Must-See Three: Jazz in NYC This Week

Nicole Mitchell The Stone Weds, March 20 – Sat, March 23. (photo by Mário J. Negrão)

In the last two decades, Nicole Mitchell’s polyglot perspective has made her discography one of creative improv’s richest and most daring. She’s used both swing and abstraction, recorded solo and with large groups, and experimented with poetry and theatre. At last January’s homage to the ’60s Brooklyn arts collective The East (part of the Winter Jazz Festival) things were running amuck on a particular groove piece that featured numerous soloists. Then Mitchell stepped in. You know how you can tell when an improviser’s statements contain a defining logic? A knowledge of what just happened and what’s likely to happen next? Leaning into the mic, the flutist blew inspired line after inspired line, lyrical, provocative and assured. Her work in a variety of contexts helps prime her for the breadth of this Stone Residency. A quartet employing the human voice, a foursome with two string players and Pheeroan akLaff, a trio with bassist Luke Stewart and percussionist Tcheser Holmes, and – ta da! – Cooper-Moore duets. Listen for the range her instrument commands these days, and cross your fingers that she takes a notion to play Steve McCall’s “I’ll Be Right Here Waiting.”

Ches Smith & Laugh Ash Roulette Wednesday, March 20

When a perpetually morphing program of music brims with a parade of motifs – riffs and licks and shards and tangents and cadenzas and ostinatos and flourishes, let’s say – there’s ample chance for messiness to lord over logic. Blending headstrong strings, blustery reeds, and oodles of bleep ‘n’ bloop glitchtronica with art-song vocals and a futuristic sense of structure, Ches Smith’s Laugh Ash (Pyroclastic) takes these kinds of risks from start to finish. But there’s such a feeling of assurance bonding the seemingly disparate elements that the composer/percussionist’s organizational strategies feel just as canny as they do crazed. Leading a bevy of daredevil improvisers helps, of course. From saxophonist James Brandon Lewis to violinist Jennifer Choi to trumpeter Nate Wooley, Laugh Ash the group is comprised of imaginative musicians whose interest in progressive ideas ripples unabated. Together they make Smith’s Rubik’s Cube designs feel emotionally richer while supporting the mechanics of each particular passage. Tempos might chafe against the flow of a melody; timbre and tone might be at odds with inflection and enunciation. From the punchy grooves of “Disco Inferred” to the dreamy trek of “Winter Sprung,” there’s little about the starting point of any piece that gives you an indication where it may end up. Moments of “jazz” and passages that reference “classical” ideas come and go – hey, everything comes and goes on Laugh Ash. Dissonance has its sometimes irritable say, and consonance spreads its cloth napkin pleasantries around the table. Echoes of Zappa’s Uncle Meat form an unspoken bond with maneuvers from Zorn’s The Big Gundown. The leader turns his interest in digression into a promise that these ostensible non-sequiturs will become buddy-buddy by the time the dust settles. Their modular connections (not unlike Brian Wilson’s SMiLE architecture) deliver a grounded vibe, and stand in spots where complexities speak plainly and tell their stories succinctly. Should be a gas to see them make it all smoothly unfurl on stage.

Jerry Bergonzi Quintet Smalls Friday, March 22

The saxophonist has been revered by his loyal Boston audience for ages now. He came up with the guys in the Fringe, and, actually, when he and pal George Garzone stand side by each for a little tenor madness, the world’s a much more interesting place. In a few ways, the 76-year-old bandleader epitomizes the best of mainstream tenor playing these days. After decades of classroom work and bandstand frolic, he’s refined a blues lingo that seldom fails to place the music’s most entertaining elements up front: pointedly lyrical lines, deeply felt delivery, and a yen for exciting interplay. On “Double Billed” from last fall’s Extra Extra (Savant), he gets to a place where nonchalance is an ally. Darting around the horn in sweeps of ideas that seem like asides in a spiraling conversation, he sounds both sweet and rugged. The group from that record – bassist Harvie S, guitarist Sheryl Bailey, trumpeter Phil Grenadier, and drummer Devon Gray – join him downstairs in the West Village tonight.

OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST

David Torn (SOLO!) Lowlands Thursday, March 21

Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom Smoke Thursday, March 21 – Sunday, March 25

Ravi Coltrane Quartet Blue Note Tues, March 19 – Sunday, March 24

JD Allen Trio Smalls Friday, March 22

Tord Gustavsen Trio Dizzy’s Tuesday, March 19

Harish Raghavan Bar Bayeux Friday, March 22

Spike Willner Trio Mezzrow Monday, March 18

Julian Lage Town Hall Friday, March 22

Camila Meza’s PORTAL Jazz Gallery Friday, March 22 – Saturday, March 23

Bill Charlap Mezzrow Friday, March 22

Claudia Acuña Joe’s Pub Saturday, March 23

Christian Sands Birdland Tuesday, March 19 – Sat, March 23

Neta Raanan Bar Bayeux Saturday, March 23

Women in Free Jazz Downtown Music Gallery Tuesday, March 19

Copland/Gordon/Kolker/Stratten Bar Bayeux Thursday, March 21

Anna Webber’s Shimmer Wince Jazz Gallery Tuesday, March 19

Sheila Jordan Dizzy’s Wednesday, March 20

Caleb Curtis Trio SEEDS Friday, March 22 – Saturday March 23

Russ Lossing/Eric McPherson/Cameron Brown Mezzrow Wednesday, March 20

Walter Stinson Bar Bayeux Thursday, March 21

Max Johnson/Santiago Leibson/Jason Burger TROOST Sunday, March 24

Jerry Bergonzi Quintet Smalls Friday, March 22

Kurt Rosenwinkel: The JCLO with Wynton Marsalis Rose Theater Friday, March, 22 – Sat, March 23

Kevin Sun Lowlands Tuesday, March 19

Slavic Soul Party Barbès Tuesday, March 19

Anthony Coleman/Satoshi Takeishi Barbès Saturday, March 23

Sam Weinberg/Nate Wooley Sisters  Tuesday, March 19

The Earregulars Ear Inn   Sunday, March 24

Dezron Douglas Quartet   Village Vanguard  Tuesday, March 19 – Sunday, March 24

Fungal Bloom + Zero Point iBeam Monday, March 25

Mingus Big Band   Drom Wednesday, March 20

Bill Saxton & the Harlem All-Stars  Bill’s Place   Friday, March 22 – Saturday, March 23

Oscar Noriega’s Crooked Quartet   Barbès   Friday, March 22

Birthday Tribute to Harold Mabern  Smoke Wednesday, March 20

Ben Goldberg Glamorous Escapades Dizzy’s Tues, March 26 – Weds, March 27