Saturday's Sounds (Live 4/27/19)

Photo: Ben Knabe

Composer, arranger, educator, and pianist Jim McNeely is one of the busier people in jazz.  Currently, he serves as music director for the Frankfurt Radio (HR) Big Band and teaches at both the Manhattan School of Music (NYC) and William Paterson University in New Jersey.  He has played and composed for the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra which became the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra (after the drummer's death, the organization became the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra). He toured with Stan Getz plus had tenures leading the Danish Radio Big Band and the Swiss Jazz Orchestra.

Hard to believe but it's nearly two decades since Jim McNeely created "Group Therapy" for his Tentet. Released on the forward-looking OmniTone label, the composer and pianist gathered 10 New York City-based musicians and recorded the eight-song program that includes five McNeely originals plus three exciting arrangements of songs by Bud Powell, John Coltrane, and the oft-recorded standard "Body and Soul" (music composed in 1930 by Johnny Green).  The ensemble included saxophonists Billy Drewes, Dick Oatts, and Scott Robinson, two trumpets (Tony Kadleck, Greg Gisbert or Scott Wendholt), Tom Varner on French horn, trombonist Ed Neumeister, bassist Cameron Brown, drummer John Hollenbeck (a veteran of Bob Brookmeyer's New Art Orchestra and the Meredith Monk Ensemble as well as his own groups), and the leader on piano.

Photo: New Jersey Star-Ledger

Jim McNeely brings the 2019 version of the Tentet to Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts/Crowell Concert Hall this Saturday as the featured group for the Wesleyan Jazz Weekend. The concert begins at 7:30 pm. The festivities open the night before with a free concert featuring the Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra, Jay Hoggard director, and the Wesleyan Jazz Ensemble, Noah Baerman director. The WJO will also open Saturday's show.

For tickets and more information, go to wesleyan.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?id=2924&p=1.

Give a listen to an interview with Mr. McNeely, Jay Hoggard, and CFA Director of Arts Communication Andy Chatfield.

Brian Charette, a native of Meriden, CT, returns to the state Saturday with his "electric" trio Kürrent to play two sets at The Side Door Jazz Club in Old Lyme. Charette and Kürrent - Jordan Young (drums) and Ben Monder (guitar) - released its debut album in July of 2017.  The "fusion-jazz" recording, with Charette on organ, synths, electric keyboards, was a departure from his organ trio recordings on Posi-Tone and his Sextette disks for SteepleChase.  Young and Charette are old friends and musical partners so the drummer is not afraid to challenge the leader to "go for it."  Monder, who plays such tasty accompaniments, steps out now and then to great effect; he does not always "shred" yet there is great energy in his playing.

For the Old Lyme gig, Vic Juris steps in for Monder bringing his own delightful take on jazz guitar.  Juris, who has worked alongside Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Smith, Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson, and Dave Liebman, has recorded numerous albums as a leader and sideman for SteepleChase including the organist's collaboration with tenor saxophonist George Coleman.  He plays with both power and elegance so he should fit right in with Charette and Young.

Kürrent will play two sets with the first starting at 8:30 p.m.  For more information, go to thesidedoorjazz.com  or call 860-434-2600.

To learn about Brian Charette, go to www.briancharette.com.

Muhal, the AACM, & Middletown

For those of us who came off musical age in the 1960s and believed that John Coltrane and Miles Davis were the twin giants of jazz, the people involved with the AACM (Association for Advancement of Creative Musicians) did not come to our attention until the next decade.  But the Chicago-based AACM came to life when pianist and composer Muhal Richard Abrams formed his Experimental Band in 1962, an ensemble that included saxophonists Fred Anderson, Roscoe Mitchell, and Joseph Jarman plus drummers Steve McCall and Jack DeJohnette. Abrams, who was mostly self-taught, composed a good amount of the material but everyone mentioned above as well as others started to bring in material to rehearse and then perform.

In 1965, Abrams, fellow pianist Jodie Christian, Kelan Phil Cohran, and several other people signed the letter of incorporation and the AACM began to be a center of learning and performance in Chicago and is still in existence today there as well as in New York City (where many of the musicians moved to in the 1970s and 80s). From those early sessions, groups such as the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Trio Air came into existence as did musical visionaries such as Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, George Lewis, Douglas Ewart, Oliver Lake, Amina Claudine Myers, Nicole Mitchell, Malachi Thompson, and Famadou Don Moye.

On Friday February 24, Muhal Richard Abrams will bring his Quintet to Crowell Concert Hall at Wesleyan University. Joining him will be the fine young trumpeter (and protege of saxophonist Steve Coleman) Jonathan Finlayson, vibraphonist Bryan Carrott, drummer Reggie Nicholson, and bassist John Hébert.  The music they will play will have its roots in jazz, there will be many moments of improvisation, there will certainly be swathes of tunes that "swing", yet cliches will be absent and it will often seem as if the musicians are conversing with each other in a language based on their own instrumental voices. It's a language the musicians are familiar with even though it changes each time they play and with every song.

Might not make sense to many of us but Muhal Richard Abrams has been navigating these waters for over 6 decades. The NEA Jazz Master, who turned 86 the past September, challenges himself, his fellow musicians, and his audiences whenever he sits down at the piano.

For more information about the concert, go to www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/. To reserve tickets, call 860-685-3355. To learn more about Mr. Abrams, go to www.muhalrichardabrams.com/. Check out the AACM by going to aacmchicago.org.

Here's Muhal with the late Fred Anderson from 2009:



Here's his Quintet in action from February 2016, same lineup as this Friday's concert except Brad Jones is the bassist.