Our man in NYC 5a

CJ Intern's NYC Adventures Part 5a: Objects in Rear View Mirror are Closer Than They Appear, or the Third Christian

By Jeremy Tsuei

Well - here we go. The last one. Back home to Australia, but not before a brief family visit in Vancouver. Back to the shed, back to family, back to a bit of normalcy. With a lot of notches under the belt. Not only did I get to jam in New York (many, many times) - I also got asked if I was available to play a gig. The answer was no (I didn't have my own bass in any case), but that was certainly something I didn't expect which I now get to come away with. 

Tuesday - Christian McBride and Inside Straight

Christian McBride's second live album with Inside Straight (Peter Martin (piano), Carl Allen (drums), Warren Wolfe (vibes), Steve Wilson (sax)), recorded in the Village Vanguard in 2014 and released during/after the pandemic in late 2021, is one of my favourite releases ever. The feel is so good throughout, and every note feels right, but there are still those small live inflections that give it that atmosphere and spontaneous vibe - like McBride's little 'what?'s as he's backing Wolfe's solo in "The Shade of the Cedar Tree". Speaking of "The Shade of the Cedar Tree", attentive readers will remember that that tune is one of my favourites, and the version from that album is probably my favourite recording of that tune. A veritable stacking of favourites!

Ten years later, and the band is back for their December residency. The atmosphere and vibes (pardon the pun) were spot on - ten years of gradual evolution, but this was the same band, playing many of the same tunes. Being at this gig was like stepping into something intensely familiar, but also like experiencing it again for the first time. This was the band I've heard many many times over, playing in many cases the same songs, but finding new ways to do it. 

There was no "The Shade of the Cedar Tree", nor was there a bass solo in every song (although there were some neat traded fours with Carl Allen towards the end of the gig). Nor, I'll mention, did I get to meet McBride - a lovely man by all accounts, but I understand why he had a bodyguard in front of the green room. But there's something to be said for getting the reality of something, rather than having it fit the demanding moulds of wish fulfillment. What I got was something just as satisfying and so much more true to life than anything I might have imagined from what I'd experienced before. This was a lovely close to my trip. Hearing one of my favourite recorded bands, not deviating from their established sound, but finding new pathways and avenues within. Getting something new, and being given the opportunity to evolve as a listener as the band has evolved as a band. 

Describing Chris Botti's band from the previous night, I'd used the loaded moniker of 'smooth jazz' to address some of the less fulfilling aspects of that (still very worthwhile) gig. I suppose when we're talking about 'smooth jazz', we're talking about stuff that is content with not pushing the bounds, or content which seemingly has no interest in breaking free into new territory. It's the sound of jazz as the lay listener expects jazz to sound, if you will. That spectre of the familiar is at play in my reflections with this band, and its ties to a decade-old set of recordings. But what I hear - and what I heard from this gig - is a band that is content with pushing their own boundaries, and not necessarily any boundaries set by others. A group that has played together for this long, filled with members who know each other so well, striving to play at nobody's best but their own. Fearsome stuff. 

To be continued very soon ...

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...

Our man in NYC 2

CJ Intern's NYC Adventure Part 2: Guitar Duel, or the Importance of Being Earnest When Meeting Your Heroes

by Jeremy Tsuei

One week down! And to quote another, albeit lesser-known, Lin-Manuel Mirada number in this report's preamble (hopefully this doesn't become a habit), "it's all happening"...

Saturday: Christian McBride Big Band with special guests

This one was a treat, although I think I almost wore myself out with a day trip to Newark and a big dinner... Christian McBride has long been one of my favourite bassists ever - certainly, he's the one guy who can do it all. This concert featured vocalists Philip Bailey (Earth, Wind & Fire), Lisa Fischer (The Rolling Stones), and Dianne Reeves (an NEA Jazz Master), for a night of soul, R&B, and vivid big bad arrangements. All three previous Christian McBride Big Bad albums have won Grammys for Jazz Instrumental Albums, and if this sneak peek into next year's album was anything to go by, Christian has nothing to worry about in keeping that streak up. Special mention goes to the band's second tune, "The Shade of The Cedar Tree" - one of my favourites, and one that I still haven't quite nailed live in my Canberra gigs, a twisty but effortlessly catchy tune that segues smoothly between broken, swing, and Latin feels, which I now know was dedicated to the great Cedar Walton.

Sunday: Basik jam featuring Theresa Sanchez quartet

A neat little jam in Brooklyn. Bassist Theresa Sanchez had this massive sound coming in - imagine my surprise when I stepped up and saw she was coming out of a piddly Rumble 15 1x8 combo! Those things are like $89 AUD, and I'd recently rehearsed with one, grumbling at the lack of power for the whole time. Yet in this cafe environment, with no restrictions on audience volume and some seriously powerful bandmates, Theresa's sound was - well, I've already described it as 'massive', but there's no other word that really covers it. I asked Theresa how she went about getting such a big sound, and her response was modest. Maybe the secret ingredient has been hidden in beginner value packs all along...

Tuesday: Mike Stern and Larry Banks Sextet

Mike Stern is such a darl y'all.

We'll rewind a bit. Back when guitar was my primary instrument, Mike Stern was the guy - I bought a Seymour Duncan '59 neck pickup so I could have the same pickup that he uses, and I even tried getting a chorus/distortion combo to match his sound. Of course, I should've spent more time learning his licks, but I did pick up a habit of warming up on Bach violin Partitas from him...

I had the chance to meet Mike before and after his set at the DROM. He was seriously nice, and encouraged me not to look at myself as a 'former guitarist, now bassist' but a continual learner on both - "What do you mean, you used to play guitar?", he asked me. He also seemed genuinely interested in my cerebral palsy when I told him about how listening to his album Trip was super formative for me while I was first getting into jazz, especially as I was reading stories about his injury and reflecting on my own physical challenges.

And of course during his set he played one of the best guitar solos I've ever heard - period. His wife Leni was also excellent - a very different player, but you got the sense that she only played what she heard. And bassist Edmond Gilmore blew the roof off with a slap solo that just kept going and going and going, in the best way possible.

Chasing this up was the Larry Banks Sextet in Smalls, leading into the 1am jam. I got to play in this one too, but let me tell you, the house band was so good that it almost felt wrong to follow them up. Still - we had fun and there was a really good turnout from musicians and punters alike, even as we started to get well into Wednesday...

Thursday: John Scofield and Nicholas Payton

Another massive gig featuring another guitar favourite. Nicholas Payton was a real standout for this one, especially for his compositions, including "Backwards Step" and "Othello on the Low". Such a lyrical and inventive player, with a killer tone and timefeel. Heaps of repeated figures leading into classic bebop flurries.

Scofield is such a different player to Stern, but with both you can hear who they are from the first note. Both guitarists weren't afraid of bringing in tunes with solo guitar passages - and while both are known for their distorted or 'electric' tones, you can also hear the wood and resonance of their instruments as they play. It's that element that you'd struggle to describe outside of using adjectives such as 'authentic' and 'human'...

Massive gigs to wrap up this first week! A couple more weeks and a few more gigs and jam sessions to come - can you tell I'm having a blast? But for now - Jeremy the CJ Intern signing out.

Gem

There was joy and brilliance aplenty the other night. Geri Allen played the Village Vanguard. She’d been there for the week but this was a different and special show. When I arrived, I heard that Christian McBride was sitting in on bass for this one gig. Trumpeter Marcus Belgrave was another addition just for this night. Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts rounded out the band. What a band, and how unexpected. Marcus was an early support for Geri, so there’s a love there. But beyond that, this stage glowed with joy and was riddled with communication. From the arrival on stage, there was casual patter with audience and private smiles and chatter on the stage. Geri led - you could see that in the respectful glances - but this was a partnership, even a family, and her offsiders gave generously. There was normal, human communication with eyes searching and often locked. Certainly Geri was all eyes on the band and almost nil to keyboard, and Jeff was gazing to follow her leads. Marcus and Christian a bit less so, although they looked often enough too. But the musical communication was paramount. Geri was a master of chordal colours that could ape a solo but also lead it with harmonic movements, modal or rhythmical. This is the complexity of the spoken word and these are Shakespearean skills. She was nothing less in solos, of course. Blues with inflections and simplicity; modal with fourths and symmetrical movements that just floored me. I know it’s done, I’ve heard it on record but never live like this. Christian was rock-like solidity with huge tone and absolute steadiness and plenty of space and smiles. This is a big man playing a big instrument that he fitted. The solos were no different, just more. Melodic and appropriate and musical, but devastating and speedy across the neck, and up into the thumb positions. I wondered if some lines were humanly possible, they were so quick and so sustained. They were and he did them. Clearly work of a master with immense knowledge and easy interpretation. I must admit that the concert was too short to capture it all; I was so enraptured by Geri and Christian that I didn’t listen enough to Marcus and Jeff. Marcus Belgrave was an older man and I thought not too well, but his happiness was infectious. The night felt like a family get-together, and there were clearly old mates in the audience because they were chatting after. His trumpet and flugelhorn were post-bop expressive, I thought maybe tested by age, but there were some soulful melodies and a few explosive quick lines. Jeff ‘Tain’ was all groove but also some volume. His is not a drumming of sly infection or of sparkling rudiments. This was more earthy and thumping and on occasion very loud. Here too there’s a family story. He’s got young girl children – I’d seen him carrying one out of the Vanguard between shows – and his wife is from the Sunshine Coast. We should see him more often. All these players were open, lyrical, simple when called for, but virtuosic on call with ease and without affectation. They played generously and the tunes were generously encountered, so the weren’t many. The trio started with a gentle Lucky to be me with immense space and heavy groove. Marcus joined them from the second tune, a ¾ with clinical beauty. There was a quick latin groove and Sunflower done with the subtly and expression of the Freddie Hubbard original. I’ve played this and heard this often enough, but this was another thing again. Geri led another tune with a sparse groove that Christian took up. I thought it may have been Summertime and maybe it was based on that, but it never resolved into the melody an eventually morphed into a blues. There was perhaps one other tune.

I haven’t done any of this justice. Geri’s glorious piano and Christian’s devastating bass were so special and the time so short. I needed another set at least to grow to live with these skills and to be able to give time to Tain and Marcus. It was like that: informed masters playing with ease and joy. Too good. Geri Allen (piano) played with Marcus Belgrave (trumpet, flugelhorn), Christian McBride (bass) and Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts (drums) at the Village Vanguard, NYC. Village Vanguard doesn't allow pics during the performance.

Five easy Peaces

Text by Daniel Wild

Under the tiled roofs of Sydney’s majestic and architecturally bemusing opera house, two of jazz’s post-bop luminaries showed Australia the treacherous and twisting paths that jazz has taken since Miles Davis liberated the genre in the late sixties. The line-up was second-to-none: a melange of talent par excellence, a conglomeration of super-human skill. Christian McBride was on bass – he’s not bad, ain’t he? And Mr Kenny Garrett on saxophone. Garrett and Corea played with McBride on the bass player’s probing album, Number Two Express. On drums was Brian Blade.

To cut to the chase, to hunt down the hounds, all that needs be said is that McLaughlin was fantastic. Corea did the right thing and allowed him to steal the show. McLaughlin has done a Paganini at some point in his life and had a date with Mephistopheles. If you could compare how many notes McLaughlin can fit into a minute with the RPMs of a Maserati then McLaughlin would exceed the speed limit even on Germany’s autobahns. But unlike a lot of Tal Farlow (and even some Charlie Christian), who has the chops-supreme, McLaughlin also has the scales-supreme, and has access to a store of musical knowledge that Farlow never seemed to tap into. Any one who’s willing to gather an esoteric collection of instruments and then give the so-called assembled band an Indian name – and then create some formidable music – is going to be versatile; able to listen, plan, build tension, make the audience gasp with fear, writhe with enjoyment and applaud with enthusiasm.

But what can one say of Kenny Garrett? He’s obviously spent a lot of time practising in his attic. He began the gig with mild tones, searching for the sounds of his horn as they rebounded willy-nilly around the Opera House Hall with its bamboozling acoustics. By the fourth song Garrett had worked this place out and launched into what would become a Coltrane-esque solo. Who knows how long it went for? The time did not pass and the audience did not budge. Where did the last 20 minutes go? Oh, it’s interval. As we promenaded on the Opera terrace and watched the lights of Sydney’s CBD swirl on the harbour below, we thought of the weird places Garrett had taken us to. The elephants of Africa are in his song; the yowls of mistreated slaves; the liberation of the human spirit. Garrett has a repertoire of feeling and experience to draw on and knows how to wheedle an audience into his confidence.

Blade was a crowd favourite throughout the night. He knows when to embellish the lead player’s riffs and can construct extended meditations and rhythmic confluences in his solos. This also allowed Corea and McLaughlin time to rest and have a bit of a chinwag behind the piano. Christian McBride was a rock. If two formidable weavers of melody are at the fore the bass needs to be steady, ready to buttress the fall of the musician who misplaces a toe on the tightrope. He took a couple of solos, but spent more time ensuring Corea and McLaughlin had enough the space to unfold their matrices of sound.

Nothing more should be said about McLaughlin. He has to be seen or heard. Chick Corea provided searching and thoughtful accompaniments, only occasionally stepping into the limelight to build tension or take a few choruses. His soloing was refined and well-thought. In this quintet he has less scope to go out and can take fewer liberties than he might take in the Akoustic Band. He made a good decision to play the role of purveyor of rhythmic and harmonic nuances and let McLaughlin show the world what the human race is capable of.

This gig was worth a trip to the metropolis. It has been 40 years since Corea and McLaughlin played with Miles on In a Silent Way and this was their encore piece. A standing ovation was assured.

Chick Corea (keyboards) and John McLaughlin (guitar) led the Five Peace Band at Sydney Opera House with Kenny Garrett (sax), Christian McBride (bass) and Brian Blade (drums).