Free Show in Schenectady, Thursday, June 27; Fourth of 11-show Series
Stecks (nom de jazz of saxophonist/composer Matt Steckler) names this band of regional stars for their shared area code: Wayne Hawkins, keyboards; Rich Syracuse, bass; and Bob Halek, drums.
Matty Stecks (aka Matt Steckler) Photo provided
Inspired by Chuck Fisher and Charles Stancampiano, Stecks graduated from Schenectady’s Linton HS, then studied music at Wesleyan University, NYU and the New England Conservatory; teachers included Emil Kalled, Conrad Kuchay, Nick Brignola, Marilyn Taggart, Diane Warner, Thomas Chapin, Jerry Bergonzi and Danilo Perez.
Stecks then taught in Boston, New Jersey, at NYU and RPI, in Bennington, at Brandon University in Manitoba; and now at Lenox Memorial Middle and High School. He built bands everywhere, forming Dead Cat Bounce in Boston and Persiflage in New York. Other bands followed – Musical Tramps, SWIPE (Sound Writers in Performative Emergence), Pretzel Stex, Janus Quartet and a trio with Lonnie Plaxico and Yayoi Ikawa.
“I’m in Planet Kniffen with Wayne (Hawkins), I just played a swing dance with Bob (Halek) at WAMC; and Rich (Syracuse) played at my Dad’s retirement party,” said Stecks, son of longtime Union College professor Charles Steckler.
He also curated and played in the Party Horns NYC big-band series at Proctors GE Theatre.
Stecks’s area all-star band the 518 has played in various combinations for five or six years including at Jazz on Jay and for Jazz Appreciation Month at Proctors Robb Alley.
“We’ll play mostly originals, some Wayne Shorter,” says Stecks, longtime fan of the jazz sax giant. They approach playing standards “by trying not to think of the big shoes we have to fill!” And 85 percent of that they play is improvised.
Later in the summer, Stecks leads several bands in area shows. “My biggest will be a fundraiser Sept 21 in Bennington with several bands I’m in… for my 50th birthday.”
Jazz on Jay free concerts are noon to 1:30 p.m. at Jay Square, the new park space opposite Schenectady City Hall. The rain site is Robb Alley at Proctors, 432 State St., Schenectady. Seating is provided indoors at Robb Alley, but patrons are invited to bring their own seating and refreshments to Jay Square.
Jazz on Jay is presented by the ElectriCity Arts and Entertainment District and sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts, a Schenectady County Legislature Arts & Culture Grant, Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation, The Schenectady Foundation, Price Chopper/Market 32, MVP Health Care, Schenectady County, Schenectady City Hall, and Proctors Collaborative.
Concert Preview – Pedrito Martinez at Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival – Both Days
Pedrito Martinez laughed when I suggested he leave his congas onstage throughout Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival Saturday, June 29 and Sunday, June 30. “I’ll be busy,” he replied, playing with Joey Alexander and Cimafunk Saturday, and both with his own group and guesting with Cory Henry on Sunday.
If the star conga player seems to be surrounding audiences at the Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, it’s largely because he grew up surrounded by music.
Pedrito Martinez at Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Michael Hochanadel photo
“The neighborhood where I grew up, Cayo Hueso right in the middle of Habana… a lot of the greatest congeros and top players and musicians are from that neighborhood,” he said by phone last week from his home near the George Washington Bridge. “I used to see all the greatest orchestras rehearsing right in front of my house, across the street. I was surrounded with a lot of music.”
His music school was informal, immersive and effective. “I learned in the street, by myself; I never went to a school of music,” he explained. “It was a completely different way to learn and an unusual way to learn,” he said. “It was beautiful, very spiritual and real.”
Mentors abounded there, and have nurtured his career in Cuba and everywhere he has played since.
“In Cuba I had the great privilege to play with one of the greatest conga players in the whole entire world,” said Martinez humbly, name-checking Frederico Aristides Soto, known as Tata Guines.
Martinez was rehearsing in Havana with another congero great – Francisco Hernandes Mora, known as Pancho Quinto – when Canadian saxophonist and Cuban music enthusiast Jane Bunnett discovered him. “She brought me to Canada for a tour,” expanding both his audience and ambition. After finishing the tour, Martinez decided to stay in New York where he’d played the Knitting Factory with Bunnett’s Afro-Cuban-inspired band.
After he played with Orlando Puntilla Rios in a documentary film “Calle 54,” doors began to open, first with Cuban superstar saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera, then when he co-founded the band Yerba Buena that recorded two albums.
His next band, that bears his name, formed as a surprise while he was still playing with others.
“I never planned to have a band,” he said. “It was accidental, you know.” When the club Guantanamera opened (8th Avenue between 55th and 56th streets), the owner wanted a band to play all week. “I put the band together, just for fun,” said Martinez. Two blocks from Lincoln Center, “That place became the hang for all the musicians from all over the world,” Martinez marveled, noting many musicians would come in during his band’s late, third set after their own gigs. The night he spotted Quincy Jones, Stevie Winwood, Wynton Marsalis and other stars in the audience, “that’s when I realized something crazy was happening.”
“It was so beautiful, it was so great,” said Martinez. “That particular place opened so many doors for me. I started playing with Paul Simon because of that place.” It also led to his first album: “The Pedrito Martinez Group” (2013). Four more albums have followed; another is nearing completion, set for January release – and he’s guested on dozens more.
Martinez plans to perform songs from “Acertijos,” released earlier this year, and even newer songs slated for the next album.
As the New Yorker story stressed, Martinez thrives on live performing more than recordings, as his long track record here underlines. His Guantanamera residency opened doors leading to SPAC in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2022, also A Place for Jazz (2012); and I caught him at Jazz Fest in New Orleans in 2012.
He collaborated with other artists on most of these, a process powered by respect, in which he seeks long-term collaborations rather than one-shots.
‘The most important thing is to be completely transparent and open-minded, to absorb any kind of opinion or idea from other people,” said Martinez. “I’m always open to hear ideas from different sources” – including Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Garrett, Eddie Palmieri and Jon Batiste.
He shines in these partnerships, both for engaging charismatic energy and his propulsive mastery of many rhythms. Asked if he had drums nearby, he grabbed the practice pad in his New Jersey living room and demonstrated, first a basic clave rumba, then increasingly complex polyrhythms until his sticks conjured a herd of galloping horses. My comparison made him laugh in agreement.
He then excitedly spoke of playing with Cimafunk.
Cimafunk. Photo provided
“I fit perfect with him…the James Brown of Cuba,” said Martinez, “because it’s all about rhythm and dancing and high energy.”
Martinez added, “He always makes sure that the audience gets loud; it’s very dynamic and spectacular with his group” – also with his own.
“I’m going to be performing the music of my latest album (“Acertijos”), definitely,” he promised, also noting he’s deep into recording a follow-up, as yet untitled.
At times, Martinez must marvel at his own rapid rise.
“I came from a very ghetto little neighborhood in the middle of Habana and came to New York, one of the most cosmopolitan cities on the whole entire planet,” Martinez said, his humility sounding genuine, sincere. “I never thought I would have the opportunity to know so many genius artists.”
Takes one to know one.
Pedrito Martinez plays Saturday at Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival with the Joey Alexander Trio and fellow guest, trumpeter Theo Croker (1:45 p.m.); then with Cimafunk (7 p.m.), and Sunday with Cory Henry (2 p.m.) and his own group (5:35 p.m.)
MORE JAZZ
SPAC’s new “McCormack Jazz Series” brings top acts to the SPA Little Theater this fall and next spring: (bassist/composer) Christian McBride and Ursa Major Oct. 24, 30s-style hot swing stars Dorado Schmitt and Sons with special guests the Hot Club of Saratoga Nov. 22; Latin-jazz giant Alfredo Rodriguez and his Trio Apr. 5; and singer Veronica Swift May 1.
“Presenting diverse jazz perspectives is an integral part of our mission and vision for year-round programming in the Spa Little Theater,” says Elizabeth Sobol, President and CEO of Saratoga Performing Arts Center in announcing the new series and hailing its originator.
“Jazz has enriched my life and nourished my soul,” says McCormack. You’ve seen him, the cat who looks like John Updike, walking in the aisle at Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival with family and friends.
A tip of the porkpie hat to this super jazz fan. Details and ticket info at http://www.spac.org.
Vibes player and drummer Michael Benedict named this 10-year old band to tell us which of his two instruments he plays alongside David Gleason, piano; Mike Lawrence, bass; and Pete Sweeney drums.
Michael Benedict Jazz Vibes, from left: Michael Benedict, Pete Sweeney, Mike Lawrence and David Gleason. Photographed at the Karen B. Johnson Schenectady County Public Library in April. Michael Hochanadel photo
All but Benedict also play in the Art D’echo Trio while Benedict’s resume includes Bopitude, the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and the Spike Jones Orchestra. Gleason plays with the Keith Pray Big Soul Ensemble and his own Sensemaya, while both Lawrence and Sweeney play in the Joey Thomas Big Band and Sweeney played with the Dickey Betts Band.
Benedict’s drummer dad inspired him to play, as did drummer Peter Erskine and vibraphonist Gary Burton, but he didn’t play jazz until college. At SUNY Potsdam, he studied drums with Jim Peterscak and earned a degree in music education. Following with a masters in jazz studies at Rutgers, he worked with Keith Copeland and privately with Ray Mosca, but never studied vibraphone professionally.
His first band, in high school, was the Five Cs – “Couth, Class, Charisma, Character and Corigliano.” Benedict recalls them as “a legend in our own minds.” His first payday was $25 with the Pauly Falvo Trio at Utica’s Eagle Club.
Michael Benedict. Michael Hochanadel photo
Michael Benedict Jazz Vibes – which has released three albums– plays jazz and Latin standards with about 10 percent originals. “There’s a big emphasis on improvisation,” says Benedict. “Everyone in the band is featured.”
Not surprising for a percussionist, Benedict approaches the standard jazz repertoire this way: “Basically, come up with a rhythm concept and adapt the song to the groove.”
Jazz Vibes also plays June 22 and Aug. 24 at Stella Pasta Bar, July 14 at Margarita City (with guest singer Kaitlyn Fay), also July 16 at Lark Tavern (trio lineup) and July 20 at 9 Maple Avenue (full lineup); all four also play sideman gigs.
Jazz on Jay free concerts are noon to 1:30 p.m. at Jay Square, the newly park space opposite Schenectady City Hall. The rain site is Robb Alley at Proctors, 432 State St., Schenectady. Seating is provided indoors at Robb Alley, but patrons are invited to bring their own seating and refreshments to Jay Square.
Jazz on Jay is presented by the ElectriCity Arts and Entertainment District and sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts, a Schenectady County Legislature Arts & Culture Grant, Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation, The Schenectady Foundation, Price Chopper/Market 32, MVP Health Care, Schenectady County, Schenectady City Hall, and Proctors Collaborative.
More will stay the same about Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival – a varied menu of jazz with soul, pop and blues – than will change.
The festival – June 29 and 30 at Saratoga Performing Arts Center – will be the the last under Freihofer’s name sponsorship.
Little else has changed, except for audience-friendly improvements.
Since 1978, the festival has flown the name-sponsor banners of Newport and Kool – which may have been the only jazz event ever to bear a Surgeon General’s health warning.
Grumbles that greeted demand-based ticket pricing probably won’t translate into lower sales this year. Although purists complain that “jazz festival” actually means a mix of jazz with pop, rock, blues and funk dilution. Those quibbles erupt around jazz festivals from New Orleans to Montreal and just about everywhere jazz happens.
But what hasn’t changed is that jazz happens here in impressive quality and quantity.
This 47th festival presents 22 acts on two stages, with sets overlapping so that hot-footed fans can taste at least some of each performance. This comes as a welcome recent improvement; so does the tent providing shade and shelter to audiences at the Charles R. Wood Discovery Stage.
JAZZ TIPS
Take sunblock AND rain gear; and wear comfortable shoes. You’ll want to wander maybe more than you expect.
As for “expect” – See an unfamiliar name on the program? Go see them; just go see them. Somebody will surprise you, for sure. And this year’s surprise may become a lifelong favorite. Case in point: Samara Joy, a singer to love, was unknown in her area debut at Albany’s Riverfront Jazz Festival before playing Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival and wow’ing everybody there, too.
Don’t like what you’re hearing? Ramble over to the other stage.
Samara Joy in her area debut at Albany’s Riverfront Jazz Festival. Michael Hochanadel photo
Go early/on time. This festival traditionally hits hot, with sizzling early sets by lesser-known performers – such as the first two acts on Saturday: a young violinist in her festival debut and generically-named New Orleans funk-masters.
Talk to strangers: You’re in the friendliest, most cosmopolitan crowd around.
Hydrate, then hydrate some more; beer doesn’t count.
SHOWTIMES: A Lightly Curated Hit List
Ads typically list the most prominent artists first, but this list of the performers is more usefully chronological.
FYI: Artist birthdays at the festival include Stanley Clarke (73) and Joey Alexander (21). Alexander has received birthday cakes – and, of course, the song – onstage at both SPAC and Music Haven. Who gets a cooler birthday bash?
An asterisk (*) marks festival debuts, by project, though several artists have played the festival previously in other configurations.
The Terence Blanchard and Helen Sung listings have changed some since earlier announcements; and this entire menu is subject to change. But don’t worry; remember what we said about surprises.
Saturday Showtimes
Amphitheater Stage
12 p.m.: The New Orleans Groove Masters. Drummer Herlin Riley, Jason Marsalis and Shannon Powell sometimes bring a full band, but they can lay down big relentless funky beats as a trio.
1:45 p.m.: Joey Alexander Trio with special guest Theo Croker. The Bali-born pianist has grown beyond the huge promise of his teenaged talent; playing here with trumpeter Croker who also co-stars on his latest album (of seven) “Continuance.” Alexander changes sidemen often, most current info: bassist Kristopher Funn and drummer Jonathan Barber. Alexander released his debut album “My Favorite Things” at age 11 and has played SPAC and Music Haven here. This marks his 21st birthday; get ready to sing.
3:30 p.m.: The Yussef Dayes Experience*. The young British drummer and composer plays at the crossroads of jazz and classical: His debut solo album “Black Classical Music” features a large ensemble playing big ideas.
5:15 p.m.: Samara Joy. At 24, the precociously soulful singer has wowed area audiences in recent years with musical maturity well beyond her years. Her “Linger Awhile” (second) album won Grammys for Best Jazz Vocal Album and Best New Artist while “Tight” won the Best Jazz Performance Grammy the next year.
7 p.m.: Cimafunk* with special guest Pedrito Martinez. Martinez (and the New Yorker magazine) call him the “Cuban James Brown” for upbeat dance-inspiring music that layers American soul-funk onto Afro-Cuban beats. His stage name refers to “cimarrons,” enslaved people who escaped into self-sustaining communities in Cuba in colonial times. Rolling Stone and NPR hailed his third album “El Alimento” (2021) as one of the best albums of the year.
8:55 p.m.: Lake Street Dive*. Bluesy pop as hot as New England Conservatory-trained, country-oriented jazz-bos can cook it. This “Good Together Tour“ may be their most ambitious, including their Madison Square Garden debut. Their latest release “Fun Machine: The Sequel” presents songs by the Pointer Sisters, Bonnie Raitt and Carole King and others, and they’re working on a follow-up, so expect fresh ingredients.
Charles R. Wood Discovery Stage
11 a.m.: Sara Caswell Quartet*. Conservatory-trained (Indiana, and Manhattan School of Music), the violinist earned high raise from the eminent fellow violin virtuoso Mark O’Connor: “Most good violinists will never experience what Sara creates with her instrument. It is beautifully refined emotion that lifts the spirit…”
12:20 p.m.: Harold López-Nussa*. Prolific pianist born to a Cuban musical family, he’s played with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra, toured with Omara Portuondo and led jazz bands on a dozen albums including “Timba A La Americana,” earning international raves.
1:40 p.m.: Tia Fuller. The elegant Colorado-born, classically-trained saxophonist starred in Schenectady’s A Place for Jazz and the Pixar film Soul. She also toured with Beyonce and Esperanza Spalding and earned a Grammy nomination for her “Diamond Cut” (fifth) album.
3 p.m.: Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra*. The relentlessly curious trumpeter studied at Berkeley (not Berklee) and leads seven of his own bands while playing in several more. This particular big band swings rock tunes as well as jazz classics. He says, “…you can do a Jelly Roll piece, then a Leonard Cohen piece, then an Ornette Coleman piece, then a Duke piece and then a piece by The Band. And it’s not even about it being eclectic, it’s just music.”
4:20 p.m.: Theo Croker. Another trumpeter, the Florida-born grandson of swing-era trumpet virtuoso Doc Cheatham, Croker studied at Oberlin with Donald Byrd, led the house band for a Shanghai TV talk show and has worked with Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roy Hargrove, Stefon Harris and others on 10 albums including a Miles Davis tribute.
5:40 p.m.: Coco Montoya*. After playing drums in guitarist Albert Collins’s band, Montoya switched to guitar before a decade-long run with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. He plays upside-down (left-handed) on a left-handed guitar with a right-handed neck.) His 1995 debut album won Best New Artist at the Blues Music Awards.
Sunday Showtimes
Amphitheater Stage
12:30 p.m.: Terence Blanchard: Flow. Seven Grammys, two Oscar nominations, composer of the operas “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and “Champion” and many Spike Lee film sound-tracks, the prolific trumpeter and composer also leads SFJazz and often collaborates with the Turtle Island String Quartet. Flow echoes his groundbreaking all-star 1995 album of that title.
2 p.m.: Cory Henry. The Brooklyn-born keyboardist played Harlem’s Apollo Theater at age six, co-won three Grammys as a member of Snarky Puppy (who played this festival in 2023) and has been nominated five times for his own albums, most often as Best Progressive R&B Album.
3:30 p.m.: Laufey*. Cellist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra at 15, she won numerous TV talent shows as a singer – inspired by jazz vocal giants Ella Fitzgerald and Chet Baker – before graduating from Berklee in 2021. Her debut album “Bewitched” won the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album Grammy, with a style she calls jazz pop.
5:15 p.m.: Stanley Clarke N*4Ever. The veteran bassist turns 73 the day he plays the festival with band-members half or a third his age. Openness to young talent and new ideas mark his career as five-time Grammy winner and leader or sideman of groundbreaking straight ahead jazz and fusion bands and a National Museum of African American History and Culture Fellow.
7 p.m.: Norah Jones. The singer-pianist-songwriter has played both in this festival and her own headlining shows on a decades-deep run of 13 albums, collecting nine Grammys and selling in the millions. She also collaborates with jazz, rock, country and hip-hop giants.
Charles R. Wood Discovery Stage
11:30 a.m.: Skidmore Jazz Institute Faculty All-StarsCentennial Celebration of Max Roach, Bud Powell & J.J. Johnson featuring Clay Jenkins, Steve Wilson, Steve Davis, Mike Moreno, Bill Cunliffe, Todd Coolman & Dennis Mackrel. Bassist Todd Coolman goes wry and professorial in this wry, virtuoso big-band staffed by Skidmore music editors who also play with old-pro skill and swing. They’re way more fun than any music class; tributes are their bread and butter.
12:55 p.m.: Helen Sung: JazzPlasticity*. Pianist Helen Sung, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, leads a quartet with drummer Kendrick Scott, saxophonist/clarinetist John Ellis and bassist David Wong in a program inspired by Sung’s jazz artist-in-residence stint at the Columbia University Zuckerman Mind Brain Institute and in partnership with Arts & Minds.
2:20 p.m.: Miguel Zenon Quartet. The Puerto Rican saxophonist has won a Grammy, Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships and a Doris Duke Artist Award. A longtime SFJazz performer, he’s released more than a dozen albums including “El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 2” winner of the 2024 Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album.
4 p.m.: Olatuja. The singer graduated from the Manhattan School of Music, sang at Pres. Barack Obama’s second inauguration (2015) and has co-led the Olatuja Project with bassist husband Michael Olatuja.
5:35 p.m.: Pedrito Martinez Group. New keyboardist Isaac Delgado Jr. joins veterans Manny Marquez, percussion; Sebastian Natal, bass; and Xito Lovell, trombone. Superb rumba-based, percussion-powered jazz, every time – with fresh tunes from “Acertijo,” released earlier this year, and even fresher material from an album still under construction.
One band seems enough for most musicians; not Chandler Travis who brings two to Troy in a two-day, two show visit at opposite ends of River Street.
On Friday, June 21, he leads his longtime Massachusetts coast rock gang the Invincible Casuals in a co-headline bill with Deke Dickerson and the Whippersnappers at the Hangar on the Hudson (675 River St.). Then on Saturday, the Buttercups, another Chandler Travis band, plays a free show outside the River Street Beat Shop (197 River St.).
Right, this takes some explaining.
Chandler Travis, performing at Caffe Lena in April 2017. Michael Hochanadel photo
If the band name Invincible Casuals sounds familiar but different, you’re correct. For decades, the Incredible Casuals made albums, toured and – most famously – played Sunday shows at the Beachcomber in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. A wry but rocking trio, they make a slyly smart suntanned escapist sound, a kind of New England post-grad Jimmy Buffett thing, but with better songs.
Things changed: founding guitarist Johnny Spampinato joined his bassist elder brother Joey in NRBQ when Big Al Anderson left in 2004. More recently, Travis revived the Casuals idea with original drummer Rikki Bates and Steve “Woo Woo” Wood (member of another Travis band, the Catbirds) in a new version dubbed the Invincible Casuals: Travis, bass; Bates, drums; Wood, guitar. Their first show was a memorial for Casuals guitarist Aaron Spade last September.
Friday’s show by the Invincible Casuals at the Hangar on the Hudson will be the first Casuals show in Troy for at least a decade, a twin-bill with rockabilly blaster Deke Dickerson and his band the Whippersnappers. Show time is 8 p.m., doors at 7:30. $20. 518-272-9740 https://www.thehangaronthehudson.com.
The next afternoon, Saturday at 2, Travis leads his new band the Buttercups in a free show outside (weather permitting) the River Street Beat Shop (197 River St.). Comprising Travis and Bates, the Buttercups, says Travis, is a “noisy duo…hellbent on showing exactly how much is possible with only two peoples…” Assisting in the noise is the remarkably, strangely entertaining Paulette Humanbeing in her only east-coast show this year. A California singer-songwriter as prolific and original as Travis himself, she is, Travis says, “funny, melodic, and peculiar, and she always keeps you on your toes and usually singing along.” 2 p.m. Free. 518-272-0433.
This free concert series isn’t new, but publishing info here about this Thursday rain-or-shine event, that’s new.
First, here’s the season schedule:
June 13: Cliff Brucker & New Circle
June 20: Michael Benedict Jazz Vibes
June 27: Matty Stecks & the 518
July 11: MC*2 with special guests: Andrew Hearn, drums; Linda Ellen Brown, bass
July 18: Brian Patneaude Quintet
July 25: Awan Rashad Quartet
Aug. 1: Joe Sorrentino
Aug. 8: Terry Gordon Quintet
Aug. 15: Joe Finn Trio
Aug. 22: Bossamba
Aug. 29: Joe Barna
And, now, here’s the first bio, with photo, for the first show in the series. See the bottom of this story for general info about this free fun series.
Killdeer Trio, Photo supplied
To guitarist Wyatt Ambrose, bassist Evan Jagels and drummer Sebastian Green, a killdeer’s two-note call sounds like home: Ambrose grew up in Oneonta, Jagels in Cooperstown and Green in Milford. So they chose the bird’s name for the trio they formed in 2022 to make high-flying original music.
“We all feel lucky to have families that encouraged us to play music at a young age,” says Ambrose who studied music at SUNY Oneonta then finished his B.M. in Jazz Studies at SUNY Purchase. Jagels earned his MM in Jazz Performance at Queens College while Green studied privately.
Teachers included Vic Juris, Ron Carter, Buster Williams, Jon Faddis and Richie Morales. They took inspiration from jazz-masters the Bad Plus, Bill Frisell, Ornette Coleman and Dave Holland; also rock and pop artists Big Thief, Radiohead, Fiona Apple, Cattle Drums and Stuff.
All three played in rock bands before working with jazz artists including Ray Vega, Stacy Dillard, Eric Finland, and Palehound. They also play in other projects: the Wyatt Ambrose Trio, Duo Extempore and Leafing. Jagels and Ambrose also perform solo.
Together, they blend musical influences into original tunes which “always take on a new identity when interpreted by the trio,” Ambrose explains.
“Leaving lots of room for improvisation is a major priority,” says Ambrose. “After we play the melody, it’s up to us to compose something completely from scratch in the moment.” They consider themselves improvisors first, then jazz musicians.
Their self-named debut album appeared a year ago; another is in the works.
KIlldeer Trio also plays Friday, June 21 at Mojo’s Caffe (Troy), and later in the Downstairs (Ithaca). NY Roots (Oneonta), the Other Side (Utica) and the Al Galladoro Memorial Stage (Oneonta).
Jazz on Jay free concerts are noon to 1:30 p.m. at Jay Square, the new park space opposite Schenectady City Hall. The rain site is Robb Alley at Proctors, 432 State St., Schenectady. Seating is provided indoors at Robb Alley, but patrons are invited to bring their own seating and refreshments to Jay Square.
Jazz on Jay is presented by the ElectriCity Arts and Entertainment District and sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts, a Schenectady County Legislature Arts & Culture Grant, Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation, The Schenectady Foundation, Price Chopper/Market 32, MVP Health Care, Schenectady County, Schenectady City Hall, and Proctors Collaborative.
To the low slow voice at the used books-and-records store two counties away, I confessed: “I was in last week – I should have bought those albums.”
Quiet laugh, calm assurance; he’d heard this tune before: “I’ll put those aside for you.”
Some scenic road hours later, 1960s Duane Eddy albums filled my passenger seat. A talismanic early birthday gift to my brother Jim, they linked us to a cherished, disruptive sound – joyous rock and roll distilled to a wordless instrumental howl.
After Duane Eddy passed on April 30th, Jim Facebooked about losing his friend, the pioneering guitarist whose bold boom and simple swagger converted Jim from traditional jazz clarinetist to wild-eyed sax shouter.
Recalling how the loudspeaker outside Greulich’s Market near our Guilderland home pumped Duane Eddy songs into the parking lot – a story he’d loved telling Duane – Jim also evoked their ear-opening joy. He cherished “the low primordial sounds of a slinky echo-drenched electric guitar, accompanied by a raging, evil saxophone and a gang of demons yelping in wild abandon.” Jim celebrated he disruptive effect this gorgeous raw sound had on our staid swing-fan Catholic parents.
Years In training for the mellow melancholy of Mr. Acker Bilk’s “Stranger On The Shore” or spry strut of “Begin the Beguine” flew out the window when I started bringing home Duane Eddy 45 singles (on Jamie Records) from Apex Music Corner.
Fast forward some decades and both Jim and Duane were new to Nashville and Jim got to play with his hero. “I was immensely qualified, having learned all the aforementioned raging, evil sax parts on Duane’s records before I was shaving,” wrote Jim. He’s shown here at a later Nashville show together, grinning behind his tenor sax while Duane twangs low irresistible guitar blasts into the stratosphere.
“He invented a sound in rock ’n roll that still resonates and he did it all with such grace,” wrote Jim. “I’m ever grateful.” Duane Eddy played melodies on the guitar’s low strings or on a six-string bass; mainly working with fat hollow-body guitars jazz players favor. His innovative sound was at once tonally rude and sweet in its feel.
At a Memorial Day weekend family wedding celebration, Jim loved unwrapping those Duane Eddy albums i’d brought and told tales Duane had told him, starting with a Cavalcade of Stars tour down south.
Duane told Jim of touring at 19 on rickety buses crowded with young hitmakers sharing the same band.
When locals surrounded their bus after a Louisville concert and yelled racist insults at singer LaVerne Baker or Lloyd Price, “Dion and the Belmonts weren’t having this shit,” Jim said. “They were gonna jump off the bus and show some Bronx courtesy lessons to these (BIG expletive deleted). They had to be heavily restrained by Dick Clark and everybody because…they were all family.”
Duane told Jim of hanging out with his father at a friend’s store and gas station in Corning, New York. Duane clambered onto a stone wall and ran along the top of it, speeding up when he noticed copperhead (poisonous!) snakes crawling onto the wall behind him. “An endless string of copperheads kept coming out of the wall, a copperhead condo,” said Jim. “Snakes kept slithering out of the wall and coming after him, and he was freaking out…” until he jumped off at the end. “They were driving him along the wall…not going fast, but interested.”
Guitarists, of course, were interested in Eddy’s pre-Beatles success making instrumental rock, hoping to copperhead onto the wall behind him. TV theme composers especially favored Duane Eddy’s approach, and this worked both ways. For every “Bonanza” theme somebody else recorded, Duane covered a “Peter Gunn.”
Duane’s 1958 debut album “Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel” hit number five on Billboard’s album chart and stayed on the charts for 82 weeks; he even acted in two episodes of “Have Gun – Will Travel,” the Richard Boone hired-gun Western whose title he’d borrowed. Britain’s New Musical Express (NME) voted him 1958’s World’s Number One Musical Personality, besting Elvis Presley. The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame inducted him early.
Later, when the Art of Noise remade Duane’s version of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” theme, Eddy became the only instrumentalist with top 10 hit UK singles in four different decades.
Tom Mitchell, whose Hambone record store stood in the shadow of Caffe Lena where he often played, once told me how music-timid buyers sought songs without lyrics in his shop. They gravitated to Windham Hill “new age” instrumentals to avoid triggering by lyrics with sexist or other objectionable content. Duane Eddy didn’t need words to raise alarm. His ominously low, almost menacingly resonant guitar tones, surging beats, brash saxophone hollers and massed, yelling choruses seemed plenty scary in the late 50s.
And therefore, Jim and I and multitudes loved him.
And, so, maybe, just maybe, I should have known something was up when Jim took me to the Musicians Hall of Fame on a Nashville visit a few spring-times ago – especially when Jay McDowell who ran the place came out to direct us personally into a door-side VIP parking spot.
Jay ushered us into a comfy entry lounge where a bearded, be-hatted gent and his wife rose to meet us: Duane Eddy, and wife Deed.
There’s “star-struck,” and then there’s something else, an even more intense and rarefied place where I found myself in awed silence at the Musicians Hall of Fame. I had met James Brown, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Ray Davies of the Kinks, Joan Baez, Levon Helm, everybody in Peter Paul and Mary, all the Neville Brothers, all the Meters, everybody in Crosby Stills and Nash, everybody in the Talking Heads, everybody in the J. Geils Band, traveled for days with NRBQ…you see what I mean?
But that wasn’t this, as I realized when we all wandered into a cozy cinema where a film on the invaluable roles of session players, producers, engineers and other behind-the-scenes giants got their due. I was startled to recognize that the narrator voice in the tribute film was the same voice I heard from the man in the next seat, at my elbow: Duane Eddy.
When we wandered into an instrument-equipped alcove, a band formed, instantly. Duane grabbed a guitar; Jay a bass, and Jim sat behind the drum kit as they tuned up. Maybe they played Duane’s first hit “Movin’ ’N’ Groovin’” (1957), maybe “Rebel Rouser” – I don’t remember. But I do remember a joyous sense of privilege to be there, an audience of one.
In the exhibit halls we wandered, fans would recognize Duane and rush forward to wrap him in grateful adulation. Nobody could have been more gracious and patient, genuinely pleased to be recognized and greeted – he was the same low-key way through our three-hour lunch.
Those people who courteously swarmed him there at the Hall of Fame; they were right.
If Chris Whitley could brave a big arena full of Tom Petty fans all by himself, I figured I could brave a filling or three.
Chris Whitley opening solo for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Knickerbocker Arena. Michael Hochanadel photo
You know the drill – yeah, right; too lame even for a bad pun – tilted way back, face in bright light, mouth full of tools.
Last week, there I was, tilted, face lit, tools in mouth – but with Grado headphones filling ears and spirit with Whitley’s “Living With The Law” (1991). And I noticed his slide guitar solo in “Poison Girl” was in the same key as the drill. (You know the drill.)
This took me right back to snowy nighttime Montreal streets with my brother Jim in a gang of musicians, seeking late dinner during sessions for a Chris Rawlings album. Fresh out of the Navy, I felt as lost in the wide world as a ship whose compass has failed, but felt welcomed by those players. A taxi hooted nearby and fiddler Gilles Losier, famed for his pitch, called out “F-sharp!” Others stopped walking to argue the taxi’s tone.
What would they have said of the Chris Whitley/drill chord in my dentist’s office?
And, more broadly, what is music for, and can it be for anything but itself?
Paraphrasing the great band War, Maybe with more humor than truth: “Music, what is it good for? Absolutely everything” – but mainly just itself.
I was using Whitley’s music to help get through some dental work, just as I’d brought Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” into the Ellis Hospital cardiac “cath-lab” for angioplasty and son Zak told me he once used the same album to help fight the flu.
Nonetheless, something about that made me uncomfortable, like using “sofa-sized” to measure art-work on a wall.
Listening for listening’s sake somehow feels more right than using music as background, as dinner party hosts do, or restaurants. And you’re correct if you feel restaurants now crank up the music to turn tables faster. Studies show they do.
Some other offenses against music:
Walking in Thacher Park with son Zak on Sunday, we met many parties on the trail including a woman toting Bluetooth speaker cranked way too loud.
Whenever a commercial comes on that uses a song I love by an artist I admire – Bob Dylan, say, or Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” – I always mute the TV.
No chance I’ll ever have to do that with a Chris Whitley song, or that any of his songs will fail to lift me and teach me and make me feel.
But I Digress, Pt. 1 – Whitley opened for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany on Sept. 21, 1991. Nobody knew who he was except those few of us who already recognized his talent from “Living With The Law.”
Digress, Pt. 2 – My now-retired dentist Jeff Wilson loved music and we talked about it all the time; i.e., he talked while working on me and I answered after rinsing. Early on, I used music-as-anesthetic/distraction; and he always wanted to know whose tunes I’d brought. I quickly felt more comfortable, we talked, and when we’d meet up at shows, I was always glad to see him.
Digress, Pt. 3 – Whitley went deeper into demon-land in his songs than almost any other songwriter. A restless, tormented talent and striving, soulful spirit, he made blues of a very original and intensely spooky flavor.
He released more than a dozen albums from 1991 to 2003 but never earned mass success.
When I met him (backstage at Bearsville Theater, outside Woodstock), I noticed his guitar had words and drawings childishly scrawled on it in ballpoint. I asked him about this and he said Trixie did it. I like it that he didn’t try to stop her or remove her markings.
Trixie later played in Black Dub, the trance-funk band that Lanois built with jazz drummer Brian Blade and bassist Daryl Johnson.
Lanois produced such great albums as U2’s “Joshua Tree,” Bob Dylan’s “Oh, Mercy” and the Neville Brothers’ “Yellow Moon” – and Chris Whitley’s debut album “Living With The Law,” in his New Orleans studio.
When Whitley signed this copy of “Living With The Law” for me, he wrote “Vaya Con Dios.”
Right back at you, man. Whitley died November 20, 2005 at 45.
Roger Rees summarized his time on earth eloquently here:
A genial tour guide, Peter Rowan steered a Caffe Lena-full of fans Sunday through his New England childhood – “singing to the stars, listening to the ocean” as he nostalgically recalled – then in dusty-road rambles through the west. Rowan mapped those wanderings decades ago, in distinguished company.
When Rowan, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and John Kahn formed Old & In the Way, everybody was in their 30s and 40s.
Now 81, Rowan remains among the last living links to bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe, like his somewhat spryer contemporary Buddy Guy (87) with Chicago blues inventor Muddy Waters. “Still standing” begs the question how well can they still sing and play?
Rowan’s cozy, familiar tunes have worn well, and so has his easy-chair voice and finger-picking guitar style, despite a bandage on his fretting hand insult finger. He seldom stretched far on Sunday, though he hit a falsetto yodel at times, mainly in the more relaxed second of two sets. Banjoist (first set) and guitarist (second set) Max Wareham and bassist Chris Sartori, both tasteful and tidy, flanked him, coloring inside the lines.
Some in the packed house seemed to sport as many miles on the clock as Rowan himself, calling out for favorite songs, whooping in delight when Rowan responded. Singer-songwriter Carolyn Shapiro at the next table seemed among the youngest fans there. A quick T-shirt scan: Grateful Dead, Rowan himself, Sirsy, Doc Watson, every acoustic music festival around and some bright Alohas. Soundman Joe Deuel told me Rowan first played the Caffe when Lena herself ran the show.
Max Wareham, left, Peter Rowan, and Chris Sartori
Rowan started at the top: “Panama Red” from “Old & In the Way” and a huge hit for the Dead-adjacent New Riders of the Purple Sage. It wrapped around the even more venerable “Freight Train.” Then the music hit the road with a similar one-two of “The Hobo Song” and “Lonesome LA Cowboy.” Some sang along; Rowan didn’t need to invite anybody, and he flexed his falsetto a bit in a Doc Watson tribute, then made easy octave leaps in the next tune before wrapping with “Cold Rain and Snow” from the Dead’s 1967 debut.
Max Warham, banjo
Second-set songs stretched longer, from four or five minutes in the first set, sometimes past 10 in the second. They sang and played harder. If the first set was warm-up, it worked.
Max Wareham, guitar
Wareham switched from banjo to electric guitar and Rowan played slide to start in a bouncy, bluesy “Motherless Children.” They pressed even harder in the gospel-y “Walking in Jerusalem,” a strong highlight, before the thoughtful “I Am a Pilgrim and a Stranger.” In “Tumbleweed,” Rowan and Wareham played a tight duo break and Sartori hit his best bass solo of the night.
Chris Sartori
Chris Sartori, right, bows his bass
Later, they revisited this theme of Native American respect/lamentation in “Land of the Navajo.” Rowan spoke a wistful verse here, then Sartori’s arco bass underlined the beat and Rowan played his voice from gruff rumble to high yodel and desolate cry in his most expressive vocal of the show.
“Fetch Wood Carry Water” sailed on easy-reggae funk, and the grooves of the second set packed more muscle than earlier, even the slow waltz “Mississippi Moon” that closed in massed fingersnaps Rowan led.
The show felt comfortably loose, Rowan organizing it, if that’s the word, song by song and nodding to cue the solos, or calmly navigating them himself with deliberate, sparse fingerpicking.
The Songs
Panama Red
Freight Train
Panama Red (reprise)
The Hobo song
Lonesome LA Cowboy
It’s a Doc Watson Morning, Guitar Picking Kind of Day
Unknown (Was busier with camera than notebook here, sure I’d remember. Wrong.)
Peter Rowan’s Tom Mix-scale topper fits well; Rowan’s talent and accomplishments range so wide, stack so high. The veteran singer and picker, now 81, totes decades-deep experience onto the stage at Caffe Lena on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 12.
He’ll lead a sub-set of his bluegrass band. That fits, too. Rowan began in bluegrass and has wound up there after numerous detours. A Zelig of string-band players, he’s played with more bands than Neil Young.
Rowan started in bluegrass at the very top.
So how would a 22-year-old Massachusetts Yankee join pioneer Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys?
“I had immersed myself in his music,” Rowan told me recently, “listening to live taped shows and studying his lead singers like Jimmy Martin, Ed Mayfield, Carter Stanley, Mack Wiseman, and Del (McCoury), who proceeded me as a Bluegrass Boy.” Rowan said, “I learned all the vocal duets,” and he often wrote and sang alongside the key inventor of Appalachian up-hollow. home-made music.
As Rowan noted in his website bio, “One thing I started to like about the Monroe style was that there was a lot more blues in it than other styles of bluegrass.” Rowan said, “It was darker. It had more of an edge to it. And yet it still had the ballad tradition in it, and I loved that.”
Bill Monroe, left, and Peter Rowan
Bluegrass proved perfect for Rowan with its compelling blend of power and poignance: punch and precision in the instruments and elemental emotion in the voices.
Rowan also learned about band leading with and from Monroe.
Rowan told me Monroe was “the Boss Man.” He said that, in the Bluegrass Boys, Monroe exerted “very little correction.” He added, “But you felt it if you went too far.”
As bluegrass mutated from the traditionalist 60s into the experimental 70s, the old guard might have felt the younger players were going too far.
Not Rowan.
“There is no music police,” he asserted. “You have to really believe in the process; overcome doubt and fear.” Asked how he does this, Rowan answered, “A deep breath and let it flow.”Rowan rode a formidable flow after leaving Monroe, first forming the aggressively eclectic Earth Opera (1967-69) with David Grisman. Arguably the first Americana group with its mix of acoustic instruments and high-flying improvisation. Rowan said it was the most loose and organic of his many bands.
Earth Opera – Peter Rowan, top left; David Grisman, bottom left
When Seatrain (1969-1973) formed from the broken shards of the Blues Project, Rowan veered fast in the opposite direction; he said it was the most structured and organized of his bands. This got messy: released as a Blues Project album, “Planned Obsolescence” (1968) was actually an Earth Opera effort, although Rowan didn’t play on it.
Muleskinner (1973) with fellow Bluegrass Boy Richard Greene marked a traditional turn, and Rowan continued in this direction with Old & In the Way (1973) with Grisman (mandolin), Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia (banjo), Rowan (guitar), John Kahn (bass) and first John Hartford, then Vassar Clements (fiddle). Rowan said this bluegrass supergroup was the fastest of his bands to learn new songs, and this confident fluent efficiency helped make the band’s self-titled album (1975) one of the top-selling bluegrass releases of all time.
Old & In the Way – From left, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements. Not shown: John Kahn
Minus Garcia and Kahn, Old & In the Way reunited on “Old & In the Gray” (2002), then Rowan and Grisman (last two surviving members) played Old & In the Way songs with the String Cheese Incident at Gathering of the Vibes in 2015.
Peter Rowan, left, and David Grisman
Meanwhile, all along these musical transformations, Rowan played with brothers Lorin and Chris as the Rowans, releasing seven albums from 1972 to 1982.
Rowan also performed and recorded with bands that bear his name. He said working in bands led by Monroe, accordionist Flaco Jimenez and guitarist Tony Rice inspired him to form his own groups, which he does with gusto. He currently leads Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, Peter Rowan’s Big Twang Theory, Peter Rowan and Crucial Reggae, Peter Rowan’s Walls of Time and Peter Rowan’s Free Mexican Airforce. Rowan explained, “Walls of Time is my main group, who are also my bluegrass band. Walls of Time is a more vast complex sound. Bluegrass for me is always straight ahead. I love to sing!”
Of working with multiple bands, Rowan observed, “It’s good to have players all over the country. It keeps things interesting with fresh ideas.”
He said his current group (double-dubbed Peter Rowan’s Bluegrass Band and Walls of Time) learn new material quickly and provide great fun in the studio and onstage.
His latest release, “Calling You From My Mountain” adds top-level guests including his brother Lorin Rowan, Tony Trischka, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush and Ricky Skaggs.
Americana Highways hailed the album this way: “Despite the genre’s antique oeuvre, it’s loaded with modern charm. The bluegrass is fresh sounding, energetic and fueled with a tradition that obviously survives to shine yet again. No blowing dust off this artist.” The album reaches back in its track, which Rowan composed and originally sang with Bill Monroe. This resonant, full-circle, decades-deep move encapsulates his career – from bluegrass, to bluegrass, with lively stops along the way.
On this tour, Rowan may bring accompanists to Caffe Lena. “I’ll Have Max Wareham on guitar and banjo from my bluegrass band and Chris (Sartori) from Twisted Pines on acoustic bass!”
Rowan said he’ll miss his old musician friend Frank Wakefield, who played Caffe Lena often and died in Saratoga Springs on April 26 at 89.
Frank Wakefield, left, two other guys, and Peter Rowan
On previous Saratoga visits, “I loved spending time with Frank Wakefield, the late great mandolin genius,” mourned Rowan, who didn’t stay sad for long. Amiable and friendly, he even answered my every-interview question which I warned him would be dumb.
“What do you drive?” I wanted to know, noting many musicians drive Ford F-150 pickups, though jazz pianist Keith Jarrett impatiently brushed the question aside before laughing to reply, “A herd of goats! Tell everybody I’m driving a herd of goats!”
Rowan took this in, then said, “When I’m not driving myself up a tree, I like riding a horse. They are all characters who teach me a lot!”
Peter Rowan plays Sunday, May 12 at Caffe Lena (47 Phila St., Saratoga Springs). 7 p.m. $62.91, members $59.66, students and children $31.46. 518-583-0022 http://www.caffelena.org. Streaming at caffelena.tv.
About the Photos: I found these photos on Rowan’s website and Facebook posts and on Wikipedia, including the Earth Opera Elektra Records publicity shot. I contribute regularly to Wikipedia; if you use it, so should you.
Hoke's Jukebox 