One Mighty Showstopper After Another on the JCA Orchestra’s Latest Live Album

The JCA Orchestra are the Boston counterpart to Miho Hazama’s rotating cast of big band jazz talent, whose home until the lockdown was the Jazz Gallery. But the JCA Orchestra have been championing the work of lesser-known composers since before Hazama was born. These days the Jazz Gallery has been repurposed as a web tv studio – temporarily, let’s hope – and the JCA Orchestra are on ice, at least for the time being. But they have a brilliant, wildly diverse and entertaining new album, Live at the BPC streaming at Spotify..

A couple of extremely colorful compositions by violinist Mimi Rabson open and then close this concert from early October, 2018. The former, Romanople, imagines a Turkish entourage journeying to ancient Rome, only to be drafted into the army and killed in battle. The Strings Theory Trio – Rabson, cellist Junko Fujiwara and violinist Helen Sherrah-Davies – slink along on a cantering Near Eastern theme, turning it over to the brass for a boisterous Balkan dance with a simmering Phil Scharff clarinet solo. The orchestra’s eerie nebulosity as the two themes mingle is deliciously disquieting; Fujiwara’s similarly bracing solo is tantalizingly brief. Everything falls apart, as empires tend to do, a ghost of a melody undulating into the sunset.

The closing number, Super Eyes – Private Heroes is a sort of big band take on Spy vs. Spy-era John Zorn, a bustling swing tune with an incisively bluesy Sherrah-Davies solo over a halfspeed breakdown, trombonist David Harris’ tongue-in-cheek solo triggering an irresistibly funny coda.

The middle of the set is every bit as entertaining. The slow, enigmatic swells that introduce The Latest, the first of two Harris compositions, don’t hint at the electra-glide latin groove that follows, Melanie Howell-Brooks’ crystalline bass clarinet solo over a catchy theme that looks back to McCoy Tyner’s orchestrated 1976 classic, Fly With the Wind. Subtle variations on Thai-influenced pentatonics and a fanged, prowling Norm Zocher guitar solo raise the energy from there.

Harris’ conduction on his other tune here, Yellow, Orange, Blue, blends Butch Morris-style massed clusters and bursts with a catchy, allusively Middle Eastern clave theme, strongly bringing to mind Amir ElSaffar‘s adventures in largescale improvisation. Trombonist Jason Camelio’s invigorating solo as drummer Tony “Thunder” Smith drives this beast doublespeed and then cuts loose himself is one of the album’s tastiest interludes.

Trombonist Bob Pilkington’s epic The Sixth Snake sheds its skin more times than you can count, from suspenseful atmosphere puncuated by Vessela Stoyanova’s vibraphone, to Darcy James Argue-like insistence, to an eerie, spacious Maxim Lubarsky solo piano break. The composer follows with a sagacious solo as the rhythm edges toward a funky sway; Lihi Haruvi’s sailing soprano sax narrowly averts a collision with Scharff and draws an explosion of applause before the funky romp out.

Uneasy microtones filter through the airy introduction of another equally epic number, Darrell Katz’s A Wallflower in the Amazon, a setting of text by his late wife, poet Paula Tatarunis. Soprano Rebecca Shrimpton gives velvety, soaring affirmation to an embattled individualist finally finding her footing in an unexpected milieu, the band reaching from a lustrous sway, to a bubbling waltz, to a tropical duel between the string section and Hiro Honshuko’s EWI. Rick Stone’s agitated alto sax fuels a shivering massed coda; Shrimpton pulls the volume down and the intensity back up to all-stops-out squall. They take it out elegantly.

A richly conceived accomplishment by a group that also includes trumpeters Mike Peipman, Dan Rosenthal and Jerry Sabatini, horn player Jim Mosher, percussionist Gilbert Mansour and bassist Jesse Williams.

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Rapturous, Diverse, Ambitious String Jazz Sounds at Miho Hazama’s Jazz Composition Salon

Over the last fourteen months, composer/pianist Miho Hazama has programmed an ambitious series of concerts at the Jazz Gallery showcasing new works by some of the jazz world’s best big band composers. Thursday night’s program was a pretty radical shift, featuring compositions for string quartet – often bolstered by Hazama’s own piano plus percussion and alto sax – from the books of three imaginative, individualistic up-and-coming tunesmiths. One of them was Hazama herself.

Like the similarly colorful, imagistic Maria Schneider, Hazama is best known as a composer and conductor. This show was a welcome opportunity to catch her flexing her chops on the keys. The night’s opening suite by Nathan Parker Smith had some almost maddenly tricky, punchy rhythms, which she handled seamlessly. Her closing nunber, the simply titled Fugue, from her 2015 Time River album, was more chordally challenging, with a succession of cleverly intertwined voicings from the entire group

The strings – violinists Tomoko Akaboshi and Maria Im, cellist Marta Bagratuni and violist Matt Consul – bristled with uneasy close harmonies, fierce microtones and slashing, incisive, cellular motives alongside Hazama and drummer Lee Fish throughout Smith’s suite. The opening movement came across as something akin to the Sirius Quartet covering Rasputina, and came full circle at the end. In between, there were unexpectedly shimmery, atmospheric passages and cycling interludes closer to indie classical than jazz: of all the pieces on the bill, this was the most acerbic and bracingly acidic.

Ethan Helm played lyrical, kinetic, brightly spiraling alto sax over the strings and drums in his own four-part suite, inspired by his first trip to Amsterdam. In case you might be wondering, there was no reggae involved: these particular memories came across in what some people might consider to be shockingly sharp focus. Echo effects recalling light playing off the canals; a stark tableau inspired by van Gogh’s Yellow House, featuring some especially poignant violin from Im; and a restless, bustling, constantly shifting portrait of the red light district numbered among many highlights.

The most unselfconsciously gorgeous piece on the bill was the New York premiere of Hazama’s Chimera, featuring the full ensemble. True to the title, it was an Escher-like, multifaceted, interlocking web of voices, spiced with biting chromatic descents and a series of false endings. Hazama’s colors, from murky lows to starry highs, often both at once a la Gil Evans, were typical. Watching her play them against each other, whether with fiery vigor or pointillistic elegance, was a revelation..

The next big band event at the Jazz Gallery is August 9-10, with pianist Manuel Valera‘s New Cuban Express featuring Camila Meza on vocals. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 PM; cover is $25.

Miho Hazama Reinvents Thelonious Monk

More about that Big Heart Machine show tonight, Aug 16 at the Jazz Gallery: Miho Hazama is conducting. Of all the major big band jazz artists right now who would be right for the job, Hazama is at the top of the list for this gig (along with Darcy James Argue, who produced the cinematic group’s killer debut album). Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30; cover is cheap by this venue’s standards at $15.

While Hazama’s own music is lush, wildly inventive and among the most exciting large ensemble work being written these days, she’s also in demand as an arranger and conductor. One prime example is The Monk: Live at Bimhuis, her forthcoming live album with the Metropole Orkest Big Band due to be streaming at Sunnyside Records this month. It’s a great opportunity to hear Hazama doing somebody else’s material, having what was obviously a great time in the process.

This is as close to a period piece as you’ll ever hear from her. She clearly gets the quirkiness, creepiness and also the deep blues in Monk’s music, right from the droll, pulsing opening of Thelonious, which seems to offer a nod to the similarly clever Monk interpretations of the Microscopic Septet. The group swing it with a brassy drive,Hans Vrooman getting the impossible task of playing the Monk role, and true to form he keeps things simple and proper. Trumpeter Rik Moi, tenor saxophonist Sjoerd Dijkhuizen and clarinetist Leo Janssen supply purposefully bluesy solos as the orchestra digs in and swings up to a jaunty dixieland crescendo.

Hazama’s charts here are often based on solo Monk piano recordings. Her take on Ruby My Dear begins with lingering, ambered Ellingtonian lustre, Moi contributing terse spirals as the rhythm section kicks in. Hazama’s deft, momentary exchanges of voicings throughout the ensemble are tantalizingly tasty, as is the return back to spare, sober glimmer.

Hazama’s most iconoclastic reinvention here bookends an otherwise gorgeous Friday the 13th with a cha-cha that borders on cartoonish  – not that Monk was necessarily opposed to that. Marc Scholten bubbles and leaps on clarinet, up to a nifty, suspenseful interlude centered around circling riffs by Vroomans and guitarist Peter Teihuis. Moi adds a bittersweet flugelhorn solo over a steady pulsing backdrop

The orchestra have a ball with Hazama’s Jersey noir allusions and contrasting swing blaze in Hackensack. Scholten and Teihuis go spinning through the blues, backed by big swells, brass glissandos and then a wry round robin of dixieland.

Round Midnight opens with a raptly muted moroseness, Moi’s flugelhorn carrying that legendary, brooding bolero riff over Vroomans’ judicious backing. Hazama’s cuisinart chart gives just about everybody a flickering moment in the spotlight as the voices shift like holiday lights about to go haywire.

With Hazama’s latin-inspired polyrhythms, taut close harmonies and blazing intensity, Epistrophy is the album’s big showstopper. Trombonist Louk Boudenstejn takes the long way around the launching pad, while Janssen is more low key, up to a triumphant coda. The night’s final number is a subtle, muted take of Crepuscule With Nellie, both Vroomans and the rest of the group matching Hazama’s terseness and clever polyrhythms.

It’s a triumph for the ensemble, which also includes Paul van der Feen and Max Boeree on saxes and clarinet, Ray Bruinsma, Nico Schepers and Martijn de Laat on trumpets, Jan Oosting, Jan Bastiani and Martin van den Berg on trombones, Aram Kershbergen on bass and Marcel Serierse on drums.

A Colorful, Auspicious Debut Album and a Jazz Gallery Show by the Mighty Big Heart Machine

Big Heart Machine’s debut album – streaming at Bandcamp – is not for curmudgeons. It’s for people who appreciate robust tunesmithing and vivid, lavish arrangements with a sense of humor. That quality is all too often missing in big band jazz, which might explain why two of the heaviest hitters in the field – Darcy James Argue and Miho Hazama – have thrown their weight behind it. Argue produced the record; Hazama will be conducting the 20-piece orchestra at the album release show on Aug 16 at the Jazz Gallery. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 PM; cover is $15, a real bargain at this joint.

Texture-wise, this is a very colorful album, loaded from the top to the bottom of the sonic spectrum like a pastrami sandwich at the old Stage Deli. Bandleader/tenor sax player Brian Krock writes cinematic, shiftingly kinetic music that at its most intense is almost a dead ringer for Argue’s work – it can be as impactful as it is sardonic. ’The opening track, Don’t Analyze opens with Krock’s balmy intro, then polyrhythms kick in with a laid-back sway and plush pulses throughout the ensemble. Variations on a stalking bass melody contrast with sly P-Funk keyboard textures; after a long crescendo, there’s no easy resolution.

The album’s centerpiece is a five-part suite, Tamalpais. The opening segment, Stratus builds high-sky ambience with microtonal understatement over a melody that slowly develops out of the bass. The segue into Deep Ravine comes across like Argue doing the Theme from Shaft. Nick Grinder’s trombone and Yuhan Su’s vibes do a wry dance over John Hollenbeck-esque pointillisms. Staggered motorik beats emerge from a haze, capped off by Olli Hirvonen’s shrieking guitar; flittingly amusing faux-dixieland gives way to battlefield guitar mist..

The somber piano/trumpet duet between Arcoiris Sandoval and Kenny Warren that introduces Stinson Beach brings to mind the muted angst of the conclusion of Argue’s Brooklyn Babylon, rising with jaunty swirls and pulses as the sun emerges over the Bay Area. And yet, a grim memory persists as Krock bobs and weaves, dark and bluesy, over the orchestra’s heavy resonance.

Gingerly tiptoeing vibes pair off against low brass foreshadowing as Dipsea Steps gets underway. The way the pairings shift afterward, from trumpet against guitar power chords, to neooromantic piano and vibes, up to where wary tenor sax and the orchestra coalesce, is as much fun as it is a clinic in clever composition

The suite comes full circle (a device Krock excels at) with Cirrus. Is this not as high as the intro? Sort of. Wistfully energetic muted trumpet spins over a resonant backdrop of guitar, Dr. Dre synth and orchestration throughout what’s essentially a tone poem.

There are two more stand-alone tracks. Jelly Cat emerges from wispiness to emphatic bursts of close harmonies and a spare interlude for trombone against the highs. The clarinet’s descent from the clouds is one of the album’s high points, up to a boisteously funky ending. 

The epic closing number, Mighty Purty begins with peekaboo voices, shifts to allusions to trad 50s ebullience, a return to bittersweet piano and trumpet and a long upward climb. A gritty interweave of trombone, tenor and eventually the rest of the horns take it skyward over a heavy Pink Floyd sway. This is the frontrunner for best jazz debut album of 2018. Who would have thought that Krock’s roots are as a metal guitarist tirelessly copying Dimebag solos? 

Lush, Lavishly Ambitious Big Band Jazz With Miho Hazama & M-Unit at Lincoln Center

Pianist/organist/conductor Miho Hazama writes big, blustery, fearlessly energetic big band jazz themes. Her music is cosmopolitan in every sense of the word: sophisticated, individualistic and innovative. There’s no one in the world who sounds like her. She loves dynamics – despite the heft of her compositions, half the time only half of her band, or even smaller subsets of the group, are playing. She loves bright, catchy hooks, and her material is obviously a ton of fun to play: a good percentage of New York’s top big band jazz talent comprise her epic large ensemble M-Unit. They have a gig at Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Jan 25, with sets at 7:30 and 9:30 PM. Cover is pricy, $30, but this group is worth it. It’s good to see such an interesting band getting a chance to play to a more or less captive audience.

It was a lot of fun to catch the group playing one of the series of midday shows at another midtown spot, at St. Peter’s Church on the east side, back in August. Coventional wisdom is that musicians don’t really wake up til the sun goes down, but the group was a the top of their game despite the relatively early hour. Their first number, Mr. O opened with momentary pageantry from the strings, then quickly gave way to a clustering piano theme beefed up by the ensemble, then down to a bustling, bouncing alto sax solo over the rhythm section. Hazama’s chart gave the group a chance to have fun throwing big, bright splashes of color against the sonic canvas, piano adding a solo that rose to breathless, towering heights. A yakuza gangster undercurrent added devious suspense.

They followed with an enigmatic piano theme over a syncopated clave beat, vibraphone carrying the melody over a lustrous backdrop with hints of both Russian Romanticism and cheery 70s Philly soul, hitting another suspensefully rippling piano-and-rhythm-section interlude before the piece rose again. Like her colleagues Darcy James Argue and John Hollenbeck, Hazama loves unorthox pairings of instruments: this one featured bass clarinet in tandem with violin.

The string quartet opened the number after that, then backed as a moody flugelhorn solo quickly turned into a clever Rodgers and Hart quote. As the strings rose toward the end, a sense of melancholy and longing developed, increasing as the music dipped to the strings and piano. That’s typical of how counterintitively Hazama works.

Maybe predictably, Hazama’s earliest composition on the bill followed the set’s most trad, swinging trajectory. The most ambitious was the title track to her lavishly brilliant 2012 debut album Journey to Journey, anchored by a tensely circling piano riff while individual voices shifted in innumerable directions, an uneasily dancing alto sax solo in the center of it all. The group dipped to a charming, balletesque exchange of pizzicato strings, then rose to a vintage 70s soul riff and an explosive outro.

There was plenty of other material on the program, but that’s where the recorder ran out of juice. And it was hard to hear the band intros to keep track of who was playing what in the boomy church basement space. That won’t be a problem in the plush sonics at Lincoln Center.