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.