It's All Folk Music: I Never Heard a Horse Sing

Souvenirs of Jazz, Baroque, Celtic, Balkan, Jambands, and Traditional Folk Musics

[theloniousbach]

Posted on the WGTE Jazz Spectrum Blog, 24 July 2026:

FINDING SASHA BERLINER

Kim Kleinman, Contributing Writer

In that winter of Lockdown, the Smalls/Mezzrow livestreams were my way of accessing at least some kind of live music performance. I hit a jackpot (on a pretty safe bet) with a band called Palladium promising to play Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil on Christmas Eve 2020, 56 years to the day after its original recording. This was also the first time I heard Nicole Glover who met the responsibility of playing tenor saxophone by being a fresh voice, very much her own, respectful but not too deferential. Sasha Berliner was equally fearless in carving out a voice for the vibraphone on those iconic tunes.

By their next gigs on February 6 and April 25, 2021, they had established the lineup that their organizer Jesse Markowitz took into the studio on June 9th that year for the Bandcamp album, Don’t Look Back https://palladium825.bandcamp.com/album/dont-look-back . A June 21st Smalls gig celebrated that recording. Besides Glover and Berliner, pianist Sean Mason was the other breakout star. Since he and Glover had regular late-night gigs at Mezzrow and Smalls Jazz Club respectively, I tried not to miss either’s once they hit the archive.

Berliner, though, was harder to find on the streams. She led her quartet at Smoke Jazz Club in June 2023 which I caught and has scattered a few shows at Smalls which I’m afraid I mostly didn’t. So it’s her work with Palladium with Glover and Mason I know best.

In the first minute of ESP on the album, she splices in voices over her vibe pattern: “Too extreme?,” she asks. Rusell Hall, Palladium’s bassist, chuckles, “Oh, my god, that’s insane, man. You’re from another planet. I ain’t never heard no sounds like that before in my life. We’re in the future now.” Glover adds, “Sasha, if you feel that, do it.” Then Shorter himself on tape from an earlier interviews admonishes all of us to “don’t look back” while studying history so we can “knock the hell out of this music.” This version of Shorter’s first tune for Miles Davis develops out of her sound collage—electronics and vibraphone—that inspires her bandmates to explore their instruments, the tune, and themselves as they embark on the album. Markowitz released 2020 under the Palladium name as an all-star anthology of Shorter’s music with Berliner’s similar but solo sound collage, “Meridianne—A Wood Sylph,” as the opener. On each Palladium album, it is Berliner’s vision of Shorter’s music that we encounter first. Later in the album, she presents a solo version of “Face on the Barroom Floor.” Her other showcase is a duet with guest soprano saxophonist Emilio Modeste on the traditional song “She Moved Through the Fair” which serves as a lush, deliberate conversation, contributing her instrument’s sustain and its spare chord possibilities with incisive melodic statements.

At the Palladium gigs and Don’t Look Back, she is part of the frontline with Glover, soloing expansively while contributing to the rhythn section. The Shorter canon is a rich test for her and her equally talented young compatriots. They pass easily.

I know better what Glover and Mason have taken from this immersion. Like other faithful listeners of Jazz Spectrum, I will learn better from this week’s examination of Sasha Berliner’s work as a leader and what she has accomplished. Her Palladium work established her as a wildly inventive player who hears sounds others haven’t. She and her colleagues are “in the future now.”

[theloniousbach]

ARI HOENIG with Ravi Coltrane (!!), Gadi Lehavi, and Ben Tiberio, JAZZCULTURUAL, 20 JULY 2026, 7 and 9 pm sets

I some just can’t seem to see ARI HOENIG with his trio. Last time, Ben Tiberio was away and Joe Martin filled in on bass and the show skewed away from even one of HOENIG’s originals for standards. Then Miguel Zenon and Matt Penman were the trio. And the time before that, maybe two, I missed the gig in real time and never got back to it in the Archives.

And, this time, poor poor me, had to/got the treat of seeing Ravi Coltrane join the band. He was a remarkably good fit and helped continue last time’s trend of a remarkably subtle and controlled set with Gadi Lehavi continuing to blossom into a force to help his leader express his vision. At JAZZCULTURAL, bassists aren’t lost in the mix, so Tiberio’s many contributions were prominent. HOENIG remains irrepressible—complex and sophisticated, his rhythmic conception unique while being fully dedicated to the tunes. There were covers but his own often wistful and/or lyrical tunes were in the mix and Irish Golem was in both sets. They have plenty of improvisation but they have a definite structure which, as was clear from the covers which had guideposts and snippets of familiarity, to be deconstructed.

Stepping into all this Coltrane was the perfect foil. He sounded more like his father than I’ve ever heard him (it’s an unfair but hard to avoid comparison. He was two when John died and his mother Alice had to be a more formative influence. Still he went into the family business), not the Impulse John Coltrane but the ‘50s Trane . His tone was airy, his approach melodic. But he could be punchy delighting himself and HOENIG by dancing along with the rhythms. Not what his father was doing with Rashied Ali when he was a babe in arms, but joining HOENIG’s complexities. They beamed at one another.

So did Coltrane and Lehavi who play together in an occasional trio with drummer Ele Howell, with Lehavi adding keyboard sounds in lieu of a bass player as he sometimes does with HOENIG and Tivon Pinnicott. I’ve liked those gigs, but miss Tiberio. And not to knock Pinnicott, but Coltrane was pretty special.

They opened both sets with Monk tunes, Epistrophy and I Mean You, and closed the second one with one that wasn’t In Walked Bud even if I thought that was it even as it started with HOENIG using mallets, his elbows, and the drums to play the melody. He did the same thing at the end of the first set but that was Charles Mingus’ Dry Cleaner From Des Moines. The second set had Horace Silver’s necessary Peace while the first set had an original composition to honor mentor Ralph Peterson. So there was lots of history in the room, but also a focused energy. HOENIG is a gem with established telepathy with Tiberio and Lehavi, a balance that welcomes Lehavi’s continued growth. Coltrane fit right in and I choose to dream that he could become a regular and/or hire this band as his rhythm section.

In any case, it was a special gig.

[theloniousbach]

GEOFFREY KEEZER with Ron Blake, Jocelyn Gould, Noriko Ueda, and Ryan Sands, JAZZCULTURAL, 19 JULY 2026, 9 pm set

GEOFFREY KEEZER’s good reputation has prompted my curiosity most times he has been in Smalls Live world; a duo date with Ron Carter stands out. He hasn’t been t/here often enough for me to fix him. This time around he had the endorsement from Spike Wilner et al of a weekend run at JAZZCULTURAL, that and old hero Noriko Ueda on bass and new one Ron Blake on the gig. And it was a curious gig at that.

The opener Refuge was pleasantly lowkey though Ueda, as always, was mischievously inventive. Blake and young guitarist Jocelyn Gould wove together the front line but forced nothing together or in their solos. I suppose that could have been a clue, but the vibe of the gig was set by Abstraido (absent minded in Spanish) which was a contrafact of Hotel California so he said. I didn’t recognize it beyond some of the shifts among the sections, instead it had a Steely Dan feel. KEEZER among them stretched out the most, but Ueda was always active. Next up was a cover of the 1970s funk band The Brothers Johnson’s Tomorrow. I went back to the prominent streaming service that will only give them a fraction of a penny for me listening to it. The original is actually pretty tame smooth jazz ish while Ueda laid it down and then soloed inventively, provoking big grins from her bandmates.

KEEZER served up Duke Ellington’s Second Sacred Concert miniature TGTT (Too Good To Title) as a solo exploration that opened up some proper jazz there and with The Wild Vine that followed. There was a section of that tune where they were all soloing (well, maybe Ueda was just playing) on top of other. Ryan Sand was tasteful but quiet even as he brought the funk. The closer was mostly Ogunde, the Brazilian folk song John Coltrane covered on Expressions, which Blake could dig into after Blake blocked the chords and Ueda bowed. Then Keezer segued into an allusive and gentle Give Peace A Chance with an Across The Universe tease in the last chorus.

The Eagles, The Brothers Johnson, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and John Lennon, but I still don’t really know GEOFFREY KEEZER.

[theloniousbach]

JANE MONHEIT SINGS THE COLE PORTER SONGBOOK AT SMOKE JAZZ CLUB, 17 JULY 2026, 8:30 pm set, with Max Haymer, Neil MIner, and Rick Montalbano

JANE MONHEIT seems to have an annual residency at SMOKE JAZZ CLUB which was her real training ground when she was in school at the Manhattan School of Music in the late 1990s. Classmates included this rhythm section. I saw her last year as part of my burgeoning fandom for her long time music director Michael Kanan who plays regularly with Neal Miner. There was another drummer as husband Rick Montalbano had to stay in Los Angeles, possibly with their son. Max Haymer has also served as music director out in Los Angeles and came east this time.

A Cole Porter program suited me just fine and it was a treat to hear what she and they did with favorites/familiars like In The Still Of The Night, All Of You (creatively unfamiliar with Nicholas Payton’s arrangement), It’s De-Lovely, and Easy To Love. There were tunes befitting a deeper dive into the canon which were clearly Porter in their lyrical and musical wit but didn’t ring a bell for this notoriously poor Name That Tune player. Why Can’t You Behave and So In Love (the closer with the full band) were from Kiss Me Kate. The opener was I Am In Love and the encore was Do I Love You?, quiet and romantic only with Haymer, but clearly directed at Montalbano whose place off the bandstand she wanted to identify. The answer to the song’s question is an emphatic yes.

Since she made her personal life a part of her patter, I will add her evidence to my consideration of being a woman in jazz. While Miki Yamanaka and Nicole Glover are among my favorite players period full stop, I can’t help but notice how each (and they are friends and collaborators) protect themselves—Yamanaka with her kimonos, her charmingly goofy English isn’t my first language comments, and, yes, probably, drummer/husband Jimmy Macbride whereas Glover is ultra serious talking little even when she leads the band. These artists deserve to be taken seriously and the expansion of women in to these ranks increases the level of talent.

Monheit is about a musical generation older and a vocalist. Her expectations for stage patter for instance and selling the song is different. She is a fine JAZZ singer, improvising capably including scatting not too much. Her band accompanies well but she lets them play jazz. Still the publicity photo SMOKE JAZZ CLUB uses is from at least 25 years ago when she was “cute.” She remains so in an age appropriate way, but she points at the combination of perimenopause and ADHD means she forgets which stories she told in which set, that their son is with them on this trip but he now has his own things to do in the City besides watch Mom and Dad play at SMOKE, and, tellingly, that she knows she can do other things now with these songs than she did when the record companies promoted her in different ways which she would talk about in the next set. Undoubtedly that included, at its mildest, shooting that publicity photo the club still uses.

She spoke appreciatively about Payton’s role in producing and arranging some of the tunes on her 2016 album, The Songbook Sessions: Ella Fitzgerald, gave her a deeper, more mature forum to express herself. Her growth as a musician is worth keeping an eye out for. So next summer at SMOKE JAZZ CLUB it is. I plan to stream it.

[theloniousbach]

THE 92nd STREET Y’s JAZZ IN JULY, 15 JULY 2026:

BILLY HART with Nicole Glover, Ethan Iverson, and Tyrone Allen

Already going into this gig, Nicole Glover was set to replace Mark Turner in this working band. Much as I value Turner, I was interested to see what Glover would do, happy that she continues to get the recognition that I’ve thought is her due since I became a fan early in Lockdown, and curious about her interactions with Ethan Iverson to whom Sasha Berliner issued her 2017 open letter concerning sexism in jazz. The music was absolutely top notch as Glover rose to the occasion. She was both gracious and a little embarrassed by her leader’s praise which was probably fed to him by Iverson, so they had a laugh over it. To dispense with the third point, Berliner took justified offense at a thoughtless and tasteless but telling aside that pianist Robert Glasper included, unchallenged, in an interview with Iverson to which Iverson cluelessly responded in the general aftermath that he himself was impressed with the intelligence of women jazzers. Berliner used this exchange to chronicle her experiences up to age 19 at the time learning her craft to be accepted as a jazzer who was female. Both Glasper’s crudity and Iverson’s paternalism were obstacles. Since Berliner and Glover have collaborated, including on the Palladium project honoring Wayne Shorter, I wondered how each had grown over the intervening nine years. Glover’s response to being a jazzer while female is to be non-demonstrative and strictly professional. She owes no one, especially me, a smile, but, for her sake, I’d like to know she is having fun creating art that I admire so much.

All that said, I think she just maybe had some fun last night. She (and Tyrone Allen, bassist in her trio and with Miki Yamanaka, who filled in for Ben Street) played from a complicated repertoire with scores and music stands. Hart describes his Song for Balkis as a tone poem and places Balkis as the daughter of Solomon and Bathsheba in the Old Testament and not as also his daughter. It is an appropriately beautiful tune but tricky with significant through composed moments beginning with the composer’s deliberate mallet work on all the drums. Similarly, Iverson’s Giant Steps contrafact, Onedaruth, is as complicated as the original and with enough hints around it that it takes concentration to play Iverson’s new melody and then to make the whole thing swing. Iverson’s other tune was The Showdown which was surprisingly lyrical after Hart introduced it as in contrast to negotiation. His announcements would likely have tended to being cryptic and/or discursive 15 years ago when he was my current age. Now at 85, there are pauses and non sequiturs that border on feeling embarrassed for him. He got lost in explaining Glover’s award, both times, and waited two or three ticks too long to add “Glover” after saying “Nicole.” But, not to worry, his playing was sublime with cymbal work both on the introduction to the first tune that sounded like the quick decay of rain or countless little steel drums. The clave is insistent but he doesn’t have to roar.

Besides the tune for his daughter Balkis, The Duchess was for all the grandmothers as that’s what his father called his own mother when Hart was young. It too was a pretty loving line and an immediate, direct appeal. There was more family in the closer Lorca for which, instead of talking about his son, he sketched the contributions of Federico Garcia Lorca. He twice referred to the pianist as “the eloquent Ethan Iverson,” acknowledging his writing, both his Transitional Technology blog and his role in his autobiography Oceans of Time. For all the cryptic misdirection of the griot and the increased elderliness of the village elder, Hart has lots of ideas in his head and wisdom to impart even before he sits himself down behind the drum kit.

[theloniousbach]

MIKI YAMANAKA with Ron Blake, Tyrone Allen, and Bill Stewart, JAZZCULTURAL, 28 MAY 2026, both sets

This show was on my radar, but got lost in the shuffle as I was at Jazz St Louis hearing Terrell Stafford and Tim Warfield when it streamed and then we went Up North. It stayed in the middle of my list too long and I forgot about it. But having seen Bill Stewart with George Colligan over the weekend rekindled my interest in the show, even though in late May I wondered why Jimmy Macbride wasn’t behind the kit. He contributes importantly to MIKI YAMANAKA’s appeal, but Stewart is indeed incredible and his presence as well as Ron Blake’s tenor saxophone and flute made this a different gig. Tyrone Allen was the only holdover from her regular band and he was strong and solid; she called him “a comfort, like a pillow” in one of her charmingly awkward English is not my native language asides.

As fine as her tunes are, she leaned into a very appealing array of jazz compositions that highlighted Blake’s lush tone (on what had to have been a white plastic tenor) and Stewart’s percussive subtleties. Hearing her on the heels of Colligan, I was attuned to her comping skills and how open and sparer her soloing was compared to her trio work.

She had luscious tunes to work with. Bronislaw Kaper’s Invitation was a promising opening but then Sam Rivers’ luxuriant Beatrice (quite the vehicle for Blake) and James Williams’ exquisite Alter-Ego were treasures. Both are prominent on a playlist I assemble of compositions to savor. Sonny Rollins’ Airegin was in the first set as his Doxy opened the second. The community was absorbing his loss then. John Coltrane’s Giant Steps (more tenor madness for Blake and all of them) followed Doxy. Joining Rivers, Rollins, and Coltrane, the other monster tenor saxophonist/composer was Benny Golson’s whose Stablemates was the first set closer. No Wayne Shorter, but monuments all of them that they all dug into. Blake’s robust tone was of course prominent and essential, but, again, YAMANAKA’s soloing was fluid and spacious in a way I hadn’t heard from her in her trio work. She was enjoying the JAZZCULTURAL Steinway which is a powerful instrument. She did do a trio tune in each set, maybe the same one. The second set one was announced—Duke Pearson’s You Know I Care.

She had given the band the option of Monk’s Trinkle Tinkle when they collectively chose Stablemates. But they made sure to include it in the second set as well as Bobby Hutcherson’s Little B’s Poem. What a stellar collection of tunes!!

The closer started with The Theme before giving way to a more generic Rhythm Changes jam which shifted gears and closed out with the head to Monk’s In Walked Bud.

She has an album coming out next month with Nicole Glover along with Allen and Macbride. I miss MIKI YAMANAKA, so that will be what I’ll look forward to.

[theloniousbach]

SAME SET/ALMOST THE SAME BAND

GEORGE COLLIGAN with Steve Wilson (Saturday), Jaleel Shaw (Sunday), Alexander Claffy, and Bill Stewart!, JAZZCULTURAL, 11-12 JULY 2026, 9 pm sets

GEORGE COLLIGAN has an ear for saxophonists. He mentored Nicole Glover back in Portland and I’ve seen them at Smalls Jazz Club. Another favorite, Steve Wilson, has been fairly regular at his gigs. I wouldn’t want to miss either of them. I saw Jaleel Shaw first with Dave Holland when the Village Vanguard was streaming gigs during Lockdown and more recently with Joe Farnsworth. He’s someone I want to know better, particularly as I listen more attentively to altoists.

I caught both for the second sets two nights running. COLLIGAN played the exact same set in the same order, so I suppose I could theoretically hold forth on the differences between Wilson and Shaw. Sorry, not really. With Wilson, I was happy to have his introductions to the tunes and just generally appreciative of his talent. The tunes were strong vehicles for all of them, but my general impression was that COLLIGAN was stronger as a composer and bandleader than pianist. That is, I wasn’t avidly wondering how he would sound in a trio. But there are plenty of players like that, though Andrew Hill is who came first to mind. Still, he did play a properly lyrical and elegiac Song for Jack DeJohnette. He also paid tribute to Mulgrew Miller with the second tune which gave Bill Stewart, a wonder all night long, plenty of layers to create a slightly Latin theme. Bus #14 (in Portland) was jaunty and intricate; Wilson, having played on Friday night too, could take the first solo, but Shaw went second on his stab at it. Was Wilson simply more familiar with the tune, the better sight reader, or just more experienced overall? I don’t think it matters. I think the world of Wilson, but Shaw is a thoughtful, appealing player too. On the closer, the title an allusion to Oregon electoral politics, he had an appealing r&b feel and may even had incorporated bits of Stevie Wonder’s Overjoyed in his solo which I didn’t hear in Wilson (just wonder, not Wonder).

What I heard with more familiarity with the tunes is what COLLIGAN brings as a pianist. His accompanying skills are top drawer and the DeJohnette tribute was lyrical. His soloing the second night seemed more fluid and melodic.

Alexander Claffy sounded good—and bassists standout more at JAZZCULTURAL than at Smalls. Bill Stewart though was the star of the gig. It wasn’t just the Latinesque Mulgrew Miller tune as he rode his cymbal hard on the opener and contributed intelligently in the spirit of COLLIGAN’s challenging tunes. They had a built in pulse but he kept it front and center. He is only occasional part of Smalls Live world, so it was a treat to see him.

[theloniousbach]

EMMET COHEN with Peter Washington!, and Joe Farnsworth, SMOKE JAZZ CLUB, 10 JULY 2026, 8:30 pm set

A chance to see EMMET COHEN should not be missed and he has, in the avuncular Joe Farnsworth, a kindred spirit. Both swing insistently, put prodigious technique in the service of not just the music of the moment but its tradition, and are generous to a fault, each going on perhaps too long in their band introductions. They have collaborated for a couple of years by now, most often with Yasushi Nakamura, including last season at Jazz St Louis. So, of course, I’d snatch up this stream, but the presence of Peter Washington, the consummate piano trio bassist as COHEN put it, made this essential.

As strong as Nakamura is and how much telepathy a working band forms, Washington was a force throughout, walking his quarter notes relentlessly except when they were eighth notes. He was powerful and inventive, more than holding his own with strong bandmates. This is a different power than Jean-Michel Pilc/Francois Moutin/Ari Hoenig, more straight ahead, but COHEN knows tunes and respects the tradition.

I didn’t catch the name of the opener, but after setting up big block chords to match Washington’s line, COHEN danced gracefully but not delicately over it all. The second tune was Thad Jones’ Let’s from Washington’s tenure with Tommy Flanagan. They slowed things down for Young and Foolish but it too still simmered. For all my focus on this band’s power, it was in their more delicate moments, of which there were several, that they really shone. Tadd Dameron’s If You Could See Me Now had that sweet mix of grace and power as did Compassion, the middle part of the Universal Truth Suite that closed the show. Both throttled up, but they allowed all of them to show subtler sides. Compassion was sandwiched by Eternal Glimpse which had a bouncy groove and Universal Truth itself which cooked.

COHEN is a servant of the music as is Farnsworth. Bass players are always thinking about how the band is sounding, so Washington fits the ethos. He quipped that Young and Foolish was for him. That he is young and wise bodes very well for the tradition he will uphold for decades ahead.

[theloniousbach]

LARRY FULLER with Lorin Cohen and Carmen Intorre Jr, MEZZROW, 2 JULY 2026, 6 and 7:30 pm sets

Time and travel have conspired against my jazz streaming, but I seized some introvert time and these vigorous, straight ahead sets to jumpstart the habit. I’d seen LARRY FULLER et al on 25 June 2025 at the Blue Strawberry in St Louis on the basis of recalling him playing in the studio for Jazz Spectrum in his hometown of Toledo. A year later, that same mix was just comfortable—infectious and familiar without being predictable.

FULLER was Ray Brown’s last pianist and so it makes sense that he has some Oscar Peterson in his power and grace and that Lorin Cohen would be a force on bass. Carmen Intorre Jr was always making the right choices, but really came into his own in the second set. In the first he had only one showcase, but he got a couple of proper solos and traded fours etc in most of the others. They have a comfortable band chemistry; for all their collective and individual chops, I don’t know that they play with other musicians. If they are the jazz equivalent of a dad rock band, it speaks to the high level of skill it takes to play this music.

They opened, as they did in St Louis, with Old Devil Moon which roared and purred as it was supposed to. The second set began with Wes Montgomery’s Fried Pies which didn’t have to be quite the same kind of warm up but played the same role. They nicely place a ballad in the second slot and those were highlights—Oscar Peterson’s iconic Wheatland from the Canadiana Suite (and, I’ll say it once again, featured at my first jazz concert when I was eight years old) and Jane’s Theme for FULLER’s wife. They honored Brown (Line With A Groove) and Dizzy Gillespie (Tin Tin Deo) but then stopped announcing titles. FULLER certainly took a sustained solo exploration of Ellington’s Come Sunday in the first set but the band then took up something else. Similarly, I heard the Salt Peanuts head but the jam was not necessarily directly related. The second had a luxurious Lil Darlin from the Basie book and a brisk Milestones. The homestretch of that set was a tune that felt like a 1960s movie theme (and I did tend to like the ballads and slow blues as a reminder of the subtlety that goes with the swagger) and then a distinctive roaring tune.

If this was musical comfort food, there was still spice and tang and, above all, fresh ingredients.

[theloniousbach]

ARI HOENIG (and Joe Martin) AT JAZZ CULTURAL WITH

JOEL FRAHM and Gary Versace, 27 JUNE 2026, 7 pm set, and

Gadi Lehavi, 29 JUNE 2026, 9 pm set

I missed JOEL FRAHM in real time, despite proprietor Spike Wilner touting a member of his own Manhattan School of Music cohort that also included Peter Bernstein and Brad Mehldau and his pianist Gary Versace as a favorite cat on the scene. Club owners are proud of their talent in public, but JAZZ CULTURAL, Smalls, and Mezzrow have stellar reputations because of his taste and integrity. I did catch their show on You Tube (not the usual Smalls Live Archive) and without annoying ads to boot on the basis of ARI HOENIG in the band, particularly after seeing his own gig in real time with regular pianist Gadi Lehavi and Joe Martin, also on FRAHM’s gig, filling in for bassist Ben Tiberio.

The HOENIG gig was almost the Gadi Lehavi Trio as the tunes, mostly standards probably for Martin’s benefit, were taken very gently with brooding, subtle piano. Lehavi even more than usual seized the spotlight and HOENIG was his complex, multilayered self just quieter. He’s a consummate trio drummer anyway, though he more than holds his own with Jean-Michel Pilc and Francois Moutin, but he notched everything down. If anything, that called even more attention to what he was doing rhythmically and musically. They opened with Come Rain or Come Shine which came into focus only during Lehavi’s second chorus.and Martin’s solo. That was recognizable in a way that George Shearing’s Conception didn’t, remaining “familiar standard” in my notes until HOENIG announced it. But they often include it so if sure was familiar. Less so was Blame It On My Youth which I should know much better. The closer was some bebop, maybe even Monk and by the tail end of Youth and certainly by this one they were up to standard volume. A very nice set, but a little different.

Probably the FRAHM set, had I seen it in real time, might have been a heads up. He and Versace play lightly and patiently, digging into the melodic and harmonic possibilities without rushing things. His own Mendoza Line was a straight ahead medium tempo opener, very tasty with FRAHM’s tenor in the mid-range. He cites John Coltrane (surely early), Chris Potter, and Stan Getz as influences and indeed his tone got dryer as the set went on. He did an original bossa which he wrote when he had Getz’s late rhythm section of Kenny Barron, Rufus Reid, and Lewis Nash and he was on soprano for that one. Brubeck’s In You Own Sweet Way evoked the Miles Davis version which of course had Coltrane on it, a slow burn. HOENIG provoked FRAHM’s smile for the first time for combining rhythmic magic with melodic drumming. FRAHM and Versace took the first chorus of Monk’s We See without the rhythm section, but then FRAHM dug into two full choruses of the bebop closer (which one, who knows because, besides my own deficiencies as a listener FRAHM mischievouly quotes other tunes—Get Up Stand Up and maybe Stevie Wonder on his opener, Young At Heart here) with Versace laying out. Stardust was in there, luxurious as always and another chance for HOENIG to play the tune.

I missed HOENIG with Lehavi and Tiberio in late May/early June and he was with Miguel Zenon and Matt Penman in late April, so I need to see the regular trio again some Monday night, now at JAZZ CULTURAL.

[theloniousbach]

CELEBRATING SONNY: A TRIBUTE TO SONNY ROLLINS

ERIC ALEXANDER with Nicholas Payton, David Kikoski, Alexander Claffy, and Carl Allen, SMOKE JAZZ CLUB, 26 JUNE 2026, 8:30 pm set

I would have signed up for this stream on the basis of ERIC ALEXANDER. Nicholas Payton, dour though he usually is (he almost smiled as his leader recited the lyrics to his high point ballad showcase though), was added incentive. Honoring Sonny Rollins was worthwhile but unexpected. I am quite fond of ALEXANDER’s playing and his lyricism and melodic invention owe something at least in general to Rollins. But his tone has struck me as lighter. He did player more fully and reveled in the repertoire—Valse Hot with explicit references to Somewhere Over The Rainbow as source material was a high point. They also took on the tricky The Most Beautiful Girl In The World as the closer as an example of Rollins’ love of the Great American Song Book. So it was effectively Sonny time.

The opener, Strode Rode, had the horns serially introducing the theme before each taking their assay. ALEXANDER was markedly more rounded in tone, so it was Payton who at least started sparer before leaning into it. Rollins wrote this for Clifford Brown to join him, so it was a dual tribute. Here and throughout David Kikoski’s piano work was energetic as always but was less clunky than he sometimes is. His right hand danced rather than plodded. There was a nice moment during Valse Hot where he and drummer Carl Allen grinned at one another—and there was much to smile at. Allen was seasoned and effective. His expertise and contribution was unquestionable, but he approached things with an ease that hid what he accomplished. Alex Claffy did the bassists’ thing of churning away finding rhythmic and harmonic prods for the others, at least one earned a mischievous grin from Allen. His solos were equally robust.

Payton’s Everything Happens To Me was powerfully poignant as he with Kikoski’s sensitive help dug into the line and its supporting chords. I heard it twice last week from Mark Morganelli who interrupted his Miles Davis tribute to offer a nod to Chet Baker. As good as Morganelli was, Payton’s was exquisite. Afterward, ALEXANDER almost provoked a smile by reciting the lyrics, altering them to be about Payton. As part of that patter, he explained that his American Lit PhD father said that if one could do the NYTimes crossword and extensively quote Great American Song Book lyrics, one could convince people that you might know something. There are times that something like that captures my version and rationale for a liberal education.

Such knowledge is, above all, fun and enriching. So was this gig. To be able to appreciate Sonny Rollins as a listener is its own satisfaction; to hear it from ALEXANDER, Payton, and the band is a testament to their accomplishment.

[theloniousbach]

OLD FOLKS BOOGIE

LITTLE FEAT, DOOR COUNTY AUDITORIUM, FISH CREEK WI, 26 JUNE 2026

LITTLE FEAT was the last rock band I fell in love with even as I was becoming a jazz snob in the mid 1970s. Like the more senior members of my core—The Allman Brothers Band, The Band, and, of course, the Grateful Dead—they were a swirling blend of influences. LITTLE FEAT had thick syncopation with more than a little Nawlins to go with the blues and country and rhythm and blues that all these bands had. Lowell George had pipes as a vocalist, was a wickedly clever songwriter, and brought slide guitar to yet another two guitar attack with Paul Barrere. His death in 1979 was another blow to my rock’n’roll fandom to go with the Dead’s overproduced phase of Blues for Allah and Terrapin Station after the disjointed and lackluster Steal Your Face live album; the break up of The Band; post Blood on the Tracks Dylan not grabbing me; and otherwise the ‘70s showing warning signs of the ‘80s.

I never saw LITTLE FEAT after they re-formed despite having a following in St Louis, but here they were Up North and it seemed worth seeing how the survivors and worthy new blood was upholding the legacy. No matter what I was going to hear signature tunes from a core repertoire. But was this LITTLE FEAT or more akin to the several extensions of the Grateful Dead that had key founding members at the core—The Other Ones, The Dead, Furthur, or Dead and Company?

Bill Payne is foundational even if he no longer sits behind a battery of keyboards. The technology is so good that he gets acoustic and electric piano out of a professional level keyboard distantly related to mine and swirling organ out of another shorter one. He is a commanding soloist to this day, fresh and innovative. He has Kenny Gradney’s bass lines thickly syncopating things and he may have always been the secret weapon, though Sam Clayton’s percussion and bass vocal growl is essential. Payne has said the he sets up so that he and drummer Tony Leone have a straight line of sight. He has jazz chops—studying with Art Taylor and leading bands at Smalls from time to time. Of course, I miss Richie Hayward for his role in creating the sound, but the band as a band is certainly not diminished and might well be “better.” Leone also tended to sing the Barrere songs, particularly Old Folks Boogie (much funnier 50 years ago than it sounds now) and Skin It Back. Fred Tackett was a friend and collaborator of Lowell George and so brings plenty of bona fides. His guitar playing has some of Barrere’s snarl. His soloes are perfectly acceptable but he is clearly the second guitarist to Scott Sharrard who also takes on most of the George vocals. That’s a daunting task and I suppose the new or cover band question comes down to his role. Like John Mayer in relation to Garcia in Dead and Company, I respect that Sharrard is his own player and not a clone while the band with Tackett, Payne, and that fantastic rhythm section gives him the right launching pad. He’s the right guitarist for the job. But I think only someone like Warren Haynes has the right power and his own voice, literally, to take on and deliver this repertoire.

But, what a repertoire! Of course, there were things I would have been delighted to hear (All That You Dream, Cold Cold Cold, Day At The Dog Races, Mercenary Territory), but Oh Atlanta, Rock’n’Roll Doctor (with a monster drum fill from Leone), Long Distance Love, Spanish Moon nicely into Skin It Back, and Time Loves A Hero (by way remembering Hayward, Barrere, and George) in the first set alone would have been enough. That set also included new/er tunes like the Let It Roll to open, Four Days Of Heaven Three Days of Work, and Willie Dixon’s You’ll Be Mine from Sam’s Place which feature Mr Clayton.

The guys next to me left at the break and the crowd continued to thin out, but a core of us stayed. The second set included a five tune acoustic set with Easy To Slip, Tackett’s Church Falling Down, Sailin’ Shoes (Tackett added a sweet trumpet part here and played mandolin as he did through out the set except on his own song), Don’t Bogart The Joint into the inevitable Willin’ sing along. Maybe it really doesn’t matter how well Sharrard and any of them sang because most of us were either singing along or hearing the original voices. As they cleared the stage, Payne had a solo turn on Rita Was Her Name, seemingly previously unreleased and cowritten by a novelist friend. Then it was the home stretch of On The Way Down, Two Trains, a shifting jammed out, multiphased Fat Man In The Bathtub, a little piano/trumpet interlude that clearly foreshadowed Dixie Chicken that showcased everyone before finding its way into Tripe Face Boogie. They didn’t leave the stage but Feats Don’t Fail Me Now was the appropriate semi-encore.

It was all great fun and maybe sloppier than Lowell George would have accepted. But it was a treat to commune with the songs.

[theloniousbach]

KEEPING ON CELEBRATING MILES DAVIS!

MARK MORGANELLI with George Cables, Yasushi Nakamura, and Elio Coppollo, SMALLS JAZZ CLUB, 5-6 JUNE 2026, 6 and 7:30 pm sets

These sets took place 10 days after the Miles Davis Centennial, but I didn’t know that when I plugged into the early Friday night set. George Cables was on the gig and I wanted to see at least a set. Cables was wonderfully sympathetic and expressive as always and hence a treat to hear him. Hear him, not see him, as he and the piano were not illuminated and I could only see his hands silhouetted on one camera angle out of the three that cycle through.

That was enough and that it was a Miles tribute was enough to convince me to see the whole run. MARK MORGANELLI runs Jazz Forum Alliance in Tarrytown, but is a worthy player as Spike Wilner of Smalls Live is. His trumpet playing evoked Miles very well and perhaps playing Bye Bye Blackbird, All Of You (twice), Someday My Prince Will Come (also twice), and Freddie Freeloader (every set) meant that he played with a mute more than he might at a “regular” gig, he wasn’t tamping down some inner Dizzy Gillespie via Jon Faddis. As such, he fit the conventions for the trumpet I learned first. Equally, this examination of Miles’ 1950s book was so formative. Together they made for a wonderfully conventional set and I intend no faint praise. MORGANELLI set a fine example with crisp focused soloes, yet everyone got generous showcases. Cables was all I had hoped for and Elio Coppollo was light and swinging.

It was Yakasushi Nakamura who was flashy and captivating. I can tell myself a story that one learns to swagger and play with power after playing with Emmet Cohen and Joe Farnsworth as much as he has lately. He was very strong and even broke his deepest string on the next to last tune, So What, as he was working with Coppollo to take the tune out just as he vigorously explore the intro before leading the band into the outro. He did the same with All Blues both times they played it. He somehow got through the closer of the run, Milestones.

Miles’ music is never tame. In calling this set wonderfully conventional, it is partially the case that Miles established the conventions. MORGANELLI with Cables and Nakamura, couldn’t help but push things and I was captivated along with the familiarity. He did welcome Mar Vilaseca to sing How High The Moon in the very first set to change things up some. But they helped me settle into one of my foundational and formational jazz places, so I stayed for all four sets.

[theloniousbach]

MOZART AND GLAZUNOV, MIDSUMMER MUSIC, MUSE STURGEON BAY, 20 JUNE 2026

With more MOZART (the clarinet Quintet in A major, K 581 “Stadler”) on the program and nearby in downtown Sturgeon Bay, I put this one on our schedule. In so far as I knew of Alexander GLAZUNOV, it was in passing at best and certainly I didn’t know his cello (two of them!) Quintet in A major, Opus 39, G 84 specifically. The instrumentation appealed and reading that he was a friend of Tchaikovsky; a student of Rimsky-Korsakov; a teacher of Shostakovitch; and colleague of Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, and Stravinsky certainly helped place him but didn’t provoke unqualified enthusiasm.

Still, as with the Raff last time, I appreciate the curation of MIDSUMMER MUSIC in keeping composers in the repertoire. GLAZUNOV (1865-1936) is a generation and a half or maybe two after Raff (1822-1882), so have appealing chamber music conventions well in hand. That is, whereas the MOZART certainly had a bit of a concerto feel with the clarinet soloing over a string ensemble (four pieces in this particular case) and with that the clarinet was more in the violin range whereas it being a viola or even cello is where its timbre and tone interest me most. GLAZUNOV’s voices intertwined significantly and many themes were led by the lower voices. Shirley Chisholm was back on viola and she introduced three movements, first and second by herself and the fourth with the cellos. The second had lots of pizzacati from all five of them and that aspect caught my ear. The two cellos of course gave an appealing depth. Mara McClain was the first cello and was prominent in the music. For the MOZART she sat dead center and seemed to cue the others, though it might simply been her intelligent and lively facial expressions. She seemed to be having more fun than anyone on both pieces. David Perry as first violinist was personally restrained, putting the emotion into the playing.

The MOZART was wonderfully as expected. JJ Koh took advantage of this early showcase for his instrument to contribute to the infectious fizz of these melodies.

MUSE STURGEON BAY is a somewhat austere performance space though its range of musicians is appealing. I’m going back at least twice for jazz and to renew a conversation with the artistic director. But I counted only 18 people in the seats, some of whom like the two from Write On Door and at least one apparent family member of a musician. It’s a new venue for them and it was a Saturday night, still I hope they establish MUSE as a successful location.

[theloniousbach]

BEAUTY AND BRILLIANCE (Schumann, Mozart, and Raff), MIDSUMMER MUSIC, HOPE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, STURGEON BAY, 16 JUNE 2026

We got TWO flex packs to this wonderful chamber music series this year as we’ll be Up North for long enough that we have calculated that there are close enough to six shows for us together, plus some that I would go to (only for the good of the cause, I’m sure you know).

This first program of the season was easy with the MOZART PIANO QUARTET IN G MINOR, K 475 (did I see it in St Louis with colleague Matt Pickart on viola?) on the bill. It largely lived up to expectation, though Shirley Chisholm’s viola wasn’t as prominent as Mozart usually wrote for “his” instrument. But he also wrote for the piano and it sparkled, particularly in the hands of veteran stalwart Jeannie Yu. Her role was certainly key, but there is that intrinsic Mozart sparkle. The program notes suggest that with this work, he was beginning to write true chamber music with the instruments passing thematic responsibility around. Not here, but I’ve certainly had the experience of sensing each instrument was playing on behalf of a section that wasn’t there. (I have wondered if Hummell’s transcriptions of a few late Mozart symphonies for flute/clarinet, violin, cello, and piano were properly chamber music. On this definition, maybe not.) David Perry, another familiar veteran, carried the violin role all evening. Rusell Rolen was the cellist for the Mozart and the Raff. He was bright eyed and engaged, having fun with the music—and he was given fun stuff.

SCHUMANN’s NOTTURNO IN E FLAT MAJOR, OPUS 148 (D 487) was the appetizer. It’s shorter but not slight; it’s one movement, an adagio, is fully developed. In her opening remarks, Yu spoke helpfully about both the stillnesses and the transitions. That was a useful guide as there was a quiet power in the work.

After intermission and a poetic response by a fellow of Write On Door, they took on RAFF’s PIANO QUARTET NO 1 IN G MAJOR, OPUS 202, NO 1. MIDSUMMER MUSIC has played Raff before, including at our very first concert of theirs years ago. Again, they note that he was regarded with the likes of Brahms, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky. I suppose because those three are pretty over the top, I shouldn’t have expected to like this work more. It was certainly a four way conversation with hefty work for all, including Chisholm on viola. I was interested throughout at the weave of the instruments, appreciating in turn what each player was contributing. It probably actually was more technically challenging than the pre-interval works, but I suppose that dramatic quality of his age rubbed me the wrong way.

Rosen was quite welcome as the new kid (he’s worked with Miguel Zenon, so I should have tried to talk to him) but Perry and Yu have been at most of the programs we have seen and Chisholm is another veteran.

It’s good to have these to look forward during our summer Up North.

[theloniousbach]

SPIKE WILNER with Yotam Silberstein, Paul Gill, and special guest Anat Cohen, JAZZ CULTURAL, 17 June 2026, 7 and 9 pm sets

Proprietor SPIKE WILNER gave himself two presents for his birthday (sixtieth, I think): 1) he brought his working trio into his new club JAZZ CULTURAL so that he could play the new, specially selected piano and 2) he had pal Anat Cohen sit it. He and Gill had welcomed Cohen to Mezzrow a couple of times in the winter before reuniting with guitarist Yotam Silberstein in a trio they had years ago. The playing couldn’t help but be wonderful with some wonderful curiosities.

The first half of the first set was old old standards, not quite trad jazz but evoking an era, through Swing, where the clarinet was an essential jazz instrument. Now, Cohen is among the very best of players who are reminding us all of how it can be modern. She is an apt ambassador combining high level virtuosity with an infectious ebullience. Few people are so happy playing and virtually no one enjoys her bandmates’ playing as much as she does. She’s totally unaffected, plopping down cross-legged on the stage.

I couldn’t place the opener but they dug into Willow Weep For Me’s bluesiness. After You’ve Gone is 109 years old and Eubie Blake’s Memories of you is 96. Blake lived to be 100 which prompted Wilner to want to celebrate longevity. Though the tunes are chestnuts, they were, if anything, more adventurous in their arrangements with wonderful little side conversations among the players moving the music around—Cohen syncing up with Silberstein, Wilner working on a line with Gill. As the material got more modern, there was much more structure. Indeed, there were moments where Cohen was more obviously a guest and the trio, not as telepathic (yet?) as Michael Kanan with Greg Ruggiero and Neal Miner, dug in. Silberstein is not as subtle as Ruggiero but he thrived with the emphasis on the blues.

The second set started retro but then went on a Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk run with a Rhythm Changes finale, just like the first set. The bebop was liberating and extended; the Ellington was Le Sucrier Velour from The Queen’s Suite (utterly characteristic but new to me), and then Blue Monk (they played the head, but then it became another blues. More Monk, please). While the Rhythm Changes exercise resolved to The Theme, both iterations were more expansive and, probably, allusive to other contrafacts.

The playing was top notch with distinctive elements from each—Wilner taking soloes left handed, Paul Gill bowing (and quite quickly too) his soloes, and Cohen always beaming.

[theloniousbach]

ON SEEING ABDULLAH IBRAHIM IN 2018

Kim Kleinman, Contributing Writer, WGTE’S JAZZ SPECTRUM Blog

My most recent contribution to this blog was a recollection of seeing Sonny Rollins perform in 2009. Now I return with a memory, now bittersweet due to his own death this week, of seeing Abdullah Ibrahim in 2018. Rollins was 79, old only until the moment when the band and his own playing lit a spark. Ibrahim was 83 and although ever alert and observant, he was less energetic. But he guided his band with all too brief solo improvisations and then the occasional incisive chord that changed mood and direction, launching the band in a fresh direction.

I remember being mildly disappointed that there wasn’t more piano. I had prepared for the gig by listening to that early trio album presented by none other than Duke Ellington, several of the often solo tribute recordings Ibrahim made honoring Ellington, and the album “Water from an Ancient Well.” Since the tour was initially billed as a reunion of the Jazz Epistles, Ibrahim’s first band with Hugh Masekala, I listened to those foundational sides. Masekala, whom until then I knew solely due to “Grazing in the Grass, a wonderful tune that too quickly became an earworm, had to cancel the tour due to a recurrence of the cancer that killed him three months before I saw his old friend and bandmate.

Instead, Ibrahim soldiered on with his his band, Ekaya, with Freddie Hendrix taking on the trumpet duties.

Ibrahim began the proceedings with a solo rumination before he was joined by Cleave Guyton on flute (otherwise, Guyton primarily played alto saxophone and led the horn section) and bassist Noah Jackson on cello for a piano trio that evoked European Tradition chamber music. With that the other horns—Hendrix’s trumpet, a tenor sax, baritone sax, and trombone—and the drummer joined the fun. Ibrahim had a rich palette that could evoke Ellington, the Jazz Epistles (and their admiration for Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers), church, and the townships. Jazz to be sure but also distinctively South African. His countryman musician Nduduzo Makhathini recently evoked the “fugitiveness” of this music forged in America and returning to Africa and its impact on generations of Africans from Ibrahim and Masakela through to him today.

Throughout I wished for much more of Ibrahim’s piano and yet, like his hero Duke Ellington, he was playing his band with gestures and facial expressions as much as a well placed chord. He did take another short solo interlude before being part of the chamber music trio with flute and cello. And then the music existed in memory, one I’m glad to be able to revisit now to honor Abdullah Ibrahim.