Live jazz to see in Minneapolis-St. Paul: This week’s picks

Are you in your car or near a radio at 8:30 CST on Friday mornings? Tune to KBEM to hear me and Mr. Jones—Jazz 88 "Morning Show" host Ed Jones—talk about these events and more. 88.5 FM in the Twin Cities; streaming live on the Web.

Friday, Dec. 17: Dee Dee Bridgewater and Irvin Mayfield with the Minnesota Orchestra at Orchestra Hall

The cover of "Eleanora Fagan"

One stage, two jazz stars (maybe more). Vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater has a mantel full of serious music awards—a pair of Grammys, France’s Victoire de la Musique, a Tony for her turn as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wiz—and she’s exciting to see in person, passionate and uninhibited. She sings, she scats, and she makes jazz standards new again; on her latest CD, Eleanora Fagan (1915–1959): To Billie with Love from Dee Dee (Emarcy, 2010), she conveys the spirit of Billie Holiday without imitating her.

Irvin Mayfield

New Orleans-based trumpeter and composer Irvin Mayfield has been the face of the Minnesota Orchestra’s jazz series since being named its first Artistic Director of Jazz in 2008, a position he still holds. (He has since gone on to win a Grammy and a seat on the National Council on the Arts, which advises the NEA.) Founder and artistic director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO), he serves as cultural ambassador for his city and proud papa of Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse, a club on Bourbon Street.

On Friday, both artists will perform with Mayfield's rhythm section—Ronald Markham on piano, Neal Caine on bass, Jaz Sawyer on drums—and the Minnesota Orchestra led by Sarah Hicks.

The first part of the concert will feature Mayfield playing a program of holiday faves including “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” He may be joined by a special guest. I can't get more specific than that, but (big hint) who else is in town this week playing at Orchestra Hall?

Following the intermission, Bridgewater will sing "The Christmas Song" and other classics, plus jazz and pop standards including “The Way We Were” and Ellington’s “Mood Indigo.” It's likely that Mayfield will be at her side for at least part of her set.

The final concert is still in the works. I spoke with Lilly Schwartz, the Orchestra's Director of Pops and Special Projects, on Thursday morning, and she put it this way: "It's jazz, It's always improvised. You go in with a plan and it creates itself. The concert itself becomes a jazz song."

8 p.m. Friday, Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis ($22–$50, $60 VIP). Tickets online or call 612-371-5656.

Friday-Saturday, Dec. 17–18: Red Planet at the Artists’ Quarter

If memory serves and my notebooks don’t lie, I last saw Red Planet—the trio of Dean Magraw on electric guitar, Chris Bates on bass, and Jay Epstein on drums—in February 2009. Not long after, Magraw dropped out of sight to battle a life-threatening disease.

Red Planet's latest CD

He’s back with a new immune system and two new CDs, the just-released How the Light Gets In with tabla player Marcus Wise (Red House, 2010) and last year’s Space Dust with Red Planet (GoneJazz, 2009), which I’m counting as new because it came out during Magraw’s absence and hasn’t yet gotten the celebration it deserves. Featuring original compositions by Magraw and Bates and “deep-space tributes” to Coltrane (“Africa”), Hendrix (“Little Wing”), and Solomon Linda (“The Lion Sleeps Tonight”), it’s part poetry, part rock-and-roll, part flamethrower.

I saw Magraw play at Café Maude a couple of weeks ago and he looks and sounds great.

9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Artists’ Quarter,  in the basement of the Hamm Building in St. Paul ($10). Tickets at the door.

Saturday, Dec. 18: Zacc Harris, Adam Linz, and Babatunde Lea at Café Maude

Jazz guitarist Zacc Harris and bassist Adam Linz are familiar faces around town, but Babatunde Lea? The Afro-Cuban jazz/world beat drummer/percussionist who has played with Pharoah Sanders, Stan Getz, McCoy Tyner, Steve Turre, Ernie Watts, and Van Morrison, to name just a few?* What brings him to Maude in south Minneapolis? I called Harris to find out.

Lea from the cover of his "Soul Pools" CD

“I was doing a restaurant gig in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and during our last set a drummer asked if he could sit in,” Harris said. “We were like, all right, sure, and he came up and swung like crazy. Turns out he’s moving to western Wisconsin. We exchanged information, and later I went and checked out his website. He’s a heavy, but I knew that from playing with him. Since then, I’ve called him a couple of times to see when he would be in town. This gig [at Maude] was around the holidays, so I thought there was a good chance he’d be around.”

How would Harris describe Lea’s style? “Hard swinging, with a hard bop vibe going on, and a lot of world influences.”

The plan: Meet at Maude (with no rehearsal ahead of time), introduce Lea to Linz (the two have never played together before), play some standards, see what happens. Given the musicians, it’s bound to be good, it has the potential to be really good, and it’s definitely going to be as new as it gets. 

* Lea is not a household name; he's mostly known around the Bay area, where he spent several years. I happen to have heard him because someone gave me his Soul Pools CD a few years back, and I learned more about him then.  So there's no implication here that Zacc Harris doesn't know his drummers.

9 p.m. Saturday, Café Maude, 5411 Penn Ave. S., Minneapolis. No cover, but reservations are recommended: 612-822-5411.

Ramsey Lewis at Orchestra Hall: Concert review

When: Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 • Where: Orchestra Hall • Who: Ramsey Lewis, piano; Larry Gray, bass; Leon Joyce Jr., drums. Opening set: Bruce Henry, vocals; Peter Vircks, saxophone; Bryan Nichols, piano; Chris Bates, bass; Daryl Boudreaux, percussion; Kevin Washington, drums. Host Irvin Mayfield.

Last night’s program at Orchestra Hall was billed as being all about the blues. It wasn’t, but nobody cared. Instead, the audience was treated to a sublime set of music by the Ramsey Lewis Trio.

Anyone who thinks this group is about resting on laurels, delivering hits, and playing it safe is mistaken. The music was as rich and sophisticated, melodic and complex, inside and out there as any I’ve heard in a long time.

The opener, “Wade in the Water,” became a sweet samba, with Joyce stroking his drums with his hands. The crowd applauded wildly and Lewis joked, “Shall we quit while we’re ahead?”

At 74, Lewis has embarked on what is almost a new career, or at least a new passion: composing. A series of commissions for the Joffrey Ballet and the Ravinia Festival, where Lewis serves as artistic director for jazz, has made him feel “like a kid on Christmas morning.” His new CD, Songs from the Heart, due out on Concord on Sept. 29, is his first-ever (out of 80 to date) to include all original compositions.

We heard “To Know Her Is to Love Her” (from the Joffrey work) and “Conversation,” written for Ravinia and performed there in 2008 by the Turtle Island String Quartet. The latter made me hold my breath, it was so beautiful—and much like a conversation, perhaps between lovers, with changes in mood and tempo. Another original, “Exhilaration,” showcased Gray on the bass, bowing like a classical master, plucking and tapping like an avant-garder. We heard a lot of arco (bowed) bass during the evening; Gray used his bow almost as much as he used his fingers.

Throughout, Lewis made occasional references to the blues, inviting us to “find where it is” in the music he was playing, reminding us that jazz was born in the blues. For the centerpiece of the set, he took us back to before the blues with a medley of gospel tunes and spirituals. Not the usual play-a-few-notes, awkward-pause, switch-tunes medley, but a lengthy, elegantly constructed series of phrases, whole songs, and variations within songs, linked together by improvisation, like pearls on a string. Between selections, as Lewis moved his fingers over the keys, you could almost hear him thinking “What next?”

I recognized “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” “Precious Lord,” Ellington’s “Come Sunday,” “How Great Thou Art,” and (I think) “Lift Ev’ry Voice.” Lewis and Joyce traded melodic phrases (Joyce played notes on his drums, with help from his elbows) on the way to Joyce’s big solo of the night, a breathtaking display of speed, invention, and precision.

Except for the originals, much of this was music many of us had heard before, made new by surprising changes and phrases, rhythms and transitions. People talked afterward about how modern it was, how “outside,” and how it wasn’t what they expected.

We got the encore everyone wanted: “The ‘In’ Crowd.” A soft and lovely solo piano introduction worked its way there, the familiar chords burst forth, and the audience loved it. Joyce’s whistle midway through signaled a detour into an Afro-Cuban tempo.

If you’re going to have a huge hit, make it a good one, like “The ‘In’ Crowd” or “Take Five” or "Poinciana," and don’t get stuck singing “Muskrat Love” for the rest of your life.

For the last song of the night, Lewis finally gave us a classic blues tune: Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What You Want Me to Do.” (Hat tip to Dan Emerson for the title.) Which, as it happens, appears on Lewis's first-ever live album, Ramsey Lewis Live at the Savoy (1982).

A note on where we sat: We moved during intermission from a row midway down the main floor to empty seats on Tier B looking down at the stage. With help from my handy binocs, I could see everything: how Leon Joyce reached casually over his right shoulder to tap the inverted cymbal to his right, Larry Gray pressing the strings of his bass, the red felt lightning bolts inside the Steinway, Lewis’s hands on the keys. I thought the sound was better, too—it rose up to us from the monitors and the instruments themselves, rather than passing over and between hundreds of people

And I have to say that Lewis, Gray, and Joyce looked good. I mean really good All three were impeccably attired. Their posture was perfect, their stage presence professional. Handsome men. Lewis, the legend, great statesman of jazz, is 74? Don’t believe it. Skin like a baby.

Ramsey Lewis Trio Setlist
"Wade in the Water"
"To Know Her Is to Love Her"
"Conversation"
"Exhilaration"
"Spiritual Medley"
"The 'In' Crowd"
"Baby What You Want Me to Do"

Starting what I hope will be a regular thing at OH jazz shows, the evening began with an opening set by area musicians, led by soulful vocalist Bruce Henry, who now lives in Chicago but was here long enough to become part of our music scene (plus we’re not willing to let him go).

He and his band brought out the big crowd-pleasers: “Statesboro Blues” (“Wake up, mama, turn your lamp down low”), a lovely “Embraceable You” (nice solo, Chris), Henry’s composition “Jump That Broom,” and “House of the Rising Sun,” which Henry said he was inspired to sing by Nina Simone.

They were given half an hour—not long enough, even though Lewis and his trio were up next.

After last night’s “Broom,” Boudreaux needs a new washboard; he broke a leg on the one he had.

Tim Sparks' Setlist at the Dakota

When: Saturday, July 18, 2009 • Where: Dakota • Who: Tim Sparks, guitar; Chris Bates, bass; Jay Epstein, drums

A review of this special Dakota late-night show will follow. For now, this is for Dave Kunath:

“Ariel” by John Zorn (Zorn’s Astaroth: The Book of Angels, Vol. 1; not yet recorded by Sparks?)
“The Rebbe’s Hasid” by Naftule Brandwein (Little Princess)
“Oh Daddy, That’s Good” by Naftule Brandwein (Little Princess)
“Little Princess” by Naftule Brandwein (Little Princess)
“Nifty’s Freylekh” by Naftule Brandwein (Little Princess)
“A Few Bowls Terkish” by Naftule Brandwein (Little Princess)

(break)

“Mississippi Blues” by Willie Brown (Sidewalk Blues)
“Oriental Blues” by Eubie Blake (Sidewalk Blues), with a little “Moonlight Sonata” thrown in
“The Dearest in Bukovina” by Naftule Brandwein (Little Princess)
“Der Yid in Jerusalem” by Naftule Brandwein (Little Princess)
“Rigal” by John Zorn (Zorn’s Stolas: The Book of Angels, Vol. 12; not yet recorded by Sparks?)
“I Mean You” by Thelonious Monk (not yet recorded by Sparks?), with a quote from “Over the Rainbow”



Photos by John Whiting.

Double Bill at the Buddha

When: Thursday, August 7, 2008 • Where: Rogue Buddha Gallery • Who: First set: J.T. Bates, drums; Adam Linz, bass; Paul Metzger, banjo. Second set: Volcano Insurance: Luke Polipnick, guitar; Joey Van Phillips, drums; Chris Bates, bass.

I’m trying to remember the first time I heard and really listened, or tried to listen, to free jazz (a.k.a. avant-garde, outside, vanguard, experimental, unstructured…or none of the above). It might have been in February 2000, when the Cecil Taylor Quartet came here as part of the Northrop Jazz Season. That concert was memorable for two reasons: the music, which was crazy, and the speed with which much of the audience exited during intermission, never to return.

But I liked it. At the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2001, we sought it out and found pianist Lee Pui Ming performing with saxophonist and vocalist Joane Hétu and clarinetist Lori Freedman. I wasn’t packing Moleskines back then so I don’t have notes. I remember hair flying, someone wearing a kilt, silences, maybe shrieking. The specifics of the music escape me. The emotional memory remains: I was happy. Perplexed, challenged, out of my depth, and happy.

Because I like being happy, I go to see and hear musicians and groups like George Cartwright and Happy Apple and Anthony Cox and Fat Kid Wednesdays and Douglas Ewart. When Chris Bates sends out an email saying “This will be interesting, trust me,” I do. They all live here, thank goodness.

I also keep watch for people like Craig Taborn and Tim Berne, who come through here occasionally but not often enough for me. Hank Roberts, hurry back. And the annual Minnesota Sur Seine music festival is a mother lode of squeaks, squawks, wails, caresses, indistinguishable melodies, indeterminate rhythms, and sheer transporting joy.

Chris sent out an email earlier this week, which brought us to the Rogue Buddha shortly before 9 p.m. last night. He and Adam Linz were standing outside talking and let us interrupt them. Inside, the crowd was small, maybe 18 people to start and five were with the bands and many of the others were musicians; we saw Scott Fultz, Pete Hennig, Park Evans, Joe-who-plays-guitar-and-things, and others I recognized but can’t name. Former City Pages and Strib music writer Jim Meyer had driven up from Farmington, where he now lives. For a while, I was the only girl in the room.

During the first set, my focus was often on Paul Metzger, who played a modified banjo: seven (?) extra strings, electronics, and who knows what else. For much of the time, he bowed it. Sometimes he used a plectrum or strummed with his fingers, and sometimes he played it like a tabla. I had never heard a banjo make such sounds before. I thought the banjo was boring except when played by Béla Fleck (and mostly I like him with Edgar Meyer). I don’t think it’s boring anymore.



The J.T. Bates/Linz/Metzger combination played one long piece with slow parts and fast parts, solos and duos and trios, crescendos and decrescendos. The music came in waves. No melody, no regular rhythm, just flow. Banjo, drums, bass, banjo-drums, bass-drums, banjo-drums-bass. I thought of riding rapids, hanging on and hoping you’ll make it safely to the end and getting bounced around on the way. HH said it was like tasting wasabi for the first time. Linz plucked and bowed and patted his bass. J.T. fell into his drums and brought forth rhythms wild and strange. At the end, I asked, “Did that have a name?” J.T. said “No.” Of course it didn’t and I knew it didn’t but I wondered if he would make one up.

After a break and more $2 wine: Volcano Insurance. Their music was more mellow than I expected from the name. Polipnick’s guitar was dreamy and delicious. I thought I had seen him before and made a mental note to look him up when I returned home. Yes: in April at the Clown Lounge with Tatsuya Nakatani and Chris Bates.



Their final two pieces were fiercer, more fiery. For one, which Polipnick introduced as “a new ditty called ‘Calisthenics,’” they actually had a chart. They sometimes play from a setlist, so they’re not entirely about improvisation.

What did they play? I can’t tell you. But I was there for the energy, the creativity, the inventiveness, the fun…the ride, the wasabi, the surprise.

Whenever I try to write about free jazz, I wonder why I bother. It’s hard enough to write about music that has a form and structure. Or to write about a singer who uses words I can understand. This improvised, in-the-moment stuff, with altered banjos and pedals on the floor and wires and instruments that don’t even sound like themselves—who even cares if anybody writes about it? It will never be heard again. It won’t be replicated, and it can’t be bought and played on your stereo or iPod. It’s not only far out, it’s gone.

But I realized last night, while scribbling notes in an effort to capture a fleeting sonic moment, that one reason I write is to entice. Maybe someone who reads this will wander into the Rogue Buddha for live music sometime, or check out the Clown Lounge on a Monday night, or set aside time for an Improvised Music at Homewood Studios event. When that happens, I’ll be even happier.

For more on writing about free jazz, see Lyn Horton’s excellent article, “Shifting the paradigm and using ‘free-jazz’ to do it.”

Photos by John Whiting. Top to bottom: Paul Metzger; Adam Linz and J.T. Bates; Volcano Insurance (Polipnick, Chris Bates, Joey Van Phillips).

Red Planet with Bill Carrothers

When: Friday, August 1, 2008 • Where: Dakota • Who: Dean Magraw, guitar; Chris Bates, bass; Jay Epstein, drums; Bill Carrothers, piano

Warming up for his next European tour, pianist extraordinaire Bill Carrothers is playing three gigs in the Cities this week: at the AQ on Wednesday, at the Dakota on Thursday (a solo show), and again at the Dakota on Friday as part of the late-night series. I’d see all three if I could but we can only make the late-night show.



The longer they play, the happier Magraw becomes. I learn later that this is the first time his trio has played with Carrothers, and Magraw loves every minute. (Toward the end of the evening, he sits behind Carrothers, points at him, looks out at the audience, smiles from ear to ear, and says “Bill Carrothers! That f****** guy!”)

The music is amazing. Playful, creative, tuneful. Blues, standards, Monk’s “Let’s Cool One.” Improvisations during which Epstein plays the edges of his cymbals with knitting needles, or something close to knitting needles. Magraw and Carrothers negotiate with each other about what to play, and no matter what they decide, Bates anchors it and holds it steady.



As the evening progresses—this is after all the late-night show, this is Minneapolis—the audience becomes smaller and more devout. An exquisite solo from Carrothers ends it all. That guy.


Photos by John Whiting.

Jazz Jam at the AQ

When: Friday, June 20, 2008 • Where: Artists’ Quarter • Who: Mikkel Romstad, piano; Gary Berg, saxophone; Chris Bates, bass, Kenny Horst, drums



It’s a Twin Cities Jazz Festival tradition: Following the concerts in Mears Park on Friday and Saturday nights, musicians head to the Artists’ Quarter to jam. Last year, after Kenny Garrett’s fiery set, his drummer, Jamire Williams, came to the AQ and played for much of the night. This year, people were hoping that members of the Fort Apache Band would show. They didn’t. Maybe they were already en route to their next gig, or maybe they were too irritated by the graceless end to their Mears Park show.



No matter; it was a jam after all. Dave Karr brought his sax and so did Jim Marentic. For a while, a mysterious stranger sat in on congas. Sometimes we heard one horn player; sometimes two or all three. The music was straight-ahead, standards everyone knew. The musicians had fun and so did we.


Photos by John Whiting.

Sophia Shorai

When: 6/14/08
Where: The Times
Who: Sophia Shorai (voice), Chris Bates (bass), Zacc Harris (guitar), Pete Hennig (drums)

There's been buzz about Sophia Shorai for some time. I think I heard Leigh Kamman rave about her a while back on his radio show The Jazz Image, and Tanner Taylor wants to record with her, and she's versatile, singing jazz standards and pop tunes and Latin classics. She made a Target commercial singing the Beatles' "Hello Goodbye," which I remember hearing. So when I got an email from her "devoted fiance and volunteer" (and sometime performing partner) Jeremy Gordon inviting me to her upcoming gig at the Times, I went.

She's here with a good band. Harris and Hennig are with the Atlantis Quartet, a group we saw earlier this year at the doomed Rosewood Room. I'm always happy to see Chris Bates at his bass.

I like Shorai's voice a lot. It's very pretty, sometimes little-girl, sometimes breathy, sometimes tough, reminiscent of Stacey Kent but not derivative. She sings a nice mix of standards, opening with "It Could Happen to You," a challenging tune with big intervals that probably should come later in a set. "Love Is the Saddest Thing" follows with lots of swing and jazzy phrasing. Then a blues? It's difficult to understand Shorai when she speaks, which isn't entirely her fault, given the setting. The Times is generally noisy, more so on a Saturday night, and even worse when a sudden downpour drives the sidewalk crowd indoors.

"Gee Baby Aren't I Good to You" is sassy, and she opens a flirty "Tea for Two" by singing the verse, which I have seldom heard:

I'm discontented with homes that are rented so I have invented my own.
Darling this place is a lover's oasis where life's weary chase is unknown.
Far from the cry of the city, where flowers pretty caress the streams,
Cozy to hide in, to love side-by-side in. Don't let it abide in my dreams.

The rest we know:

Picture you upon my knee, just tea for two and two for tea...

For this tune Shorai uses her little-girl voice with grown-up phrasing and a feathery vibrato. ("I learned that one from Blossom Dearie," she attempts to tell the yammering crowd.)

"Black Orpheus" is a gently swaying samba, one of the songs on her 2004 CD Wave. On "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," she starts high and nails it, showing off her range (and a bit of a lisp). The set ends with two more standards, "I Wish I Knew Someone to Love Me" and "Do I."

I'd stay to hear more but by now I'm fed up with the Times. The bar also has a dance floor, and normally it's kind of nice to see people get out there and dance, but tonight, in addition to the escalating crowd noise, there's an especially annoying pair of dancers who spend most of the evening directly in front of us. Whenever we try to snap a picture they wiggle into the frame.

Shorai has a Dakota date on July 28 and I've put that on my calendar. The photo above was taken there earlier this year, in May, by whom I don't know; I found it on Shorai's MySpace page.

Red Planet

When: 5/3/08
Where: Artists' Quarter
Who: Dean Magraw (guitar), Chris Bates (bass), Jay Epstein (drums)

We last saw this remarkable trio in December, when it was also (for part of the evening) a quartet, with Gary Schulte on violin. Tonight we skip the second set of the Mike Vax Big Band and arrive at the AQ midway through the first tune, something slow and mellow. For the moment it's just Dean and Chris, then Jay walks quietly on stage, unpacks his sticks and brushes, then begins softly brushing the drums. A lovely start to an evening full of music worth close listening.



They rarely tell us what they're playing; Magraw mugs at the mike but never quite gets around to saying "That was a tune by ____ and here comes a tune by ____." Next time I'll request the set list, if there is one. I know we hear something by Dave Holland, something about a place on the Asian steppes where the wind never stops blowing, a Chris Bates tune, Monk's "Let's Cool One" (which I think is a Django tune because it swings so hard), and the group's signature "Viva Coltrane," a long piece incorporating many of John Coltrane's compositions. Throughout the evening, Magraw is jazz man, folkie, and rock god, wailing away on a guitar so white it's blinding. We stay through both sets.

Back in December, Don Berryman made a video of Red Planet performing Coltrane. Especially if you haven't experienced this group in person (and even if you have), it's worth seeing and hearing.

Tatsuya Nakatani

When: 4/14/08
Where: Clown Lounge/Lodge/Luge/whatever
Who: Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion), Luke Polipnick (guitar), Chris Bates (bass)

The email invite comes from Chris Bates:

> Please come and check out Tatsuya. He is on a solo performance tour around the US.
> www.hhproduction.org is his website if you want more info.
> but really have I ever led you astray? trust me
> chris

Bates has never once led me astray so off we go to the Luge. It's my first time there, I'm ashamed to admit, and while I'm expecting a tiny, grungy basement jazz room, it's actually more spacious than that, and more comfortable.

Nakatani, who's currently on a six-month solo tour of the US, crossing the country in a van and playing wherever, begins at 11 p.m. with a solo improvisation, bowing a giant gong (one bow, then two), then bringing in the big bass drum like distant thunder.

This is the kind of free jazz that many people would not want to hear. There's no melody, no tune, no discernible rhythm (maybe no rhythm at all). It's pure sound or, if you will, pure noise, cacophony, pandemonium.

I can't begin to describe it in any kind of literal way. But I can try to describe some of the sounds I hear: A chant, a drone, the crying of beasts and the chirping of birds. Banshees and angels. A giant door opening into a vast corridor; footsteps, echoes. (Occasionally Nakatani blows on a cymbal that rests on one of his drum; the cymbal wails.) Windchimes in a heavy rain. Glass breaking, and laughter. A needle stuck on a record. Seals barking. Things falling down and being lifted up again. The sounds a giant ship might make when hitting an iceberg.



For the second set, Polipnick and Bates join Nakatani and they all just start playing. Chris gives us loops and buzzy feedback; Polipnick looks like a stop-motion animation, making a series of jerky moves that generate strange sounds. I don't have the vaguest idea how this happens but at various points they become an ensemble, traveling to similar places and from there to other places. They're not looking at each other, gesturing, or negotiating in any way I can see, but somehow they are together, rising to a fierce crescendo and suddenly pulling back at the same time, and how did that happen? Tornadic winds and traffic jams and it's over.

I wouldn't want a daily diet of free jazz, but sometimes, as tonight, it makes me glad to be alive.

Photos by John Whiting.

Bruce Henry at the Dakota: Concert review

When: 4/4/08
Where: Dakota
Who: Bruce Henry (voice), Peter Vircks (tenor sax), Bryan Nichols (piano), Chris Bates (bass), Daryl Boudreaux (percussion), Wendell Henry (drums)

We're seeing Bruce Henry as often as we can before he moves to Chicago. Tonight he's in fine form, dressed to the nines, accompanied by an excellent band, singing his heart out, bantering with the open-curtain Friday-night crowd, and happy to be in this elegant club ("People talk about this place all over the world," he later says).



We don't hear "Nature Boy" or "Afro Blue," two of his signature songs, but we do hear others Henry has made his own: "House of the Rising Sun," Chick Corea's "Spain" (with lyrics by Al Jarreau), the original "Africa Cries."

As many times as I've heard Henry sing "House of the Rising Sun," it has never been the same. It depends on his band, his mood, the crowd, the weather, maybe the way the planets are aligned. Tonight it's new again—partly because Henry sings as if it is, partly because each note from Nichols's piano is a surprise.



We hear "Autumn Leaves," Horace Silver's "Senor Blues," and "In the Beginning God" from Duke Ellington's Sacred Concert ("a seldom heard song unless you come to my shows," Henry says).

He tells us about growing up on Madison Street in Chicago, home of the blues; how all of the big blues singers had "imposters" (Little Little Milton, Little James Brown;) how he once saw the real Muddy Waters get out of his car and go into a club and tried to follow him in. "I'm not a blues singer, but I've got the blues aesthetic," Henry says, then launches into the blues standard "Sweet Home Chicago."

More Horace Silver, this time "All," a song Henry got from Dean Brewington, "the first person I met in the state of Minnesota." The lyrics (also by Silver) seem especially appropriate for Henry: "All time is now/all space is near/all minds relate/all souls evolve...all things are spirit/all is in mind." His performances are engaging and entertaining, but they're also deeply spiritual if you're willing to let that part reach out and touch you.

African American history is important to Henry. "Every day of my life, I celebrate African American History Month," he says. Then he sings an original song, "Jump That Broom," based on genealogical research he did on his own family, including a great-great grandfather who loved his about-to-be great-great grandmother so much that he bundled his clothes on top of his head and swam across a lake to court her. Boudreaux plays the washboard and it's joyous.



Henry closes out the night with a song for Martin Luther King Jr., who died on this day 40 years ago. Rather than a sad song, he gives us "a song about freedom and justice and peace all around the world." I don't know the name but here are some lyrics: "It's a party/it's a freedom party/raise your victory sign!" He ends by wishing us peace and love. There's no encore; we don't need one.

A few about the band: I hadn't heard Nichols and Bates play with Henry before but you can't go wrong with either one. Boudreaux has always seemed like Henry's own hands on the percussion, a natural fit; as Henry said earlier in the show, "We go way black, I mean back," then laughed. I've heard Wendell Henry play drums for Bruce Henry but never for anyone else. I'm guessing he'll show up at the Freedom Train benefit concert on April 19? (For more about that, see Andrea Canter's preview on Jazz Police.)



Vircks was new to me but I have since learned (thank you, Jazz Police and the Internets) that he's part of Moveable Feast, the Rhythm Junkies, and other bands around town. I thought he got off to a slow start but picked up the pace later in the show. Good, strong sound.



Photos by John Whiting.

Late-Night All Stars

When: 3/28/08
Where: Dakota
Who: Kelly Rossum (trumpet), Brandon Wozniak (tenor sax), Tasha Baron (piano), Chris Bates (bass), Jay Epstein (drums)

It’s already a long night: 7 Black Butterflies followed by Prezens at the Walker, then the final set of Irvin Mayfield’s sextet at the Dakota. It’s after midnight and we’re going home. Then Kelly Rossum and Chris Bates walk past the bar. They’re here to play so we stay.



I haven’t seen Wozniak before; he plays around town with Atlantis Quartet and The 3Rio. I learn from his MySpace page that he spent six months working in a jazz club in Shanghai. I like his sound. Tasha Baron is new to me, too; our friends Ben&Amy tell us she’s with Black Blondie. MySpace says she’s also with Hips Don’t Lie and Sferic Witch.



This is the first time these five have played together. Dan Eikmeier, who books the late-night shows, pulled them together and it works. They start with Kenny Garrett’s “Sing a Song of Song,” end with something called (I think) “Play It Twice.” It’s Late Night so there’s a lot of chitchat, even at our table, but I’m glad we stayed.

Hats for Cats: Chris Bates

One-half of the fabulous Bates Brothers (the other is drummer J.T.), bassist Chris is a musician I follow around town. When I learn that he'll be playing somewhere with someone (Ellen Lease and Pat Moriarty, the Kelly Rossum Quartet, Slide Huxtable, Red Planet, Poutums Jazz Trio, the Enormous Quartet, at the Guthrie in a show about the music of Tom Waits) or even with no one (his solo set at the Rogue Buddha gallery last December was amazing), I try to go. I have yet to catch him at the Kitty Cat Club but that's in my future.

So, Chris, this hat's for you. It's cashmere so don't throw it in the washing machine unless you want a baby hat.

Bassists tend to stand at the back of the stage where there isn't much light, plus they move around a lot. Someday I'll get a better photo.

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Ellen Lease/Pat Moriarty Jazz Quintet

When: 3/1/08
Where: Studio Z, home of the Zeitgeist new music ensemble
Who: Ellen Lease (piano), Pat Moriarty (alto saxophone), Kelly Rossum (trumpet), Chris Bates (bass), Dave Stanoch (drums)

We snag the last three seats in a row in a small room that fills to standing room capacity. (The young man in the orange polyester zigzag trousers just outside the door keeps selling tickets.) I’m not familiar with Lease, Moriarty, or Stanoch but knowing that Bates and Rossum will play has brought me here tonight.

It’s the first CD release for the avant-garde quintet; Chance, Love, Logic is just out on Innova Recordings, the label of the American Composers Forum and home to George Cartwright, Carei Thomas, Steve Reich, and other interesting modern musicians and composers. All of the compositions on Chance, Love, Logic are originals by Lease and Moriarty.

Lease introduces “Phoebe” as “the oldest tune in our book.” It’s melodic and tuneful. “Phrenology,” named for the practice of determining one’s mental faculties and character by the shape of the skull, is next. Stanoch blows a toy trumpet and the band quotes from “Spinning Wheel,” the song by Blood, Sweat & Tears that in turn quotes “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round.” It’s a tricky tune with a carny feel.

I think the next song is “Italy” but I can’t be sure. The two horns dance. I’m wishing Lease’s piano was miked, or her playing was a bit more muscular; I’m missing parts of her performance, especially the more lyrical passages.

Lease tells us that the title track was inspired by something she read by Robert Motherwell, who was a philosophy major before he was an artist. He called chance, love, and logic the “eternal values.” As I listen, I wonder if I’m hearing a love song, a melody of chance and improvisation, a logical work, or all three.

“Orange” is an homage to Matisse. The next tune has no title; Lease suggests a contest where we all submit suggestions to win a six-pack of a fancy microbrew. She lays down a thick carpet of arpeggios repeated over and over. Bates bows his bass; Moriarty and Rossum come in together, bending and sliding. I think the word "undertow." A potential name for the tune?

“Liner” leaves room for everyone to solo. “A Round with Sphere” is a bow to Thelonious S. (for Sphere) Monk. “Cloisters,” the final song of the evening, is thoughtful and spiritual; Stanoch plays sleigh bells.

Lease is an artist of subtlety and grace. Since this is the first time I have heard her, I hesitate to speculate on her style, but she doesn’t seem like someone who plays strident runs or splashy chords. I would like to hear her again. Until then, I’ll enjoy the CD by the quintet formerly known as “the best unrecorded band out there.”

Photo of the quintet by John Whiting.

Kelly Rossum Quartet

When: 2/23/08
Where: Artists' Quarter
Who: Kelly Rossum (trumpet), Bryan Nichols (piano), Chris Bates (bass), J.T. Bates (drums)

In late February through mid-March, if you don't want to see Kelly Rossum, stay home. Starting with his quartet's two-day stay at the AQ, he's everywhere: performing with the MacPhail Jazz Faculty, with Ellen Lease and Pat Moriarty, running around (but not, I think, performing at) the Winter Jazz Festival, with Woody Witt at the Dakota, with the Jazz is NOW! NOWnet.

This is a great night at the AQ. Davis is at the door, the crowd is mostly attentive, and the music is as good as you'll hear anywhere and better than you'll hear in most places. See for yourself in this video taken by Don Berryman, newly rendered in high definition by YouTube. We were sitting with Don and Beverly so this is pretty much the same thing we saw and heard.



Also on the program: "Fly Away," "Seduction," a funky "Lead Soldiers," "La Vita a Roma," Nichols' "A Word from Our Sponsors" (with a big, bad solo by Chris Bates), "Majestic, Mighty Monarch of the Air," and two tunes from the not-yet-released Family, recorded by this quartet: "After the Snow" and the title track. Much of it was mellow and all of it was good.

Rossum is one of the few artists who regularly updates the performance schedule on his Web site.

Top to bottom: Kelly Rossum, Bryan Nichols. Photos by John Whiting.

Warm Beer Cold Women: Celebrating the Music of Tom Waits

When: 2/10/08
Where: Dowling Studio at the Guthrie
Who: Singers: Katy Hays, Dennis Curley, Robert O. Berdahl. Band: Dan Chouinard (piano, organ, tuba), Gary Rue (guitars, banjo), Chris Bates (bass), Matt Weaver (drums, percussion), Mark Stillman (accordion), Chris Thomson (saxophones, clarinet)



Friends are big fans of Tom Waits but I've never gotten into his music. I can't understand most of what he's saying/singing, and the tunes seem a bit too theatrical to me. (If it looks like a musical and walks like a musical, I usually run the other way.) But I realize Waits is a big singer/songwriter deal and I want to know more about him, so I keep trying.

In 2001 (so long ago?), we went to see John Hammond at the Cedar when he was on tour for "Wicked Grin," his CD of Tom Waits songs. Liked it! So when I heard about "Warm Beer Cold Women" (from an email sent by bass player Chris Bates) we decided to see that, too.

It would not have killed the Dowling to shine a little more light on the stage; band members Bates et al. labored in the shadows for most of the show. But the music was interesting and there was a lot of it: 31 Waits songs, performed more-or-less chronologically, from beat-poet jazz to torch songs, circus songs, street songs, love songs. I was surprised at how beautiful some of the songs were; it helps when you can understand the words.

I liked the singers—Hays, Curley, and Berdahl—very much. For some of the songs, they acted out mini-stories; for others, they stood there and sang; for one, Berdahl (who recently tore his Achilles tendon and had surgery to repair it) waved a crutch wound with Christmas lights. Chouinard played a greasy tango with a long-stemmed red rose between his teeth; when accordionist Mark Stillman first came on stage, he entered through a cloud of smoke and a rumble of thunder. It was the first time I'd seen an accordionist look menacing, and not, I hope, the last.

Warm Beer Cold Women Web site.

Slide Huxtable

When: 1/10/08
Where: The Artists' Quarter
Who: Mark Miller (trombone), Dean Magraw (guitar), Chris Bates (bass), J.T. Bates (drums)

Brad Bellows says the trombone is not becoming more popular, but it seems that everywhere I turn these days, I run into a trombone (or one almost runs into me, if I sit too near the stage). Valves Meet Slide, the Dakota Combo with Delfeayo Marsalis, last year's Trombone Summit at the Dakota (Steve Turre, Fred Wesley, Wycliffe Gordon, guest Delfeayo...that was in June, a while back but so worth mentioning)...also in June, we went to the Stone in NYC and saw Chris McIntyre's 7X7 Trombone Band with (for real) 7 trombones and it was not too many.

Wisconsin native and founding member of the Motion Poets Mark Miller brought his trombone to town for three gigs with former bandmates the Bates Bros. and Dean Magraw standing in for regular Slide Huxtable guitarist Bill Bergmann.

We caught them at the AQ on a Thursday night. The crowd was sizable and appreciative, and the music was satisfying: "The Juggla," a straight-ahead piece by Ralph Peterson the group first heard on an Anthony Cox CD and have since made their own; Miller's "Salt of the Earth," the tune Kelly Rossum played for us during our Jazz 101 class and proclaimed his current favorite; a tongue-in-cheek, reggae-flavored "Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets." And just when I thought I had them figured out (SH is all about fun!) they gave us a beautiful ballad by Miller. He wrote it in 2000, the year two people dear to him passed away: his father and his trombone hero J.J. Johnson. "For J.J." is a work of aching loss. I've never heard a trombone sound so sad.

From there we heard a Magraw tune, "Anarchy," and "I Hear a Rhapsody." The first set closed with something Miller called "Fantasy in A minor, for lack of a better title." A big, serious piece.

The next day, Chris Bates sent an email saying "I think you heard some of the best music that Slide has ever played."

Watch Don Berryman's video of Slide Huxtable playing "Salt of the Earth."

Photo by John Whiting. That's Miller in front, with Chris Bates at the left and J.T. at the right.

The Return of Slide Huxtable

Kelly Rossum's current favorite CD: The Return of Slide Huxtable. Named for the episode of The Cosby Show in which character Cliff's dad Russell plays at a jam session (with the real Slide Hampton performing off camera), the quartet includes trombonist Mark Miller of the Motion Poets, guitarist Bill Bergmann, and the fabulous Bates brothers, Chris and J.T. With Dean Magraw stepping in for Bergmann, they are performing in three local clubs this week: the Clown Lodge (a.k.a. Clown Lounge, a.k.a. the basement of the Turf Club) on Monday, the Artists' Quarter on Thursday, and the Dakota on Friday (the late-night show).

If ever a club needed to update its Web site, it's the Clown Lounge/Lodge/whatever. (Clown Luge?) I checked and the last calendar update was 3/2/05.

Read a preview on Jazz Police.
Hear Slide Huxtable on MySpace.
The CD.

Red Planet

When: 12/29/07
Where: The Artists' Quarter
Who: Dean Magraw (guitar), Chris Bates (bass), Jay Epstein (drums); second set: Gary Schulte (violin)

Strings and sticks, cymbals, skins, and gongs: no horns, no keys. Magraw, Bates, and Epstein play all over the Twin Cities in all kinds of configurations, but when they come together as Red Planet, it's a unique and wonderful sound. Much of what they play at the AQ is mellow and melodic, with the focus shifting from Magraw's solos to Bates and Epstein and back again, circling the stage. When they play a series of Coltrane tunes back-to-back, the only one I recognize by name is "Revolution." Schulte guests for most of the second set, and it's a glorious concentration of strings. Toward the end of the evening, when many people have already left (it's almost 1 a.m.), I realize the music stopped being about the audience long ago; not that we don't matter (we do) but Magraw, Bates, Epstein and Schulte have gone to that place where music has its own life and purpose in that particular moment, and it's pure creativity. They're four cooks in a kitchen, and we're lucky to be at the table.

Photograph, L to R: Magraw, Bates, Schulte, Epstein.

Chris Bates and Poutums Jazz Trio

When: 12/20/07
Where: Rogue Buddha Gallery
Who: Set 1: Chris Bates (solo bass); Set 2: Poutums Jazz Trio: Chris Thomson (saxophone), Adam Linz (bass), Alden Ikeda (drums); Jon Pemberton (trumpet)

Live jazz in an art gallery on a winter night. No, no, don't make me go. Surrounded by gallery owner Nicholas Harper's paintings (some of which I liked, some of which I didn't), we sat in folding chairs sipping red wine from plastic glasses hearing fine music for a suggested donation of $5. The crowd was SRO and not the usual jazz club group, more the art gallery group, with ones and twos sneaking outdoors to smoke throughout the evening.

I'm always happy to hear Chris Bates. His set ranged from solo improvisation to songs where he accompanied himself (on electronic loops, some prepared ahead of time and some recorded on the spot) to bowing that made me think of Edgar Meyer's recording of Bach's cello suites on double bass. We often think of bass as needing something else—piano, horns, percussion—to be meaningful, but in the right hands it stands alone.

I like the big, low instruments: bass, baritone saxophone, bari clarinet, tuba (as played by Stefan Kac). To me, these are solar plexus instruments; the sound (especially the sound of the bass) stays in the center of the body and hums. I also like the bass because it's an instrument you embrace to play, like a dancing partner.

If I could wake up tomorrow knowing how to play any instrument, it would be the bass. I once thought about studying with Herbie Lewis, who said he'd be willing to take me on. He passed away in May of this year. If you follow this link and read the obituary Don Berryman wrote for Jazz Police, you'll also see a photograph Andrea Canter took of Lewis with Frank Morgan, who died a little over a week ago.

After Bates's set, it takes a few moments for the Poutums trio to set up, and the second they start to play, the whole gallery fills with music, like water rushing in. We're sitting right in front of Linz's bass, so again it's the bass that gets my attention. Linz plays like he could pull the strings right off the neck, tugging and yanking and grabbing great fistsful. He strums and plucks and pats the instrument, pulls it close and pushes it away, twirls and dips it—like a dancing partner.

At first, Thomson and Pemberton stand at opposite ends of the group, having a warm, brassy dialogue; at the end of the set, they're beside each other, weaving in and out of each other's notes. Ikeda drums with sticks and hands; it's my second time seeing him perform and I like him. The music is tuneful and beautiful.

Bates, Linz, and Thomson are frequent participants in the Rogue Buddha's iQuit Music Series, of which this evening was a part. The space is interesting, there's parking nearby, the music is good, and the price is right.

Meanwhile I wonder what Poutums means.

Photographs: Chris Bates; Chris Thomson and Adam Linz being observed by a sourpuss Nicholas Harper painting. All shot in a dark gallery at ISO 1600.