An Artful, Ambitious, Optimistic Album From Bassist Adi Meyerson

One of the most ambitious jazz releases of the past several months is bassist Adi Meyerson‘s album I Want to Sing My Heart Out in Praise of Life, streaming at Bandcamp. It’s a six-part suite based on the colorful, molecularly inspired art of Yayoi Kusama. Meyerson, who has synesthesia, experienced a burst of inspiration when she first discovered Kusama’s work, not only in terms of melodic ideas, but from the artist’s concept of creating a utopian space where everyone is welcome.

The opening prelude sets the stage, with Meyerson’s stark bowing, flickering, circling harmonics and the mystical vocals of Sabeth Perez and Camille Thurman building an Indian-inspired sonic womb behind spoken word artist Eden Girma’s benediction. She speaks of dark moments, wreckage and sacrificial lambs, but also finding peace and redemption. That we all may be so lucky.

A spare, lithe bass groove alternates with airy lushness in Kabocha – Japanese for “pumpkin” -whose raw materials are based on a sample of Kusama reading her poem On Pumpkins. Lucas Pino’s bass clarinet, Marquis Hill’s trumpet, Anne Drummond’s flute and Sam Towse’s spare electronic keys float in en masse, then diverge animatedly, drummer Kush Abadey subtly building percolating funk under Drummond’s triumphant solo.

Follow the Red Dot has a lickety-split, vaudevillian swing drive emerging from a brief conversation between Hill and Pino, hints of New Orleans, a febrile but spacious trumpet solo and a spare, fragmentary piano solo. Meyerson draws on a wry, controversial 1965 Kusama installation which is essentially a gently cartoonish precursor to an infamous H.R. Giger work. DKs fans, you know it!

Thurman moves to the mic for Caged Bird, quoting from both Maya Angelou and Angela Davis before launching into Meyerson’s playful, optimistic, metaphorically loaded lyric, the band pulsing and bouncing behind her. With lively solos from Drummond and Pino’s clarinet, it could be an Alice Lee tune with a beefier backdrop and more syncopation.

Infinity, the album’s big epic, draws on Kusama’s dizzying Infinity Mirror Rooms. The theme is self-examination, Meyerson taking her time launching into a cheery solo dance to introduce Perez’s lustrously atmospheric vocalese, giving way to a sparkling piano solo as Abadey inserts deft polyrhythms. Hill’s victoriously flaring solo and Towse’s incisive chords wind it down elegantly.

The album’s final cut is the title track, a reverent, spacious piano ballad with Thurman on vocals, “For those who seek a better place.” Meyerson definitely feels our pain! Her next free-state gig is on April 1 at half past noon at the Gene Harris Jazz Festival in Boise, Idaho. And Pino has an upcoming gig at Smalls – where there are no restrictions – on March 23, with sets by his eclectic, dynamic No No Nonet at 7:30 and 9 PM. Cover is $25 cash at the door.

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The All-Female NYChillharmonic Raises the Bar For Epic Big Band Grandeur

Finding eighteen musicians capable of doing justice to singer/keyboardist Sara McDonald’s kinetic, stormy, intricately epic compositions is an achievement all by itself. Finding a night when they’re all available for a show in Gowanus raises that challenge exponentially. Now imagine leading that band on a broken foot.

That’s what McDonald had to contend with fronting her ensemble the NYChillharmonic back in May at Littlefield. Visibly in pain and steaming that she had to be helped onstage, she rallied and transcended the situation, singing with greater purr and wail than ever as the music rose and fell and turned kaleidoscopically behind her. Adrenaline can do that to you. She’s presumably in better shape now, and will be leading the group at Brooklyn’s best-sounding venue, National Sawdust, on Aug 2 at 7 PM. Advance tix are $20.

Unlike typical big band jazz, this unit is not a vehicle for long solos. Throughout the night, those moments tended to be cameos, an instrumentalst backed by just the rhythm section – Madgalena Abrego’s incisive guitar, Danae Greenfield’s spare piano, Adi Meyerson’s spring-loaded bass and Mareike Weining’s tersely inventive drumming. While much of the rhythm followed a slinky, swaying 4/4, sudden flares would erupt when least expected, sending the tempo and often the melody every which way. Occasionally these would take the form of clever, false endings McDonald loves so much.

The Radiohead influence that was so pervasive in McDonald’s earlier work is still there, intricately voiced, looping phrases and permutations filtering through every section of the orchestra. Yet throughout the set, from the tight sunburst pulses of Surface Tension through the mighty, cinematic closing number, Easy Comes the Ghost, the harmonies remained vastly more translucent than opaque. McDonald reached back for extra power in the gusting, crescendoing Blumen, in contrast with the smoldering lustre that peppered To Covet a Quiet Mind. With jazz inventiveness and spontaneity but also rock drive and raw power, McDonald’s music is its own genre.

McDonald didn’t address the issue that this was an all-female edition of the band until late in the set. “They’re great musicians,” she said, nonchalant and succinct, and left it at that. The lineup was a mix of established artists – notably Jenny Hill on tenor sax, Rachel Therrien on trumpet and Kaila Vandever on trombone – and rising star talent. The rest of the group, clearly amped to be playing this material, included Alden Hellmuth and Erena Terakubo  on alto sax, Emily Pecoraro on tenor and Mercedes Beckman on baritone with Leah Garber, Rebecca Steinberg and Kathleen Doran on trumpets; Nicole Connelly and Erin Reifler on trombones; Gina Benalcazar on bass trombone; and a string quartet comprising violinists Audrey Hayes and Kiho Yutaka, violist Dora Kim and cellist Jillian Blythe.

And a big shout-out to the sound guy. The latest Littlefield space is nothing like the old one: it’s a barewalled rock club, about the same size as the Footlight. Miking so many instruments with highs bouncing all over the place was a daunting task to say the least. That the guy managed to give the group as much clarity as he did was impressive all by itself, let alone without all sorts of nasty feedback. In the pristine sonics at National Sawdust next Thursday that won’t be an issue.

An Ambitious, Spontaneously Fun New Instrumental Album by Champian Fulton

In any style of music, singers who are also formidable instrumentalists are rare. In jazz, that usually boils down to players who can carry a tune – Frank Lacy and  Wycliffe Gordon, for starters- rather than vocalists with instrumental prowess. By any standard, Diana Krall is a strong pianist; Karrin Allyson is vastly underrated on the 88s, and Alicyn Yaffee is a fantastic guitar player. Then there’s Champian Fulton, who’s even more ambitious. Her latest album, wryly titled Speechless, has no vocals on it. It’ll be up at Posi-Tone Records; bookmark this page and check back for a link.

Although Fulton is best known as a singer with deep, blues-informed roots and a fondness for reinventing Dinah Washington classics, this daring move pays off, through a mix of originals and a coyly dynamic take of Someone Stole My Gal. She’s leading a trio at Mezzrow on March 7 at 8 PM, which no doubt will be a mix of instrumental and vocal numbers. Cover is $20.

This is jazz as party music and entertainment: it’s anything but rote or slick. There’s a jubiliant, fearlessly improvisational quality to these songs. Fulton obviously approached this album as she would a live gig, throwing caution to the wind and having an exuberantly good time with it.

Fulton plays and writes with a singer’s nuance. In the New York  City Jazz Record, Scott Yanow compared the album’s opening number, Day’s End, to Errol Garner, and that’s on the money: one of Fulton’s signature devices is winding up a phrase or a turnaround with a trill or grace note-like lightness, just as she’ll pull back from the mic to lure the listener in. She also does that a lot with rhythm: throughout the album, bassist Adi Meyerson and drummer Ben Zweig anchor the swing while Fulton carves out a comfortable envelope for lyrical expression.

Lullaby for Art, an Art Blakey homage, is both a showcase for Fulton’s sublty ironic humor – it’s hardly a lullaby – and also for her scampering but spacious hi-de-ho swing chops. The ballad Dark Blue, based on the changes to Woody ’n’ You, is more tenderly dark: the way she essentially scats her way through the final verse on the keys, encompassing a century’s worth of stylistic devices, is the high point of the album.

Tea and Tangerines is a wryly waltzing mashup of Tea for Two and Tangerine, Later Gator, a shout-out to Fulton’s longtime pal Lou Donaldson, follows a loose-limbed soul-jazz tangent, spiced with Zweig’s tersely exuberant syncopation. Pergola is a peacefully lyrical Shelter Island vacation tableau, Fulton’s lingering upper-register chords paired against Meyerson’s dancing bass. Then the two switch roles.

Fulton cites Horace Silver as a stepping-off point for Happy Camper, the album’s most hard-charging number; Dizzy Gillespie in bracingly latin mode also seems to be an influence. That’s Not Your Donut – #BestSongTitleEver, or what? – returns to the jaunty charm of the album’s opening track. Fulton winds up with Carondeleto’s, a salute to her important early influence, Clark Terry and his Missouri hometown. It’s a bustling, rapidfire swing shuffle that’s the closest thing to hardbop here.