The NOWnet ends with a bang and a waltz

When: Friday, April 15, 2011 • Where: Loring Theater • Who: Jeremy Walker, piano; Chris Thompson, saxophones; Jeff Brueske, bass; JT Bates, drums; special guests Wessell “Warmdaddy” Anderson, saxophones, and Marcus Printup, trumpet

Except for the snow falling outdoors, it was a perfect night for fans and friends of the NOWnet, the Twin Cities-based jazz ensemble that played its final concert last night before officially disbanding. Founder Jeremy Walker has moved to New York; the NOWnet’s parent organization, the nonprofit Jazz is NOW!, has been turned over to pianist/composer Bryan Nichols, and things will change.

For the NOWnet’s last hurrah, Walker gathered friends from here and NYC (“everyone is a local jazz musician,” he insisted at one point, “and everyone is a national jazz musician”) for two sets of music, mostly his original compositions. “We’re going to play nice and comfortable tonight,” Walker said at the start, and they did, with plenty of fireworks in the solos. 

Jazz is NOW, then and now: Talking with Jeremy Walker and Bryan Nichols

Founded in 2003 by Jeremy Walker, launched with a performance by Wynton Marsalis and his quintet at the Brilliant Corners jazz club in St. Paul, Jazz is NOW! has been a sort of cousin to Jazz at Lincoln Center and SF Jazz: a presenting organization, a composers’ forum, an affiliation of improvising musicians. 

Jazz is NOW! supported a flexible jazz ensemble called the NOWnet, one of the few groups in the country dedicated to composing and performing new music. It had a board and a website (where you could listen to music, view videos and photos, read a blog, download scores, and check the calendar for upcoming performances), and it brought in guest artists including Wessell Anderson, Ted Nash, David Berkman, and Matt Wilson.

Jazz is NOW! and the NOWnet have been good things. I always thought the NOWnet should be the house band at the Walker Art Center, playing jazz for gallery openings and special events, fronting other bands that appeared in its annual performing arts series.

The NOWnet most recently performed in 2009. It has been on hiatus since Jeremy Walker moved to New York City in 2010. On Friday, fans and friends can see the group one final time, at the Loring Theater, in a performance aptly titled “The NOWnet’s Last Dance.” 

Guest artists Marcus Printup (of Jazz at Lincoln Center) and Wess “Warmdaddy” Anderson (the Wynton Marsalis Quintet) will join Jeremy Walker on piano, Chris Thomson on tenor sax, Jeff Brueske on bass, and JT Bates on drums for an evening of original music. Sometime during the evening, Walker will name pianost/composer Bryan Nichols the new Artistic Director of the organization.

We had a virtual sit-down via email.

D'Amico Cucina: The second-to-last night

When: Friday, June 26, 2009 • Where: D'Amico Cucina, Butler Square

A few years back I took HH to D'Amico Cucina for his birthday. Last Friday's repeat performance was tinged with nostalgia. The fabled Italian restaurant would close the next day, a casualty of changing economic times, the proximity of the new Twins stadium, and various traffic and parking woes.



It's not that the company is failing--D'Amico and Partners owns Cafe and Bar Lurcat, all of the D'Amico & Sons restaurants, Campiello (although the one in Minneapolis has closed, there are others in Eden Prairie and in Naples, Florida for snowbirds), and Masa, the gourmet Mexican restaurant on Nicollet Mall. The closing is "proactive" and it's rumored that Cucina might relocate.

But the original location was special. It was beautiful, comfortable, and the food and service were amazing. It was also, for 22 years, a sophisticated jazz venue on the weekends and a constant gig for many area musicians. Think Bobby Short at the Carlisle in New York City.



The regulars came out on Friday, and many friends. We sat at the bar, where the music was. Adam Linz and Luke Polipnick were at the other end. Jeremy and Marsha Walker showed up. Benny Weinbeck was on piano, Gordy Johnson on bass, JT Bates on drums. The players changed throughout the evening: Adam briefly took over for Gordy, Phil Hey replaced JT, Tommy O'Donnell sat in for Benny. Scott Fultz brought his saxophone, Benny's brother Henry his cornet, and for a time it was a quintet.



From where we were sitting, we could see the musicians, and while they spent most of the evening playing, there were breaks when they stood and talked together, handsome men in suits and ties, class acts in a classy place. We ate ahi tuna and veal in a sauce and perfect seared scallops, lobster gnocchi and tiny green beens, beef tenderloin and chocolate. The place was packed, the bartenders worked at hyperspeed, it was noisy but fun. The music—classics, standards, swinging and sweet, the kind you can turn to and focus on, then turn away from to toast and kiss your husband, yet you're still hearing it and it's shaping your mood and making your wine taste even better—the music went on and on and then it stopped.



Photos by John Whiting. Top to bottom: Benny Weinbeck; Gordy Johnson; Phil, Gordy, Benny, Scott, Henry; Henry Weinbeck.

Jazz is NOW!

When: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 • Where: Carleton Artists Lofts Community Room • Who: Jeremy Walker, keyboards; Kelly Rossum, trumpet; Chris Thomson, saxophones; Scott Fultz, saxophones and flute; Jeff Brueske, bass; Kevin Washington, drums

While I'm in CT at Soul Mountain Retreat, HH is taking in some jazz on his own. Like the Jazz is NOW! open rehearsal/party fundraiser, a preparation for the NOWnet's formal premiere on Tuesday, October 7, at the Minnesota Opera Center.

Jeremy, is that a rubber duckie on your keyboard? Let's take a closer look:


Photo by John Whiting.

Jazz is NOW!: The NOWnet

When: 6/12/08
Where: Minnesota Opera Center
Who: Jazz is NOW! NOWnet: Jeremy Walker (leader, piano), Kelly Rossum (trumpet), Chris Thomson (saxophones), Scott Fultz (saxophones), Anthony Cox (bass), Tim Zhorne (drums)

I like everything about Jazz is NOW! The idea of a nonprofit composers' ensemble that performs original music. The music itself. The musicians who write and play it. The inviting, well-written, easy-to-navigate, time-sucking Web site, with videos of their performances, photos, downloadable charts, MP3s, and a blog.

I want JiN to survive and thrive (as much as jazz can thrive these days, and I suppose that depends on how you define "thrive"). I want Jeremy Walker to be our John Zorn and the Minnesota Opera Center (or wherever) to be our Stone and someone to start our Tzadik label. I want people with money to throw some at JiN. They need it. As Meg Cortright, JiN's board president, said during her introduction to the evening, "A jazz musician is always in recession."

Tonight's event is billed as JiN's second open rehearsal for their formal premiere, set for October 9. I missed the first rehearsal in March but can hear it on the Web site anytime I want.

I don't know what refreshments were available in March but tonight it's a $5 bottomless cup of sangria. Homemade, a good deal and lots of fresh fruit, steeped overnight in wine.



The opening tune is Walker's "Cool Turkey." The theme, he explains, is moderation in everything. "It's full of stops and starts, kind of like when you're at a party and you think...better not." Fultz is featured on the saxophone and this bright, bouncy piece is a solid start.

Everything we hear tonight, with two exceptions, is an original composition by Jeremy. He will introduce each tune and preface each introduction by saying he doesn't like talking. But it helps to know what to expect, especially when all of the music is new, and I hope he keeps doing this in future performances. Or, if he really hates doing it, maybe someone else in the band can step up.

This is the first time I've heard Walker play piano. I like what I can hear but it's subdued, partly because the piano isn't miked and partly, perhaps, because this is an early public performance of someone who played the saxophone for many years before that became impossible. Also, this is the first time I've heard drummer Zhorne. Jeremy tells me later that he and Tim have been buds forever.



For Kelly Rossum's tango "Seduction," his shiny new trumpet wears a mute and sounds sexy. Thomson plays soprano sax and sounds sexy, too, especially during his snake-charmer solo. Sometimes we hear all three horns, with Kelly doing a wah-wah, and behind them Cox makes the strings of his bass speak deep round vowels. The mute gives the trombone four different voices, depending on whether it's in or out or how far in or out it is. Toward the end, Cox bows his strings.

"Play" was inspired by dancers at the Xenon company, where Walker's wife Marsha used to work. It's speedy and upbeat—major key. The piano is muted, mostly comping.

Walker originally wrote "June" with himself in mind on lead sax; today Fultz has Walker's horn and plays the part. "We don't repeat the melody because I wanted it to be linear," Walker explains. "When you walk you don't go back to the beginning; you keep going and arrive home." The melody has a Glenn Miller sweetness to it, and old-fashioned harmonies; by playing it just once, the band makes me long to hear it again. It's wistful, like time is passing too quickly.

For "Hill Country," an homage to pianist/composer Andrew Hill, Walker's brother Tom joins the band on acoustic guitar. The horns go high, Jeremy plucks the strings inside the piano (unless I misremember), and the mood gets lazy. We hear the first extended piano solo of the night. Soft, thoughtful.

Jeremy tells us he was listening to a lot of Willie Nelson at the time he wrote "Hill Country." What's up with jazz musicians and Willie Nelson? Wynton Marsalis's new CD, Two Men with the Blues (due out July 8), is with Willie Nelson. It should be fun.

I look around at the audience, which is pretty decent for an open rehearsal. A lot of young people are in the crowd.

After the break and more sangria with oranges and grapes: "Way Back Was," with Tom on guitar again. Backporch blues guitar, with muted trumpet.

I'm enjoying the evening very much. A small group of musicians, an intimate setting, lots of people we know, new music: It feels like chamber jazz. Relaxed, easy (at least for the audience, sipping on our sangrias), personal.

Fultz opens "Requiem for the Day" on flute. A response to a soldier's death in Afghanistan, it's tender and beautiful. Walker introduces "The Pumpkins' Reunion" by saying it's "about seeing my son and missing him." Slow and sad, it ends with a pensive piano solo.

"If I Were a Cowboy (I'd Ride the Hell out of Here)" is a sassy shuffle blues. And the night ends with Fultz's "Dorothy and Robert," a tune about his grandparents when they were young and courting. Fultz opens on tenor sax. It's a waltz, a love song, a happy send-off into the night.

You can see and hear most of the actual performances here.

Photos by John Whiting.

Hats for Cats: Jeremy Walker

After Jeremy wondered aloud why Chris Bates had a hat and he didn't, I knew it was time to start knitting or else. Jeremy does not wear hats that cover his ears (at least, not that I've ever seen—maybe only in winter?) so I had to rethink my pattern. HH tried this on and it looked good on him.

Jazz is NOW!

The Jazz is NOW! NOWnet, the composers' ensemble created by Jeremy Walker in 2004, is back and I'm glad. I wrote about its return and briefly about its history for MinnPost. Meanwhile, Marsha Walker sent me this picture of Jeremy relaxing in the sun during their recent trip to New Orleans.

Here's part of my conversation with Jeremy that didn't make it into MinnPost:

When I started in music, CDs had a lot of value. I had a conversation with my brother, Tom, a guitar player, and said, 'If you digitize this music, pretty soon recordings will have no value, and the real value, the only value, will be live performance.' That was probably 15 years ago. A few years later, I had a conversation with Wynton [Marsalis], who said 'If you can't sell your CD for seven or eight dollars, there will be a time when you can't sell it.' With Jazz is NOW!, we decided let's just record everything and people can have it. They can download it for a nominal fee, and if they want a pressed copy, we'll charge five dollars. Since it has no monetary value but it has artistic value, let's just share it.

During Ravi Coltrane's performance the other night at the Ted Mann, he mentioned he'd have CDs for sale in the lobby during intermission. "The music business is going down the toilet," he said, "so we'd better sell them when we can."

Where will the music business be in five years or ten? For an article related to this topic, see "The Music Man" (New York Times Magazine, 9/2/07) about producer and Columbia Records co-head Rick Rubin. You may need to log in to read it. It's lengthy but interesting.

Photo of Jeremy Walker by Marsha Walker.

Visit the Jazz is NOW! Web site and hear the NOWnet.

Jeremy Walker bounces back, brings back Jazz is NOW!

Photo by Marsha Walker

In 2003, not that long ago, Jeremy Walker ran a jazz club, led the house band and played the saxophone.

Brilliant Corners, named for a Thelonious Monk tune, was an understated street-level room in downtown St. Paul. The club was beset with problems, but big names came to play — Wynton Marsalis, Matt Wilson — and all ages came to listen because it had no liquor license.

"DownBeat" magazine named Brilliant Corners one of the 100 best jazz clubs in the country, and one night Itzhak Perlman stopped by after his own gig at the Ordway Center for Performing Arts to jam with Marsalis before a sold-out crowd. Having just come from the Ordway and unable to talk my way in, I stood outside with my nose pressed against the glass, kicking myself.

The club closed in 2004. The band played on as the Jazz is NOW! Orchestra until early 2006, when it went on hiatus. You can listen to recordings here.  



Also in 2006, Walker's personal struggles with nerve and joint problems forced him to slow down, regroup and abandon the saxophone, his instrument since childhood.



Someone less resilient might have given up on the whole jazz thing. Instead, Walker has reshaped the orchestra into the NOWnet, a hard-swinging, flexibly sized composers' ensemble that will perform on Thursday, March 13, at the Minnesota Opera Center in Minneapolis. And he has spent the past two years becoming proficient on the piano and composing new music.



Since returning from New York and New Orleans, where he spent three weeks studying with pianists including Frank Kimbrough and David Berkman on a Jerome Foundation grant, he's now busy orchestrating the music for next week's concert. 



All original music on the menu


NOWnet will play all original music, mostly Walker's. Thursday's band will include Walker on piano; Kelly Rossum on trumpet; Chris Thomson and Scott Fultz on saxophones, flutes, and clarinets; Jeff Bailey on bass and Kevin Washington on drums.



"This will be a preview performance," Walker tells me in a phone interview, "something that lets people in on the process. It's been two years since we last performed, and it's kind of like trying to start an old lawnmower. But there's a really good atmosphere around it, and a lot of excitement about what can happen this time. We want to bring in as much community spirit as possible."



He's serious about the community focus. NOWnet and its support organization, the nonprofit Jazz is NOW!, will be inviting and transparent in ways unusual for arts organizations, he says.

Rehearsals will be open to the public. Performances will be filmed and available to view on the revamped and interactive Jazz is NOW! website, funded by a Metropolitan Regional Arts Council grant, which will go live soon (maybe as early as next week). Visitors to the site will be able to download songs, read blogs, even print out scores and charts. Everything will be free or very low-cost.

"We decided to record everything and let people have it," Walker explains. "Nobody's making any money on music anyway. We want to get the music out as much as possible, just give it away. You can pay us when we come out to play."



NOWnet is in the tradition of performing ensembles like Charles Mingus's Jazz Workshop and the old Midwest territory bands: fluid, adventurous, ever-evolving.



Regional showcase


Walker is passionate about keeping it regional. "The artistic concept behind the band is to celebrate and showcase regionalism. New York is its own thing, New Orleans is its own thing, and so are we. We live on the prairies, so a certain spaciousness is called for.

"Scott [Fultz] writes that way. I don't explicitly write that way, but we are products of where we're from. I recently finished an orchestration that brings acoustic guitar into the NOWnet. As Scott said, 'Let's be ourselves. Let's offer something that isn't New York.' " 



The full band (currently nine members) returns later this year, perhaps for the Twin Cities Summer Jazz Festival and again in October. Plans call for two performance series, one with national guest artists and one spotlighting area artists and ensembles. Trumpeter Ron Miles and saxophonist Wessell "Warmdaddy" Anderson are on the guest list. Walker has a personal dream of playing with local legend Irv Williams.



"We're looking at our place in the community as musicians," Walker says "I was profoundly influenced by how central music is to people in New Orleans. Whether the music is good or bad, it's right there and it's central to their community. I think music is very important here and we don't always affirm that as much as we should."

Walker thinks he can do that with jazz? "I believe in jazz, so yeah."



What: The Jazz is NOW! NOWnet

Where: The Minnesota Opera Center, 620 N. First St., Minneapolis (North Loop)

When: 8 p.m. Thursday, March 13

How much: $10 regular admission/$7 students at the door. No presale.

Upcoming picks

Jaleel Shaw Group: Read a preview here. The Artists' Quarter, 9 p.m. Friday, March 7 and Saturday, March 8 ($15).



Woody Witt and the Kelly Rossum Quartet: Stay up late with Texas-based saxophonist Woody Witt, visiting pianist Joe LoCascio, and area stars Rossum (trumpet), Adam Linz (bass) and J.T. Bates (drums). Late Night at the Dakota, 11:30 p.m. Friday, March 7 and Saturday, March 8 ($5).



Minneapolis Trombone Choir 35th Annual Concert: 31 trombones, with help (as if they need it) from euphoniums and tubas. The featured soloist is Douglas Wright, principal trombone of the Minnesota Orchestra. The program is mostly classical and contemporary, with works by Minnesota composers and a little jazz near the end. Judson Church, 7 p.m. Sunday, March 9 ($15 suggested donation; proceeds benefit the Music Fund at Judson Church).

Originally published on MinnPost.com, March 7, 2008