Bklyn Sounds: 1/10/2023 - 1/16/2023 + Winter Jazzfest Marathon
A Guide to Winter Jazzfest Marathons 2023 + Shows: "Flock Up And Fly" / Meshell Ndegeocello / "Cumbia Vortex" / Rich Medina / Eric Revis + Patricia Brennan / "This Is National Wake" +
The Winter Jazzfest (WJF) marathon dates are two of my favorite musical nights in New York City. Don’t get me wrong, the whole festival is great: what with veterans getting their props, newbies arriving on big stages in front of welcoming audiences, global improvisers hitting the Big Apple, a renewal of the music’s civic and social intentions, the bills that make the excellent musical connections, all done to take advantage of the annual APAP (Association of Performing Arts Professionals) Conference, whose attendees can use the programming budgets of their institutions to get these great musicians paid, once and for all. They make for some of the best shows of the year. Still, the marathon is the main thing, a musical smorgasbord that every year reminds you how just damn healthy the music is, a way to float around the neighborhoods, dance with many people, talk with a few, go from standards to weirdness to body music, and back to tunes. Founded in 2005 by Brice Rosenbloom as a way to present improvised music throughout the many rooms of Knitting Factory, the marathon was initially housed in that single Leonard Street space. Now, there’s a night in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan, brimming with sure-things and wonderful discoveries. I know I’ll miss a lot of good shit, but there will also inevitably be one set by someone whose music I barely know, whom I will deeply fall for. Maybe you will too?
Full disclosure: over the past decade I’ve done a fair bit of work with WJF, consulting on bookings and marketing, writing mission statements, bios and program notes, even producing a couple of shows. (This year, I am helping put together “Flock Up And Fly: a night honoring jaimie branch,” which you can read about below.) Knowing that, I hope you take the following set of #BklynSounds WJF Marathon recommendations for what they are: a critical fan’s notes. I love seeing folks come out to great crowded shows and be part of a huge moment, or join a small crowd to discover an artist before that moment is on the horizon.
That’s the spirit with which the picks below - a few for Friday’s Manhattan marathon, and a few for Sarurday’s in Brooklyn - were made. Also: I was able to secure a discount code for WJF Marathon tickets for Dada Strain subscribers, so if you’re interested read on.
Friday, January 13th WJF Marathon in Manhattan:
The pairing of the group led by alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins (6:30p) and vibraphonist Joel Ross’ Parables (9p) is likely to be the evenings critic’s choice bill. Both are wonderful next-generation traditionalists and composers, who are comfortable getting weird, blue or playing it straight. Often alongside each other, so don’t be surprised if some of the same folks occupy both bands. (@ Le Poisson Rouge 158 Bleecker St.)
My one experience with bassist Endea Owens & The Cookout (7:30p) was a soul- and gospel-infused populist set in a Bushwick loft that had people dancing and singing along by the end. Marta Sanchez (10p) is one of the city’s great working pianists, whom you can see in various musical settings at Brooklyn’s Bar Bayeux and Barbes almost weekly; but here, with her Quintet, Sanchez may lean on her incredible 2022 album, SAAM (Spanish American Art Museum). (@ Zinc Bar 82 W. 3rd St.)
Three artists wonderful artists on two stages in one venue: saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin (11p) and trumpeter Maurice ‘Mobetta’ Brown (12:15a) maye be billed separately on City Winery’s main stage, but they’ve spent many years playing together in a few bands in the city, so don’t be surprised if each joins the other’s fluid mix of funk bottom and jazz sophistication. As a break, head upstairs to the City Winery Loft where bassist Linda May Han Oh (11:30p), who plays with Vijay Iyer and Pat Metheny among others, centers a more broadly searching music in ways that I still dont quite understand but am continually mesmerized by. (@ City Winery 25 11th Ave.)
On a full bill at Nublu, my faves come at the beginning and the end, both on tenor saxophone: Caroline Davis (6:30p) is a straight-ahead player who also takes some high-and-outside left turns, which is wonderfully demonstrated by her compositions, which sometimes remind me of Tom Waits. Closing the night is Chicago tenor Isaiah Collier (12:45a), whose explorative fire burns deep and bright, regardless of who he is playing with. Simply one of my favorite musicians working at the moment (@ Nublu 151 Ave. C)
Pianist Kris Davis is using WJF as an opportunity to hold a two-day mini-festival devoted to her own Pyroclastic Records, which is full of wonderfully diverse music, one night is part of the marathon, the other its own ticket (see below). Friday’s opening set from bassist Chris Lightcap’s Superette “Deluxe” (7:30p) will be full of electric-guitar jamming that would inspire heads to hippie-dance; the guitar/piano duo of Mary Halvorson/Sylvie Courvoisier (9:30p) make deeply heady music that can go from fragile to ambushing at a drop; and the same could be said for the great pianist Craig Taborn (11p), playing a solo set, who’s happy to creep along with spare minimalism, but can also flow like a MFer. (@ Jazz Gallery 1158 Broadway)
Saturday, January 14th WJF Marathon in Brooklyn:
One of two BK marathon bills where you can basically stay all night and be beautifully satiated, takes place in the Williamsburg Opera House: It opens with the program Black Lives From Generation to Generation (6:30p), a live version of a pro-BLM compilation spearheaded by New York expat bassist Reggie Washington and his wife/manager Stefany Calembert, which features a collective array of musicians, producers and vocalists from throughout the African Diaspora; this is its NYC debut. Pianist/keyboardist Julius Rodriguez (7:45p) is one of the city’s great young talents, as at home with Onyx Collective as playing standards. Harpista Brandee Younger (9p) made her rep playing the Alice Coltrane/Dorothy Ashby role, but her own rhythm-heavy music the last few years has been FLYING! Ever since leaving behind the pop/R&B band Danity Kane Dawn Richard has been steering a hugely interesting career, and her new album, Pigments, with upstate/NYC multi-instrumentalist Spencer Zahn (10:15p) is an experimental pop fantasia with jazz chords. Which is a perfect lead-in to the masters and mistresses of experimental fantasias, the Sun Ra Arkestra (11:30p). (@ The Opera House 288 Berry St., Williamsburg)
While Mark Guiliana (8:15p) has long been held up as a great jazz drummer, the acoustic/electronic music he’s been releasing of late under his own name is something broader, full of uncategorizable rhythmic in-between-ness. Photay & Carlos Nino (12a) continue the fourth-world-meets-new-age improvised conversation they’ve been holding on the Offerings and More Offerings releases, tonight with LA saxophonist Randal Fisher and composer/producer Celia Hollander in tow. (@ National Sawdust 80 N. 6th)
The other soup-to-nuts bill is at Superior Ingredients: It begins and ends with the incomparable Gilles Peterson spinnin’ records. But in-between you get Ornette Coleman’s electric bassist Jamaldeen Tacuma (8:30p); the year’s star, drummer Makaya McCraven (9:30p); Irreversible Entanglements (aka free-jazz’s Fugazi, aka “the only band that matters now”) (11p); and close with the live disco-house-jazz stylings of Nate Smith + Jason Lindner + Tim Lefebvre blending into Razor-N-Tape’s A Joyful Noise (12:15) band. Nothing but a party! (@ Superior Ingredients 74 Wythe Ave., Williamsburg)
The program at Brooklyn Bowl will salute the life of Meghan Stabile, who led the Revive Music series, and did more to create a strong, bonding conversation between the current generation of New York jazz and hip-hop than just about anyone else in town. It includes orchestra, Igmar Thomas & The Revive Big Band feat. Louis Cato (8:45p), that was central to her programming; and Pete Rock and the Soul Brothers (10:15p), a live-band-meets-DJ classic NYC hip-hop mash-up, courtesy of the legendary rap producer and his funk quintet. DJ Alissia, a regular at “Soul In The Horn” among other good parties, will spin throughout. (@ Brooklyn Bowl 61 Wythe Ave., Williamsburg)
Panama 77, the album by Chicago-based drummer/multi-instrumentalist Daniel Villareal (8:45p), is a fusioneering Latin psychedelic-jazz joy, and was brutally slept-on last year. Trusted Chi friends say that Villareal’s live shows are fire - and it feels like escaping the “scene” in order to see him at a Central Williamsburg club that has barely a digital footprint might be the best kind of adventure. (@ Club Curious Lorimer & Conseleya Streets, Williamsburg)
As you can see, a lot of good shit for everybody. And thanks to the folks at WJF and their support of Dada Strain, a little less expensive than it has to be. Dada Strain/Bklyn Sounds readers can use the code DADA15 to get 15% off any WJF Marathon tickets. Go HERE - and if you run into me at a show, please say hello. (And tell me what you saw.)
Otherwise, for those not down with the chancy running around, other great musicking is happening in fair Gotham this week.
I’m a little torn to recommend anything at the Blue Note, because the prices are outrageous, the seats are too small/tables too crammed, and the tourist vibe is overwhelming. But some people LOVE playing there, and one of them is Meshell Ndegeocello; and if you don’t remember, she is a beast of an electric bass player, and an almost dub-style improviser. And there are definitely times to say “f*ck it” and go to places you may not love, to see musicians who are blindingly good. Meshell at Blue Note just might be one of those. (Tues 1/10 - Sun 1/15, 6:30p + 10p @ Blue Note 131 W. 3rd St., Manhattan - $40/$55)
The wonderful drummer/composer Tomas Fujiwara is a big-deal on the art-music and arts-institutional side of NYC's improvisational spectrum. At Roulette his all-star Percussion Quartet, which includes the great vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, is debuting a piece called “Dream Up,” a suite that celebrates “storytelling, history, memory, and culture through the transformative power of rhythm.” (Wed. 1/11, 8p @ Roulette 509 Atlantic Ave, Downtown Brooklyn - $25adv/$30)
A superlative jazz group to continue Bar Lunatico’s anniversary celebrations: drummer Vinnie Sperrazza’s Trio, with pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Michael Formanek is an almost-guaranteed swinging good time. (Thurs. 1/12, 9p & 10:15p @ Bar Lunatico 486 Halsey Street, Bed-Stuy - $10)
If you like cumbia — especially the “alternative” kinds that update the great folkloric Afro-Colombian-Mexican beat for the punk or the electro-house crowd — this “Cumbia Vortex” show is like Christmas, but with better music. Son Rompe Pera are the Tijuana-based punks getting gringo love. Bogota’s Meridian Brothers combine it with Latin funk and salsa dura and tropical psychedelia. And Milagro Verde are the local “heavy cumbia” cats whose parties at Barbes give this big jam its name. Also a plethora of great cumbia DJs, so that the beat never ends. (Fri. 1/13, 6:30p @ Elsewhere 599 Johnson Ave., Bushwick - $20) (PS: Barbes, the show’s co-producers, is also planning a special Vortex on Monday evening at the tiny Park Slope club. Watch this space.)
NYC has always been very good at minting local radio DJs into club staples. Tim Sweeney (of once-WNYU’s/now Apple Music’s “Beats In Space”) and Duane Harriott (of WFMU’s long-running “Duane Train”) are two of the city’s finest dance-floor selectors, who command friendly, diverse club nights with sounds grabbed from across the past 50 years of “dance music.” Ayanna Heaven now does this with her WKCR show, “Across 110th Street.” Together, they’re taking over the Good Room/Bad Room complex, all night long. (Fri. 1/13, 10p @ Good Room 98 Meserole Ave., Greenpoint - $15)
For my money, the second night of Kris Davis’ Pyroclastic Records Festival at The Jazz Gallery is even better than the first (but not part of WJF Marathon - see above). Bassist Eric Revis is putting together a quintet of incredible prowess (including Davis, saxophonist Darius Jones and drummer Chad Taylor) to play his 2020 rhythm masterpiece, Slipknots Through a Looking Glass. And then vibraphonist Patricia Brennan brings back her rhythm heavy quartet to reprise music from 2022’s wonderful More Touch. Heavy dancing jazz at its finest. (Sat. 1/14, 7:30p @ Jazz Gallery 1158 Broadway, Manhattan - $38)
Film Screening: Straight out of history’s central casting, National Wake was a multi-racial punk band in Johannesburg, South Africa who existed for a few years in the late-70s/early-80s. Yes, they had some great tunes (check out “International News”), but from our vantage point, the music pales next to the story of a group whose very existence was illegal during Aparthed. Directed by Mirissa Neff, “This is National Wake” is a new documentary that tells this story with context and power. It’s screening at the New York Jewish Film Festival. (Sat. 1/14, 9:15p @ Walter Reade Theater/Film at Lincoln Center 165 W. 65th St., Manhattan - $15)
“Flock Up and Fly” is a tribute show to my dear departed friend jaimie branch, co-produced with the good folks of Winter Jazzfest. It will include music, new and old, played by her friends from New York and Chicago and a whole bunch of other places too. I’ll be there as well — maybe playing records, maybe milling about, most likely crying and laughing and grieving. If you’re a longtime Dada Strain reader/follower, you know how personal this one is. Join us if you can. (Sun. 1/15, 8p @ Nublu 151 Ave, C, Manhattan - $25adv/$35)
Though Rich Medina is a Philly DJ through and through, I long took him to be a New Yorker, because of how often he used to play the city in the early 00s. A selector with an encyclopedic knowledge of soul-funk-disco-hip-hop-Afrobeat-house, and all the fixings, Rich doesn’t come through NYC near often enough anymore. (He runs the apparently great Dante’s Hi-Fi in Miami now.) So if you don’t come to Nublu, grab a few holiday weekend hours with him in Bushwick. It’ll do you. (Sun. 1/15, 10p @ House of Yes 2 Wyckoff Ave., Bushwick - $17)
A double-bill of traditional Afro-Latin rhythm culture: Bulla en el Barrio is a group of female vocalists with drummers who practice the bullerengue tradition of Caribbean Colombia, women expressing themselves in ecstatic song and dance, voice and drums. They are joined by Tambor y Caña, a group of Afro-Venezuelan drummers based in Brooklyn. And Prince Of Queens of Combo Chimbita is the perfect DJ to tie the evening together. (Mon. 1/16, 7p @ Sultan Room 234 Starr St., Bushwick - $19)