Pure

Maria Schneider’s

Poetry

www.jazziz.com APRIL 2013

Digital Edition
April 2013

Maria Schneider

34 Pure Poetry
A conversation with
Maria Schneider.
By Bill Milkowski

44 Groove Machine
Sunny Jain and Red Baraat are
kicking brass and taking names.
By Bob Weinberg

6 April 2013 jazziz Cover photo and this page by Jimmy and Dena Katz
 Prelude 20
Boyd Lee Dunlop rides again;
Fred Hersch realizes his
dreams; New York Voices
turn 25; Tom Wopat finds
his groove; and Wadada Leo
Smith premiers in SoCal.

Auditions 52
Reviewed: Miles Davis
Quintet, Tania Maria, Kevin
Eubanks, Nilson Matta,
The James Hunter Six, The
Aruán Ortiz and Michael
Janisch Quintet, and Wadada Leo Smith
Antonio Sanchez.

10 April 2013 jazziz Photo by Moses Hacmon

 Editor and Publisher Michael Fagien
Publisher Zakiya Fagien
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 Prelude

20 April 2013 jazziz

 Never Too Late
The story of Boyd Lee Dunlop sounds like one of those cornball Hollywood
fables about a talented artist who goes unnoticed until, late in life, he’s
discovered by a stranger. But this story happens to be true.
Music has always been at the center of Dunlop’s life. As a child in 1930s
Buffalo, New York, he taught himself to play the beat-up piano he found outside
his house. Later he’d periodically play in local clubs or on the road, but he spent
most of his adult life working blue-collar jobs in Buffalo. While his younger
brother Frankie enjoyed a successful career as a drummer, most notably as a
sideman on several Thelonious Monk albums, notoriety eluded Dunlop.
That changed in 2011 when photographer Brendan Bannon visited a Buffalo
nursing home to discuss a photo project. While waiting for his appointment,
he struck up a conversation with Dunlop, who informed Bannon that he was a
musician. Intrigued, Bannon recorded Dunlop on the nursing home’s broken-
down piano. When Dunlop expressed interest in making a record, Bannon
contacted producer Allen Farmelo, who eventually flew to Buffalo to record the
trio session Boyd’s Blues. At age 85, Dunlop had finally been discovered.
Here’s where the script runs off the rails. On Christmas Day 2011, less than
three weeks after Boyd’s Blues was released, Dunlop suffered a heart attack.
The story could have ended there, but he recovered well enough to record a
follow-up, The Lake Reflections (Mr. B Sharp Records), a beautiful, haunting col-
lection of solo improvisations inspired by Bannon’s photographs of Lake Erie.
Although confident in his abilities, Dunlop has been surprised by the atten-
tion his recordings have received. “I never believed so many people would be
interested in [my music], or that it would be heard at all,” he says, adding that
the whole experience has made him “as proud and scared as a son of a gun.”
The Lake Reflections incorporates Dunlop’s varied influences, including
classical and gospel music as well as jazz. “It’s all me,” he says. “It’s an admix-
ture of everybody I’ve heard, and I’ve heard them all — Fats Waller, Vladimir
Horowitz. That’s why it doesn’t sound like anybody else.”
Dunlop says he hears music when he looks at those Lake Erie photographs,
which line the walls of his room. While listening to “Sunset Turmoil,” a track
inspired by an especially ominous-looking image, Dunlop explains that the
opening notes represent a person’s search for someone to communicate with.
The music then gradually develops into a conversation.
It took nearly eight decades for Dunlop to find an audience with whom he
can fully communicate. Some conversations, he knows, are worth waiting for.
 —John Frederick Moore

Photos by Brendan Bannon jazziz April 2013 21

Freedom Riders
Composer/trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith
teamed up with dancer/choreographer
Oguri in early March at the Electric
Lodge in Venice, California, for the world
premiere of Notaway: Quest for Freedom.
The lengthy work, which blended
choreography and musical compositions
with improvised music and dance, was
inspired by Mark Twain’s Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn. In addition to longtime
collaborators Oguri and Smith, the
cast featured dancer Yasunari Tamai
and Smith’s Golden Quartet: pianist
Anthony Davis, bassist John Lindberg
and drummer Pheeroan akLaff. From
March 1-3, the ensemble staged four
performances as part of Body Weather
Laboratory’s Flower of the Season 2013
series. Pictured: Smith, in background,
with Oguri (left) and Tamai.

presenting
aarondiehl
a remarkable debut by the winner of the 2011 Jazz Fellowship Awards competition
and Cole Porter Fellow in Jazz for the American Pianist Association

Aaron Diehl – piano

Rodney Green – drums
David Wong – bass
Warren Wolf – vibraphone

available wherever you like to buy music mackavenue.com | aarondiehl.com

22 April 2013 jazziz Photo by Moses Hacmon

 Some remember the name. For others, it’s Tom
Wopat’s rugged, square-jawed good looks that
trigger the association. Sooner or later, it registers:
This is the guy who, along with two trouble-courting
cousins — the blond, boyish Bo, played by John
Schneider, and the leggy Daisy, played by Catherine
Bach — was a key ingredient of the 1980s television
phenomena known as The Dukes of Hazzard. Almost
three decades after the fact, however, Wopat’s Dukes
past has evaporated like so much morning mist on a
Hazzard County duck pond.
Today the 61-year old Wisconsin native is highly
regarded for his work on Broadway, where he has
starred in a succession of popular musical produc-
tions. His movie roles include a part in the recent
blockbuster Django Unchained and a co-starring
role with Jane Seymour in the made-for-TV produc-
tion Lovestruck. Not bad for a guy once exclusively
known as Luke Duke.
And the best may be yet to come. Now four
albums deep into exploring an art form he grew
increasingly fond of during years of working on
Broadway stages, Wopat has successfully reinvented
himself as a compelling jazz crooner. I’ve Got Your
Number (LML Music), his latest recording, radiates
a conscious “swingin’ ’60s” brand of hipness as it
ranges through pop classics from the era — such as
“Call Me” and the title tune, both treated to bossa
rhythms — and “The Good Life,” the ballad that
became a chart-topping hit for Tony Bennett in 1963.
I’ve Got Your Number highlights Wopat’s arrest-
ing baritone, his range of interpretative skills, and
a confident vocal delivery packed with subdued
sexiness and a double-twist-of-lemon attitude. And
thanks to the involvement of such top arrangers as
John Oddo, a 26-piece orchestra loaded with first-
call jazz musicians and a full string section, the
date captures perfectly the time when balladeers
like Bennett, Bobby Darin, Jack Jones and Frank
Sinatra played high-class nightclubs backed by large
ensembles. “This style of music was in the back-
ground when I was a kid,” Wopat recalls, “but my
real appreciation for jazz has come as I’ve matured.
Doing musicals, you always have an entry to the
Great American Songbook.” In addition to tunes by
Mel Tormé and Harry Warren, the album’s 14 tracks
include works by contemporary writers James
Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Judy Collins, and two
Wopat originals bear favorable comparison to the

Swingin’
session’s best evergreens.
The singer himself footed the lavish production’s
nearly $100,000 bill. Wopat sees it as a sound invest-

Hard
ment. “I figure I’ve got 15 or 20 good years left,” he says.
“I mean, Tony is still out there bangin’ it out. Plus, it’s
hard to describe how much I like it.” —Mark Holston
 Hello Browser!

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Pianist and composer David Benoit has JAZZIZ OnDisc SUMMER 2012
been communicat-
ing with audi-
ences for decades.
So perhaps it’s
unsurprising that
he’s titled his latest SUMMER 2012
Summer Variations

release Conversation
Disc 1 PIANO VARIATIONS
(Heads Up). In fact,
he views the recording as a way of catching David Benoit • Anne Sajdera • Alon Yavnai • Eric Reed
Steve Kuhn Trio • Mike Levine • Ahmad Jamal • Lynne Arriale

up with fans. “This really represents where

OM
EX
Kevin Toney 3 • Chick Corea • Michel Camilo

Z .C
CL
Charlie Haden/Hank Jones • Alfredo Rodríguez

US

ZI
AZ
Chick Corea/Eddie Gomez/Paul Motian

IV
E

.J
D
Taurey Butler • Kenny Werner

W
C
AV W
AI .W

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OnDisc
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ing me for a while.” Of course, Benoit also
CMYK with full white flood
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selection, the song’s co-author, guitarist

David Pack (of the band Ambrosia), joins 01 David Benoit “Napa Crossroads Overture”
Conversation (Heads Up)
The coastal geography of San Diego opening track, “Rashid,” included here, is standards. “Without other musicians as the pianist and orchestral players on a
02 Anne Sajdera “Rashid” Azul (Bijuri)
inspired the a prime example of Sajdera’s mastery of part of the dialogue,” she writes in the sunny jaunt through wine country.
Brazilian-leaning the Brazilian idiom, her trio’s dynamism liner notes, “it became essential to make 03 Alon Yavnai & The NDR Bigband
“Shir Ahava” Shir Ahava (AYM)
music of Anne supplemented by Moreira’s expert touch. the range of my playing wider and think bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Paul While he’s performed the music with
Eric Reed “Rhythm-a-Ning”
Sajdera. Like ‘orchestrally.’” Done, and done. Dig her Motian. The results, culled from record- orchestras all over
04
The Baddest Monk (Savant)
her Carioca Most listeners have come to know pianist sprightly, nuanced keyboard attack on ings of the trio during a two-week stay the world, Corea
05 Steve Kuhn Trio “Promises Kept”
counterparts, the Lynne Arriale as Monk’s “Evidence” or her funky stop-time at New York City’s Blue Note in 2010, are recorded it just last Wisteria (ECM)

Bay Area pianist a dynamic and rhythms on her own “Yada, Yada, Yada.” predictably brilliant. Spanning two discs, summer for the 06 Mike Levine “Gettin’ Ready”
and composer emotive ensemble But establishing an emotional connec- the program contains tunes written by or double-disc release Thinking of You (self-released)

infuses her playing and writing with sea leader. For 15 years tion with listeners has always been of associated with Evans, some dating back to The Continents 07 Ahmad Jamal “Autumn Rain”
Blue Moon (Jazzbook)
and sun and pulses that make listen- she worked solely primary importance to Arriale, and she the late-’50s-early-’60s sessions on which (Deutsche
ers want to get up and samba. Those with her trio, with does so even more directly here. Take a Motian played. An 11-year veteran of Evans’ Grammophon). 08 Lynne Arriale “Arise” Solo (Motéma)

influences can certainly be detected on
her latest trio recording, Azul (Bijuri).
Sajdera penned tunes for the album
while she was recuperating from a back
injury. Taking advantage of the time to
whom she also
recorded nine
CDs. More recently she’s been performing
and recording in combos with esteemed
players such as Randy Brecker, George
listen to “Arise,” our selection, and see if trio, Gomez gets the final word with his
you don’t agree. sprightly, spiky composition “Puccini’s
Walk,” which concludes the set and which
Modern-jazz giant Chick Corea has we’ve included here. An homage to the
never made a bassist’s beloved pooch — as opposed to the
In addition to members of The Harlem 09 Kevin Toney 3 “New American Suite”
New American Suite (self-released)
Quartet, Imani Winds and other top
Chick Corea “Solo Continuum 42”
orchestral players, Corea makes use of
10
The Continents (Deutsche Grammophon)
his quintet — saxophonist Tim Garland,
11 Michel Camilo “The Sidewinder”
trombonist Steve Davis, bassist Hans Mano a Mano (EmArcy)

woodshed, she says she went back and
studied the recordings of Herbie Hancock,
Keith Jarrett, Monty Alexander and
Egberto Gismonti. She then assembled her
seasoned trio mates, bassist Gary Brown
and drummer Paul van Wageningen,
in the studio, and invited guest percus-
sionists Airto Moreira and Michael
Spiro and drummer Phil Thompson. The
Mraz, Bill McHenry and Omer Avital.
Now, finally, Arriale’s released Solo
(Motéma), an entire album of nothing but
piano. Captured “live” at the Hillsborough
Community College Ybor Performing
Arts Center, the Florida-based pianist and
educator delivers a stark and gorgeous
set of original songs, interspersed with
interpretations of Monk tunes and
secret of his Italian composer — it’s a perfect example Glawischnig and drummer Marcus 12 Charlie Haden/Hank Jones
adoration of Bill of the trio’s remarkable synergy. Further Gilmore — bridging the worlds of jazz and “Come Sunday” Come Sunday (EmArcy)
Evans. On Further Explorations also serves as a tribute to the classical music. Disc One encompasses 13 Chick Corea/Eddie Gomez/Paul Motian
“Puccini’s Walk” Further Explorations (Concord Jazz)
Explorations ever-dynamic Motian, who passed away in The Continents suite, while Disc Two spot-
(Concord Jazz), November 2011. lights four tracks by the quintet and 11 14 Taurey Butler “Grandpa Ted’s Tune”
Taurey Butler (Justin Time)
Corea once again (mostly) brief and thoroughly absorbing
15 Alfredo Rodríguez “Transculturation”
bows to the In honor of Mozart’s 250th birthday, Chick solo pieces by Corea. One of them, “Solo Sounds of Space (Mack Avenue)
mega-influential pianist, this time in the Corea penned a six-part piano concerto Continuum 42,” is included here. At age 71,
16 Kenny Werner “Balloons”
company of two of Evans’ confederates: and titled each movement for a continent. Corea’s as creatively vital as ever. Me, Myself & I (Justin Time)

JAZZIZ ON DISC is a 2-CD music compilation from the artists of yesterday, today and tomorrow, bundled in the subscriber
copies of the print editions of JAZZIZ Magazine. This issue’s theme is “Piano Variations and Summer Variations.” Disc One
If you purchased this magazine without the CDs or would like additional copies, e-mail service@jazziz.com
contains a selection of songs by prominent pianists. Disc Two is a collection of music drawn from recently released albums. or log onto www.jazziz.com.

26 summer 2012 jazziz David Benoit by Lori Stoll jazziz summer 2012 27

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Living the Dreams
My Coma Dreams, a jazz theater piece based on eight dreams and nightmares
experienced by pianist/composer Fred Hersch while in a two-month coma in 2008,
premiered in New York City on March 2 at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre.
The work was presented by Columbia’s Program in Narrative Medicine, which
explores the intersection between medicine and the arts. Written and directed by
Herschel Garfein and starring actor Michael Winther, My Coma Dreams proved to
be a haunting, lyrical, occasionally funny and ultimately triumphant production —
all of it powerfully charged by Hersch’s music, played by his 12-piece ensemble.

Guitarist Eubanks takes the depth of his broad

musical experience—including a 17-year stint as the
bandleader for television’s The Tonight Show with
Jay Leno—and creates a record rich with influence
while bursting with stunning technique and
musical freedom as he has ever recorded.

Kevin’s core band of Rene Camacho, Billy Pierce

and Marvin “Smitty” Smith is joined variously by his
brothers, trumpeter Duane and trombonist Robin.

Be sure to check out the evocative and sensual

“Sister Veil” video on YouTube featuring his
brother Duane.

mackavenue.com | kevineubanks.com
available wherever you like to buy music

28 April 2013 jazziz Photo by Steve J. Sherman

New York Voices at 25
On their own eclectic recordings over the years, as well as on
acclaimed sets with the Count Basie Orchestra and Paquito
D’Rivera, New York Voices has embodied and largely fulfilled
the jazz possibilities of four-part-harmony singing. As soprano
Kim Nazarian says, “When you get the right four voices together
with the perfect arrangement of a compelling song, you’ve got
the perfect example of peace and harmony, both in a musical
sense and in a larger universal way.”
Recently the Grammy-winning quartet — which, in addi-
tion to Nazarian, includes tenor Darmon Meader, baritone Peter
Eldridge and alto Lauren Kinhan — helped mark its 25th anni-
versary with the release of Live, with the WDR Big Band Cologne,
the group’s first outing on the Palmetto imprint. The 10-track set
features a mix of originals, jazz and Great American Songbook
classics, and tunes by pop giants Paul Simon and Annie Lennox.
It was drawn from a 2008 concert in Cologne, Germany, which
was actually part of NYV’s 20th-anniversary tour.
Nazarian says that the live recording brings everything
full circle for the quartet, which emerged from Ithaca College’s
30 April 2013 jazziz
vocal-jazz ensemble in 1988 and began building its reputa-
tion with residencies at Greenwich Village hotspots. In recent
years, the group has played an average of 60-70 concerts
annually, with frequent stops throughout Europe, Asia and
North America, backed by ensembles such as the Vancouver
Symphony, the Boston Pops and the Kennedy Center’s National
Symphony Orchestra.
On the new disc, NYV reunites with old acquaintance Michael
Abene, who produced the group’s1989 GRP debut and has been
music director and principal arranger-conductor of the WDR Big
Band since 2003. “It was an honor to celebrate our big anniversary
with our first producer,” Nazarian says, “not only because he
helped launch our career but also because of his incredible pen-
manship with these live arrangements. The big band helped us
do what we love best: bridge the gap between instrumental and
vocal jazz. The music has become richer and more spontaneous
during live performances, and the stage has become like a second
home. It’s great to be able to share that with those who haven’t
had the opportunity to see us in concert.” —Jonathan Widran
Spring Never Sounded So Good

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Money Jungle Move Conviction The Beat

Patricia Barber Next Collective Michael Feinstein Molly Ringwald

Smash Cover Art Change Of Heart: Except...Sometimes
The Songs Of Andre Previn

Erin Boheme Spencer Day Gerald Clayton

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34TH EDITION

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JUNE 28 TO JULY 7, 2013

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3000 musicians 12 concert halls
10 days of great music
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SHORTER
80th Birthday
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ARETHA JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA

WITH VERY
FRANKLIN June 29
WYNTON
FEATURING
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JAMES WAYNE SHORTER QUARTET
HUNTER WITH DANILO PEREZ, JOHN PATITUCCI,
MARSALIS June 28 BRIAN BLADE, JOE LOVANO AND DAVE
DOUGLAS QUINTET: SOUND PRINTS
FEATURING: LAWRENCE FIELDS,
LINDA OH AND JOEY BARON
AND ACS: ALLEN, CARRINGTON,
SPALDING June 29

JOSHUA
RAVI COLTRANE REDMAN
QUARTET June 28 QUARTET
AN EVENING WITH SHARON JONES
GEORGE BENSON June 30 & THE DAP-KINGS July 3

with AARONGOLDBERG,
REUBEN ROGERS
& GREGORY HUTCHINSON
DOUBLE BILL and ORCHESTRA,
DR. JOHN & THE NITE PLAYING SELECTIONS
PRESERVATION HALL HOLLY COLE June 27-28-29 TRIPPERS AND FROM THE NEW ALBUM
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 Pure Poetry
A conversation with Maria Schneider.
By Bill Milkowski
With zen-like patience, Maria Schneider endures another day
of sonic assault from a construction crew armed with jackham-
mers. They’ve been on the job for six months now, cutting into the
bedrock of her Manhattan apartment building’s courtyard, five
stories below, where a magnificent tree once stood. Between the
daily jackhammering, the incessant bawling upstairs of a newborn
baby — who, Schneider notes, cries between 65 and 85 decibels,
sometimes peaking at 95 — and the next-door neighbors’ periodic
arguments about money and mothers-in-law, it’s a constant ca-
cophony, an affront to Schneider’s sensibilities. “I haven’t written
a note of music in the past six months,” she confesses. “It’s impos-
sible to write here. It’s horrible. If I was in the middle of commis-
sions or something right now, I don’t know what the heck I would
do. I can’t write anything here.”
But the absence of that tree, the upper branches of which she
used to admire from her bedroom window, pains her more than
the racket. “I cried for a month solid about that tree,” she says. “It’s
just devastating. If we weren’t getting out of the city on weekends
(she and her partner, Mark, recently purchased a place in rustic
upper Delaware], I think I’d lose my mind.”
Luckily, the acclaimed composer-arranger finished her latest
project long before all the jackhammering and crying and rude
yammering began. A collaboration with the renowned classi-
cal soprano Dawn Upshaw, featuring the Saint Paul Chamber
34 April 2013 jazziz
Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Winter Morning
Walks (ArtistShare) is a profound work that brilliantly and organi-
cally melds the seemingly disparate worlds of classical, jazz and
poetry. A collection of song cycles based on the poems of former
American poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser and
the influential Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade, it
follows Schneider’s previous Grammy Award-winning ArtistShare
releases — 2004’s Concert in the Garden and 2007’s Sky Blue.
The nine Kooser poems on the new recording were culled from the
book Winter Morning Walks, a collection of short poems that Kooser
wrote while recovering from cancer surgery and radiation therapy in
1998. Each day after his two-mile, pre-dawn walk down isolated coun-
try roads near his home in Garland, Nebraska, Kooser would write
a new poem, then paste it onto a postcard and send it to his friend
and fellow writer Jim Harrison. That process continued daily during
his recovery until Kooser had sent 100 poems, each brimming with
evocative imagery of life on the Great Plains mixed with existential
rumination and resonating with the poet’s uncanny gift of metaphor.
The fact that Schneider and Upshaw are also cancer survivors makes
this three-way collaboration all the more potent.
While Kooser’s perceptive poems are simple, honest and
imbued with accessible, conversational verse, the Drummond
poems (translated by Mark Strand) are more complex, often ironic
and marked by elegant free verse.
Photo by Jimmy and Dena Katz

Bill Milkowski: The first thing one notices about your current
album is that the pieces are much shorter than usual. Your com-
positions have tended to be lengthy, almost suite-like, and they
evolve gradually over 14-15 minutes to some kind of rhapsodic
crescendo, whereas the pieces on the new album clock in around
two and three minutes.
Maria Schneider: Well, the pieces are shorter because the poems
that I set to music were short. And it was liberating, in a way.
The pieces are less busy, less contrapuntal than usual. Is that
because you’re working with a vocalist who is upfront and singing
lyrics, as opposed to Luciana Souza, whose wordless vocals
blend into the arrangements like another instrument in the band
on your past recordings?
Right. I’m definitely dealing with a lot of different param-
eters on this project. When Dawn asked me to write for her I
was kind of nervous because I hadn’t written for orchestra. I
studied orchestration and I wrote for studio orchestra — the
Metropole Orchestra — but chamber orchestra is really another
thing. Writing for no rhythm section is different for me, so I
was really scared. And writing for poetry was something really
different. I’m not really a poetry person; I don’t know much
poetry. Oh, my god, I was so panicked. I said no for a long time.
When I finally decided to do it and started writing, the first
36 April 2013 jazziz
Schneider and Upshaw
thing that hit me was how liberating it was to have words.
That’s something new for me. I realized that for my entire
career — it’s almost 30 years now writing music — I have been
generating every single idea: the story, the inspiration, the
form, the melody, the rhythm, the concept. It’s instrumental
music, so it just requires that everything is coming from you.
And suddenly, once I settled on the poetry, I realized that the
poetry gives you the feeling, it gives you the rhythm. Take
Drummond’s “Poem for Sunday”:
Clara strolled in the garden with the children
The sky was green over the grass
The water was golden under the bridges.
It has a certain kind of rhythm to it. So all of a sudden, the
limitations started presenting themselves, which was great. It
wasn’t like the sky was the limit anymore, and I was groping
in the dark. Immediately there were parameters. And then I
discovered how the words asked to be melodies. The poems
came to me like melodies. And then the harmony … I’m very
attached to emotional meaning in harmony. I don’t look at
harmony in some kind of intellectualized way. I’m very much
an emotional writer. I like my music to feel like something. So
the poetry had feeling and that asked for a kind of harmony,
Photo by Jimmy and Dena Katz
and it really was liberating. I loved it. And then the fact that
the pieces themselves told me something about the length of
each piece made it really fun for me.
It’s that idea of freedom within structure.
Exactly.
How did this whole project come about?
The Argentine classical composer Osvaldo Golijov knew my
music, and he told Dawn about it. I think he gave her one of my
records. Dawn loved it and so she started coming to hear the band
during our annual Thanksgiving-week run at the Jazz Standard
in New York, and she came several years in a row. She really loved
the band and was crazy about Donny McCaslin’s playing and
various other people in the band. One day she wanted to meet for
lunch and I was terrified that she was going to ask me to write for
her because I was just intimidated. And it took me a long time to
say yes, purely out of fear.
I was scared of the classical world because when I was in school
the classical world was heavily into very complex atonality and
serial writing, which is just not my thing at all. And I didn’t like
that I was being judged based on what my language is. I just felt
that I didn’t belong in the classical world, as it was in those times.
But it’s changed. The classical world seems to embrace tonality
now. Maybe it’s because they’re so concerned that they’ve lost their
audience and it’s a gesture purely out of desperation. Whatever the
motivation, things are definitely changing in that world. And when
I initially talked to Dawn about collaborating, she assured me, “I
don’t know what you’re going to write but I want you to write what
you write. I’m coming to you because I love your music.” So I de-
cided, “OK, I’m gonna harmonically do what I hear. I’m not going to
apologize for being tonal, and I’m not going to apologize for writing
melodies in the classic sense of beautiful melodies.” So that’s what I
did, and the orchestra seemed to love it.
What influenced your writing style for each of these sets of poetry?
I’ve been influenced by Brazilian choro for a long time. I wrote the
first movement of Concert in the Garden, “Choro Dancado,” in that
style. Even “Hang Gliding” (from 2000’s Allegresse) has a little aspect
of choro in it. And “Prologue,” the first movement of the Drummond
pieces on the new album, has this rhythm and counterpoint to it
that’s coming out of choro. And I decided that I would open that piece
with a vocalese thing, which isn’t normally Dawn’s thing. She was
actually terrified, but she did a great job on that. I think that’s really
hard for a classical singer to do — to make it sound sort of like an
instrument and not overly schooled. Luciana (Souza) is just so amaz-
ing at doing that but it was something new for Dawn. With these
Drummond poems, I wanted to create that feeling of the rhythm
in the orchestra. For instance, the fourth movement (“Don’t Kill
Yourself”) has bularia rhythms, which is a flamenco kind of poly-
rhythmic 12/8 structure. It goes between 6/8 and 3/4 to create what
they call a hemiola. And it was a challenge for the orchestra because
it’s groove music. It may sound different from my music but it’s very
different for them too. It’s somewhere between worlds. And they told
me it was hard for them to play, compared to their regular fare.
Fine, Feathered Friends
An avid birdwatcher, Schneider is part of an eclectic group
that meets regularly in New York’s Central Park, located just
a few steps from her apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West
Side, to observe the habits of the 117 species that congregate
there throughout the year. Their exploits were chronicled in
last year’s HBO nature
documentary Birders: The
Central Park Effect, which
included on-screen in-
terviews with Schneider
and 11 of her fellow avian
appreciators. Ask her how
birdwatching provides a
bit of sanity in her world,
and she’ll wax romantic.
“I love everything
birds do — their ability
to fly, their feathers, their
colors, their shapes, their behavior, their nest building, their
migration,” she says. “It’s all just so incredible. To me, they’re
awe-inspiring on every level and I’ve gotten really deep into it.
It’s just the most wonderful thing in my life.”
Of all the things she listed about what she loves about birds,
it’s curious that Schneider didn’t mention their sound. “I do love
the sound but it’s not the first and foremost thing for me,” she
explains. “You know what I love? It’s the collective sound, the
polyphony, the orchestration of the sound. On the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology’s website, they have the largest nature sound library
in the world (the Macaully Library at www.macaulaylibrary.
org). And they have these recordings of dawn choruses of birds
in Queensland, Australia. You hear them slowly waking up and
then slowly you hear different species coming in, then other ones
answer, then other ones wake up and join in, like shout choruses
in a big band. The use of the polyphony is amazing and by the
end it’s just insanity! Such a world. I just love that!”
Suffice it to say that Schneider has a higher opinion of birds
than her own species.”I have a pretty dismal outlook about humans
and what we’re doing to the planet,” she says. “We think we’re
above it all, but we’re going to be the species that goes extinct.
The planet is going to continue in some form, and my belief is that
evolution always seems to go towards beauty. Just look at the birds
of paradise. They evolved because the females were looking for
the most beautiful males. I actually wrote a piece about it called
‘Arbiters of Evolution.’ The females are the arbiters of evolution, and
the males have evolved more and more elaborate, showy, colorful
feathers coming out of their head, out of their butt … just crazy stuff.
They have these feathers that look like a tutu and they dance for the
female, and you just look at that and you say, ‘All species like beauty,
they all like flamboyance, they all love visual drama.’ So I believe
the world is going to evolve towards that.
“But humans? We really aren’t that beautiful,” she continues.
“We don’t fly, we don’t have beautiful feathers. But we do have
horrible reality TV shows. To me, it’s really depressing.” —BM
jazziz April 2013 37
“And I realize that’s
why I love being a jazz
composer, because my
music goes out there, it’s
incomplete, and I give
it to the musicians, and
they make it something
that’s all of ours and
it’s just so much fun.
It’s musical intimacy or
something.”

Do you feel that there’s a different flavor between the Drummond
pieces and the Kooser pieces on the album?
I think so. You know, a lot of poetry for me, previous to find-
ing Kooser, didn’t feel like it could come out as music. What these
poems both have — the Drummond and the Kooser stuff — is
that they’re both a little bit narrative, they tell stories. And even
if the Ted Kooser stuff isn’t this sort of obtuse poetry that some
people like — it’s in language that’s somehow accessible and
understandable — the metaphors he uses are incredible. Take
the image of him walking by flashlight at six in the morning (on
“Walking by Flashlight”):
my circle of light on the gravel
swinging from side to side,
coyote, raccoon, field mouse, sparrow,
each watching from darkness
this man with the moon on a leash.
That’s incredible! And the Drummond stuff just has this
kind of melodrama to it, a humanity and sweetness to it with
this sort of over-the-top darkness, and him playing between
what’s really dramatic and funny at the same time, being gently
humorous about the human drama. It’s brilliant! I found them
both to be things that I would enjoy writing music to, but very
different from each other.
You premiered the Drummond pieces with Dawn and the Saint
Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2008, then premiered the Kooser
poems with the Australian Chamber Orchestra at the 2011 Ojai
Festival in California. What was the difference between those
classical performances and the jazz gigs you play with the Maria
Schneider Orchestra?
There’s a big difference. Each night after the chamber orchestras
performed, the musicians would say, “Maria, your piece sounded
great!” And then everybody would pack up their instruments and
leave, and I would feel really lonely. It felt very different from what
I know when I work with my band. That is, when a performance
by my band is over, usually (pianist) Frank (Kimbrough) will say,
“Oh, man, (drummer) Clarence (Penn) was just on fire tonight! And
did you hear what Donny (McCaslin) did? And what (accordionist)
Gary (Versace) played right after that?” So they’re just all kind of
reliving the creative choices of each other after the gig. And it’s not
about me. It’s not, “Oh, Maria, your piece sounded good.” It’s about
what they created. They know the piece works or doesn’t work,
and they have their own opinion about it. But then they make it
their own, and it’s just so much fun. Socially, it’s fun! And I realize

38 April 2013 jazziz Photo by David Korchin

that’s why I love being a jazz composer, because my music goes out
there, it’s incomplete, and I give it to the musicians, and they make
it something that’s all of ours and it’s just so much fun. It’s musical
intimacy or something. Amazing!
Is there anything inherently Midwestern about Kooser’s poetry
that you relate to?
Absolutely. First of all, the imagery of his poetry. He’s from
Iowa and he lives in Garland, Nebraska. Today he just wrote to
me about … I was complaining about the price of a Fed Ex and
he wrote, “I’ll get ’em back. If he gets stuck in my driveway, I’m
going to charge ’im 40 bucks to get out.” He’s just a regular guy,
you know, with his tractor and everything. So I relate to that
because I feel like I’m much more Windom, Minnesota than I am
Manhattan. And just the whole imagery of weather … weather
is just a huge part of the drama of where I’m from. And the
landscape, the sky, the breaking of spring, all the signs. It’s just
the same kind of imagery to me, so it feels like home.
So many of your pieces have a real feeling of “place” about them,
whether it’s “Coming About,” which is about your memories of
sailing with your father in Windom, or “Cerulean Skies,” which
conjures up the sounds of birds awakening at sunrise.
My belief about my writing is if it conjures up a place, it’s
because I’m very attached to that place. I’m from a really remark-
able place: Windom, Minnesota. I remember the band played
there, and (bassist) Tony Scherr’s reaction was, “Oh, my god, it’s
just so bleak!” After the gig we went to the Bergen Bar, which is
in a really tiny town just outside of Windom. It’s basically four
cornfields and a couple of buildings and this bar that people from
surrounding little towns come to. They have good walleye and
steak and potatoes and salad. Simple.
So the whole band went to the Bergen Bar, and it was really
windy and kind of snowy and there’s nothing as far as the eye
can see. And at one point we’re sitting there and (drummer)
Clarence (Penn) just put his hands on the table and says, “OK,
Maria, you just gotta tell me ’cause I don’t get it. Are you more
this? Or are you more the Maria I understand you to be from
New York?” And I said, “Clarence, I’m actually more this.” And he
was just shaking his head, he just couldn’t even believe it. The
landscape plays a big part in defining who I am. It’s dramatic in
its complete flatness. Prairie landscape is special, and it’s very
special to my heart. It’s very special to Kooser in his poetry. And
what I would say is, I believe that when you sit down to write
music — or if it’s somebody who paints or choreographs or what-
ever — when you go into that foundational place in yourself
where you create from, those things imprint, there are traces of
that in your work. If your work is coming from that zone that
you go into when all of a sudden the time peels away and if, as
an artist, you have a modicum of technique at your disposal,
enough to do what you want to do, and you use that to the end of
creating what’s inside of you, it’s gonna have that.
It’s like your DNA is imbued in the music.
Absolutely. I think everybody is like that, if you allow yourself
Of Passion and Magic
When asked about her long-held passion for
birdwatching and how it influences her music,
Schneider responds with a pointed manifesto on the
magic of music.
“I think everything in my life is related to music be-
cause music is the way I express things in my life that are
important to me, things that I’m passionate about, stories
that I’m nostalgic about, things that I find beautiful,
visually or whatever. I let it out through music. Those are
the things I feel passionate about, and music is my way of
expressing it. It’s more than being passionate about music.
I mean, yes, I love music and I love making concerts and I
love hearing inspiring music. But the music I love most is
the stuff that evokes something beyond the music, where
I feel like I’m touched by something that’s way beyond the
notes, that something magical that that person is able to
put into the music that makes the music way bigger than
music. That is, I think, what we all hope for.
“Because every musician becomes a musician be-
cause they’ve touched that magic, probably personally
in their life at a performance by somebody they knew or
somebody they heard. And it made them just say, ‘Wow,
I want a piece of that! I want that feeling all the time. I
want to create that. I want to live that!” Then you go to
music school and you work so hard and you train and
you practice and you learn … and now the bar is so high.
It’s like the Olympics. People keep running faster and
faster, and they use steroids so they can be faster and go
beyond the physicality of the body. And I think for musi-
cians too, compositionally and as players, it’s the same
thing. Technically, they can do more and more and more
and more. And sometimes I think you have to reach back
and just go, ‘Wait a minute! This is running away from
me. What was it? Why did I start this?’
“Sometimes when I teach, I’ll say to a group of people
or kids, ‘Just shut your eyes and remember what was the
thing that first inspired you to want to be a musician
and made you say, “I love music!”’ They shut their eyes,
and you see people smile, you see them remembering.
And I tell them, ‘OK, always remember that feeling.
Because that’s where it has to come from. Otherwise,
with all the technique in the world you’re never going to
find that magic that you were hoping to put in your mu-
sic if you don’t stay attached to that first and foremost,
and then let the technique just be at your fingertips
when you need it to create something. So technique is
something that’s kind of on your shelf. It’s in your food
pantry, so to speak. You can go in the pantry and pick
these things, and you have all this stuff to pick from.
But you have to create from your inner passion.” —BM
jazziz April 2013 39
to get to that place. I think sometimes a lot of artists are con-
vinced that their internal self is not unique and that uniqueness
is somehow found outside of yourself. “If I become this, if I adopt
these crazy rhythms from so-and-so …” So sometimes I think
people look for uniqueness rather than really understanding that
uniqueness — the most unique thing that we have — is inside
of ourselves. It’s not unique to us, but it’s the most unique to
the world. So it’s like respecting your voice and caring for it, not
sitting in front of the TV 24-7 but rather nurturing your inner
world and your inner voice. As an artist, I think it’s probably the
most important thing that you can do, alongside practicing and
learning. It’s kind of like “You are what you eat.” And so what
you put into your life in terms of what you take in — in terms of
thought or what you listen to or watch or what you hear or who
you talk to and how you talk to them — it’s all going in there.
You’re swimming in that. So it’s important to make sure that you
care for what’s in your pool, so it’s not a cesspool.
You have a way of engaging the audience in concert by telling
them about the songs before you play them. That’s an old-school
thing that goes back to Duke Ellington telling the story behind
“Harlem Airshaft” or people like Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz
and Dave Brubeck introducing their tunes with personal asides.
To me, for live performance these days, what we need most
is for people to really connect with the artist and their work.
You need to humanize the event. I think that’s so important.
Personally, I think when jazz musicians just walk out on stage
and sit there kind of as if the audience doesn’t really matter or
that they should think it’s all so deep … I just think musicians
should invite people in a little bit more about what they’re
thinking about their music, and not just play five pieces in a row
without announcing them. I consider myself a pretty sophis-
ticated listener and sometimes I find myself thinking, “Wow, I
wish they’d tell me something about this tune.”
The implication is, you’re an idiot if you don’t already know this
tune, which intimidates people. I know many people who are
afraid to go to jazz concerts because they don’t want to be made
to feel stupid for not knowing “the secret handshake.”
Yeah. And even if it’s a well-known standard, they should tell
some story about that standard and what they’re trying to do to
this piece, or announce that so-and-so’s gonna be a featured soloist
on this tune, or that you have some special personal connection
to this tune. I feel that’s important. It’s called outreach. Classical
companies are doing it. Just look at the Metropolitan Opera with
their remote broadcasts in movie theaters. That’s bringing people
into the music at a time when audiences are shrinking. That’s a
smart thing to do and more jazz musicians should be thinking
along those lines by announcing song titles or telling personal
stories about the tunes. To me, just being shy or something is not a
good excuse for not including the audience in what you’re doing on
the bandstand. I mean, everybody should be able to do what they
want to do, but as an audience member myself I don’t like it when
musicians are aloof. I want to know, I want to be let in. s

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 O F T H E J A Z Z C R U I S E
N UA L S A I L I N G SPECIAL
13TH AN E R Y P E R F O R M A N C E IS
W H E R E E V
Manhattan Transfer
Ernie Adams Marcus Miller Qua
rtet
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DIRECTOR
Shelly Berg MUSIC Dick Oatts
Alonzo Bodden
COMEDIAN
Ken Peplowski
SHOW HOST

Randy Brecker Houston Person Q

uartet
way Quartet
Ann Hampton Calla John Pizzarelli Qua
rtet
Bill Charlap Trio Gregory Porter
uintet
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Kur t Elling Quartet Bob Sheppard
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Allen Farnham R Jennifer Wharton
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John Fedchock Steve Wilson
David Finck
JAN. 26-FEB. 2
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2014
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Jimmy Greene
Jeff Hamilton
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• T U R K S & C A IC O S • S A N JU A N
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 “I realized that
whatever’s in
my head and
whatever I’m
feeling is what’s
right. It’s not what
I learned in Jazz
Theory 3.”
 Groove Machine
Sunny Jain and Red Baraat are kicking brass and taking names.
By Bob Weinberg
A seething throng of sweat-soaked festival-goers were helpless
before the groove onslaught of Red Baraat. “Put those hands
back up in the air,” drummer and frontman Sunny Jain command-
ed the nighttime crowd at the 25th annual Festival International
de Louisiane. “Come on, Lafayette!”
Joined onstage by New Orleans’ own Soul Rebels, the eight-
piece brass-and-percussion band from Brooklyn electrified the
audience at the 2011 event, which takes over the streets of the
bayou college town each April. “This one’s an original written
by Rohin Khemani on percussion,” Jain continued, indicating his
bandmate with a flourish of the curved mallet he uses on his
shoulder-strapped dhol drum. “It’s entitled ‘Burning Instinct.’ You
got that burning instinct in you to dance? Let me see you unleash
that, Lafayette! Come on!”
In constant motion, the charismatic frontman tattooed his dhol
with mallet and stick, the polyrhythmic ante upped by Khemani
and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, before the ecstatic horns kicked
the proceedings into the stratosphere. Although the roots of Red
Baraat’s joyful music extend to Northwest India, there was no
culture shock among the Louisianians in attendance. They boogied
to the polyphonic beat as if the band were Bourbon Street regulars.
In fact, this was Red Baraat’s first trip to the land where jazz began.
They were so well-received here that they reprised their perfor-
Photo by Amy Touchette
mance at the 2013 Festival International. And, a couple of months
earlier, they had been invited to throw down in “battle” with
Indians of another sort — the Mardi Gras Indian Orchestra — at
the Hi-Ho Lounge in New Orleans. During Mardi Gras, no less.
“As a jazz musician, you check out the music of New Orleans,”
says Jain, 37, a Rochester, New York, native and son of Punjabi
immigrants. “I was hip to [1920s jazz drummer-bandleader]
Warren ‘Baby’ Dodds and all the stuff that came before, but not the
brass-music culture that’s happening now, with the Soul Rebels or
Rebirth. I’d never really checked them out till people started label-
ing [Red Baraat] as New Orleans brass. And obviously, there’s a very
clear relationship. I mean, those Punjabi rhythms and New Orleans
rhythms based off the clave, it’s like we’re very much in the same
pocket. But when I started the group, it was really just kind of
spawned by looking back at the marching bands and baraats [wed-
ding processions] I’d seen in India.”
It’s been a whirlwind year for Red Baraat. Liberally spiked with
elements of jazz, funk, go-go, ska and hip-hop, the band’s horn-
fueled blend of the Punjabi party music known as bhangra has
been reaching more ears than ever. Their sophomore recording,
Shruggy Ji (Sinj), debuted in January at No. 1 on the Billboard World
Music Chart and reached the top spot on the iTunes World Music
Chart that month, as well.
jazziz April 2013 45

And if that weren’t enough of a career
highlight, the band was invited to play the
Indiaspora Inaugural Ball at Washington,
D.C.’s Mandarin Hotel, one of several musical
celebrations surrounding Barack Obama’s
Inauguration. Jain also scored tickets to the
official Inaugural Ball, the following night at
the convention center. He and his wife were
thrilled to see the president and first lady in
person —and to dance to Stevie Wonder, who
headlined the gala’s entertainment roster.
“Every five minutes, I’m just looking at my
wife and I’m like, ‘I can’t fucking believe
this,’” Jain relates. “It was a beautiful night
and a beautiful weekend to be part of.”
46 April 2013 jazziz
Mangoes stretched for as far as the
eye could see, more than 500 varieties
of the sweet, sticky fruit, all for the
sampling, Jain recalls. Visiting his uncle
in New Delhi in the summer of 1997, the
21-year-old Rutgers music major picked
his way through the succulent offerings
at the International Mango Festival,
which inhabits the sprawling Dilli Haat in
Pitampura each June. Taking a rest from his
gustatory amblings, Jain clambered onto
some bleachers set up within the open-air
marketplace. It was then that he heard a
Punjabi folk group playing off to one side,
and was captivated by their sound.
Red Baraat
“I was just hanging out listening to
them, and they had a dhol player and a
tumbi [single-string lute] player,” he says.
“I probably listened to them for a good
hour, till I came down and started eating
the mangoes again. That was kind of my
reintroduction back into the dhol. It was
something I’d been hearing growing up,
and I’ve had an off-and-on relationship
with tabla for years. It was that trip to
India where I stopped and was like, ‘Wow, I
wonder what that would be like to play?’”
Growing up in upstate New York, Jain
had indeed absorbed much of the music
of his ancestral homeland. His parents’
Photo by Erin Patrice O’Brien
record collection encompassed spiritual
bhajans, Carnatic classical music and the
pop-flavored soundtracks of Bollywood
movies. Of course, like many of his
peers, Jain also rocked out to Rush and
Smashing Pumpkins, metal and Motown.
However, playing drums since age 10, he
studied with a teacher who encouraged
him to learn swing, bossa nova and salsa
rhythms. Inevitably, he gravitated to jazz-
drum giants Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones,
Art Blakey, Tony Williams and Elvin Jones.
By his teens, jazz and Brazilian music were
just about all he listened to.
Then a teacher at the Eastman School
of Music summer camp turned him onto
Bombay-born percussion master Trilok
Gurtu, and Jain had an epiphany. “It was
Live at the Royal Festival Hall, that album
with John McLaughlin and [bassist] Kai
Eckhardt,” the drummer remembers.
“[Gurtu] was literally the first person I
identified with, someone who was Indian
and was playing that jazz/world-music
type of thing.”
Never a Dhol Moment
At Rutgers, and later at New York Sunny Jain heard plenty of bhangra music in his youth, particularly at
University, where he pursued a master’s family occasions such as weddings. But he truly became fascinated with the
in music business, Jain plunged ever more sound — and its barrel-shaped dhol drum — during a 1997 visit to New Delhi.
deeply into the jazz world, performing The instrument has taken on increased prominence in his music over the past
with and leading various ensembles. decade, and provides the percussive engine for Red Baraat.
When he started composing, however, “The main stick I’m using is a thin bamboo stick,” Jain explains. “Bamboo’s
he began to feel constrained by standard very thin and flexible, so you get some great retroflex. That’s for my high side;
jazz forms, desiring to delve beyond the that’s really the signature sound of the dhol. For my low side, I really just have a
standard 32 bars, to build on foundations curved stick. But you don’t hit it like a talking drum, with the curved point; you
other than bebop changes. “I realized that hit with the side. So, it’s kind of curving down, [driving] more action onto the
whatever’s in my head and whatever I’m head. That allows you to do little pitch slides and pitch bends, as well.”
feeling is what’s right,” he says. “It’s not The switch to primarily playing the dhol also enabled Jain to get out from
what I learned in Jazz Theory 3.” behind his drum set. His deft sticking — and natural charisma — have made
Along with saxophonist Rudresh him the focal point of the eight-piece Red Baraat.
Mahanthappa, pianist Vijay Iyer and “In the beginning, I was going back and forth, playing dhol and drum set,”
guitarist Rez Abbasi, Jain is among a he says. “But I quickly realized I needed to stay up front. I thought it would be a
generation of jazz artists combining South break from the dhol to go and play drums, and it was actually a lot more work
Asian roots with modern jazz in tantaliz- because different muscles are engaged. When I was getting on the drums, my
ing ways. Their hybrids reach beyond touch was just gone. I was just like, ‘Jesus, man, how do I do this?’”
mere iterations of Eastern exotica and But Jain didn’t sweat Red Baraat’s ability to function as a stone-cold groove
reflect the immersion of cultural insiders, machine. After all, he was leaving the drum set in the capable hands of Tomas
albeit ones who are comfortable enough Fujiwara and fattening the rhythms with percussionist Rohin Khemani. The
to eschew the stereotypical trappings of band nearly levitates as saxophones, trumpet, trombone and sousaphone add
sitar and tabla in favor of electric guitar layer upon layer of polyrhythmic exuberance that keeps audiences moving—
and saxophone. Which isn’t to say that the which, in turn, inspires Red Baraat.
traditional forms and instruments don’t “We started seeing audiences dancing and having a great time, and that fed
still hold some attraction for them. what we were doing,” Jain relates. “There are certain sections of songs where we’re
In fact, Jain says his growing love for jumping up and down or dancing around. We just love playing, and we’re just
the sound of the dhol truly guided the having fun, and if people are enjoying that, then we’re feeding off of them.” —BW
direction of his career. He recalls audition-

jazziz April 2013 47


ing for the Jazz Ambassadors’ Rhythm
Road Program at the Kennedy Center about
seven years ago. Leading a group with
Abbasi on guitar and Steve Welsh on tenor
sax, he utilized the dhol as a bass drum,
incorporating the instrument into his
drum set. “The essence of what I was get-
ting to in our program was how jazz has
changed and been influenced by American
society and immigration,” he explains,
“how people have been imprinting their
sound and culture into the music since
back in the ’40s with [Cuban conguero]
Chano Pozo, and just carrying through
the Japanese influence on the music of the
West Coast, and then moving forward to
the South Asian experience.”
Immersion into his roots wasn’t the
only reason Jain veered from the pre-
scribed jazz path. The drummer started
to become somewhat disenchanted with
48 April 2013 jazziz
the incestuous nature of the New York
City jazz scene, of which he was a regular
participant. Looking around the venues
he played, Jain noticed an abundance of
fellow jazz musicians in attendance, many
of whom were Manhattan School of Music
and New School students. Basically it was
cats playing for cats. “It was great to be
amongst that community,” he says, “but it
was also, ‘Why is this music not reaching
other folks?’”
Playing wine bars for tips and hustling
for gigs was also starting to wear on Jain.
While he says he’s often nostalgic for the
hometown joints at which Red Baraat got
their start — including Barbès in South
Slope and the Bowery Ballroom, where the
band celebrated the CD release of Shruggy
Ji with a sold-out house — Jain seems
delighted to be grooving crowds at festi-
vals, theaters and performing arts centers
outside the neighborhood and outside
the cloistered jazz world. In fact, the band
wrapped a European tour last year during
which they sold out the Luxembourg
Philharmonic.
While certainly rooted in jazz, the
exuberant music of Red Baraat casts a wide
net, appealing to fans of New Orleans brass,
D.C.’s riotous go-go music and Jamaica’s
ska and reggae. That was by design, says
Jain. Certainly, Red Baraat is stocked with
ace jazz players. Jain, drummer Fujiwara,
percussionist Khemani, trombonist Ernest
Stewart, bass trumpeter Mike “MiWi
La Lupa” Williams, saxophonists Mike
Bomwell and Arun Luthra, and sousaphone
player John Altieri all boast strong résu-
més, not just in jazz, but in hip-hop, salsa,
R&B, jam and alt-rock outfits. Bearded
and beturbaned trumpeter Sonny Singh
actually comes from a ska, reggae and rock
background. Marrying those influences
with bhangra has made for a heady mix.
“I’ve always been writing, even before
Red Baraat, using the influences I grew up
listening to or learned later on,” Jain says.
“And I wanted to head in a different direc-
tion, not feel that I’m making a band that
has to pertain to jazz. I just realized that it
naturally was going to, because that’s my
background. And I wanted that improvisa-
tory impact onstage. I wanted us to be able
to reinvent songs from day to day while
we’re on tour. But I didn’t want to focus on
it just being another jazz band.”
With a March schedule that brought
them to the influential music showcase
South by Southwest in Austin; theaters in
Baton Rouge and Mobile; the jam-band-
heavy Suwannee Springfest in Live Oak,
Florida; and gigs in Philadelphia and
New York City, where the band held their
second annual Festival of Colors celebra-
tion of the Indian fete known as “Holi,” Red
Baraat continues to spread its wings. And
its message of musical inclusion.
“We just love playing and putting the
music out there,” Jain says. “Who knows
where it will go for the third album? What
we’re experimenting with now is, our sou-
saphone player, John, is playing with some
effects on his sousaphone. And I’ve been
messing around with some [effects] pedals
for my dhol. And we’ve been using more
samples on stage. We might go into a little
bit of that territory, but never letting go of
the brass and acoustic drum sound.” s
Photo by Amy Touchette
 Auditions
The James Hunter Six
Minute by Minute
(Fantasy/Concord)
When I first heard advance tracks from
James Hunter’s new
release, I immedi-
ately envisioned a
middle-aged African-
American soul vet, a
cat who grew up in
the South and had
likely paid his dues
on the chitlin’ circuit. And yet Hunter is
not only white, he’s a Brit, something you’d
never envision from his uncanny evocation
of golden-age soul singers. Championed by
Van Morrison, Hunter’s been earning raves
since his 1996 debut album ... Believe What I
Say, and he even snared a Grammy nod with
2006’s People Gonna Talk.
Following a five-year recording hiatus
— during which time his wife became ill
and died from cancer — Hunter returns
with the revelatory Minute by Minute. Not
only does the album spotlight his emotive,
coarse-grained vocals, but it also provides a
showcase for his excellent writing. Several
of the tracks sound as if they could be lost
jukebox classics.
Helping complete that illusion is the
James Hunter Six, the singer’s superb band
of 20-plus years, and no less an expert in
retro production than Gabriel Roth, who
helmed recordings by Amy Winehouse
and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. Roth’s
participation is a mixed blessing. While his
seamless production is all-but-unrivaled, at
times he overplays the bari-sax-and-bossa
vibe to cartoonish effect. But Hunter and his
band — and these songs — transcend the
occasional post-modern flourish.
Joys abound for classic soul and R&B
lovers, from the opening chicken-clucking
guitar riffs of “Chicken Switch” to the exu-
berant soul-pop of “One Way Love” to the
laid-back, Major Lance-style groover “Let the
52 April 2013 jazziz
Monkey Ride.” And when Hunter slips out
of the mold — as he does on the growling
blues narrative “The Gypsy,” and especially
on the heartbreaking acoustic ballad “If I
Only Knew” — he’s equally riveting. —Bob
Weinberg
Miles Davis Quintet
Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 2
(Columbia/Legacy)
This three-CD-plus-DVD set captures
the group known
as Miles Davis’
“lost quintet.” That
lineup — keyboard-
ist Chick Corea,
drummer Jack
DeJohnette, bassist
Dave Holland and
saxophonist Wayne Shorter — never
recorded an album as a quintet (although
they all appeared with expanded rosters
on other records, including the landmark
Bitches Brew). Listening to the powerful
music on this box set, it’s easy to under-
stand why Davis was upset that he never
had a chance to record with this group.
The first two discs document a pair of
concerts in Antibes, France, while Disc
Three finds the quintet in Stockholm. Davis
was about to move headfirst into his elec-
tric phase. This was also the last period in
which Davis mixed his older repertory with
more forward-looking material. With this
group, chestnuts like “’Round Midnight”
and “Milestones” sound as progressive as
newer pieces like “Spanish Key.”
Davis himself is extremely focused,
hitting high notes with force and deliver-
ing solos that balance percussive attacks
and held notes. Much of the music’s vitality
comes from the fact that Corea, Holland
and DeJohnette all make nods toward
free jazz without abandoning structure
entirely. Corea plays electric piano dur-
ing the Antibes concerts; he switched
to acoustic piano on the Stockholm date
after the electric model malfunctioned.
He’s adventurous on both, but it’s his work
on electric piano that really breathes fire
into the material. The accompanying DVD
— from a concert in Berlin — shows how
healthy Davis was at this time and how
much he fed off of this band’s energy.
The one downside is the audio quality.
There’s considerable upper-register distor-
tion on the Antibes concerts, and the bass
is flattened out (the DVD’s audio quality is
noticeably stronger). But even that doesn’t
negate the striking intensity of this music.
More, please. —John Frederick Moore
Antonio Sanchez
New Life
(CAM Jazz)
Antonio Sanchez isn’t just another
drummer. A native
of Mexico who
graduated from his
country’s national
conservatory with
a degree in classical
piano, he went on
to complete aca-
demic programs at both Berklee and the
New England Conservatory. He quickly
attracted the interest of such notable
future collaborators as Chick Corea, Gary
Burton and Pat Metheny, with whom he
has enjoyed a 13-year partnership.
On New Life, his third release as a
leader, Sanchez solidifies his composer
credentials, offering eight structurally
varied, well-crafted compositions that
cover a range of emotions. The set opener,
“Uprisings and Revolutions,” inspired
by the Arab Spring, is a ballad-tempo
work that nonetheless surges behind
the leader’s barrage of cymbal work and
tom-tom cadences. Pianist John Escreet’s
robust comping is drawn from the 1970s-
era McCoy Tyner model. The date’s two
James Hunter
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independentculture Passion-driven independent record companies have produced some of the most
important music in jazz. The tradition continues.

CORInA BARtRA KAIt DUntOn AnnE WALSH

Cielo Sandunguero (Blue Spiral Music) Mountain Suite (Read & Imagined Music) Go (Atozink Music)
An innovator in fusing together Peruvian music Los Angeles pianist/composer Kait Dunton’s Anne Walsh’s newest release Go (a follow up to
with jazz, Cielo second album, with her Grammy nominated
Sandunguero is a Bob Mintzer and Peter Pretty World) shines
change of pace for Erskine, is a breath with lyricized selections
Corina Bartra, for the of fresh air. Mountain from Wayne Shorter
singer is joined by a Suite is an album- (“Go”) and Azymuth
small big band that length journey meant (“Cascade of the Seven
includes six horns. She to be heard as a single Waterfalls”) as well
blends in well during narrative — though as classic pieces like
her wordless passages Dunton’s genre- “Cinnamon and Clove,”
with the horns, defying, expansive “So In Love,” and
introduces six of her originals, and performs an compositions for trio and quintet can certainly several originals including the catchy “Bumble
offbeat version of “Night And Day.” The music is stand alone, and merit careful listening. “A Bee” and the dark and moody “Je Vousem
haunting, swinging in its own way, and Ms. Bartra stunning showcase of a jazz newcomer holding Beacoup.” The title track “Go” is a beautiful
gives her sidemen a generous amount of concise her own with legends.” —The Examiner. Wayne Shorter composition re-arranged for
solos. This is one of her better recordings. vocals, featuring Anne, Brian Bromberg, and
Available from www.bluespiralmusic.com RItA MARIE Gary Meek. www.annewalsh.com
So Many Stars (Rita Marie Music)
DEBORAH PEARL Picture yourself in an intimate, New York jAnICE FInLAY
Souvenir of You (Lyrics to Benny Carter salon while listening Anywhere But Here (Self-Released)
Classics) (Evening Star) to Rita Marie ‘s From hardbop to heartfelt, toe-tapping to
Deborah Pearl’s “meltingly beautiful voice” debut release, So touching, saxophone
breathes new life into Many Stars . With her to vibraphone, Janice
Benny Carter’s genius lush and passionate Finlay’s latest release
instrumentals in this voice she skillfully Anywhere But Here
moving tribute inspired delivers the intricate is a soul-satisfying
by her friendship with melodies found on listen from start to
the jazz master. Critics this unique collection finish. Finlay’s lyrical
rave, “Her words are of standard gems. saxophone style,
perfect.” “Soulful in Tasteful accompaniment is delivered by Rick evocative originals
all the right places Doll on bass, Giuseppe Pucci on drums, and and all-star cast of top
and a faultless match Jeff Padowitz on piano. Get that massage you Canadian jazz artists merge superbly throughout
for Carter’s stellar compositions.” Scatting to need through your ears with this delightful jazz the disc, showcasing “...great soloing by Finlay
Benny’s solos on two cuts, Phil Woods calls it journey. www.ritamariemusic.com and tight ensemble play” (Chris Smith, Winnipeg
“a magnificent collaboration.” Singers should Free Press) in “a killer contemporary jazz set
flock to titles like “People Time,” “Doozy,” and CARLA MARCIAnO that reaches back for some old man jazz vibes
“Souvenir.” www.deborahpearl.com Stream of Consciousness (Alfa Music) ... Finlay is someone you’ve got to get to know
She is a marvellous saxophonist and improviser, better.”(Chris Spector, Midwest Record Review).
EMY tSEnG consistently www.janicefinlay.com
Sonho (Mei Music) demonstrating
Singer Emy Tseng’s recording debut “marks impressive control of YOKO MIWA
her as one to watch her instruments and Live at Scullers jazz Club (Self-Released)
in the Brazilian her material. David Pianist Yoko Miwa’s fifth CD displays her stylistic
jazz category.” Franklin “She takes range and expertise
—Dan Bilawsky, her liberal breaks in communicating
AllAboutJazz. with a powerful directly in a variety of
com. A collection force, absorbing all moods — standards,
of songs by Brazil’s the energy from the samba, and the
most sophisticated room and channelling it into an open space as blues, three originals
composers (Jobim, would the eruption of a volcano. At other times, (including tribute to
Toninho Horta, the mood shifts toward sensitive ballads.” Benny Green, Mr.
Chico Pinheiro) and eclectic arrangements Jim Santella “One of today’s strongest female B.G.) and two unlikely
of standards including a haunting version of saxophonists.” Mark.F.Turner. transformations of
“California Dreamin’,” Tseng “has honed a rock material. Her trio has become a mainstay at
beguiling sound steeped in jazz and the sensuous Boston’s leading jazz clubs, gaining widespread
rhythms and melodies of Brazil.” —Andrew acclaim and national radio airplay. Last August
Gilbert, Sonho Liner Notes. www.emytseng.com she became the first Japanese female to join the
Berklee College of Music Piano Faculty since
Toshiko Akiyoshi. www.yokomiwa.com

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saxophonists, Dave Binney on alto and
Donny McCaslin on tenor, are initially
paired in a taut unison-voiced melody
that reinforces the piece’s overall sense of
yearning before Binney ranges off on an
extended solo. Bassist Matt Brewer lays
down a simple repeated phrase behind a
fiery outburst by Sanchez.
Switching from piano to the warm,
undulating sound of a Fender Rhodes,
Escreet adds fresh texture to the follow-
ing track, “Minotauro,” while, on bass,
Brewer deploys a metronomic ostinato.
On the next song, “New Life,” the session’s
14-minutes-plus centerpiece, Escreet, back
on piano, locks into a repeated motif that
sets up the tune’s angst-shaded theme.
Thana Alexa’s wordless vocal lines add to
the work’s sense of urgency. Overall, the
date is characterized by an undercurrent of
restless energy in the rhythm section and a
conscious balance between structure and
free improvisation with the two saxes.
While Sanchez’s drumming has long
commanded respect, New Life affirms that his
evolving talents as a composer and arranger
are today equally impressive. —Mark Holston
Tania Maria
Canto
(Naïve)
Although it’s been five decades since Tania
Maria launched a
music career that has
produced 27 albums
and enduring global
acclaim, the key-
board and vocal dy-
namo still finds new
ways to dazzle and
delight ears jaded by too much exposure to
formulaic Brazilian sounds. In her hands,
samba, bossa and choro-grounded tunes are
transformed into wildly extroverted music
framed by funky rhythmic trimmings and
sensual, soulful vocals.
Canto (Portuguese for “singing”) was
produced during recording sessions, sepa-
rated by three years, in Paris, where Maria
has spent much of her professional life, and
São Paulo, where she began her record-
ing career in 1969. A prolific composer,
Maria revisits on Canto several signature
pieces from her repertoire. Nodding to the
influence of French culture on her develop-
ment, she once again reprises the Sidney
Bechet classic “Petit Fleur” (“Little Flower”)
as “Florzinha,” which features her own ro-
mantic, Portuguese lyrics. On this and five
of the disc’s other nine tracks, she utilizes
either one or two trombonists. Their virile,
swaggering presence, a perfect match for
the leader’s driving piano work and lusty
scatting and vocal forays, helps define the
album’s distinctive character. Although the
trombone is often used in Brazilian music,
Maria’s arrangements suggest the conjunto
(combo) model employed by the salsa
arrangers she heard during a long tenure
in New York City. The trombone-and-vocal
unisons are both technically striking and
musically fulfilling.
jazziz April 2013 55
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independentculture Passion-driven independent record companies have produced some of the most
important music in jazz. The tradition continues.

SOUtH FLORIDA jAzz ORCHEStA ERIC HARLAnD DAvID BOSWELL

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The South Florida Jazz Orchestra, directed by Introducing Eric Harland’s Looped, a ground- “A guitar innovator, a brilliant virtuoso ... a
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heavyweight trumpet- cordings with a diverse Yanow, jazz historian/
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plus special guests Wayne Bergeron and Grammy Zakir Hussain and Dave Holland. Eric Harland’s buoyant jazz that is still safely this side of
Award-winner Brian Lynch, in a collection of Looped is offered in WAV, AIFF and REX2 formats, ‘smooth,’ you’ll find lots to like on this tasty disc.”
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ments of jazz classics. Pack at www.thelooploft.com.
jOHn BASILE
FOUR80EASt MARK ADAMS Amplitudes (Stringtime jazz)
Off Duty (Boomtang Records) Embellishments (Roberts Music Group) An innovative and ambitious solo project featuring
Take a walk on the wilder side of contemporary Mark Adams is a worldly soul jazz pianist who multiple guitar tracks,
jazz with Off Duty is one of the premiere eclectic material, and
by the nu jazz outfit, jazz pianist of his superb production with
Four80East. It’s generation. Mark a true improvisational
another funk and Adams has recorded feel throughout. Known
groove-filled collection 3 CDs under his for his warm, dark
that includes the radio name: Asceticism , toned , finger-style
hit “Sandbar” and the Feel The Groove technique with a
hauntingly beautiful and the latest being piano-like approach he
“Nothing Is Written.” Embellishments . creates an intriguing
Always melodic. Always Mark has performed mixture of electric and acoustic guitar sounds.
happening. And now available directly from the with Roy Ayers, Ron Carter, Ronnie Laws, Hugh The greatest rewards await jazz guitar aficionados
source at www.four80east.com Masekela, Erika Badu, Maysa,. Mark Adams who can imagine this project as the six-string
is currently on tour with Soulful Night Of Keys answer to Bill Evans’ “Conversations With
SKIP BAUCHMAn AnD tHE B&B jAzz featuring Lonnie Liston Smith, Brian Jackson Myself.” Basile is an artist for all seasons and his
COMPAnY and Mark Adams. www.markadamsjazz.com diversity and musical innovation is refreshing and
Universal vice (jazz Hat Records) exciting. www.johnbasile.net
Skip Bauchman and The B&B Jazz Company tAUREY BUtLER
epitomize the true ad- taurey Butler (justin time Records) RICK DAvIES
venturous spirit that is On his self-titled debut album (released by Salsa norteña (Emlyn Music)
jazz. They tear through Justin Time Records), Salsa Norteña is the
the jazz landscape with Taurey Butler emerges latest CD release by
captivating melodies as a fully-formed composer/trombonist
and compelling ar- master of hard-driving Rick Davies, featuring
rangements. Combining swing with a deep feel- eight original high-
jazz elements with ing for the blues and energy songs. Four
stellar performances, ballads. Backed by two instrumental Latin-jazz
they have created what simpatico colleagues, tunes feature guest
has been called one of the best independent the endlessly inventive artist Ray Vega on
jazz projects of 2012. From the languid chill of bassist Eric Lagacé, trumpet along side
“Paradise was Cool” to the cinematic climax of and empathetic rhythmatist Wali Muhammad veteran musicians from New York, Montreal and
Paulo and Aziz, you will experience jazz. on drums, he conjures the technical assurance Vermont. The remainder of the CD is comprised
and drive of his Québécois predecessor Oscar of típico NYC-style salsa songs featuring the lead
Peterson while enhancing his already distinc- vocals of Papo Ross along with other top Latin
tive voice with postbop, soul, and classic jazz musicians based in Montreal.
flavorings. www.justin-time.com

Launch the Digital Edition of this issue at www.jazziz.com and click on the album covers to hear featured tracks.
 The uptempo “Chorinho Brasileiro”
exemplifies Maria’s enthusiastic, engaging
style. Her Portuguese lyrics fly by so fast that
her vocal could be mistaken for scatting. Her
piano comping, rhythmically robust when
accompanying her singing, assumes near-
classical clarity when the two trombones
enter with an intricate counter melody. From
the first beat to the last, Canto is packed with
such enchanting moments. —Mark Holston
Kevin Eubanks
The Messenger
(Mack Avenue Records)
Kevin Eubanks has been the guitarist of
choice for the likes of
Art Blakey, Sam Rivers
and Dave Holland. His
latest project is a solid
set that showcases
the cohesive elastic-
ity of his working
quartet. Eubanks
composed nine of the The Messenger’s 11 cuts,
utilizing individualized Latin, ballad, blues
and funk grooves. The tracks are marked by
strong melodies and distinctive song forms
that pique interest while propelling the band
into some heated indulgences.
One of two covers presents a re-exami-
nation of John Coltrane’s famed “Resolution”
from A Love Supreme. The song grooves on a
lengthy vamp underpinned by a deft vocal
bassline from Take 6’s Alvin Chea. After
tenor saxophonist Billy Pierce plays the
melody, he and Eubanks improvise freely,
with the rhythm section playing a key role
in the intensity of each solo. They simmer
then crescendo in a lengthy funk workout
before exploding back into Trane’s melody.
Drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith
finds the pocket on every tune. Rene
Camacho’s bass provides a rock-solid, albeit
understated foundation. Brothers Robin
and Duane Eubanks — on trombone and
trumpet, respectively — join in on several
cuts, including the funk joyride “JB,” Kevin’s
dedication to James Brown. “The Gloaming”
is a beautiful ballad with a pretty acoustic
guitar intro allowing Pierce ample room to
blow on tenor. When the written melody
finally arrives, Camacho adds light support
while Pierce sings from his heart.
Eubanks’ guitar playing is central to the
CD’s success. As a soloist and accompanist,
his tasteful harmonies add just the right
textures to each song, while his subtle
deployment of electronics broadens his
range of expression. For 15 years, Eubanks
led the house band on The Tonight Show with
Jay Leno, a gig that required chameleonic
adaptation to many styles of music. On The
Messenger, Eubanks seems bent on convey-
ing a thoroughly positive vibe. —James Rozzi
Nilson Matta
Black Orpheus
(Motéma)
Monumental changes were afoot in Brazil
during the late
1950s. The country’s
international image
was dramatically
transformed when
the futuristic new
capital city of
Brasilia was con-
structed; the bossa nova was developed and
popularized by Jobim and others; and Black
Orpheus, a movie based on the Greek myth
of lovers Orpheus and Eurydice, set in Rio de
Janeiro during the annual carnaval, became
a worldwide sensation.
In reinterpreting the music of Black
Orpheus, bassist Nilson Matta does a
significant service by including several
works created for Orfeu da Conceição, the
stage play that became the film’s template,
that were not used in the movie soundtrack.
One of these, Jobim‘s elegant and classical-
grounded “Overture,” is voiced by a small
ensemble that includes trumpeter Randy
Brecker and the session’s associate producer,
German-born pianist Klaus Mueller. The
leader’s bowed double bass radiates a
cello-like warmth on the five-minute piece
that evokes the spirit of the melodic majesty
soon to follow.
Matta renders each of the album’s 17 tracks
stylistically distinct, largely by utilizing an
extensive roster of talented musicians to recast
a batch of tunes by Jobim and Luiz Bonfá
that quickly became well-known upon their
original release. Singer Gretchen Parlato, for in-
stance, brings her girlish sensuality to the brisk
bossa groove of a Jobim medley that pairs the
obscure “Eu E O Meu Amor” with the better-
known “Lamento No Morro.” Leny Andrade,
known as Brazil’s Sarah Vaughan, captures
the fervor of Jobim’s “Someone to Light Up My
Life.” Elsewhere on the album, pianist Kenny
Barron and clarinetist Anat Cohen, along with
a slew of Brazilian rhythm players, all help to
reawaken the sleeping beauty of these Black
Orpheus treasures. —Mark Holston
The Aruán Ortiz and Michael Janisch Quintet
Banned in London: Live at the London Jazz
Festival
(Whirlwind)
Kicking off a live album with a bass solo is
a brave gambit. But
when the bassist —
Michael Janisch, in
this case — is one of
the co-leaders of the
ensemble, it’s more
than permissible;
it might even be
expected. Janisch makes the most of his
time in the spotlight on this lengthy, live
document, recorded at the 2011 London
Jazz Festival. His sound is deep and full,
his attack forceful in a way that some-
times recalls Charles Mingus, sometimes
Jimmy Garrison. Throughout much of
this disc, he drives the band hard, even at
ballad tempos.
His bandmates are top shelf, too. Pianist/
co-leader Aruán Ortiz, born in Cuba, has
a unique style that blends classical, jazz
and Afro-Cuban music into a whirlwind of
emotionally resonant sound. He strikes the
keys powerfully, jangling them like change
in his pocket. Trumpeter Raynald Colom
isn’t as well-known in America as in Europe
but he’s recorded previously with both Ortiz
and drummer Rudy Royston. Royston is
rapidly making a name for himself among
post-bop cognoscenti, and he plays with
a tempered aggression here, keeping the
listener’s attention throughout the five
long pieces that make up the set. Master
alto saxophonist Greg Osby’s longstanding
reputation as a mentor to younger players
makes his presence as a sideman here all
the more interesting.
The set includes two Ortiz originals
along with one Janisch original and ver-
sions of Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz” and
Thelonious Monk’s “Ask Me Now.” Clattering
silverware can be heard at the start of the
set but by the end everyone is rapt, which is
exactly the response that music of this qual-
ity and power deserves. —Phil Freeman
jazziz April 2013 57
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