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Andrew Bird, Margaret Glaspy & Julian Lage Gezelligheid Preview

Andrew Bird; Photo by David Black

BY JORDAN MAINZER

It's that time of year again--not just for Christmas or Hannukah or beer and wine advent calendars, but for Andrew Bird's annual Gezelligheid concerts at the Fourth Presbyterian Church. This year, Bird will perform 7 shows: tonight, tomorrow, and the 11th-15th. Usually, he plays a mix of original songs and holiday-related covers or standards. In 2020's Hark!, Bird has his first ever Christmas album to his name, so you can expect to hear a few of those tunes, too.

If it were up to me, Bird would gift us some instrumentals. That is, earlier this summer, he followed up 2022's Inside Problems with a companion album, Outside Problems (Loma Vista), improvised instrumentals recorded outdoors in Ojai, CA. Though it follows some of the formless themes of Inside Problems, it's wholly original and some of Bird's most inspired work in years. "Epilogue" is flaneur-like, Bird purposefully not giving thought to the potential for other band members or a chorus or structures, while cheekily titled tunes like "Mormon House Party" and "Tik Tok" use repetitive sways to lull us into the bends of Bird's violin. Best, his gorgeous voice does appear, but in the form of wordless vocalizations, harmonizing with his plucks on "Mancey" or popping up on the off beat on "Mormon House Party".

Margaret Glaspy; Photo by Josh Goleman

Opening for Bird each night is a duo comprised of Margaret Glaspy and Julian Lage, creative and life partners who have never released any recorded duo material but have plenty of history showing up on each other's records. For one, each had a hand in producing the other's 2023 album, Glaspy's terrific Echo the Diamond (ATO) and Lage's Grammy-nominated The Layers (Blue Note). Echo the Diamond prominently features both Lage and Bird collaborators (The Bad Plus drummer Dave King, bassist Chris Morrissey), and you can certainly hear Lage's jazz influences on the skittering Ryan Lerman co-write "Hammer and the Nail". Not to take anything away from Glaspy--Echo the Diamond is far and away her best album yet mostly thanks to the increasingly worn twang of her voice and ability to make worlds out of fleeting moments and the conversations we have with ourselves, in our own heads. From country-tinged odes to new love ("Act Natural") and feminist rallying cries ("Female Brain"), to reverent admittances to the power of our minds ("Memories") and self-criticism ("Turn The Engine"), Echo the Diamond runs the gamut of emotions in a lean 35 minutes. At the center of it all is Glaspy's observational prowess, or as she describes on closer "People Who Talk", her ability to "make like a fox and start listening."

Julian Lage; Photo by Alysse Gafkjen

Glaspy's influence on Lage's The Layers is a tad more palpable. Written as a described "prequel" to 2022's View With A Room, the record showcases interplay between Jorge Roeder's bass and King's drums, and at times between Lage and Bill Frisell. Glaspy's able to emphasize the raw timbres of Lage and Frisell's acoustic guitars on "This World", or Lage's expansive, twinkling playing on "Missing Voices" atop King's creaking percussion. And the title track is a chugging, almost country rock number, an instrumental that could back Glaspy without batting an eye. In fact, it wonderfully previews Lage's latest choogle of a single "Omission", produced by Joe Henry and that will feature on an upcoming Blue Note album next year. It's hard to predict what Glaspy and Lage will play, but both artists, individually and together, have the chops to make it a memorable opening set you won't want to miss.