Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles
Brad Mehldau
Nonesuch Records
Pianist Brad Mehldau is a chameleon-like figure, able to play music in many styles and a creative composer. He excels at finding new standards, recent pop songs that benefit from jazz treatment. The Beatles’s songbook is among the most durable in the pop canon, having endured numerous revisionings, some inspired and, sadly, some insipid. Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles is strongly inspired.
A live recording that consists of ten Beatles songs and a David Bowie encore (“Life on Mars”), the audience is warmly enthusiastic. Other pianists who mine pop for new standards, Herbie Hancock, Ethan Iverson, and Christopher O’Riley to name just a few, each bring their own approach to the task. Often, the original’s arrangement is discarded for flights of fancy. Mehldau sometimes stays true to the Beatles’ recordings. I Am the Walrus’ adheres to as much of the psychedelic bounty as two hands can manage. “For No One” is riff-filled during its instrumental breaks, but keeps true to the verse and chorus and its beginning and conclusion.
Elsewhere, Mehldau uses the songs as springboards for improvisation. “I Saw Her Standing There” is given a rousing rock ‘n roll treatment with a bluesy solo. “Golden Slumbers” is adorned with post-bop riffs. “Your Mother Should Know” gets a swing shuffle treatment, while “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” sounds in places like Thelonious Monk has visited the stage. “Here, There, and Everywhere” is moving in its restraint, played by Mehldau with a rubato approach that begins true to the original, then adds modal jazz’s parallel planing of chords and dissonant extensions that add surprise to the tune.
The Bowie encore is performed with poignancy alternating with virtuosic octave passages. Interestingly, instead of embellishing the chord structure, Mehldau strips out a few passing chords to keep the changes in a more Romantic vein.
Above all, Mehldau displays curiosity and affection for the songs themselves. The Beatles will continue to inspire different approaches to their music. Future interpreters would do well to keep Your Mother Should Know in mind as a touchstone for how it should be done.
Jürgen Kupke, clarinet; Michael Thieke, alto clarinet, clarinet; Gebhard Ullmann, bass clarinet
Leo Records LR 921
Gebhard Ullmann is celebrating his sixty-fifth birthday with the release of three albums, Transformations and Further Passages on Leo among them. The Clarinet Trio are a superb group of improvisers, Jürgen Kupke and Michael Thieke are eloquent foils for Ullmann. Unlike some other Ullmann outings, where he clearly leads the proceedings, this is a context in which everyone collaborates and gets to take solo turns. In fact, three of the tracks are solos, one for each member of the trio. While some pieces are improvised, much of the music-making here is based on compositions by European jazz composers.
“Collective #13” is one of the former, and finds the musicians exploring tone colors overlapping in a compound melody, vibrato and overblowing creating a shimmering texture. Upward glissandos and a howl from the bass clarinet punctuate the close of the piece, which concludes with a distressed unison detuned with subtle pitch bends.
In Joki Freund’s “Cleopatra,” a bebop moto perpetuo with the tune overlapping dominates. Likewise, “Virtue,” by Manfred Schoof, explores a swing ballad with tasty changes and a bit more tension in the solos. “Set ‘em Up,” by Albert Mangelsdorff, is a quicksilver bebop tune, harmonized by the trio with great suavity. Once again, when two players drop out, the remaining soloist performs in a more experimental vein. Eventually, “Set ‘em Up” moves into a skronking trio before a more traditional outro.
“Tension/Varié,” also by Mangelsdorff, initially combines free passages with a jaunty heterophonic refrain, then there are long stretches of sustained notes and mercurial flurries. The tune slowly emerges again from the texture, leading to a new section of chorale-like gestures. A loping accompaniment gives the tune, now floridly embellished with howling altissimo gestures, a Middle Eastern feel. The denouement combines the rhythmic groove with the previous chorales. “Tension/Varié” is a wide-ranging and satisfying musical journey.
There is a liveliness and puckish sense of humor, even in pieces that allow all three clarinetists to caterwaul with abandon. “Get Up, From Now On,” by Karl Berger, has a bluesy riff that is explored for much of the piece. But there are free jazz breaks where the trio trade licks and howls. The juxtaposition is surprising, but left turns such as these seem to be the trio’s calling card.
“Solo 1,” performed by Thieke, traverses the compass of the alto clarinet in jangling lines that are punctuated by stentorian low notes. Ullmann’s “Solo 2” begins delicately with whiffs of birdsong, only to be ruptured to wakefulness with fortissimo bass notes. Microtonal interpolations close the solo, a brief essay with a bounty of material. It segues into Rolf Kühn’s “Don’t Run,” which fleshes out the experimental gestures of Ullmann’s solo. Mangelsdorff’s “Theme from Vietnam” crests and subsides in waves of interactive melody and bent notes. It is followed by Kupke’s “Solo 3,” in which disjunct lines are delicately deployed with repeats of the head motive. It is an enigmatic close to an exploratory album. It makes one eager to hear more of Ullmann’s sixty-fifth birthday celebrations.
Benjamin Lackner, piano; Mathias Eick, trumpet; Jérôme Regard, bass; Manu Katche, drums
ECM Records
Pianist Benjamin Lackner makes his ECM debut with Last Decade. Joined by a stalwart group of collaborators, many of them ECM alumni who have appeared on many of the label’s releases, Lackner is in an ideal situation to present his compositions, as well as one by bassist Jérôme Regard. A few of the constraints the pianist placed on himself, no electronics, a staple of his previous recordings, and the addition of trumpeter Mathias Eick to his usual piano trio format, have afforded him the chance to stretch. Lackner has described rethinking harmonic voicings and allowing space for a melodic voice as aspects that were spurred on by Eick’s presence.
Lackner’s originals move away from his prior post-jazz leanings back toward the modern jazz tradition. The recording’s opener, the smoky “Where Do We Go from Here,” begins with a slow tempo trumpet solo with a memorable melody that is then deconstructed by Lackner, with the two exchanging mid-tempo lines.Katche and Eick are well known to each other, having played on many ECM albums together, some as leaders and others as collaborators. Regard has been the bassist in Lackner’s groups since 2006. The two duos combine as an acoustic quartet that is distinctive and well-attuned. Lackner’s flourish-filled solo on “Circular Confidence,” followed by the slow build solo that follows from Eick, who emulates the climax of the piano material, is an engrossing piece. “Hung up on that Ghost” includes prominent bass pedals and a slow intro from Lackner, followed by a mid-tempo main section in which Katche provides variety from the kit. Gerard and Lackner continue their colloquy with burnished melodic play from the bassist. Eick’s belated arrival is no less welcome, his solo here angular, adding motives for the others to explore only scarcely outlined in the changes. The group ends up playing their material in counterpoint, creating a quilt of amalgamated textures.
The title track begins with a chordal presentation of the melody, with Gerard and Katche creating an undulating rhythmic canvas. Lackner’s solo gradually moves through 3:2 passage work to fleetly rendered arpeggiations. As it builds, the pianist burrows into the middle of the piano, ferreting out chromatic seconds. Eick’s solo instead begins with a light touch, gradually moving into the upper register but maintaining a piano dynamic. The piece ends with his solo, Katche providing a snatch of sizzle as punctuation.
Gerard’s composition “Émile” finds the bassist playing a funky solo reminiscent of his work with Lackner on previous outings. It is succeeded by the album closer, “My People.” Initially tried out in rehearsal in the polyrhythmic meter 11/4, the recording’s introduction instead shows a free rhythmic context in which Katche guides them without a strict time. Eick’s solo responds to this wayward context with free jazz lines that eventually are coaxed by the drums into a swinging post-bop essay. Lackner interposes lines with Eick, the two here playing some of the most creative music on the album. The tempo and demeanor shifts to a mournful minor-key ballad, sending the conclusion satisfyingly sideways.
Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone; Matthew Shipp, piano; Brandon Lopez, bass; Whit Dickey, drums
TAO Forms CD
Drummer Whit Dickey has put together a formidable quartet for Root Perspectives, a release on his TAO Forms label. Joining Dickey are tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby, pianist Matthew Shipp, and bassist Brandon Lopez, all stalwart players of ecstatic jazz. While the musicians have worked with each other in various contexts, this particular configuration is new. They find their footing fast.
Malaby is versatile in his approaches to playing. Howling high notes, skronk squalls, and chromatic scalar work are the stock in trade of free jazz, and he excels in this area. But there are also places where he allows the plummy mid-register of his saxophone to bloom, creating lyrical melodies as interludes between more assertive soloing. Tiis is particularly evident in the coda of the first track, “Supernova,’ where Malaby conjures a beautiful melody out of the ether and Shipp follows suite with diaphanous accompaniment. Shipp too uses an array of approaches, from stentorian rearticulated verticals to fleet-fingered soloing and dazzling arpeggiations. He and Lopez frequently make a play for the lower register, each incorporating gestures from the other to develop. Lopez also frequently directs the harmony to surprising places, bitonal, extended thirds, and mixed interval chords. Dickey is a powerful drummer, but a sensitive one too. He listens carefully to the gestures played by the rest of the quartet, sometimes incorporating them, at others prodding the quartet to take up one of his own rhythmic motives.
The recording consists of four pieces. You don’t have to get too far into the opening piece, “Supernova,’ to realize the specialness of this session. It is never about showing off, but instead about listening to one another and creating dialogue. The next piece, “Doomsday Equation,” plays with punctuated lines from Malaby and Shipp alongside an inexorable funeral march from Dickey, Lopez, and Shipp’s left hand. “Swamp Petals” provides a suave demeanor with polyrhythmic playing from Dickey and a solo from Malaby that takes from the tradition of modern, rather than experimental jazz, to build a formidable solo. As the piece reaches its midpoint, Malaby plays with overtones, restoring a sense of the experimental. Dickey takes a solo, a gradual build with subtle high harmonics from Lopez alongside. The focus gradually moves to the bassist, who creates a swath of overtones before ceding territory to a storming section led by Malaby and Shipp. Altissimo howls take Malaby things as far away from the opening tune as possible. “Swamp Petals” closes as a complete transformation.
The final piece, “Starship Lotus” begins with a cool effect: bass harmonics are combined with saxophone overtones. Meanwhile, Shipp keeps a steady pulse with chords while Dickey provides fills that offset it. Malaby offers an ascending melody and Shipp moves his chord scheme upward to accommodate. The two then create swaths of melodic exchanges while Lopez and Dickey swing with abandon. The quartet then coordinates interlocked ostinatos followed by a limpid solo from Shipp. When Malaby returns, he repeats a melodic cell at various pitch levels to develop a solo which then tapers off into sustained notes. It builds to a fierce crescendo, with overblowing creating vibrant multiphonics. The rhythm section takes the foreground, with a nimble solo from Lopez that includes double stops, and multiple tempo streams from Dickey. Malaby and Shipp return with material similar to the opening, with the addition of thunderous hammer blows from Shipp, that presents the quartet at its most powerful. A brief denouement for drums brings “Starship Lotus” to its conclusion. Root Perspectives is excellent in its variety of interactions and superlative in the quality of its music-making. Recommended.
Matthew Shipp, piano; Michael Bisio, bass; Newman Taylor Baker, drums
On World Construct, pianist Matthew Shipp is joined by bassist Michel Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker. Shipp has recorded with a plethora of current jazz performers. Each collaboration brings about different aspects of his playing and the ensemble vibe.
A short prelude, “Tangible,” establishes the vibe here, with melodic interplay between piano and bass, and drums punctuating the action. “Sustained Contrast” demonstrates Shipp’s connection to the jazz tradition, with plaintive descending arpeggiations in a ballad context. This is counterweighted with low register chords, enigmatic in their tonality.
“Spine” begins with fleet soloing from Bisio and angular voicings from Shipp. Baker joins with fills that complement Bisio. A repeated bass note and spiderweb melody signal a transitional moment, after which all three take a more forward-pressing demeanor.
“Jazz Posture” is the first tune on which the trio stretches out. Clocking in at eight and a half minutes, it begins with the rhythm section setting down a furious groove. Shipp enters, playing runs throughout the piano’s range. Rhythm section alone and piano cadenzas alternate. Each time, Shipp consolidates his playing to a particular type of voicing, while still retaining florid runs. Finally, a drum solo breaks the pattern, and Baker lets loose a volley that rivals Shipp’s exertions earlier. At the very last Bisio joins, and they conclude quickly.
“Beyond Understanding” takes on a mysterious cast, with shimmering cymbals, bass glissandos, and dissonant piano verticals. Shipp and company channel Crumb and Webern here. “Talk Power” is distinctive in the way that each instrument’s part goes its own way, yet the trio manages to lock these constituent fragments together.
“Abandoned” arrives thunderously, all three explosively attacking their instruments. The piece is a chance for them to play with abandon throughout, recalling hard-blowing free jazz by progenitors such as David S. Ware and Cecil Taylor. There is an eye of the hurricane moment, with repeated passages played by both Shipp and Bisio. A shimmering coda lands as an utter, compelling surprise.
“A Mysterious State” moves the trio back into a swinging groove, with Bisio walking and swinging roulades from Shipp. Baker’s playing is interesting here. He often takes things double time and then slides back into the primary groove with syncopated fills. An insistent two-note melody ushers in a middle section, followed by more intricate chordal repetitions. Chords build thicker and thicker, until released into a post-bop inflected piano melody that once again morphs into a series of repetitions. Diminuendo of piano and drums leaves Bisio’s bass forefront at the close. Bisio reappears shortly, his showcased soloing on“Stop the World” haloed by sustained chords from Shipp. The bassist moves from glissandos to short melodic bursts to walking lines. “Sly Glance” features a suave post-bop tune, accompanied by splashy runs, vibrant drumming, and a bass ostinato.
The title track closes the album with a ten-minute piece that is distinctive, even in comparison to Shipp’s many other large-form improvisations. It begins with a solo in the pianist’s patented disjunct harmonic style, Bisio and Baker providing syncopated counterweights to Shipp’s emphatic accentuations. Like a wheel losing its tread, the groove periodically sheds its impetus and then leaps back upright. Locking together in a two-against-three pattern, followed by a Rite of Spring type bitonal ostinato, the piece erupts in a vibrant panoply of interlocking rhythms. With the rhythm section continuing apace, Shipp adds narrow-ranged melodies and an upper register repetition that again recalls Stravinsky, this time Petroushka. I’m sure these aren’t deliberate hat-tips, merely shared fluency. Heated piano soloing is added to the polymetric grid and Bisio lets loose as well, while Baker coordinates with the various layers, quite a feat in itself. A lovely denouement finds the group arriving at a new melody, and Bisio taking things out with a thrumming low E.
World Construct demonstrates that Matthew Shipp is still full of surprises and as versatile as ever.
Julia Hülsmann, piano; Uli Kemperdorff, tenor saxophone; Marc Muellbauer, double bass; Heinrich Köbberling, drums
ECM Records
Since their 2019 debut recording, Not Far From Here, the Julia Hülsmann Quartet has spent a lot of time touring and gigging, refining their sound and improvisational aesthetic. The group’s latest recording, The Next Door, is primarily comprised of originals by quartet members, alongside a scintillating rock cover. The addition of tenor saxophonist Uli Kemperdorff to Hülsmann’s long standing trio with bassist Marc Muellbauer and drummer Heinrich Köbberling has been a winning choice. Kemperdorff’s florid runs contain a sunniness that buoys the musical atmosphere. Muellbauer often finds voicing for bass lines that eschew roots in favor of higher overtones, allowing his playing to blend with the chordal choices made by Hülsmann. Köbberling’s gifts are versatile. He knows when to press the players forward and instead to focus on fills and syncopation.
The album opens with “Empty Hands,” in which polymetric chordal planing in the piano is abetted first by a bass solo and then doubled melody with Kemperdorff. Hülsmann then plays a solo with undulating twists and turns and a change of mode midway. Kemperdorff’s solo turn is also filled with arpeggiation at rapid speed. Köbberling begins to assert himself in the last few choruses of saxophone soloing, which is followed once again by a doubling of the head, a bit more ornamented and ended without a button (a welcome way and underutilized way to stop).
“Made of Wood” is a standout track. Beginning with a saxophone solo, the head appears afterwards, once again doubled by saxophone and piano, a texture that the group takes as formative. Muellbauer and Köbberling work in an offsetted way against the melody instruments, finding holes for fills and bass riffs between phrase barriers. Hülsmann plays a lithe single-line solo which gradually is embellished with chromatic harmonies. Kemperdorff’s second solo turn is abbreviated in favor of a duet with Hülsmann. A brief denouement closes the tune.
“Wasp at the Window” features a multi-stop bass solo with percussive slaps to open. Kemperdorff then plays moto perpetuo scales that give us the dangerous little insect in motion. Hülsmann provides the wasp with a bit more of a swinging, jaunty swagger and the intricacies of the group’s rhythmic palette suggest the way the guest might nervously be perceived. It is a charming use of programmatic playing. “Jetz Nocht Nicht” is a set of imitative duets between saxophone and piano that could are an appealing but knotty musical puzzle. There is a reprise later in which the entire quartet gets to add their own strands to the counterpoint.
Hülsmann contributes five compositions to The Next Door, and shares writing duties with other members of the quartet. “Lightcap” is by Köbberling, and is a reference to the bassist Chris Lightcap, with whom the drummer played in the nineties. Kemperdorff plays a rangy and fiery solo over wide spaced changes. Köbberling shifts the underlying pulsation several times, asserting himself in his own piece. The last section is a funky outro that, as before, avoids punctuation at its close. “Post Post Post,” the drummer’s other composition, has an ambling melody that appears in various incarnations throughout the group’s haunting improvisations.
Kemperdorff’s “Open Up” is a hard swinging tune with bent notes and a sturdy harmonic background that gives Hülsmann plenty of room for substitutions. The rhythm section revels in playing in this trad-mod context. Both saxophone and piano solos are expressive and virtuosic in technical demands. Octave lines shared between piano, saxophone, and bass open “Polychrome,” a Muellbauer composition, which are followed by a pensive piano interlude that takes as much from Webern as from post-bop. Kemperdorff plays with extended scales that encompass the fully chromatic in several different patternings. Muellbauer provides grounding to this fiendishly difficult progression.
Hülsmann frequently uses water imagery, and “Fluid” takes the idea of a crescendoing arc, topped by waves of melody, as the formal design for this affecting ballad. When the pianist takes her solo, we move from the motile water music to equally lithe but swinging music for the quartet. Scalar passages bring back the sense of water’s flow, followed by cascading runs by Kemperdorff that also draw fluid to mind.” A final section of flowing arpeggios and muscular drums brings the piece to a close. Muellbauer makes a clever amalgam in the bossa nova “Valdemossa,” combining the traditional dance’s gestures with the chord progression from Chopin’s enigmatic Prelude in E-minor. The combination works beautifully, with Hülsmann leading in to her neoclassical side while Kemperdorff underscores tango rhythms in his solo turn.
A pop cover is often found on Hülsmann’s recordings. Here it is Prince’s “Sometimes it Snows in April.” It first appeared on Under the Red Cherry Tree, and the song’s long intro and quirky harmonic shifts are reflected in the quartet’s faithful and affecting recording. The Next Door shows a group that has developed its sound exploring different musical pathways with authority. Recommended.
Mark Turner, saxophone; Jason Palmer, trumpet; Joe Martin, double-bass, Jonathan Pinson, drums
ECM Records
In recent years, saxophonist Mark Turner has appeared as a collaborator on a number of ECM recordings, including CDs with Billy Hart and Ethan Iverson. His latest, Return from the Stars, is the first quartet outing he has recorded for the label as a leader since 2014’s Lathe of Heaven. The players who join Turner are trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Jonathan Pinson. All of the tunes are originals by Turner, and he demonstrates versatility and depth as a writer. Just as Lathe of Heaven is the name of an Ursula K. LeGuin novel, Return from the Stars references a totemic sci-fi book by Stanislav Lem. There are no electronics or sci-fi effects that suggest spaciness, but the solos of the winds and freely flowing rhythm section suggest music that aloft ascends.
The title composition has a mysterious cast, beginning with the tune outlined by trumpet and saxophone with heterophonic embellishments in both of the winds and a sotto voce rhythm section. The lines start to crisscross only to once again converge, with Martin interjecting a walking line that supplies another melody to the action. Pinson builds upon Martin’s gestures, swelling to dynamic presence. Turner is a generous collaborator, eager to showcase his colleagues alongside his own playing. Palmer is allowed considerable time to solo. His rangy and rhythmically varied one on “It’s not Alright” is a particular standout of virtuosity and taste in shaping numerous choruses. The tune also features Turner and Palmer playing fleet renditions of the tune in octaves completely together. On “Wasteland” they play a duet in rhythmic unison but in constantly shifting intervals. Martin and Pinson relate to them in an abstract fashion. Just when you think that they are off on a tangent, the group syncs together, with Martin providing harmonic underpinning and Pinson landing with him to articulate arrival points.
Several of the tunes stretch, but “Unacceptable” is the longest form, with cat-and-mouse canons leading off into overlapping winds. A melodic cell is played in intervals and then developed as a principal motive in octaves. The winds submerge at their cadences points, affording space for breaks by the rhythm section followed by solo turns. Turner’s is chromatic, vibrant in tone, and filled with scalar passages that develop and recall the chorus. The game of canons returns, followed by a languid trumpet solo and then a warm wind duet. The close is a beautiful denouement, with the wind duo slowing down and fading to pianissimo and the rhythm section equally hushed.
An intricate piece, “Unacceptable” suggests that Turner would do well to arrange some of his compositions for larger ensembles: perhaps ECM will oblige in a future recording project. In the meantime, Return from the Stars supplies the listener with plenty of fascinating music to savor.
Some of the artists at the 2022 Long Play festival
Two years ago, I was editing a 2020 interview with the composer David Lang about the new multi-day festival that Bang on a Can planned for that spring, Long Play, when I realized the significance of the festival title. The year 2020 would be Bang on a Can’s 33rd anniversary. Long Play = LP = 33 rpm. Very clever! Although the festival was delayed for two years, it retains its name.
The inaugural Long Play festival takes place on April 29, April 30 and May 1, 2022 at a half-dozen venues in Brooklyn, including BAM, Roulette, Littlefield, the Center for Fiction, Mark Morris Dance Center, Public Records and the outdoor plaza at 300 Ashland. Over 60 performances are scheduled. Some are free, but most are accessed via a day pass ($95) or a three-day festival pass ($195). Over a hundred performers range from the Sun Ra Arkestra to jazz pianist Vijay Iyer to bagpiper Matthew Welsh (complete list is here).
Lang, along with the composers Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon launched Bang on a Can in New York City in 1987 with a 12-hour concert in a downtown art gallery. The organization became known for its annual marathon concerts in New York, and later expanded to include a performance group (the Bang on a Can All-Stars), a commissioning program, education programs and festivals at MASS MoCA in the Berkshires, a record label (Cantaloupe), and an on-going extensive online series created when live concerts were cancelled during the pandemic.
Looking back on our conversation on February 25, 2020, most of what Lang and I discussed is still relevant to the rescheduled Long Play Festival. Here is the interview, edited for length and clarity.
Gail Wein Successful marathons have been your signature event for Bang on a Can for 33 years. So what prompted the creation of this differently-formatted festival, Long Play?
David Lang
David Lang Over the last couple of marathons we have tried to expand our reach to different kinds of music and to other kinds of communities. After a while of doing that, we felt like we were inviting people on to the marathon for slots of 15 or 20 minutes that we wished were an hour or two hours. And so we got interested in a lot of other kinds of music and it just seemed like we weren’t spending enough time with them.
I remember thinking – this is at the last marathon – people would come in and they would go, “That was incredible. Why am I only wanting that for fifteen minutes?” What we’re hoping to do with this is to say, we’ve uncovered all these incredible connections between all these different kinds of music. And now we really want to let people go deeper into what those connections do and where they go.
Gail Wein Of course, it’s a much bigger scope. Three days, and a bunch of venues. And instead of the marathon’s free admission, this one is ticketed.
David Lang There’s still going to be a bunch of free things, including some outdoor events, because we really like the idea that we have a wide doorway, that lots of different kinds of people can come through with no barriers. But it’s also true that when you start working with so many hundreds of musicians and so many different kinds of venues, that it’s just not possible for us to fundraise to make the entire thing free anymore. So we came up with this plan that, for essentially the price of one ticket, you get a pass which allows you to see everything and then you’ll just be able to go in and out of performances and check out music from all these different communities.
Gail Wein How does the aesthetic of the performers and the programs and the repertoire differ from that of the marathons?
David Lang I don’t think it differs at all.
We’re still looking for people whose definition of what they do is: they wake up in the morning and tell themselves that they’re innovators. They wake up and they say, there’s a kind of traditional music that’s involved in my world and I’m not doing that. That’s always been the way we’ve judged people to come on to the marathon. We wanted to find people who were pushing their fields. The difference here is that we’re able to go deeper into other kinds of communities like jazz and rock music and indie pop and ambient and electronica and be able to invite more people who are pushing their boundaries.
Gail Wein I was thinking about the longevity of Bang on a Can as an institution. Institutions come and go, organizations come and go, various folks have mounted series, marathons, festivals. But not that many have lasted a third of a century. To what do you attribute Bang on a Can’s longevity?
David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe, the founders of Bang on A Can (photo by Peter Serling)
David Lang I’m sure some of it is just dumb luck. But also we have a kind of hippie mentality about what it is we do, where we want everyone involved in the organization to be as excited and passionate about it as possible. If something comes up that we are not passionate about, we don’t do it. Some organizations, they just begin to think, well, we have a payroll to meet. We’ve got to do this, and this is what we did last year.
One of the things that we’re really proudest of about this festival and also about our sister festival that we started in summer, which is the Loud Weekend Festival at Mass Moca, is that we’re able to change and get excited about other kinds of things and then turn the organization so that it can take advantage of what we’re all really excited about. Everyone who works at Bang on a Can is a musician; we only hire people who are musicians. And so when we talk about these things in the office, we really are sharing ideas of the things that we are all getting excited about. And so when you do something like this, when you say this is a new direction that we’re going in, or this is the kind of music we want to include, or this is a new initiative for something we’d like to do, it’s something that energizes everybody. That’s one of the reasons why we can stay fresh, because everybody understands how committed we all are to the mission of the organization.
Gail Wein I’ve been thinking about this: New York City is already one big music festival every single day.
David Lang It is.
Gail Wein So why do you think New York and New Yorkers need this festival?
David Lang One of the beautiful things about this is the pass, quite honestly. In New York, there are always 500 concerts to see every single night. And you pay your money and you go see it and you stick it out, right? And then you say, I know I’m going to see this one, I don’t know that other kind of music, so I’m going to go see the one I know because I have to pay the money and I have to sit there for the concert.
At Long Play, we have all of this music within a few blocks of each other, all in walking distance, in Brooklyn, all the concerts are scheduled to go on simultaneously. What I’m really hoping will happen is that people with the pass will be encouraged to check out things that they wouldn’t necessarily check out because they have the right to go to that concert. So that’s our thought of how to replace the thing that we loved so much about the marathon, which is to put this kind of music next to each other, so that someone would come out of watching twelve hours of the music at the marathon and having a kind of cross section of a huge swath of interesting innovative things. What we’re hoping now will happen is that because I’ve already bought a pass, I’m going to check it out. And if I don’t like it, I can get up in 10 minutes and go check something else out. I’m not obligated to spend $50 for a concert of stuff I don’t know.
Gail Wein How did you choose and curate the artists and the programs and the venues as well?
David Lang We wanted to find places that were all in walking distance. And of course, that means that we started talking to everybody a year ago in order to get on their schedules. And then we just went to every single person who works in Bang on a Can and asked, what do you want to see? People just thought, what’s the widest, most varied, most exciting bunch of things from a bunch of different musical directions that we can come up with?
Gail Wein What do you hope audiences will come away with after experiencing the Long Play Festival?
David Lang What I’m really hoping will happen is that people will think that the world is full of all sorts of exciting things going on right now. And and that it’s full of creativity and wildness and inspiration and and that the world is very large. You know, I think sometimes when you go to a concert that’s neatly packaged and everything fits and everything makes sense. You go, this is a complete experience andI don’t need anything else. What I’m really hoping will happen is that people will come to this thing and they’ll go. That was unbelievable. And the world is full of all sorts of things that I have to continue to check out.
I asked David Lang which of the artists and programs were his favorite. A message he sent in an email newsletter earlier this month sums up his thoughts about the 2022 festival.
April 5, 2022
LONG PLAY really reminds me of those choose-your-own-adventure books – you get to make your own musical path through each day.
That is why I am going to plot my course through the weekend, very very carefully – I want to make sure I build my schedule around the concerts that I really have to see. Such as:
Stimmung – Karlheinz Stockhausen – It is hard to imagine that a European modernist classic from the 1960’s is in reality a meditation on everyone in the world having sex with each other, but that is what it is. Ekmeles sings at the Mark Morris Dance Center at 5pm on Friday, April 29.
Iva Casian-Lakos plays Joan La Barbara – Bang on a Can introduced these two to each other on one of our Pandemic Marathons last year, commissioning a new work from Joan for Iva’s fiery cello playing. The result was so electrifying that they have made it into a show, and I need to hear how it has grown. At the Center for Fiction at 2pm on Sunday.
Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh, Tyshawn Sorey – Their album UNEASY came out last year on ECM and it has been on heavy rotation in my studio ever since. It’s tuneful and moody and thoughtful, and I really want to hear them play together, live. At Roulette on Saturday at 8pm.
Eddy Kwon – composer, singer, violinist – their music is so beautiful and flows so smoothly across so many boundaries that is hard for me to even describe it. The songs feel like the hit arias from the foundational music of a culture I have never experienced before. Magic. Sunday at 4pm at the Center for Fiction.
Ornette Coleman – The Shape of Jazz to Come – Coleman was a motivator for so much forward motion in music. This legendary album from 1959 was a big part of that, and it is still pushing musicians to move forward. I want to be there when six composers show us how with their world premieres. At BAM’s Opera House 7:30pm on Sunday, May 1.
And then I have to figure out how to run between all the other shows, trying to see as much as I can.
Nona Hendryx! Arvo Pärt! Sun Ra! Éliane Radigue! ZoëKeating! Galina Ustvolskaya! Pamela Z! JG Thirlwell! Soo-Yeon Lyuh! Craig Harris! The Brooklyn Youth Chorus! More! Much more!
Plus I will try to see my own show (Death Speaks) with Shara Nova on Sunday at Mark Morris, if I can figure out how to fit it in.
Whatever the schedule ends up looking like, I have a feeling you are going to see me there with circles under my eyes, as I run from show to show to show to show to show.
Ethan Iverson, piano; Larry Grenadier, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums
Blue Note
Pianist Ethan Iverson received an excellent birthday present today: the release of Every Note is True, his debut recording on Blue Note Records. Since departing the Bad Plus, Iverson has worked on a number of projects as a composer, taught at New England Conservatory, written insightful criticism and pedagogical articles on his blog Do the Mathand for other publications, and collaborated with musicians such as saxophonist Mark Turner, drummer Bill Hart, and trumpeter Tom Harrell. Followers of these activities will note that the pianist’s encyclopedic explication of the jazz tradition in his writings has mirrored trends in his recent playing.
Iverson, ever unpredictable, takes a different approach on Every Note is True. Apart from a single tune, “Blue,” by drummer Jack DeJohnette, all of the compositions on the recording are originals by Iverson. Many resume a connection to the rock-inflected jazz he made earlier in his career. Not one to attempt to remake the past, Iverson has selected collaborators who are two of the best known players in jazz, DeJohnette and bassist Larry Grenadier. The absence of covers – a Bad Plus staple – and presence of fulsome swing from his current collaborators allows Iverson the opportunity to blend multiple approaches into a compelling amalgam distinct from his previous work.
A couple of imaginary theme songs populate the recording. “She Won’t Forget Me” is likened by Iverson to a rom-com theme, although I have never heard a rom-com theme with as zesty a solo. The album itself starts with a quirky vocal number, “The More it Changes,” a commercial sounding song featuring overdubs of a number of Iverson’s friends, Sarah Deming (who wrote the lyrics), Alex Ross, and Mark Padmore among them, who sang their parts remotely. Brief enough to leave a listener just enough time to scramble to their playlist and settle back in their seat, it is followed by the avowedly not soundtrack-related “The Eternal Verities,” a sequential tune with a little chromatic twist as it turns around. Grenadier’s playing embellishes the changes and adds countermelodies that interlock well with the spacious solo that Iverson provides. A coda brings the progression to a sideways yet satisfying conclusion.
“For Ellen Raskin” is dedicated to one of Iverson’s favorite children’s authors. It is a gentle jazz waltz with bluesy inflections and deft use of hemiola – moving from 3/4 to 6/8 – to give a little Brahmsian nod to the proceedings. “Had I but Known” is an uptempo tune with sequences of dissonant intervals and polychords in the bridge that allow for a suave extrapolation of Fats Waller’s language and voicings. Particularly persuasive is “Had I but Known,” which is through-composed rather than primarily improvised. It combines a balladic cast with tart melodic punctuations and Ivesian verticals.
Iverson admired DeJohnette’s “Blue” when he heard it on John Abercrombie’s 1978 ECM recording Gateway 2. With powerful fills from the drummer, Iverson’s interpretation revels in the tune’s unadorned triads, particularly the one at the close that receives an expansive arpeggiation. Whereas jazz chords usually contain more than just the triad, with 6th, 7ths, 9ths and more added to harmonies, using a bare triad in the right context buoys the connection that Iverson is making throughout Every Note is True between commercial pop, rock, and jazz.
“Merely Improbable” presents a more traditional structure, providing a chance for Iverson and company to play rhythm changes, variants on the chord structure of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” that populate countless standards. As with the other compositions here, at three and a half minutes the run-time is relatively lean; I would have been happy to hear the trio stretch it out. “Praise Will Travel” is an ebullient piece performed with a tight groove offsetting florid soloing. Titled after an Agatha Christie story, the album closer “At the Bells and Motley” is a jaunty blues that demonstrates the trio’s simpatico interaction. Here we get the longed-for jam, with nine minutes of subtle shifts of emphasis and piano solos that build from restraint to sly quotation to gestures writ large and back again. Excellent solos from Grenadier and DeJohnette as well.
Every Note is True is an auspicious label debut that demonstrates the imagination, breadth, and wit of Iverson’s playing while maintaining a spirit of enthusiastic collaboration. Highly recommended.
Best of 2021 – Happy 80th Birthday Wadada Leo Smith!
Wadada Leo Smith turns eighty today, and Sequenza 21 wishes him many more years of health, creative improvisation, and composing. Smith has been a driving force as a member of AACM for over five decades, a keen collaborator with jazz and concert musicians, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a faculty member at CalArts and elsewhere.
2021 has been a prolific one in terms of record releases by the trumpeter and composer. He is joined by wind player Douglas Ewart and drummer Mike Reed on the Astral Spirits CD Sun Beams of Shimmering Light. The standout opening movement is a sixteen-minute long suite “Constellations and Conjunctional Spaces” which begins with fragmentary utterances that build into long, florid lines that are succeeded by riotous free play. A short coda sees motives from the top of the piece reexamined in light of what has transpired in between.
TUM has released four recordings by Smith this calendar year, with a seven-CD collection of string quartets on deck for early 2022. The only single CD among these is A Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday, which features a trio with his frequent collaborators pianist Vijay Iyer and drummer Jack DeJohnette, marking the first time all three have worked together. It is a winning grouping, as are the two included duos with DeJohnette.As Smith points out in the liner notes, the approach here alludes to his work with Anthony Braxton and Leroy Jenkins on “The Bell,” a piece from his debut album in 1969. This affinity is both in terms of interaction and collaboration, but also in a harmonic language more recognizable in Smith’s earlier music.
The Great Lakes Quartet, which includes saxophonist Leroy Jenkins (on some tracks Jonathon Haffner), DeJohnette, and bassist Henry Lindberg, is the personnel on the TUM double CD The Chicago Symphonies. There are four pieces here, Gold, Diamond, Pearl, and Sapphire, subtitled “The Presidents Symphony: Their Visions for America; Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg and Barack Obama at Selma!” How can a quartet play “symphonies,” one might wonder before listening. But upon engaging with these recordings, it is clear that the formal designs, development of thematic material, and use of all of the instruments’ capabilities to the utmost engage with music writ large.
A triple CD of solo trumpet music might seem like a long sit, but Smith’s individual performances on Trumpet are riveting. He recorded these fourteen new pieces, many of them extended, sculpted works, in a single weekend at St. Mary’s Church in the town of Pohja, on the Southern Coast of Finland, which provides a great acoustic for Smith’s luminous sound. Finally (for now), Sacred Ceremonies, a three disc recording with bassist Bill Laswell and Milford Graves, visionary drummer of the New York “new wave” free jazz scene, who passed away in February, 2021 and to whom the recording is dedicated. The first CD features a duet between Smith and Graves, the second, Smith with Laswell, and the third is a trio. The level of rhythmic layering in the trumpet and drums duos is truly astonishing. Quotation plays a large role, with Smith imitating Graves’ gestures but choosing melodic lines from blues, standards, and even nursery rhymes to cross-pollinate the music. Laswell adds elements of funk and avant-pop to the mix; Smith responds in places by playing through a wah-wah pedal and employing minimal patterning. The trio is a summit of experimental practices, and the polyglot musical language they form together is inimitable and now, sadly, with the passing of Graves, irreplaceable.
