Reid Anderson prepares a 'high risk' project

Reid Anderson by Cristina Guadalupe

Originally published in the Minneapolis StarTribune
June 20, 2013

Reid Anderson, the Twin Cities-bred bassist of the jazz trio the Bad Plus, will appear twice this week in St. Paul, but he won’t be playing bass, jazz or with the Bad Plus. He’ll perform music no one has heard, in concerts that almost didn’t happen.

Anderson’s “The Rough Mixes” is an evening-length work for chamber ensemble, electronics and video, featuring musicians of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Originally set last December as part of the SPCO’s Liquid Music series, the world premiere was rescheduled because of the orchestra’s lockout, with fingers crossed that the labor dispute would be over by the end of the 2012-13 season.

The gamble paid off, and Anderson had a few extra months to work on what he calls his “high-risk” project.

“As we speak, I’m madly trying to whirl this thing into being and into shape,” he said earlier this month from his home in Brooklyn.

Electronic music is Anderson’s “other life” outside the Bad Plus, his in-demand band with Twin Cities drummer Dave King and New York pianist Ethan Iverson that spends much of each year touring.

“I love the potential of what you can do with those kinds of sounds,” he said. “It’s still such new territory, and it’s something I find myself turning to when I choose to engage in music these days.”

The Copes connection

For “The Rough Mixes,” Anderson will be joined by SPCO violinists Steven Copes and Sunmi Chang, Minnesota Orchestra cellist Anthony Ross and percussionist Jeff Ballard, a member of pianist Brad Mehldau’s jazz trio. Brooklyn-based architect Cristina Guadalupe created the video and will be there to control it live.

“The video will be quite minimal and abstract,” Anderson said. “I wanted the piece to be an immersive experience.”

Copes, the SPCO’s concertmaster, met Anderson when they were students at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. They took different paths but have stayed in touch. It was Copes who first suggested to Kate Nordstrum, Liquid Music’s curator, that she contact Anderson.

“He had this intense classical training, and he’s just a very smart guy,” Copes said. “I knew he would do something interesting.”

Anderson is responsible for some of the Bad Plus’ most memorable tunes, including the achingly beautiful “Prehensile Dream” and “Silence Is the Question,” music full of classically Romantic longing.

Liquid Music is all about bending genres and crossing boundaries, so when he told Nordstrum, “I want to do something with electronic music and strings and video, I’ve never done it before, I don’t know how to do it, but that’s what I’d like to do,” she said, “That sounds like a great idea.”

“Kate’s my hero,” he said. “When someone places that kind of trust in you, it’s a big responsibility, and a big gift.”

Nordstrum said she took her cue from Copes: “Steve is a traditional classical musician, but he really respects Reid and thought a project with him would be cool. Reid’s work as a composer made Steve believe that he could write well for a chamber ensemble. ... The heart of ‘The Rough Mixes’ is a collaboration between Reid and Steve.”

Ballard’s involvement also traces back to Copes.

“It wasn’t my initial intention to have drums,” Anderson said, “but Steve mentioned that [the SPCO musicians] really enjoyed playing with Jeff on the ‘Highway Rider’ project,” a work by Mehldau for jazz ensemble and chamber orchestra that had its world premiere with the SPCO in 2010.

Copes recalled, “We were all hypnotized by Ballard.”

When worlds collide

Projects that mix jazz and classical musicians can be challenging. Jazz musicians improvise; most classical musicians don’t. Often, the classical musicians end up with too little to do while the jazz musicians go on too long — at least, for those who have come to hear the classical musicians.

“This is not an uncommon experience when these worlds collide,” Anderson said. “I’m trying to strike a balance. One of my concerns is that the strings sound great and get to play at the level that they deserve to be. ... I’m trying to make music that shines a light on everybody. That is the central consideration.

“Fundamentally, I’m a very practical composer. I like my music to be playable. I like people to feel they don’t have to make some big conceptual stretch to understand what’s happening and get fulfillment from playing the music. The core aesthetic hurdle might be that this music involves a certain amount of not listening to everybody.”

What can the audience expect? Those who have only seen Anderson with his big double bass — meaning anyone who has seen him before — will be surprised by what he brings to the SPCO Center.

“I’ll be on stage controlling various synthesizers and samplers and directing traffic,” he explained. “I will be an instrumentalist like everyone else, just playing the computer.”

Have a little faith.
“My music is very melodic,” he said. “I believe in melody.”

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THE ROUGH MIXES

What: World premiere of composition by Reid Anderson, performed by Anderson, Steven Copes, Sunmi Chang, Anthony Ross and Jeff Ballard, with video by Cristina Guadalupe.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Wed.

Where: The Music Room at SPCO Center, 408 St. Peter St., third "oor, St. Paul.

Tickets: $10 adults, $5 children. TheSPCO.org or 651-291-1144.

'Catch Them While You Can': An evening of mixed emotions with musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra

Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A Major, L to R:
Erin Keefe, Gina DiBello, Anthony Ross,
Tom Turner, Burt Hara

Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra gave a beautiful concert Friday night at St. John’s Episcopal Church, a neighborhood church in south Minneapolis. Not all of them were there; not all of them would have fit. The fourteen who came played an evening of chamber music titled "Catch Them While You Can," in honor of four who are leaving soon for jobs elsewhere.

They were there to raise money, because they have been locked out for eight months (the entire 2012-13 season) with no salary or benefits; to stay connected with their audience, which that night included their great benefactor Judy Dayton; to say their own public farewell to the four departing musicians; to give us a chance to hear them play together for the last time; and for the sheer joy of playing together before an audience. If the last reason sounds strange under the circumstances, you didn’t see principal cello Tony Ross’s face as he and concertmaster Erin Keefe exchanged glances, or when Burt Hara turned an especially delicate phrase on his clarinet. Ross has always seemed like a serious man, and lately like a frustrated and angry man, but for brief moments that night, he looked genuinely happy.

Ross, who isn’t leaving (yet, as far as we know), and Hara, who is (for the Los Angeles Symphony), are members of St. John’s Episcopal, and before the concert began, we heard from another member that “Tony and the gang” had helped raise a lot of money for the church’s outreach efforts, including Habitat for Humanity. Hosting this concert was “our chance to pay them back.”

Brandenburg #6: Tom Turner, Richard Marshall,
Layton James, Arek Tesarcyzk, Kathryn Nettleman,
Beth Rapier, Pitnarry Shin

We heard Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #6, a proud and elegant work for strings and continuo. “We like to call that piece the viola Brandenburg,” Ross told us after. He served as host for the evening. Principal viola Tom Turner, one of the seven musicians who performed the concerto, has taken a position with the San Diego Symphony. Cellist Pitnarry Shin will join her husband, Kyu-Young Kim, in New York. Kim was principal second violin for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; he found another job during that orchestra’s lockout, which ended just in time to salvage the final concerts of their season. On harpsichord: Layton “Skip” James, who retired in 2009 after 40 years as principal keyboard with the SPCO. The Minnesota Orchestra has an endowed chair for a principal keyboard, but there’s no one in it.

The Mellits, L to R: Gina DeBello, Jonathan Magness,
Katya Linfield, Sam Bergman

The Brandenburg was followed by a piece that was new to most people in the room, including the musicians. They wanted to play something spicy, and principal second violin Gina DeBello, who has accepted a position with the first violin section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, suggested String Quartet No. 3: “Tapas,” by Chicago composer Marc Mellits. “We decided to play it because we had a group who could do it,” Ross explained. They learned its eight short movements, “small plates,” in two weeks.

“Tapas” looked and sounded like a workout for the musicians – not unmusical, but challenging and contemporary. It wasn’t something we usually hear from the Minnesota Orchestra.

After the intermission and before the closing piece, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A Major, Ross gave the talk that has become a regular part of the musicians’ concerts since the lockout began. When violist Sam Bergman gives the talk, he breathes fire. Ross is more than capable of burning down the house, but this night’s talk was more sad than angry.

He began by thanking the crowd. “Your support has buoyed us in this tragic year … Our silver lining is you. None of our board or management have attended any of our concerts [since the lockout] and seen your passion … We’re down to 73 musicians [from 98]. In every year, there are three or four auditions; being down to 73 is not normal … This orchestra is our family. The most painful moments have come when people leave … The fabric of our orchestra is unraveling at an alarming pace.” He spoke briefly about the work we were about to hear, and about Burt Hara: “Nobody can resist his tone who has a heart.”

And then they played the Mozart: Hara, concertmaster Erin Keefe, DiBello, Ross, and Turner. The one good thing about the lockout – and I write this as someone who sat in a pew – is the chance to hear these exceptional musicians in different settings and configurations. In this small, intimate church with its peaked wood ceiling (and very attentive crowd), we could hear everything: fingers on strings, the resonance of the fine instruments that professional musicians play (when they can afford them, which might not be for long), Hara’s warm, human breath in his clarinet. We should remember that before professional orchestras and public concert halls, the only people who ever heard highly trained and skilled musicians play such instruments were kings, emperors, and popes. 

The Mozart was exquisite. Following a standing ovation that wouldn’t stop, the musicians returned for an encore – a selection from the Larghetto, a movement so universally touching that it is played at both weddings and funerals. It was the perfect ending to an evening of mixed emotions. Joy in the music, sorrow in losing four more musicians to a lockout that seems endless.

__________

At the reception: Tom Turner (L)

Judy Dayton, Cy DeCosse

Pitnarry Shin, Erin Keefe

Pitnarry Shin, Burt Hara

St. John's Episcopal Church

__________ 

A note about the photos

Tony Ross, whom we met at the check-in desk, allowed photos but cautioned John: no shutter noise, no flash. This would be a subtle, up-close-and-personal sort of concert. The layout of the church, the compact size of the chancel, and the size of the crowd prevented use of the "foot zoom." So John recorded much of the evening on his camera's video, then viewed countless frames to find those that would make good stills. The photos from the reception were taken as usual.

Ritesizing Stravinsky

The Joffrey Ballet dancing "The Rite of Spring"

I love Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” The high opening notes on the solo bassoon and the initial bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-BUMP-bump thrill me every time. My CD of choice is the CBS Records Masterworks “Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky,” with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, recorded in NYC in 1960.

I heard The Rite live in 2011 under Sarah Hicks' baton, performed by the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra, back when they weren't locked out. In February of this year, the Joffrey Ballet came to Minneapolis to dance a reconstruction of the original 1913 performance, wearing the original wild and crazy costumes. Mark Russell Smith led the University of Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, which overflowed the pit into the side aisles of the Orpheum Theater.

As wonderful as the full orchestra can sound, I’m especially fascinated by pared-down versions of The Rite. My first was arranged and performed by The Bad Plus. Co-commissioned by Duke Performances and New York’s Lincoln Center, “On Sacred Ground: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring” had its world premiere at Duke University in Durham, NC in March 2011 before coming to Minneapolis in May.

The Bad Plus by Cameron Wittig

The Bad Plus is a jazz trio: Ethan Iverson on piano, Reid Anderson on bass, Dave King on drums. How could they take a score written for more than 100 instruments, including some unusual ones – alto flute, Wagner tuba, bass trumpet, crotales (antique cymbals), and guiro (notched hollow gourd) – and make it playable by three? Iverson told me in an interview, “Sometimes I wish I had an extra arm or two.” By now, after playing The Rite live on several occasions around the world, he has probably grown one.

You can hear the original Duke performance at Josh Jackson’s website The Checkout. Or listen on YouTube (and ignore the misspelling “On Scared Ground”). The Rite is still there, the familiar notes and phrases, and also present is the trio’s own ensemble sound, style, way of playing, aesthetic, attitude, musicality, and everything else that makes them identifiably and indelibly The Bad Plus. I hope they record it someday. Iverson says they will.

Stravinsky himself scored The Rite for piano-four-hands. In 2010, pianist Serhiy Salov recorded a virtuosic solo performance of his own transcription, called “The Sacred Spring of Slavs,” for the Canadian label Analekta. Iverson considers it “one of the major classical piano releases of this century,” then confesses, “I have no idea how Salov achieves his more bewildering effects – maybe he has another couple of arms?” I can't tell one effect from another, but when I listen to this, I can't believe I'm hearing one pianist on one piano. It's immense, intense, earth-shaking and immersive. Seriously, buy this.

In 2012, Darryl Brenzel released “The Re(w)rite of Spring,” arranged and orchestrated for big band, on Innova, the label of the American Composers Forum. It has about as much brass as Stravinsky intended, but not a single string. And it swings. On first listen, I wasn’t sure what I thought. It sounds so different. Much more civilized. I can't imagine anyone dancing herself to death to this music. With only three instruments, The Bad Plus comes closer to the original sound. Brenzel turns Stravinsky’s orchestral score into a real big-band arrangement, complete with backdrops for solos. I gave it another chance. It’s courageous, and it works. I don’t always hear Stravinsky in it, but I do hear some satisfying big band music. The final track gets down and gets funky.

Imani Winds by Matthew Murphy

Earlier this week EMI made available a digital-only version of The Rite performed by Imani Winds, the Grammy-nominated wind quintet of Valerie Coleman (flute), Toyin Spellman-Diaz (oboe), Mariam Adam (clarinet), Jeff Scott (French horn), and Monica Ellis (bassoon). Last week, the group performed Jonathan Russell’s arrangement as a Tiny Desk Concert on NPR.

You can watch a video and download the audio here. NPR Music called it “an epic in miniature,” but there’s nothing miniature about it, except it's not complete. It's full and convincing and also intimate. The orchestral version envelops, lifts and sometimes buries you. This is chamber Stravinsky. Personal Stravinsky. Stravinsky with family and a few close friends.

In honor of Igor’s 100th, Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill dedicated its 2012-13 season to examining The Rite’s legacy as a modern masterpiece. Twelve new works inspired by and related to The Rite were presented, including “Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi,” a pairing of film and music by pianist/composer Vijay Iyer and filmmaker Prashant Bhargava. The music was performed by Iyer and members of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). You can hear the complete performance at NPR and see excerpts from the film. It's Iyer channeling/interpreting Stravinsky against a backdrop of a huge festival in India. Thrilling.

Tell me about other versions and adaptations of The Rite and I’ll check them out.

______

Related

Stravinsky's grave
on Isola di San Michele, Venice
(my photo)

“100 Years After the Riot, The ‘Rite’ Remains” (NPR, May 29, 2013)

"Why Jazz Musicians Love The Rite of Spring" and "Rites of Swing: Jazz and Stravinsky." NPR's Patrick Jarenwattananon unpacks the connections between jazz and The Rite.

The Rite of Spring at One Hundred, a website devoted to “The Rite of Spring” on its 100th anniversary. See the “Reflections on the Rite” blog, esp. Ethan Iverson’s post.

The Rite of Spring with animated graphical score. Fantastic. And here's Part 2.

Getting ready for The Rite

Jazz renegades The Bad Plus tackle Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” OR

Stravinsky gets the Bad Plus treatment

More from the Ethan Iverson interview

The Bad Plus Play Stravinsky: A concert review in seven movements

Blue Note partners with Artistshare

I hope this turns out to be as smart as it sounds.

Wondering if Maria Schneider will be "upstreamed" to the Blue Note label?

From the ArtistShare Insider News email newsletter:

BLUE NOTE RECORDS TO PARTNER WITH ARTISTSHARE TO CREATE BLUE NOTE/ARTISTSHARE 

A GROUNDBREAKING HYBRID CROWDFUNDING/RECORD LABEL MODEL 

DEDICATED TO NURTURING NEW JAZZ TALENT

The legendary jazz label Blue Note Records, historic home to such greats as Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Art Blakey and Herbie Hancock, and current home to artists such as Wayne Shorter, Terence Blanchard, Joe Lovano, Jason Moran, José James and Norah Jones, has joined forces with the pioneer of crowdfunding, ArtistShare, to create a groundbreaking new partnership: Blue Note/ArtistShare. 

In recent years Blue Note has launched the careers of young jazz stars such as Robert Glasper, Lionel Loueke, and Ambrose Akinmusire, and continues to release cutting-edge music from new talent such as bassist Derrick Hodge, whose debut album as a leader will come out this summer. The new joint label Blue Note/ArtistShare provides an additional channel for Blue Note to help nurture and promote up-and-coming young jazz artists, while creating a platform that offers a unique opportunity for fans to become directly involved with the creation of new music by tomorrow's jazz stars. 

"Young artists worldwide are making fresh musical statements left and right, but are forced to do their own marketing campaigns, too, often when their main focus should be their creative output," says Bruce Lundvall, Chairman Emeritus of Blue Note Records. "ArtistShare founder Brian Camelio is a true visionary. I see the ArtistShare business model as a key component of the future music business." 

The Blue Note /ArtistShare collaboration was forged by Camelio, Lundvall, and Don Was, President of Blue Note Records. Under the arrangement, Blue Note will be involved in the selection of artists, and will lend its iconic logo and promotional support to the finished album, along with the potential to upstream the artist to the official Blue Note Records roster for future releases. Blue Note/ArtistShare will allow the artist full ownership of master recordings, and will reach out directly to ArtistShare's community of fans to offer a unique experience where the physical copy/digital download of an album is not necessarily the end product. Rather, the intimate relationship and insight into the creative process become valuable intangibles that cannot be acquired elsewhere. 

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ArtistShare, first launched in 2003 as the Internet's first fan funding platform, is an innovative design that connects fans with artists in order to share the creative process and fund the creation of new works. ArtistShare shifts the focus of value to the creative process. The artist/creator is compensated prior to the release, which decreases chances of revenue loss, and assists artists to produce bolder musical statements. Fans show appreciation for their favorite artists by funding their projects and are granted exclusive access to the artist's creative process. Notable ArtistShare artists include composer Maria Schneider, jazz guitar legend Jim Hall, The Clayton Brothers, pianist Danilo Perez and saxophonist Chris Potter. ArtistShare projects have received numerous awards and accolades including 6 GRAMMY Awards and 18 GRAMMY nominations. 

Blue Note Records was founded in 1939 by two jazz-loving German immigrants on the run from Nazism (Alfred Lion & Francis Wolff), but it took the joining of many natural forces to truly create and define one of the world's greatest Jazz labels, including a New Jersey optometrist moonlighting as a recording engineer (Rudy Van Gelder), a classical music-loving commercial designer (Reid Miles), and some of the most incredible musicians that have ever walked the earth. The elements that each brought to the table—impeccable A&R instincts, elegant and insightful photography, sterling sound quality, strikingly original cover artwork, and consistently transcendent music—were all essential to the label's early success. Together they created a vivid Blue Note identity. The whole could not have existed without each of the parts. Blue Note's legendary catalog traces the entire history of the music from Hot Jazz, Boogie Woogie, and Swing, through Bebop, Hard Bop, Post Bop, Soul Jazz, Avant-Garde, and Fusion, and into the music's countless streams today. After a brief dormancy from 1981-1984, Blue Note returned reinvigorated by the leadership of Bruce Lundvall and has since established itself as the most respected jazz label in the world. In 2011, veteran record producer and musician Don Was joined Blue Note as Chief Creative Officer and soon became President of the label with Lundvall continuing to provide guidance as Chairman Emeritus. With Was at the helm, Blue Note has renewed its dedication to Lion's original vision that "any particular style of playing which represents an authentic way of musical feeling is genuine expression." In the 21st century Lion's words still ring true and provide a blueprint that continues to guide the label into the future. Blue Note Records is part of the Capitol Music Group, a subsidiary of the Universal Music Group.