[30] Wadada Leo Smith and friends at The Stone @ Mannes | #1Summer50Concerts #JazzWeek

WHO: Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet; Mariel Roberts & Okkyung Lee, cello; Erika Dohi, piano; Gabriel Zucker, synthesizer
WHAT: WADADA LEO SMITH Red Autumn Gold; Silence
WHERE: The Stone @ The New School
WHEN: June 28, 2019 at 8:30pm

So here's the thing.

I loved Wadada Leo Smith's performance. I think that what he did was innovative, and cool, and kept me interested the whole time.

There's only one problem: I don't really know what he did.

I think it was some sort of free jazz. Let me try to describe it. All the musicians were reading off of graphic scores, the kind that don't really specify anything other than direction and approximate time. The keyboard played a lot of single drone notes. The pianist alternated between random, Messiaen-tinged licks and dissonant chords for which she leaned over the top of the piano to damper the strings. The cellists never really played notes so much as effects -- a lot of sliding, a lot of weird in-between harmonics. And Wadada Leo Smith would occasionally come in with a super super loud entrance that would disturb the peace like a comic book character who pops a thought bubble with a pushpin.

Free jazz isn't the right term. It was just kind of....free. I think Wadada's goal was to let the music flow for itself. He sort of vaguely conducted occasionally, but really it was up to the players how the music went. They weren't given too many instructions. They did what they wanted. Wadada nodded in approval.

I mean, I don't have a ton to say about the performance. It was exactly what I needed on a Friday night. It wasn't particularly tough to listen to. Wadada's occasional loud entrances made me jump a little bit, especially considering that the #@%$ing column in the middle of the venue (huge design flaw) kept me from seeing him half the time. The performers all had good imaginations and, even in moments with repeated modules, every note was novel.

If you want to get into new music, this is not where you should start. But if you're interested in exploring a new sound world -- my date and I concluded that it was a sound world rather than a type of music -- then give Wadada a try.

Also, one parting observation: we need more cello jazz in this world. That is all.

[28] Ethan Iverson and Mark Turner at The Village Vanguard | #1Summer50Concerts #JazzWeek

I'm not allowed to use the picture of them together, because it's under copyright. Boo.

WHO: Ethan Iverson, piano; Mark Turner, tenor saxophone
WHAT: jazz standards, mostly
WHERE: The Village Vanguard
WHEN: June 27, 2019 at 10:30pm

I, like many musicians, love music. I profess my love often. I talk about albums, concerts, everything. Hell, I'm going to 50 f*cking concerts this summer -- that's something that only someone who loved music would do. Will I still love music after 50 concerts? Stay tuned to find out!

I tell people that I love music because I'm not a good enough performer to sound like I love the music. When Hilary Hahn pulls out the Bach violin suites for the umpteenth time, her affect, her expression, her energy conveys her love to the audience in lieu of speech.

Having attended their concert, I can tell you with utmost certainty that Mark Turner and Ethan Iverson love music.

Iverson and Turner both approach jazz from different perspectives. Iverson's compositions are on the cusp of classical and modern, as evidenced from The Bad Plus's big Rite of Spring project from 2014. He still regularly performs classical music -- I just found out that he'll be playing Schubert's Winterreise alongside British tenor Mark Padmore next May. Turner, on the other hand, is a little more heavy-handed on the modernism. He's not exactly a mogul of free jazz, but he's done some things that my grandparents may refuse to recognize as jazz (Ornette Coleman IS REAL JAZZ GRANDMA).

So they met in the middle. Back to basics: blues and standards.

As you may recall, last time I saw standards, I was duly unimpressed -- I've just resigned myself to the fact that Renee Rosnes won't be inviting me to any of her garden parties in the future. Oh well. But there's a difference, I have found, between playing standards and playing standards like you mean it.

In any innovation, there's a degree of respect that has to be present. Iverson and Turner's innovative takes on Coltrane and Strayhorn and Just Friends were full of not only a love for the music, but also showed so much respect for the original composers. They didn't recompose or deconstruct any of the original framework, they simply infused it with a rollicking, Iverson-Turner flair. Think of it like a partially-possessed human -- when you hear Giant Steps for the millionth time, do you want to hear Coltrane, or do you want to hear the performer? Well, with Turner and Iverson, we heard both.

They didn't actually do Giant Steps. The whole set was far too laid-back for that. Iverson played a composition of his, something about duels and arguments, in celebration of the Democratic debate that was happening the same night -- even that felt like a debate between two people who had smoked a little too much pot. Not complaining, though. My brain was pretty fried by that point, and some easy listening was exactly what I needed.

This was the perfect everyman's concert. Two jazz icons, charismatic from the stage, playing to a weekday 10:30pm audience of about 12 people, playing fun, enjoyable music that doesn't require too much thinking. Were Turner's solos still perfectly thought-out? Of course. Were Iverson's 12-bar blues progressions still spot-on? Yes. But it wasn't finicky. It was simple, clean, and to the point. If you want to know what I mean, listen to their album from last year, Temporary Kings.

[27] Miho Hazama's Jazz Mass at Saint Peter's Church | #1Summer50Concerts #JazzWeek

Hazama conducting her ensemble, the Danish Radio Big Band

WHO: Choir of Saint Peter's; Miho Hazama, piano

WHAT: MIHO HAZAMA Jazz Mass

WHERE: Saint Peter's Church

WHEN: June 26, 2019 at 6:00pm

Okay guys, real talk: we're over halfway through. I'm starting to feel the burnout. Not from going to concerts, but 50 reviews, it's a lot to write. So tonight, I'm gonna take it easy: get ready for my bullet-point review of Miho Hazama's Jazz Mass.

I loved...

• how the whole thing felt relaxing, suave, and not intended to blow the roof off.
• how the Sanctus kept switching from 11/8 to 10/8 and then back again -- just as you got into the groove, the choir pulled the rug out from under you
• Miho Hazama's piano part. Half the time it was an exact doubling of the choir, but the other half of the time it was soloistic and full of flourish.
• the sermon, to be honest. You know I'm not man of religion, but their hearts, minds, and (most importantly) politics were in the right place.

I'm still thinking about...

• the tenors who traded four-bar solos. They were very consciously walking the thin line between being creative and offending the pious Wednesday churchgoers.
• the Kyrie, which lasted all of one or two minutes -- mostly homophonic, full of cool chords.
• the sanctuary at Saint Peter's. Like, what is that shape?

I wish...

• they had advertised better! I only heard about it because a friend was singing, and there were maybe ten people there. I was the only one (other than members of the choir) who didn't take communion.
• I could hear the piece outside of a service. In the service, it was weird and clunky. Outside the service, it would have been a super cool 15 minutes of music.
• we were allowed to applaud. Church is weird.

[26] The Bad Plus at Jazz Standard | #1Summer50Concerts #JazzWeek

                                                          

WHO: The Bad Plus (Reid Anderson, bass; Orrin Evans, piano; Dave King, drums)
WHERE: The Jazz Standard
WHEN: June 25, 2019 at 9:30pm

Who decided it was time for Classical Music Geek's #JazzWeek? Well, blame the NYC classical music gods for not scheduling any concerts, and the NYC jazz gods for cramming all the legendary artists into one week. It was sort of just...fate.

I will admit, this was the second time in the last few months that I'd seen The Bad Plus. The first time was in March at the Village Vanguard, and Alton Brown (from Food Network) was sitting behind me. I even bumped behinds with him on the way out of coat check. Thinking about it a little harder, of course Alton Brown likes jazz.

This set was largely the same as the set that I saw them do in March. But you know what? It was equally good the second time. And that's how I define good jazz: it's never the same thing twice, and one time is never "better" than another. They're just different.

It would be sacrilegious for me to evaluate each player individually. One of the most incredible things about the ensemble is that, when they are playing together, they are not Reid Anderson, Orrin Evans, and Dave King. They are The Bad Plus, one six-armed three-headed multi-instrumental beast whose heart beats in time to the music.

Though the three were seemingly one in playing, each's compositions had their own signature twinge. Evans's compositions were rife with rhythmic complexity -- his chart "Commitment" (inspired by a Chia pet that Evans once cared for, according to a half-baked comedic interlude by Anderson) started in an intensely rollicking medium three-beat before switching suddenly to a quasi-waltz macabre in seven for a few bars. King's were a little more neo-rock influenced, heavy on the parallel chords and virtuosic drum breaks. "Lean in the Archway" reads as a jazz-rock fusion chart, but the usual four-beat is replaced by an amalgam of sevens, eights, and nines. Anderson's charts were the most balanced of the three, doling out harmonic and locomotive responsibilities evenly, as in the sparse "Kerosene."

The one thing that makes me partial to The Bad Plus over so many other groups is their evident selflessness. So many jazz musicians use music as a medium to show themselves off, to make themselves the center of attention. One could say that, by performing only original compositions, The Bad Plus does this inherently, but I don't agree. Their onstage affect seems to say that the music is chief. They don't engage in over-the-top showmanship; Evans bops his head, Anderson closes his eyes, King sticks his tongue out, but no visual gets in the way of the auditory experience.

Go see them. That's all I'll say. You won't be sorry. Rest assured, if they're back at a jazz club in NYC when I'm around, I will do the same. And the set may be the same for the third time in a row. And it'll still be great.