NYC Winter Jazzfest, a cool-whilst-cold multi-borough January tradition, kicked off with a talent-stacked Thursday showcase on January 9th from Candid Records in the East Village. Constructed around a closing performance by bandleader, percussionist and composer Terri Lyne Carrington of her forthcoming Max Roach-inspired LP – a re-imagined descendant of early ‘60s Civil Rights manifesto-as-music We Insist! – Ave C’s Nublu showcased multiple players in distinct sets who then reconvened for the big, cramped-stage finale.
Vibraphonist Simon Moullier was the odd man out, expressing understandable regret during his quintet’s opening set that he couldn’t stay for the rest of the night – but the five-piece rocked Nublu’s oddball stairs-as-stage, Moullier’s instrument pulsing and swaying as he ferociously sped up and down his vibe’s chiming bars. His drummer and a second auxiliary percussionist found deep grooves, while Moullier, equally locked in with his bassist and piano player, leveled-up to melodious and ecstatic concluding fantasia.
Guitarist Matthew Stevens followed – also leading a five-man ensemble playing original compositions – by starting off with an even keel, string-forward tapestry that spiraled outward before sublimely subsiding. Bass initially took the lead on a later piece, then pizzicato guitar plucks emerged to shape the sound and guide us to intricate reverie. Frequently exploring realms of subdued nuance, the group expanded their palette to then offer a slow, contemplative groove with wiry, six-string lead. Keeping things reasonably varied, they pushed into meatier fare to close, guitar notes sliding and whirring aggressively upward, evaporation on its heels.
Trumpeter and flugel horn player Milena Casado was second-to-last, her set hypnotically alternating between fiery dense and lithely sparse. Conjuring electric-era Miles, she pedal-drenched her mastered instrument in cathedral acoustics, slow and long melodies overtaking empty palaces. And then her electric pianist and pointed bassist ably went full attack, Casado’s distorted brass leads guiding a short but acrobatic flight, her black boot, trigger-ready, hovering over the next effect.
We Insist! 25 then brought everything home. The night’s performers merged into a Nublu supersquad, and Terri Lyne Carrington led the proceedings between drum-for-your-life thunderous melee and rustling-shells peacefulness. Vocalist Christie Dashiell poetically contemplated the possibility of freedom, an update on the musings of her ‘61 counterpart Abbey Lincoln, pondering having “space to create.” A dancer stretched and swayed, hopefully ascending and then dutifully descending those darned stairs-as-stage. Carrington explained that the struggles of today are both different and the same as what came before; her tunes nod at the past, sure – but they intend to change the future.
Jazz gigs ain’t usually at five o’clock. If one is: you know something’s up. Thankfully, this time, something good: Manhattan hosted the first of two Winter Jazzfest Marathon days, and if you were a glutton for seeing too much music, you just had to book it over to City Winery at quittin’ time and show your wristband to get a dose of the good stuff. For inside that hour the earliest of the festival night’s groups, Jenny Scheinman’s All Species Parade, took to the downstairs mainstage for a mix of spirited stomps and slow laments. Violinist Scheinman, whose All Species project is a contemplation of nature and humans rocky place within, offered bowed contemplations of creatures both with us and lost, leading a quintet augmented with dancer Julianna Cressman’s nimble moves.
Towards the opposite end of lower Manhattan, theaters on the fourth floor Performance Space NY were also getting an early start on the night. Another gifted jazz violinist, Cuban-born Yilian Cañizares, brought us the wide world, leading a trio at The Neilma Sidney Theatre that featured drums and a double-necked bass guitar, their leader jumping to keyboard when the mood required.
In the larger Keith Haring Theater, local Brandee Younger led a three-person group of a differing sort. The acclaimed harpist brought a calming, shimmering divinity to the proceedings, a paradoxically substantive airiness caressed from her instrument. Backed by a drum and bass combo that never overpowered, she asked the house to kill the red lights – not just vibe appropriate, but a tweak necessary for her to clearly discern her multi-color strings. Covering Coltrane (Alice, of course) might seem a little on-the-nose given her instrument of choice, but one couldn’t argue with the results: meditative, eyes-closed serenity.
Several blocks closer still to the East River as the night deepened, bassist Mali Obomsawin led a sizable ensemble through her charged, haunting compositions. The youthful Odanak First Nation prodigy, the L.A. wildfires on her (and everyone’s) mind, reflected, “What a different moment we would be in if our religion were still based on the land.” She bowed her upright mournfully, then sparse plucks and drips exploded into skronky, full-band abandon. Expertly deploying an expanded group including reed, horn, guitar and drums (crashingly so, as a cymbal was dutifully thwacked so hard it and its stand tumbled off the stage) she smiled as she hurriedly read her own sheet music, her face occasionally breaking into a wide and mild exasperated tongue-out grin, challenging herself, self-offering a reason to rise.
Next up at Nublu: a solo electronics and horn set from London tuba impresario Theon Cross. Using loops and mutating back beats as a warming bass layer, Cross went low (obviously) but also high (who knew?) on his oversized horn. He swayed and grooved as he clutched the unwieldy instrument, a hand oft-wandering down to the knobs and buttons so he might morph and galloping stutter drum into a driving bit of alarmist high-BPM cardio. Quoting small bits of the jazz canon (and repeatedly Outkast’s beloved “SpottieOttie”) in his free-ranging-but-never-meandering explorations, he layered live horn over machine beat, fusing himself to his implements – and melting the music into and over the out-late crowd.
Left-of-the-dial reveries and rev-ups from Kalia Vandever and Mike Haldeman might have induced puzzlement from more anachronistic heads, but a genre survives by ever-expanding, ever-evolving – as was much of the tone for the third day of this year’s NYC Winter Jazz Fest Marathon. Early-side Saturday listeners in the backroom of Brooklyn’s Union Pool (QRO venue review) were treated to a sparkling array of trombone-and-guitar soft power duo soundscapes. At first, gentle plucks and subdued slides guided audience meditation, then overlaid static bursts or underpinned heartbeat rumbles elicited a more lucid-style dreaming. Vandever’s trombone and Haldeman’s guitar both morphed by a catalog of pressable effects, fretted gauze and lip-blown haze melted together, and then a pedal-assist climb or ruffled, repeating glitch cleaved it back apart.
One subway stop over at new music haven National Sawdust, an expanded iteration of the Vijay Iyer Trio added trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, beautifully quading out what’s normally a three-deep affair. Bandleader and pianist Iyer, sometimes nimbly switching over to Fender Rhodes as a friendly counter to its stately acoustic forebear, often let O’Farrill take the exploratory center, his horn swelling, searching and trembling, augmented by mutes and electronics. Iyer’s impressionistic nu-take on the artform was seldom earthbound, despite able anchoring from stand-up bassist Matt Brewer, capably subbing in for Linda May Han Oh. Literal doctor-of-the-drums Tyshawn Sorey could steal any moment he chose if he weren’t a consummate team player, not so much setting pace as willing it, ante-ing it upward.
A slightly more trad racket issued forth at nearby Brooklyn Bowl (QRO venue review), sax-man Isaiah Collier ably out-competing gutter thuds and pin strikes for auditory attention. Offering a more state-and-vary-the-theme established format with backing band The Chosen Few, the Chicago bandleader also kept a decorated table of auxiliary percussion on hand, shaking bells or thwacking double tambourines any time his multiple saxophones weren’t called to action. The quartet – rounded out with bass, drums and electric keys – made a joyous, celebratory wail even if the subject matter might have implied something more somber. Playfully interpolating a string of identifiably patriotic American melodies into one number, his between-song banter made the intention clear enough. Collier’s too-aptly named project: “The World Is on Fire.”
Deeper into the night, L.A. five-piece SML started off slow and spartan at Music Hall of Williamsburg (QRO venue review), then piled on intensity bit-by-bit, building a long-form, multi-part study that traveled from docile to stately to frantic. A continually evolving tapestry that would settle into practiced hypnotism – a patched, colorful-cable operated old-school synth pulsing, sax in staccato solidarity – they’d then earn audience cheers as the drummer cracked and reshaped the group’s slanted scaffolding. All five members head-clad in tight hipster knits, they deployed repeated bass figures with loopy precision, tightly plucked an electric guitar for texture, using rock instruments to make ambient techno, using jazz instruments to make slippery rock, club-nite hardware to generate fusion – any angle necessary to make the people dance.
