, kicked off a regular Wednesday night series at Wilson’s on the Upper West Side. "I needed a special visa to go above 14th Street," Raven joked. Now, who better to back a transvestite jazz singer than bassist (and musical director) Ben Allison, pianist Frank Kimbrough, tenor saxophonist Michael Blake, and drummer Michael Sarin? That’s right: the drag scene meets the Jazz Composers Collective. Raven and the guys energetically ran through tunes like "Summertime," "Love for Sale," "This Bitter Earth," "Fine and Mellow," and quite a few more. Raven sang with panache, recalling at times the high-pitched, bluesy bite of Dinah Washington. Clad in a long black dress, his hair pulled back tight and affixed with a large floral clip, he was fabulous in a way that only a New York drag queen could be. And hilarious, too: before launching into "That’s All" he pulled out a flashlight and beamed it on a noisy bunch seated at the bar: "Hey, this is a sensitive song, so you’ll have to be quiet. I know the coke is kicking in, but come on." At another point, pausing for some water, he said, "I’m sweating like Whitney Houston in Customs."

Imani Uzuri at Joe’s Pub

Vocalist Imani Uzuri came to New York from the Bay Area in 1997. She’s become an important figure on the city’s underground circuit and has racked up a number of impressive collaborations with the likes of guitarists David Gilmore and Marvin Sewell, rapper Talib Kweli, and English drum-n-bass pioneers 4-Hero. With Herbie Hancock she co-wrote "Be Still," a track that appears on his new record, Future2Future (Transparent). At Joe’s she led an intriguing semi-acoustic ensemble that featured the angular jazz sensibilities of pianist Vijay Iyer, the eminently tasteful guitar work of Marvin Sewell, and the creative percussion of Jeffrey Haynes, who has appeared on the last two Lonnie Plaxico albums. Maximina Juson played electric bass, Julia Kent the cello. This particular show was somewhat different from Uzuri’s regular, drum-n-bass-oriented work ("a bit more California-style," as Iyer describes it). Her voice was tremendous, and with her tall stature and flowing Moroccan gown and headwrap, she had a riveting stage presence. Her songs meandered at times, and her focus on spirituality grew somewhat didactic, although her sense of humor did much to lighten the mood. One of the last songs disarmingly portrayed the protest of a jilted lover: "Jason, was I your bitch?"

Wayne Shorter, Outdoors

On the last day of the Verizon Jazz Festival, there was an outdoor blowout on the Quad at Columbia University, featuring, among others, James Carter, Abbey Lincoln, and Wayne Shorter. Shorter’s new working quartet, with Danilo Perez, John Patittuci, and Brian Blade, played Avery Fisher Hall during the JVC Festival not long ago. To hear Wayne’s tenor reverberate through that hall was an experience (see New York @ Night for July). To hear him again so soon, his volleys of notes resounding throughout the Columbia campus and slicing through the humid evening air, was almost too good to be true. The sound was great, the band was on fire. Most of the repertoire was the same, although the group began with a fast, tumultuous reading of "Sanctuary," the one Shorter composition that appears on Bitches Brew. (It’s the best tune on the album, and a totally different beast in this group’s hands.)

The Vanguard

It was an especially good month at the Village Vanguard: we caught Greg Osby, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Jacky Terrasson. Osby had Jason Moran on piano, Mark Helias on bass, and Marlon Browden on drums. Thursday’s late set found them eschewing material from the new record, Symbols of Light: A Solution (Blue Note). But they did play a few bracing standards: "Night and Day," "I Didn’t Know About You," "Tea for Two," "Sidewinder." They also opened with Moran’s "Gangsterism on Canvas," giving the pianist the floor for a solo intro, the first of his many sterling performances of the evening. Just after midnight, Osby told the crowd, "You all just witnessed a magic trick: I turned 41 before your very eyes."

Kurt Rosenwinkel retooled his working quartet a bit, enlisting pianist Ethan Iverson rather than his regular cohort Mark Turner. Bassist Ben Street and drummer Jeff Ballard remained on board, but Iverson’s shrewd playing gave the music a very different flavor. For one thing, there were a number of standards in the book, including "Along Came Betty," "Turn Out the Stars," and a phenomenal "’Round Midnight" (you must hear Iverson play this tune). Elmo Hope’s "Eyes So Beautiful As Yours" and Eric Dolphy’s "Mrs. Parker of K.C." were inspired, unusual choices. Rosenwinkel also played a new one called "Gesture (Lester)," dedicated to his father; his unaccompanied intro to "Synthetics" was enough to make you spill your drink.

Jacky Terrasson had Leon Parker on drums and Sean Smith on bass. True to form, he had a Fender Rhodes set up next to the piano, but he played it only on the opener, a Caribbean 7/8 version of Ravel’s Bolero. The trio also played "I Wish You Love," "Love for Sale," "Reach," and a few other originals. Sean Smith sounded wonderful; Parker and Terrasson were as telepathic as ever. This trio has really broken free of the head-solos-head convention; they’re great at stretching forms and delaying gratification, keeping you waiting for the big pay-off. Sometimes, however, the pay-off never quite arrives.

Old Office, New Music

In the Knitting Factory’s Old Office, bassist Mario Pavone and guitarist Michael Musillami performed with a new quintet, featuring Art Baron on trombone, George Sovak on tenor and soprano, and George Schuller on drums. This was something of a departure from Pavone and Musillami’s working quartet, Motion Poetry, with pianist Peter Madsen and drummer Michael Sarin, although some of the music was from that group’s new disc, Op-Ed (Playscape). Other selections were drawn from Pavone’s superb new octet release, Totem Blues (Knitting Factory). This is dissonant, highly angular music — not free, not straightahead, not anything readily categorized. It’s what the late Thomas Chapin used to call "the Connecticut sound" (this circle’s home base is well north of NYC). Seek out their recordings, and when they do hit in the city, check them out.

Celebrating his new release, Seeing By the Light of My Own Candle (Knitting Factory), soprano saxophonist and composer Rob Reddy led four different groups on four Tuesdays, the last of which featured his long-standing octet. (The other bands were O’Brazil, Wake Snakes, and Sleeping Dogs.) Driven by drummer J. T. Lewis and the dual low-end pillars of electric bassist Shahzad and double bassist Dom Richards, the octet made a tremendous noise, with sustained and extremely dissonant chords over churning, chugging rhythms. Trumpeter John Carlson, baritonist Tim Otto, guitarist Brandon Ross and cellist Tomas Ulrich laid the additional bricks in this wall of sound. Dom Richards introduced one selection with a spirited solo, banging quite hard on the body of his instrument and using a wet finger to rub and squeak on its surface. Can’t recall anyone else ever doing the wet-finger bit.

Later in the month, tenor saxophonist Tim Armacost led a sextet in the same room: Scott Wendholt on trumpet, Jorge Sylvester on alto, Frank Amsallem on keyboard, Ugonna Okegwo on bass, and Ali Jackson on drums. The first set consisted of only three tunes, each with a full solo rotation. Amsallem’s digital patch seemed slightly at odds with the aesthetic of the music, which was loose and edgy with a hint of hardbop. The playing was top-notch, though. Armacost has two strong records out on Double-Time, and a third is due out later this fall.

Tonic

The Esbjorn Svensson Trio, or E.S.T., was in from Sweden to support the release of their first stateside disc, Somewhere Else Before, a compilation drawn from three previous European titles. In addition to a free afternoon performance in Bryant Park as part of the Verizon Festival, E.S.T. also landed a gig at Tonic, where they turned in an excellent performance. Together with bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Magnus Ostrom, pianist Svensson played several of the best numbers from the record, including "The Wraith" and "From Gargarin’s Point of View." These Swedes can also play the blues — fast and slow, with a firm grounding in post-bop but also with an eye on rock and European DJ culture. The finale, "Dodge the Dodo," was far more hard-hitting than on the album. "Bemsha Swing," with audience participation, served as the encore.

Shifting 180 degrees, we caught Matthew Shipp’s trio set, featuring Mat Maneri on viola and Rob Brown on alto sax and flute. The three started playing and didn’t stop for nearly 45 minutes. Shipp’s rhythmic intensity and barrages of dense harmony were incredible to behold; so were Maneri’s technical feats, like plucking a pizzicato drone while simultaneously bowing an involved melodic passage. Each player wound up taking an unaccompanied solo during the course of the set, with Brown’s screaming multiphonic soliloquy threatening to peel the paint off the wall. There couldn’t have been a greater distance between Shipp’s set and E.S.T.’s. Svensson and company came to town with a specific agenda: promoting a long-awaited record, hitting New York audiences with carefully selected tunes. Shipp, Maneri, and Brown just played; there were no tunes to speak of. Here were two radically different notions of performance, in the same club during the same month, presumably belonging to the same general category: "downtown" or whatever. "What Is Jazz" indeed.

The Jazz Gallery

Jason Moran brought his trio, now called The Bandwagon, to the Gallery for a three-night stint. Tarus Mateen was on bass, and Eric McPherson subbed for Nasheet Waits on drums. After running through a few tunes from Facing Left, Soundtrack to Human Motion, and Black Stars, Moran introduced the wonderful Alicia Hall, whose soprano voice brought the band’s eclecticism to another level. Moran explained that with Hall they were exploring "art songs, or songs that are artful." They began with "What Would I Do?" from the movie The Wiz, then continued with a classical piece called "Sleep" and an original of Hall’s called "Bless the Boats." Another thing: before the set began, Moran cued up on mini-disc a short montage of samples and ambient sounds, during the course of which each band member was introduced by an electronic voice. Moran’s love of hip-hop is well known, and here he was borrowing a hip-hop device — the kind of intro you hear at the outset of a rap record — to set the stage for his own performance. In an article that appeared in Texas Monthly several years ago, Stanley Crouch dismissively stated, "Maybe [Moran will] find some way to put jazz and hip-hop together and sell a lot of records." Now that we’ve had a few years to witness Moran’s development as an artist, Crouch’s comment sounds all the more ignorant and behind the curve.

Alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa also led a superb quartet at the Gallery, mostly playing music from his forthcoming The Preserver. Guitarist Liberty Ellman, bassist Francois Moutin, and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee play on the record, but appearing here with Mahanthappa and Kavee were pianist Vijay Iyer and bassist Carlo DeRosa. Mahanthappa’s chops are practically unparalleled; his music, rooted in the fairly young vocabulary of M-Base, is constructed not unlike a roller-coaster, with sudden turns and tempo changes, precipitous dynamic shifts, and intricate polyrhythmic shadings. For the most part, though, it’s fast. These players (most of whom arrived from the Bay Area in the last two or three years) are making music unlike anything else in the city today. If you’re near the Gallery on September 13, go hear the trio known as Fieldwork, with Vijay Iyer, Elliot Kavee, and tenor saxophonist Aaron Stewart. Or the next night, the Liberty Ellman Quartet, also featuring Vijay Iyer. On October 30, Iyer holds his release party for Panoptic Modes at Joe’s Pub.

Cornelia Street Café

Vibraphonist Matthias Lupri was joined by none other than George Garzone for an evening at Cornelia Street. Also on board were Norm Zocher on guitar, John Lockwood on bass, and Barry Romberg on drums. Lupri’s music is melodic and at times adventurous, although he could stand to get out from under the shadow of his teacher, Gary Burton. Zocher’s harsh and yet tentative sound, moreover, did the music a disservice. But Lupri is a promising talent: he’s got two records out, including Shadow of the Vibe (featuring Garzone); a third, Same Time Twice, forthcoming for this fall, features Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Reuben Rogers, and Greg Hutchinson.

Toward the tail end of August, Rez Abbasi, probably the most underrated guitarist in town, co-led an ad-hoc quartet with alto saxophonist Travis Sullivan, bassist Bob Bowen III, and drummer Dan Weiss. On one tune, Abbasi introduced a South Asian tinge with his sitar guitar — the kind that Steve Howe used to play with Yes. But as is the case with Iyer and Mahanthappa, Abbasi explores his ethnic (specifically, Pakistani) heritage with subtlety; it’s not just a matter of sprinkling in a few exotic scales or "bangles and bindis," as Iyer once put it. This was free improvisation with the added benefit of sitar timbres — the mysterious odd tuning of the resonating strings, for instance — pushing the interplay in directions it wouldn’t have gone otherwise. The sound of this instrument in tandem with Sullivan’s alto and the free-jazz ruminations of Bowen and Weiss made for something quite out of the ordinary.

In case you’ve never done it, go to Cornelia, sit at the bar, and watch the band in the mirrors that line the room leading up to the stage.

Cell Phone Chronicles

Nothing to do with jazz, but we found ourselves at John Leguizamo’s one-man show at the Beacon Theater. A woman behind us took a call on her cell phone. She proceeded to converse for a short while as the show was in progress, finally losing patience: "I can’t hear you, I’ll call you back." The problem, you see, was that she couldn’t hear.

We also saw "Apocalypse Now Redux" (the added scenes were mostly bad, and the sound during this showing was marred by several loud pops. Incredible film, though.) Just as Martin Sheen was emerging from Kurtz’s compound, blood-stained and war-painted, a man in the front row took a call on his phone, interrupting the pregnant and terrifying silence.

In five or ten years, will the taboo against phone calls during performances have evaporated completely? The utmost vigilance is required. Throwing food and other objects should not be ruled out.