News of Past Guests, November Edition

If we'd been keeping up with WBGO's excellent program, The Checkout (one of the places we go regularly to, um, check out what's new in contemporary jazz), we'd have known when we last posted that Ralph Alessi had been featured on the September 25th episode, talking about his new album, Baida, and about illustrious bandleaders with whom he's worked as a sideman. Listen to the segment by following the link above.  And while you're there, why not subscribe to The Checkout's podcast?


Phronesis appeared at Finland's Pori Jazz Festival last summer, and YLE Radio 1 has just posted an audio stream of their 59-minute set.  Listen to it right here until November 21.

Drummers Ches Smith (Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth) and Gerald Cleaver (Michael Formanek Quartet) are both profiled in the November issue of Jazz Times, which typically puts much of the content from its print edition online after a lag of several weeks. The Jazz Times website is also a good place to go for archived articles and breaking news, like this report of Vijay Iyer's imminent ECM debut and the debut performance of Myra Melford's "Language of Dreams," commissioned by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and featuring her new group "Snowy Egret."

Speaking of online content: Dave Douglas's "Listening Test" (from Jazz Times' October issue) has just gone live. Dave shows off his good ears and his broad knowledge of jazz history.

Remember that René Marie Eartha Kitt tribute we told you about last month, I Wanna Be Evil?  It's out, and we're pretty sure it's her best album yet.  (RJA bump? She penned the liner notes just days after her date at the Graves.)  You can find a couple of short video teasers for the album on YouTube, along with this full-length performance of "I'd Rather Be Burned As a Witch," the scorcher that opens the album (as always, we recommend changing the video quality to 1020 HD and watching in full-screen mode):

René talks about making the album on the November 12th edition of Jeffrey Siegel's "Straight No Chaser" podcast (don't be thrown by the two-minute silence after the theme music).  And speaking of podcasts, here's something we didn't mention earlier: this past summer, René did a 19-episode podcast for Jazz Times where she talked frankly and off the cuff about music and...well, all kinds of stuff with Lee Mergner. It's a lot of fun, and you can download every 'cast for free at the iTunes store.

The 3 Cohens--Anat, Avishai, and Yuval--have a new album out on the Anzic label called Tightrope.  You can download it at Anzic's Bandcamp store.  Pianist Fred Hersch joins the Cohen on several tracks, including this one:

Anat is also the guest on the latest edition (November 8) of NPR's Piano Jazz.

[Added November 14th:] Trumpeter Tom Harrell's new album on High Note is called Colors of a Dream. Regular members of his quintet are joined by also saxophonist Jaleel Shaw and second bassist Esperanza Spalding, who adds some airy Portuguese vocals to Harrell's classic "Sail Away":

Multi-reedist Marty Ehrlich, meanwhile, has a new album of works for jazz orchestra called A Trumpet in the Morning.  Members of his "Large Ensemble" include several other RJA visitors: pianist Uri Caine and bassist Drew Gress (Uri Caine Trio), trumpeter Ron Horton (Ben Allison's Man Size Safe), and drummer Matt Wilson.

And speaking of Ben Allison: Ben will be performing with his new quartet (which comprises Steve Cardenas, guitar; Brandon Seabrook, guitar and banjo; and Allison Miller, drums) on WNYC's Soundcheck on Tuesday, November 26th, in support of the band's new album, The Stars Look Very Different Today, due out December 3d (and available in digital format on iTunes and Amazon now).  In the meantime, the Soundcheck blog is streaming a track from the album, "D.A.V.E. (Digital Awareness Vector Emulator)":

Bob Doran's Pics of the Ralph Alessi Show

Monday night's show with Ralph Alessi and This against That was another opportunity for Bob Doran to take another round of terrific pictures. He's a dab hand at a jazz study.

Check out the stream at Bob's Flickr site.

Bob Doran Interviews Ralph Alessi

Bob kindly sends us this very interesting interview with our next guest.

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A conversation with Ralph Alessi

The short bio on the website for trumpeter/composer/educator Ralph Alessi (www.ralphalessi.com) jumps straight to 1991, when he became "an active member of the New York jazz and improvised music scene as both sideman and leader."
He'd moved to the Big Apple from the Bay Area that year after growing up in San Rafael. His father was a freelance classical trumpet player who'd worked for the Metropolitan Opera and his mother was an opera singer before they relocated to the West Coast.

So you grew up in Marin County and left there to go to college?

I went to couple of different colleges and ended up at CalArts in Los Angeles. [Among his teachers was bassist Charlie Haden.] I got a couple of degrees there [in trumpet and bass]. And right after that I moved to New York.

What were you looking for in New York?

It was more of a feeling that I didn't have a choice. I had to move to New York because of the experience I had at CalArts; in particular I'd developed relationships and friendships, musical relationships with individuals like Ravi Coltrane, Scott Colley, Michael Caine, Peter Epstein and others. They'd either moved to New York before me or followed me out there. There was this feeling that it wouldn't make any sense to not continue what we'd started. And obviously there were other benefits to moving to New York, although I was a little reluctant at making that move. I was a little intimidated by the idea of living in New York, but I felt like I didn't have a choice, so I did it. And I'm still here.

When you moved there did you fall into the M-Base Collective?

I'd been a student of Steve Coleman at the jazz program at Banff [Canada]. Steve was one of the teachers there. About three years later he called me to play on an overdubbing session for one of his records. Then maybe a year after that I toured with him, and I continued playing with him for five or six years. But by that time the M-Base Collective wasn't really a collective any more. All those people were doing their own thing by that point.

Would you say the M-Base philosophy informed the way you evolved musically?

The M-Base Collective wasn't really a collective like the AACM [Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in Chicago]. The AACM had very defined tenants and ideas about what that was about. To my knowledge, the M-Base Collective was more just individuals who were playing together in those days. I was influenced by the music Steve was making and Greg Osby and others, but mostly Steve. I was into his music prior to meeting him. There's no doubt being around him and playing with him was important — he was a master musician. I was influenced by how he played, how he composed music, and also how he led a band. I liked his aesthetic for being a band leader.

Was he a model for the way you lead a band?

He's not the only one. Also there was the way Miles Davis led a band; Uri Caine is another who I played with a lot. It's basically hands off. You basically leave it up to the individuals, assuming that they will have the responsibility to learn the music and bring something to it. If that doesn't happen, then you call someone else. That's as opposed to 'You need to do this and you need to do that.' I'm more into leaving it up to the players.

So you present a composition and assume the players will make their own contribution to it?

Within reason. There are definitely moments where you want to be more active in the direction of the music, but I rarely do that. I call people that I know can bring something to the music in their own way. There's a process: You want people to bring forth their ideas instead of demanding immediate results. It's also about being accepting of different ideas rather than being rigid about your own ideas.

How do those ideas carry over into what you do as a teacher at the School for Improvisational Music? [the music school in Brooklyn founded by Alessi]

I would say that same kind of thinking is pretty consistent across the board. A lot of people involved [in the school] play with each other and they have shared sensibilities about how to play music, how it feels.

How do you teach improvisation? Is it something that can be taught as a process?

Sure, it can be taught.

How do you go about it?

First of all you have to inspire the students to investigate the music, investigate the vast resources that exist, especially nowadays. You learn so much just listening to recordings. I know that at least half of my own education was just listening, listening to all of the usual suspects, all the people what are part of the canon, the usual suspects being Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, on and on, Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins.
That music is just so rich; I continue to listen and learn from it myself. A lot of it is listening and being exposed to those ways of making music. The other part is encouraging people to play by ear, to play not so much from their intellect, but from what they're hearing, with more importance put on listening and ways of making music in the moment and the strategies that have to do with that.
Of course theory and harmony and things like that — the nuts and bolts of music — are part of the equation as well, but we deemphasize those things.

Didn't you initially learn music from your father?

I did. I took lessons from him for about 10 years, but in terms of the music that turned me on, it probably started with pop music of the day, but also my brother's record collection. It went from there. I really enjoyed playing the trumpet and I enjoyed how the trumpet fit into classical music, but eventually that kind of faded away as I had more experiences making music where you played more of an active part, as either an improviser or a composer. In particular the experiences I had at CalArts made it clear that I wanted to go in that direction. Once I moved to New York, I had made that commitment.

Do you think of yourself as a composer?

Not primarily, although improvisation is composition in real time.

You're a spontaneous composer...

In many ways. To me it's using the same creative energy. Both are very creative endeavors. So I guess I'm both an improviser and a composer...

And a teacher...

I enjoy teaching. I learn from it. It really gets you to think about your ideas in a deeper way. And I don't have a set way of doing it; a lot of times I'm improvising while I teach.

RJA Press Release for Ralph Alessi and This against That

The last concert of our fall season is with trumpeter Ralph Alessi and
his quintet This Against That on Monday, November 9 at 8 p.m. in the
Kate Buchanan Room. Tickets are $15 general admission and $10 for
students and seniors and can be purchased at the Works in Arcata and
Eureka, Peoples Records and Missing Link Records in Arcata and online
at http://www.redwoodjazzalliance.org/tickets.htm


Jazz Times magazine says Alessi has "drop-dead trumpet chops" and
calls his music "as clean and airy and sophisticated and disciplined
as post-modern progressive jazz gets.” Ralph Alessi was born in San
Rafael, the son of classical trumpeter Joe Alessi. (Brother Joe Jr.
is principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic, and Ralph
himself freelanced with the San Francisco Symphony as he was coming up
through the ranks.) But after taking degrees in jazz trumpet and bass—
he studied under the legendary Charlie Haden at CalArts—he lit out for
New York, where he swiftly became an ubiquitous presence on the
downtown scene. He's been a frequent collaborator of such notable
musicians as Steve Coleman, Don Byron, Ravi Coltrane, Uri Caine, Fred
Hersch, Dafnis Prieto and Jason Moran—most of whom have also played
and recorded in Alessi’s own groups. Alessi has recorded five albums
of originals which draw on everything from post-bop to neo-classical.
Jazz Times named This Against That's debut outing one of the ten best
recordings of 2002, while All About Jazz dubbed its 2007 follow-up
"Look" “an outstanding work of intellect and fire.”


This Against That’s current roster includes several A-list sidemen:


Tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby has been a member of Charlie Haden’s
Liberation Music Orchestra and Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band. The
New York Times put his debut album, "Sabino", among its top ten jazz
records of 2000.


Toronto-born pianist Andy Milne was voted “Rising Star Keyboardist” in
the 2004 DownBeat Readers Poll, and his band Dapp Theory blends jazz
with funk and hip-hop.


A partial list of bassist Ben Street's many credits includes tours and
recordings with Danilo Perez, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Roswell Rudd, Paul
Motian, Lee Konitz, David Sanchez, James Moody, Mark Turner, Ethan
Iverson, Clark Terry, and Sam Rivers.


Drummer Mark Ferber was raised in San Francisco and took a BA in
Geography at UCLA while studying classical percussion with Mitchell
Peters and drums with Billy Higgins. Since moving to New York, he has
worked and played with Lee Konitz, Norah Jones, Fred Hersch, and Larry
Goldings, among many others.


A leading figure in jazz education. Alessi is the founder and director
of Brooklyn’s School for Improvision (SIM), which is playing an
influential role in development of jazz’s next generation. In a
departure from usual RJA practice, Alessi and his band will conduct a
master class with selected local student musicians the afternoon of
his concert. The master class is at 1 p.m. on Monday, November 9 in
room 131 of the HSU Music Building. The public is invited to attend
for free as observers.


You can read more about Ralph Alessi and his bandmates in This Against
That and hear streaming audio of their music at http://redwoodjazzalliance.org/alessi.html


We'll see you at the show!

The Redwood Jazz Alliance

Next Up

We're getting revved for our next show featuring Ralph Alessi and This Against That.

Monday, November 9, 2009 at the Kate Buchanan Room on the campus of Humboldt State University.

The Redwood Jazz Alliance Needs Your Help!!!!

Dear Friends,

The following note is our latest missive to the world:


We wrote a week or so ago with a preview of coming attractions, namely
the artists you can expect to hear in the RJA’s coming season: Dave
Douglas Brass Ecstasy, Third Man Trio (Michael Moore, Will Holshouser
& Han Bennink), Ralph Alessi & This Against That, Myra Melford’s Be
Bread, Frank Kimbrough with Noah Preminger, Antonio Sanchez &
Migration. More details soon.

Talent like that doesn’t come cheap, we said. And that’s why we're
writing again tonight.

Part of what lets us keep ticket prices low is avid, open-eared jazz
fans like you who become members. Some of you signed on as "charter"
members last year, and for that we owe you our abiding thanks. (And a
few of you, we still owe a letter and a membership card—soon come!)

Summer is our fundraising season, and the more members we can line up
now, the firmer footing we'll be on in the fall. None of needs
reminding what tough times these are, and it’s already clear that some
of the good folks who’ve given us money in the past—local businesses,
Humboldt State—just may not be able to come through this year. But
you can make up the shortfall.

Seriously: if millions of small donations can send a jazz-loving
president to Washington (what other recent chief executive can you
name who has Coltrane on his iPod and brings Esperanza Spalding to
play the White House?), then dozens of small donations can keep world-
class jazz coming to Humboldt.

For a $40 tax-deductible contribution (we’re a registered 501 (c)(3)
charity), you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve played an
extra-ordinary part in bringing some major players on the contemporary
jazz and improvised music scene to the North Coast. And on the theory
that one good turn deserves another, four local merchants who are
friends of the RJA have volunteered to extend special favors to RJA
members. Present your 2009-10 membership card at our ticket outlets
all season long and receive

• 10% off jazz CDs at The Works (Arcata & Eureka locations)
• 10% off featured CDs by RJA guest artists at People’s Records
(Arcata Plaza)
• 10% all purchases at Missing Link Records (8th & J in Arcata, behind
the Co-Op)

Plus get 10% off one purchase of any amount at Northtown Books in
Arcata.

And starting this year, we’re bending our strict egalitarian principles
—just slightly—by offering members, donors, and sponsors a crack at
reserved seating (rather than our customary general admission) at all
shows they attend.

If you became a member last year: thanks again—really. Can we count
on you to renew? (If you joined at our after our final show of
2008-09, we’ll automatically extend your membership through 2009-10.)

If you’ve come to our shows and/or workshops without becoming a
member, and you feel as though you can spare a bit beyond the price of
a cheap ticket now and again: please join! (Or make a donation in
any amount that seems right.)

And if you or your business are in a position to plunk down a bit more
cash and become a bona fide sponsor, we’d love to talk to you about
that, too.

You can become a member, donor, or sponsor online at
http://www.redwoodjazzalliance.org/underwrtg.htm, or you can post a
check to: Redwood Jazz Alliance, P.O. Box 4443, Arcata CA 95518. If
you’ve got questions, please direct them to
rja@redwoodjazzalliance.org and we’ll gladly get back to you.

In any event: thanks for coming out to hear great music and signing
up for our list. It’s responses like yours that make us appreciate
what an amazing community we live in. Happy summer—and stay tuned for
news about Jazz Night at the Humboldt Folklife Festival and RJA Discs
of the Month.

Dan, Michael, Thomas, Eric, Michael, Loralei, and David
Redwood Jazz Alliance Board of Directors