Usually we talk here about the jazz scene at large or the stuff happening locally that is outside of my own personal musical pursuits. However, today Iâm going to be selfish and talk about how on February 3rd we will be celebrating the Five Year Anniversary of the jazz concert series I host and produce called âIs This Jazz?â.
Back in 2011 I had just graduated university, started a full time groundskeeping job, and was trying to figure out where to go with my music. There was a smattering of gigs around town playing standards but being a composer I was looking to play original material for people who might dig it. Unfortunately the scene didn't have many offerings and I was left searching. So eventually I figured that if an opportunity wasnât there already, I was going to have to make one. While looking around I remembered playing AS220âs gallery on Empire Street with a band of mine and recalled clicking with the space. Knowing that they welcome an eclectic collection of groups to perform I emailed the booker at the time, Maralie, and asked if we might be able to put together a regular showcase for original jazz. On February 3rd, 2012 at AS220 we hosted the first official ITJ with locals A Troop Of Echoes, Lilly Masse & The Suite Unraveling from Brooklyn, and Boston based guitarist Eric Hofbauer. The first show had some slight bumps but an audience showed up, the players were burning, and those who came walked away grinning while their ears rang.
It would take another couple months and some maneuvering to schedule the second show but we were able to bring in rising Brooklyn saxophonist John Ellis and his band Double Wide who were in town getting ready to play Newport Jazz Festâs main stage the next morning. The audience was a good mix of those with insider jazz knowledge and those willing to open their ears, so having this particular ensemble  - with their down-home, fun sound but virtuosic writing and playing - allowed us to open up to a wide range of listeners and helped solidify in my mind that jazz is a music for everybody, and that weâd have to be the cats to show âem.
From there it became a bimonthly concert series at AS220 with a few random shows around town for good measure. Over the five year span weâve hosted the legendary George Garzone & The Fringe, revered musicians such as the Becca Stevens Band, Ideal Bread, Rich Halley, Battle Trance, Rallidae, Ed Tomassi, and hosted local luminaries Greg Abate, Joe Parillo, David Zinno, and Jared Sims. Thatâs not counting the plethora of incredible local players who have performed, collaborated, and evolved alongside us, all of whom have helped define and push the series since our first shows.
In that spirit, to mark this occasion we will be hosting another one of our âHanging With The Localsâ shows in which we will be inviting a few musicians whom have meant a lot to us over the past five years to come sit in with the band and showcase some of their best material. For this edition our house group will be friends of the series Four Agreements, featuring guitarist Clay Nordhill, keyboardist Tom White, bassist Sam Kurzontkowski, and drummer Paul DiMartino. Afterwards we will open up the stage for a jam so all those who wish to play will be able to come through, sit in, and create some more killer music to help celebrate.
I wanted to share this because of how indebted I feel to all who have helped in this effort over these years. It has been a privilege to witness on our stage some of the most adventurous, stirring music that Providence has ever seen and to be part of this incredible community of local musicians, artists, and enthusiasts for so long. It is truly due to all your dedication and support that this series marches on. Thank you for giving this music a home here in RI.
Happening Around Town:
The John Allmark Jazz Orchestra; Mondays @ The Met (Pawtucket)
Is This Jazz?; first Friday, bimonthly @ AS220 (Providence) isthisjazz.tumblr.com
Joe Potenza; Fridays @ Rosmarin (Providence)
Groove Merchants; Mondays @ Fifth Element (Newport)
Wednesday Night Sessions; Wednesdays @ Arias Lounge (Providence)
Jazz Jam;Tuesdays @ Ten Rocks (Pawtucket)
Groove E Tuesday;Tuesdays @ Murphyâs Law (Pawtucket)
Parlour Jazz Jam; third Sunday each month @ The Parlour (Providence)
World Class Jazz Night; Thursdays @ Noreyâs (Newport)
Matunuck Beach Hot Jazz Party; Thursdays @ The Ocean Mist (Matunuck)
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Last article we briefly dove into the concept of the "standard", one of the foundations of jazz heritage and education. They represent one of the core principles that has defined this music throughout its existence, that jazz is a direct reflection - and reinterpretation - of both popular and personal culture. This mass of repertoire that was taken from tunes that were defining the eras in which they existed has given musicians around world a vehicle through which they can communicate with each other, trade ideas, formulate their unique sound, and form instant bonds between players based on their shared knowledge of a set of melodies and harmonic progressions. Without this shape shifting songbook and its many interpretations it's easy to imagine an early waning of interest in this music and an eventual fade from the spotlight if the repertoire hadn't evolved and taken on new material as society changed.Â
By the above description it may be possible to misconstrue the âstandardâ as being a âcoverâ of a song, which is to say that itâs when a group is playing a direct re-performance of a particular song - think when you go hear a bar band play âMore Than A Feelingâ - but this is not that. Where the two diverge is that jazz musicians transcribe the tune they wish to reinterpret and distill it down to its essential qualities such as melody and harmony, then take that blueprint and add stylistic or theoretical flourishes by re-harmonizing (changing the chords behind the melody) or syncopating the melodic rhythms differently. The relation between a âstandardâ and a âblueprintâ is a more applicable association in that the blueprint provides you with the knowledge you need in order to build and craft a new form from the materials at hand, but doesnât necessarily give you a step by step guide to installation of parts and labor.Â
Our blueprints in jazz come in the form of a lead sheet, which is a document that contains a world of knowledge in the simplest means possible. At their most basic, lead sheets provide you a notated melody with the chord changes written above the notes to indicate their placement within the progression and help provide a framework for improvisation over the form (the totality of the chord progression) that typically takes place after the main melody is performed once through. Sometimes you may get more detailed instructions such as when there is a shift in feel (stylistic approach) or if there are multiple sections that are repeated, moved around, or performed at varying times. This vast assortment has been collected and published in volumes of lead sheets known as âThe Real Bookâ. The universality of this system has made it easy to share songs across language and ethnic barriers and has been one of the ways in which jazz has become a music for people world wide.
The problem with the âstandardâ though, is that there seems to have been a cutoff where after a certain period there stopped being additions to the canon and all the standards that exist are the only except-able options for that designation. Not to say that these arenât bad tunes but to stop the accumulation of new material has perhaps added to the growing sense that jazz became stale and is the music of the past. There have been attempts at adding to the established core such as the production of a âNew Real Bookâ that contains material of the late 20th century, but those collections havenât appeared to take hold in mainstream formal jazz education - arguably the leading pushers of this practice. However, certain modern artists have begun to reclaim the standard and are pushing to add to the canon and expand it with songs that they grew up with and are central to their lives, experience, and musical growth.
One of my earliest interactions with this was through my college professor Eric Hofbauer who, on his trio of solo guitar albums, would include covers of tunes that were meaningful to him or represented some part of his musical evolution. In these recordings and performances he exhibits the melody but then breaks it down to itâs defining characteristics, imbues it with his voice, and reshapes the tune into a frankenstein monstrosity complete with the internal beauty found inside the musical beast but also with the external fire of his town of influences. His interpretations of âHot For Teacherâ, âTake On Meâ, and âDear Prudenceâ are prime examples. We have had many discussions on his approach and concept, which helped reshape my understanding of the standard into how I define it above. From there Iâve been on the lookout for artists looking to dig into the songs that have shaped popular culture from their childhoods or in the present.
Brad Mehldau is a world renowned pianist who has over his career taken on an innumerable amount of popular songs and has sought to possess them for the wider jazz world. From tunes that are so ubiquitous to our collective tastes that they feel as if they are already standards such as the Beatlesâ âBlackbirdâ and âWonderwallâ by Oasis, to b-side repertoire from known artists including Radioheadâs âKnives Outâ and Sufjan Stevensâs âHollandâ, Mehldau has been a long time collector and interpreter. Although sometimes they can be a bit more direct performances than other artists, they provide a look at the transformative ability of jazz without alienating the core themes associated with the piece, which is probably more in line with the original intent of musicians grabbing tunes for use as standards.
Recently, in talking with my buddy Dylan about all this, my attention was pointed to Robert Glasper and his 2015 album âCoveredâ which encapsulates a lot of what has been discussed in this article.  This release marks not only his return to an acoustic trio format but also finds him almost exclusively playing other artistsâ music - selections he chose for his appreciation of them. In this wide ranging collection that moves from Radiohead and John  Legend to Jhene Aiko and Joni Mitchell, Glasper gives you what you need out of the melodic material but then is quick to step back into the groove and let those motifs and themes blend into the trioâs swirling improvisation and feel. Having just purchased this and begun my dive in I donât want to rush to any conclusions about what this album has in store but upon writing this article I can say that I am enjoying listening for where the songâs former identity begins and where it falls off to become a vehicle for the groupâs refined collective voice. Â
This is partially what has made the âstandardâ such an important part of jazz in that it not only gives us a deeper connection to the music we love but also allows us to use our own experience to evolve it and to hopefully bridge the generational gap and spread this affection to the next class. In this way they too may find these songs, learn their secrets, and spread this material around so we can all enjoy. Standards persist because they are undeniably good, they contain multitudes that stand up to age over decades and even centuries, and allow us to connect to our shared musical heritage. Even Glasper shows this by including the immortal Victor Young standard âStella By Starlightâ, and in turn reigniting it for the next batch of musicians.
Happening Around Town:
The John Allmark Jazz Orchestra; Mondays @ The Met (Pawtucket)
Is This Jazz?; first Friday, bimonthly @ AS220 (Providence) isthisjazz.tumblr.com
Joe Potenza; Fridays @ Rosmarin (Providence)
Groove Merchants; Mondays @ Fifth Element (Newport)
Jazz Jam; Tuesdays @ Ten Rocks (Pawtucket)
Groove E Tuesday; Tuesdays @ Murphyâs Law (Pawtucket)
Parlour Jazz Jam; third Sunday each month @ The Parlour (Providence)
Matunuck Beach Hot Jazz Party; Mondays @ The Ocean Mist (Matunuck)
Boston jazz guitarist Eric Hofbauer's quintet has two new CDs out, playing 20th-century classics. One is the year's second jazz version of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, following the Bad Plus' trio version. The other is Olivier Messiaen's very unjazzy Quartet for the End of Time. Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead likes them a lot:Â
"Once in a great while, Eric Hofbauerâs âQuintet for the End of Timeâ sounds almost jubilant. Messiaen after all did play his way out of prison, like Leadbelly. A sympathetic guard forged some papers, and got him released months after the quartetâs premier. Hofbauerâs two smartly arranged, impeccably played volumes of âPrehistoric Jazzâ are all the more remarkable because the whole projectâs such a long shot. To pull off the Stravinsky is tricky enough. To jazz up the Messiaen without messing upânow that is a great escape."
In other news, I had a chance this past week to sit down with Len Cabral of The Roots Cafe in Providence, and throw around some ideas of things to expand jazz in the city.  We talked about Providence's history with jazz, things that have been done but sadly discontinued, and ways the Roots is looking help bolster local jazz talent, young and old. One idea that I've been knocking around my head that seemed to interest him was the possibility of having a local composers night. This would be where composers bring in lead sheets of tunes they've been working on, explain their idea, and have the house band (I'm figuring a quartet for starters) sight read it, and after it gets played the group workshops it a bit. I see it as a great way to get an idea of what new sounds are happening in town, have music get played that otherwise may not have been, and let jazz musicians work on their craft in the community setting this city is so desperate for.
 One great idea that Len explained to me was his openness to having local college groups come by the Roots and perform during the week. He said he has contacted the schools in the area with known jazz programs and extended an invitation for all combos, bands, ensembles to come by and exhibit their talents to a captivated Providence audience.  This a great opportunity to play on an impressive stage to people who want to listen, so I would encourage you, or a music major you know, to contact the club and get that ball rolling. I know I would if I was still in school, but unfortunately that ship sailed with graduation, so now it's up to all of you! And if you do book a gig, please notify us at ITJ and we'll be sure to promote it.
 Please come see the Eric Hofbauer Quartet at AS220 on October 5, contact The Roots if you have a college combo, and watch your inbox for more news and updates!
After you click on Facebook that you're going to AS220 on October 5, take a look at these other cool things happening around the internet:
Unfortunately with the economy the way it is, a brilliant and informative jazz podcast is turning off it's mics for good. If you've never listend to The Jazz Session, do yourself a favor and comb through the archives and experience the joy of listening to these giants and journeymen of this art form speak with host Jason Crane about their trials, triumphs, and thoughts. Here's the episodewhere Jason interviews Eric Hofbauer on his then newly rleased album "American Fear". Also, head on over to twitter and give Jason some love.
A review of the Eric Hofbauer Quartet's gig at Johnny D's. Spoiler alert: the set was INSANE.
Speaking of Eric, a thought provoking piece he wrote entitled "A Divere Summer Music Menu: The Jazz Omnivore and Individuality". Would you consider yourself a jazz omnivore?
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One of my favorite recordings from Eric Hofbauer, who just happens to be featured at our next concert at AS220. This brilliant solo guitar rendition of the well known Tears For Fears tune is the opening track of Eric's "American Fear" album, the second in his soon to be finished solo guitar trilogy. His reverence and appreciation for the melody is apparent from the beginning but he wastes no time in breaking it down to its essentials, then rebuilds it to suit his unique style. There are few jazz guitarists out there who can match Eric's virtuosity, and even fewer who could play at his level of originality. I urge you to buy this album, and of course come see him perform at AS220 on October 5 with a new quartet of similar minded, insanely talented musicians. And if you're planing to go, please donate to our kickstarter fund here and help us pay these incredible musicians their due.
