Our man in NYC 4a

CJ Intern's NYC Adventures Part 4: Promptly Penning a Plentiful Penultimate Piece (part 4a)

By Jeremy Tsuei

As promised, we're winding up but by no means taking our foot off the gas (that's a little American-ism for you). Big gigs and big lessons this week, as well as some touristy things and even some volunteering - all the New York things!

Wednesday: Cory Henry solo set

Cory Henry's definitely made a name for himself, first gaining prominence with Snarky Puppy and now touring with Stevie Wonder and working with popular acts such as Imagine Dragons. But enough about his collaborations - tonight was between the man himself and his audience, as Henry shared his roots, influences, and new directions. In both the first and second sets, Henry began simply with the "Amazing Grace" melody, before building complexity and adding new textures - a kick drum, synth, vocals. It got busy (for a one-man show, anyway), but never strayed from that simple feeling of joy and gratitude from hitting those opening notes and hearing them resonate and lead into each other, until a story begins to form. This was the first song he learnt as a kid, at only 2-3 years of age. The man's been playing music longer than his brain has had a functional memory system (psychologists say memory starts working from four years of age), and it shows. I loved how gospel- and soul-oriented Henry's sets were - really digging into his community and spiritual roots a la his album released earlier this year, "Church". All in all, these were songs for lovers, songs for those with broken hearts, songs for humans.

Thursday: Christian McBride Quartet and Jihee Heo Trio 

McBride again, and Mike Stern again - this time in a very different setting. Last week Stern remarked to me how he was nervous about this gig, as McBride had just called him and so far there was no setlist and no rehearsal. So calling standards it was - and on the night, McBride described it as a jazz party where we all got to have a share of the groove. Tivon Pennicott (sax) and Marcus Gilmore (drums) rounded out the quartet, and everyone had space to shine. Stern in particular brought in a groovy "Body and Soul" with a solo guitar intro, which really demonstrated his voice and fluidity on the instrument. Such a different gig compared to the last McBride concert I went to, but the feel, the groove, and the consolidated star-power were all alike. 

Jihee Heo was, by her own admission, quite starstruck with her rhythm section - David Williams on bass and Joe Farnsworth on drums; guys she'd listened to on Cedar Walton records and the like. During one of the little talking interludes where she was discussing this, Williams jokingly interjected to tell her she was doing just fine. And he was absolutely right - this was real swinging stuff, straight out of the Oscar Peterson playbook. I believe this was also the first female-led gig I've attended while in New York, excluding the jam session hosted by Theresa Sanchez. A really diverse band, and a real connection and respect for the tradition. Good good stuff.

Friday: NY Philharmonic

I did get scammed by a ticket reseller for this one, but on the upside, I did end up with pretty good orchestra-level seats. I'm not too well-versed in this area, but the NY Philharmonic has to be one of the best in the world. Before moving onto the big piece, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10, the orchestra played Shostakovich's "Festive Overture" and Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto, led by soloist Frank Huang. Earlier this year, I played the latter piece with Canberra's National Capital Orchestra alongside CJ Blog mastermind Eric [ https://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2024/03/awe.html ] and it was great to hear the work being performed professionally, especially as I knew there were some particularly difficult bass soli coming up. The section moved through it like butter - bravo!

The big item was Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10, accompanied by a stop motion film, "Oh to Believe in Another World," by William Kentridge. The audio-visual experience was interesting, although I do wonder what it would have been like to have just heard the music by itself, as one's attention span can only take in so much at a time. Still, during the course of my Honours year I had the pleasure of interviewing Vince Jones, and he remarked that the future will be an audio-visual one. This was art accompanying art - art on top of more art. Too much art? Surely it can't be worse than too little art. My money's worth in any case (even if a decent chunk of what I paid went to the wrong place...).

To be continued tomorrow...