Nick Mazzarella Trio & Tom Rainey Trio

I thought I'd share a couple of photos from a couple of gigs I attended recently. On the 15th Nick Mazzarella's trio, with Patrick Mulcahy (bass) and Jeremy Cunningham (drums), were at Andy's. I had been up since some ridiculous hour so I only stayed for the first set (it was a long one.. almost 90 mins - a nice mix of originals and standards. I hadn't really heard Mazzarella play many standards so this made a nice change. And considering it was a freezing cold Monday night, the crowd wasn't too bad.

Last weekend Tom Rainey's trio, with Mary Halvorson (guitar) and Ingrid Laubrock (tenor/soprano), were at Constellation. I've heard both Rainey and Laubrock in the past but have managed to miss Halvorson when she's been in town, so I was keen not to miss this concert. It was the final engagement of a brief tour and the two sets of free improvised music had plenty of cohesion. There was a great turnout, with the smaller of the two rooms totally packed.

Nick Mazzarella Trio at Andy's

Tom Rainey Trio at Constellation

Chicago Reed Quartet at The Hideout

I was at The Hideout on Wednesday evening for the Immediate Sound Series. This week they were presenting the Chicago Reed Quartet - Mars Williams (tenor/alto/soprano/sopranino saxes) Ken Vandermark (baritone/tenor saxes, clarinet/bass clarinet) Dave Rempis (baritone/tenor/alto saxes) and Nick Mazzarella (alto sax). Earlier this year the quartet had a weekly spot at Elastic which, due to school, I was unable to attend so I was keen to check them out this time around.

The two sets were comprised of about a dozen original compositions evenly spread between the quartet's members. The pieces sounded well rehearsed with nice tight ensemble passages and the countless combinations of instrumentation provided plenty of colour and textural variety. There was plenty of rapport during improvised sections too as evidenced in the solo trading section of Mars Williams' "Inner Circle" (I tried scribbling down the song titles but missed a few… apologies if I got them wrong) with brief solos getting "passed" around the quartet. I also noted the smooth transitions between the written and improvised sections and the overall balance of composition and improvisation.

I was a little surprised that the audience wasn't larger (at a quick glance it looked to be between 20-30). Perhaps late nights mid-week put off those that need to rise early for work (I live relatively close and I usually don't get home until around 1am). For those that would like to catch them a bit earlier, The Chicago Reed Quartet will be playing at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Tuesday evening (August 12) from 5.30-8pm.

During the set break I hit the merchandise table and picked up a copy of Vandermark's recent release from his group Audio One - The Midwest School. This group will be playing at Constellation on August 22 & 23. I heard them at the Green Mill last year and it's a group worth checking out.

Chicago Jazz Festival 2013: Saturday

Saturday followed a similar pattern as Friday - check out a couple of gigs in the marquee's before the evening concerts on the main stage.

Gregory Porter

The Nick Mazzarella Trio started off my day. Mazzarella's burning alto was teamed with his regular rhythm section paring of Anton Hatwich (b) Frank Rosaly (d). They jumped straight into a high energy set of originals from the leader. A ballad made a welcome appearance about four tunes in, providing some contrast to the searing bite I have come to expect from Mazarella. I wasn't digging the live sound today - loud, boxy and metallic. It may not have been helped by the fairly empty tent . The crowd was down on the day before - not helped by the weather (it had been raining all day and started pouring not long before the set started). Mazarella's tone in particular suffered - while it is edgy and biting, I found the P.A sound made it one dimensionally bright. I felt for the trio as it really didn't do their sound any justice.

I left the set slightly early so as not to miss the start the Hamid Drake Quartet with Kidd Jordan (ts) Cooper-Moore (p) and William Parker (b) over in the southern tent. Murphy's law..... they started late! It was amateur hour during the set up. With a large crowd waiting the band made efforts to set up and sound check as music pumped through the P.A. No surprises then that when the music got underway the mix was terrible. In general it was a loud, wash of sound - no clarity at all. Parker's bass sounded like I giant amplified rubber band and the piano was obnoxiously bright and way too high in the mix. After a long free improvisation, they finally worked out that the bass was humming. I changed seats, then moved to the back of the tent. No improvement. I left. This must have been close to the worst live sound I have heard. Very disappointing. 

Rudresh Mahanthappa's "GAMAK"

The evening of concerts on the main stage started off with vocalist Gregory Porter (v) and his band of Chip Crawford (p) Aaron James (b) Yosuke Satoh (as) Emanuel Howard (d). I arrived during the set and could hear the crowd applauding well before I could see them. The rain during the day had cleared and a large audience had turned out - in the seated area and on the lawn. Lucky for me there were a couple of  empty seats down at the front of stage so I set up camp there for the night. It was a nice group and I can see why Porter gets plenty of attention and the crowd were really into it. The band backed him up well - bass and drums were a good pairing and the some nice comping from the piano. The odd one out, for me, was the alto to Satoh - his tone and phrasing seemed to be coming more from a "smooth jazz" type thing. While he played well and offered contrast to Porter's vocals I felt someone more in classic "Chicago-tenor" mold would have rounded the group out more seamlessly. 

Saturday Night's audience

Second up on the main stage was Rudresh Mahanthappa's "GAMAK" with David Fiuczynski (g) Francois Moutin (b) Dan Weiss (d). Mahanthappa's seamless blend of jazz-isms & Karnatic-isms (!), Moutin holding down rock solid bass, Fiuczynski's rock sensibilities, and rhythm mastery from Weiss combined for set of driving, high energy music (Off-kilter Indian-jazz-rock was written in my notebook). Lots of chops on display - both sax and guitar are lighting quick - but the music was interesting. If you are after something different, the group released an album at the start of the year. Weiss's drumming was the stand out to me. I've heard a few recordings he's been on but I believe this was the 1st time I'd heard him live (I'd need to double check my notebooks.... I may have heard him with David Binney). Music just seemed to be flowing out of him with minimal effort - wonderful. 

Rounding out the night was the Jason Moran: Fats Waller Dance Party. Moran (p/fender rhodes)  along with Earl Travis (b) Joshua Roseman (trb) Leron Thomas (trpt) Charles Haynes (d) Lisa E. Harris (vocal) Martin Sewell (g) and members of the Organic Magnetics dance company put a modern spin on classic tunes by Waller. This was really well put together but not my thing at all - at least not on that night... perhaps my mind was on the early start on Sunday morning to head to NYC? I renewed my membership with the Jazz Institute of Chicago and took my opportunity to get a head start on the exiting crowd.

Some final thoughts......Though this particular post has bit of a negative feel, I did enjoy the first three days of the festival. I would have been at the fourth had I not been NYC bound. The festival does a nice job mixing up the program. It seems like there is something for everyone - mainstream, up and comers, veterans, local artists, traditional groups, freer music, school bands - a nice cross-section of the jazz spectrum. The weather was the biggest hassle - hot, humid and sticky one day, thunder storm the next - but people still turned out. You can't beat the price - free admission! Combine that with the Millennium Park location (in the heart of downtown Chicago) and I'm sure it brings in a lot of listeners that wouldn't normally go to such gigs. Lets hope there is a flow on effect for the live scene. The volunteers I dealt with were great too.

The Main Stage - Saturday Night

Nick Mazzarella Solo

Corbett vs Dempsey have hosted a number of concerts this year and I have tried to get to as many as possible. On Saturday afternoon the gallery presented a solo concert by alto saxophonist Nick Mazzarella (nestled amongst artwork by Peter Brötzmann).

Brotzmann: Untitled (Landscape) 2012

The hour long set filled the gallery with Mazzarella's searing, overdriven tone containing plenty of bite and vocalized distortions (and the occasional bell chime).

Mazzarella is lightning quick around the horn and his use of trills, repeated phrases, sequences and the gallery's acoustics, created a "wall of sound" that, at times, reached near breaking point.

The opening piece, with it's wide intervals, sudden dynamic shifts and space was another example of his awareness of the room to help his notes harmonize/overlap/clash with themselves.

When his notes bent and swooped an acidic, barbed Johnny Hodges came to mind. 

I would have liked to heard him explore the quiet end of the spectrum a little more. When he did, it was particularly effective - another dimension was added to his sound and the subtleties of his pitch inflections and dynamic range were more pronounced.

Mazzarella's trio is playing at Chicago Jazz Festival Saturday 31 October 12.30pm

Dana Hall's Black Fire

At this years Straight Ahead Jazz Camp (see my post here) Dana Hall presented an excellent lecture on the music of Andrew Hill. It was during that lecture that he mentioned this gig:

Dana Hall's Black Fire: The Andrew Hill Project 
This concert was part of the Made In Chicago: World Class Jazz Concert Series at Millennium Park.

A smaller version of the group made its debut at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival last  year. Last night the expanded group consisted of:

Dana Hall (d) Orrin Evans (p)  Geof Bradfield (ts) Justin Thomas (vibes) Clark Sommers (b) Nick Mazzarella (as) Russ Johnson (trpt) Jose Davila (trb)

A nice sized ensemble - big enough to allow plenty of variety in the arrangements and small enough to draw on the flexibility of a small group.

The group played one long set (1.5 hrs I think) that contained plenty of variation - uptempo, latin, ballads, collective improvisation, rubato sections, featured soloists.

- Not Sa No Sa (The Day The World Stood Still)
- Dusk (Dusk)
- Artemis - an original by Hall commissioned for the event.
- Dedication (Point of Departure)
- Noontide (Passing Ships)
- Catfish (Invitation) - possibly..... I may have mis-heard him announce it
- Ode To Von (Smokestack)
- Spectrum (Point of Departure)
- Symmetry (Andrew!!!)

Hall has assembled a fine group, with a nice mix of musical personalities to play the challenges of Hill's  material. Hopefully they have more opportunities to get the music out there.

My listenings have been pretty much limited to Point of Departure, Black Fire, Time Lines, Dusk and Joe Henderson's Our Thing. It's been a while since I have listened Hill, perhaps it's time to revisit them?

Great to see a big crowd too - plenty in the seats and on the lawn. Let's hope it encourages people to get out to more live music.

They don't look that pleased but the music hadn't started yet

Record Store Day

As you may have heard Saturday April 20 was Record Store Day. I took it pretty easy and only went to the Jazz Record Mart. I timed my run to coincide with the in-store performance of Nick Mazzarella (as) Devin Hoff (b) & Mike Reed (d).

Nice to see a decent crowd in the store (the pics below are from after the trio's set and the crowd had thinned a bit). It was quite pleasant strolling the aisles accompanied by a live band.

I picked up two solo saxophone albums - Anthony Braxton's classic "For Alto" (Delmark 1969) - not sure why it has taken this long for me to get it - and Evan Parker's "Chicago Solo" (Okka Disc 1995) - Parker's first album dedicated to solo tenor (after many solo soprano albums).