Thursday, May 31, 2018

sextet: organix trio + heart of the ghost. creative alliance, baltimore 5/18/18


two saxophones
communicating
strange new
species of bird
emerging
from behind mountain
sandstone cathedrals
to ascend above
the clouds
and speak
the heart language
one to the other–
playful and forlorn

two basses
and two drum kits
descend into
low pacific depths
where they whale sing
basses with bows
and drums coaxing
high voiced calls
from cymbal
swirl manipulations

birds and whales
heights and depths
a sextet tracing
the outlines of forms
hidden within
this combustible world






Tuesday, May 29, 2018

organix trio: creative alliance, baltimore 5/18/18


bass knows to return
to the tonic 
he comes back to it
as though his lines
are magnetized
flying through the air
in a spinning
diving return
like a dragonfly
above a pond

drummer accelerates
each hit
picking up force
causing the bass
to alter now
into a five-note
metal and wood figure
then bass lets
the drummer
go solo

each rhythmic phrase
sketched by the sticks 
divides and subdivides
like zeno’s arrow
forever moving toward
its mark
and forever
breaking into fractions of
the original beat

he loses a drumstick
bandleader jamaal
hands it back to him
drummer pops and cracks
more lightning
on the kit and stops
the song over
he removes his hat
wipes the sweat
from his forehead


Photo by Dan Hanrahan

Friday, May 25, 2018

heart of the ghost: creative alliance, baltimore 5/18/18

emerging from silence
the bass begins 
a dark blessing
curving low
responded to
by speaking drums
cymbals breaking air molecules
into wobbling spinning discs
then enters the saxophone
the player shoeless
he completes the triangle
with flutter ascension riffs
and hello punctuations
phrases that pose questions
only you can identify
the music has gone from
sound-gap-silence-sound
to a flowing river
the fish finning below
trace the story
told by the
saxophone
bass
and
drums


















Photo by Dan Hanrahan



Tuesday, November 22, 2016

another parker

what if there were
another parker
called shirley or joe
who also traced
harmonic scaffoldings
on top of show tunes
at terrifying velocity
only s/he was
even more reticent
couldn’t play outside
his/her rented room
attended five spot gigs
by dizzy and kenny clarke
clocked their sonic soaring
in her/his mind files
elaborated on these
in the rented room
or off the stern
of the staten island ferry
notes issued
at the speed
of racing
high birds
who heard him or her
below
another sister/brother
of them

for Ricardo Aleixo



Friday, March 25, 2016

Secrets of Great Communications and Great Combustions: The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble at An die Musik

(This essay appears in the April 2016 edition of the Baltimore Jazz Alliance Newsletter)

“I would rediscover the secrets of great communications and great combustions. I would say storm. I would say river. I would say tornado. I would say leaf. I would say tree. I would be drenched by all rains, moistened by all dews.”
-- Aimé Césaire, tr. Clayton Eshelman and Annette Smith

Four notes. The concert began in a ritualized fashion, with bandleader Kahil El’Zabar seated centerstage behind a trap kit and coaxing two different tones from the tom toms with a pair of soft headed mallets: bim-bim bom bom. The tones issued forth as breaths and announced that the ceremony could begin. Indeed, the performance by the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble on February 26 at An die Musik in Baltimore was an experience more akin to a ritual or ceremony than it was a typical concert or show. The unlikely trio of drums/percussion, trombone and baritone saxophone played three extended pieces which could be said to correspond to stages of invocation/visitation/deliverance.

The above quote by Martiniquean poet Aimé Césaire from his Notebook of a Return to the Native Land expresses well the different elements of the performance – the audience experienced the soothing of dewdrops and the jarring rumbles of a mighty storm.  Onto El’Zabar’s  understated drum pattern opening the concert came sounds from Craig Harris’ trombone. Only, in keeping with the feeling of invocation, Harris did not play voiced tones, but rather let us hear his breath entering into the instrument and touching off infinite microtones. This gesture caused the audience to listen and to concentrate with the group. Baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett entered in a similarly contemplative and evocative manner and the trio went on to build the piece, using the full range and capacity of their instruments, testing the limits of them using strategically employed extended techniques. This piece evolved into something fast and fluid,  with each of the players listening intently and then building upon the others’ phrases.

With the invocation of the ceremony realized, the trio could now alter its arrangement slightly to proceed with the next act of the ceremony. Bandleader El’Zabar came out from behind the trap kit and picked up a large kalimba which hung on a collar around his neck. He commenced to play a solo on the instrument, vocalizing and adding percussion with a shaker that was wrapped around his ankle. These were violet tinged phrases. Evoking the distant outposts of the journey, Harris even brought forth the call of an elephant out of his trombone. Bluiett masterfully punctuated this scene with low blues lines on the baritone. This was a piece that rose skyward and did, indeed, conjure added presence into the room.

For the final piece, El'Zabar played a rolling beat while sitting atop the cajón and vocalizing deeply and powerfully. The other members of the trio came in and before long were playing the head to “Cherokee” by Ray Noble, the song which Charlie Parker famously transformed into the opening statement of the bebop era. The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble did not play a bebop rendition of the tune. Their version actually harkened back to the Count Basie Orchestra version of the song that predated Parker’s; it was a wide open and scenic take on the piece. Hearing Harris’ trombone harmonize in a joyful way with Bluiett’s baritone offered deliverance, “a drenching by all rains.”

In between pieces, El’Zabar remarked that 2016 marks the 44th year of the group. He said that upon graduating from college, he told his dad that he wanted to front a trio of percussion with two horns. His father thought the idea was crazy. All these years later the arrangement El’Zabar has been leading continues to prove itself to be the perfect vehicle for engaging music for the purposes of exploration and deep communication.