Road Trip!

by Anthony Medici in Concert Reviews, Musician Reviews, Opinion Posts

Literally just back from an enjoyable but tiring road trip to New York City; I-95 seems to still be spooling out in front of me as I write this.  I decided Friday to take an impromptu road trip to visit my daughter in college in Brooklyn (the new hip place in New York), my brother in Joisey (New Jersey to you), buy a few records, and take in the Saturday Art for Art Show at The Living Theater on the Lower East Side.   Left Friday night and was back in DC for lunch on Sunday.  The trip  is a blur of images, sights, sounds, tastes:  delicious pizza at Pompilio’s in Westwood, NJ, traffic jams noon and midnight in NYC; LPs and more LPs; and blasts of passionate free jazz, and the sinuous movement of skilled dancers. 

In the face of a tanking economy, and dwindling shelf (and floor) space, I tried to limit my acquisition of lovely vinyl.  Still, I found some hard to find and desirable LPs by Willem Breuker Kollektief, Hamiett Bluiett Quarter (with Don Pullen), Fred Hopkins, and Famoudou Don Moye), Archie Shepp (“On this Night”), Tim Berne, Joe McPhee, Cecil Taylor (“Live at the Cafe Montmartre”), Dewey Redman, Roscoe Mitchell (on Nessa), Clifford Thornton, Frank Lowe, Dudu Pukwana, Leo Smith, and Gunter Hampel.  Hours of exciting listening ahead! 

The concert was the last in the series of Vision Collaboration Nights 2009, produced by Patricia Nicholson (when is some arts endowment going to give this woman a medal–and, perhaps as welcome, a substantial grant? – she is among the most vital and productive people on the New York City jazz scene at the moment), highlighting interaction between installation artists, choreographer, dancers, and avant jazz musicians.  The Saturday show featured the “Patricia Nicholson’s A State of Mind” dancers; Patricia herself and a trio of very fine young dancers, including Miriam Parker (sorry, I do not have the names of all the dancers, as there were some apparent last minute substitutions, and my notes disappeared into the New York night).   The musicians accompanying the dancers were William Parker on bass, Cooper Moore on percussion, and Jason Kao Hwang on violin.  I thought the performance was excellent all around, with Parker laying down some robust bass lines, Moore, giving the dancers some strong beats, and Kao Hwang providing  a “story line” that moved beautifully from lyric to dramatic to tragic and back to a transcendent conclusion.  I was quite impressed with Kao Hwang’s playing: I love it when a  musician combines deep intelligence with feeling.  I applaud Patricia Nicholson’s efforts to bring avant jazz and dance together; it expands the aesthetic of both arts.

The second set was supposed to be Moore on “hand-crafted instruments,” Charles Gayle (something of a free jazz legend) on tenor sax, Tony Malaby, also on tenor sax, and William Parker on bass.  You might recall from a previous post  that I wanted to check out Malaby at a Philadelphia show, but he was unable to make the gig.  This time, Malaby made it, but Gayle couldn’t make the gig (I heard he was ill).  Moore decided to play piano rather than “hand-crafted instruments” (although, when you think of it, which musical instrument isn’t hand-crafted?).   Sitting in the drum chair was the peripatetic Nasheet Waits, whom we last saw in El Saffar’s Iraqi Jazz Fusion group.   As usual, Nasheet played well when he played loud, and was this ever an opportunity to play loud.  Jason Kao Hwang made a return appearance on violin.  And Downtown scene stalwart Sabir Mateen substituted for Gayle on tenor sax.  The group came out firing on all cylinders; or at least Mateen was.  Not much bigger than his tenor sax, Sabir blew up a storm on the opening 45 minute piece.  Whether it was the inspiration of the moment, an attempt to make up for Gayle’s absence, or a free jazz cutting contest designed to settle Malaby, a rising star, I can’t say, although it might have well been a combination of all of these.  Sabir provided his own “gale” force (sorry), in the face of which Malaby temporarily retired to the wings.  But Malaby wouldn’t stay there too long.  He provided some killer playing, with “composerly” touches even in some very heated passages.  In bulk and stature, Malaby reminds me of Joe Lovano.  In facial appearance and expressions, he reminded me, oddly enough, of opera star Andrea Bocelli, aided by the fact that Malaby typically kept his eyes closed during much of the performance, although during one ecstatic solo, his eyes were locked on some spot beyond the audience, beyond New York City, heck, beyond Andromeda.   He wore a smile of delight pretty much throughout the evening, seeming to enjoy, as much as anyone in the audience, the playing of his musical colleagues.  Parker was beautiful as usual, and even provided a musical surprise for the audience, when, still cradling his contrabass, he began playing a Spanish wooden wind instrument (the name of which departed with my notes) that sounded like a cross between a clarinet and soprano sax.   Jason Kao Hwang had some audio trouble early in the performance, and even when that was fixed, had occasional trouble being heard above the sonic blasts of the tenors.  As Jason told me after the show, “you have to pick your spots,” and when he did, he provided some of the best jazz violin playing I have heard recently. 

Thoroughly satisfied, I headed back to Jersey.  But then I made a mistake.  I turned on my good friends at WBGO, the self-proclaimed “jazz station” out of Newark, NJ.  For those who have been reading these posts for a while, you know that I consider WBGO the audio equivalent of Valium.  As I listened to the turgid programming grind on, I came to several conclusions:  there have been many, many mundane -and just flat bad– jazz recordings made; 2)  WBGO owns most of them and is committed to making you hear them; 3) WBGO is like those restaurants in Florida who cater to the retired set (I know because I visited my dad in his retirement haven), whose food is bland, bland, bland, devoid of flavor, designed to be easily chewed and swallowed.  Honestly, this is some of the worst jazz programming I have heard; it’s that simple.  I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with WBGO if they called themselves an “easy listening” station, which they are.  To call themselves a jazz station is disgraceful.   

Well, I-95 has caught up with me.  Time for a nap.