Eight is enough.
David Murray drove his commanding new Octet in the first of two dates at the Blue Note, plus recommended live new-music events March 4–11.
As previewed last week both here and over at Jim Macnie’s place, tenor saxophonist David Murray rumbled into a seriously packed Blue Note Jazz Club last night with the newest configuration of his fabled Octet and proceeded to burn the house down. Much of the first set consisted of unknown material, including several selections from Nektar, an album completed just before the COVID lockdown, Murray said from the stage, and then never released.
In terms of recordings, one hopes that this lost Octet release is issued at some point; material like the title track (which opened the set) and a bumptuous samba, “Switchin’ in the Kitchen,” were choice additions to the Murray canon. Between them, Murray led his band – Immanuel Wilkins on alto sax, trumpeter Shareef Clayton, trombonist Corey Wallace, Mingus Murray (the leader’s son) on guitar, pianist Lafayette Gilchrist, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Russell Carter – in “O.B.E.” by the late Lawrence “Butch” Morris, Murray’s old friend and collaborator, and an embellished version of “Francesca,” the swoon-worthy title track from his stellar 2024 quartet release on Intakt.
I can’t identify the rest of the set with such certainty, alas. Two selections, a bluesy slow drag with Ducal shimmer and sheen and a mid-tempo bop, both came from a project Murray said was inspired by working with writer and cultural critic Albert Murray. (The title “Roots & Wings 2” was visible on the sheet music on Gilchrist’s music stand.) During the final number, Murray sternly declaimed incendiary poetry by Amiri Baraka over a stomping funk vamp with zig-zagging horns.
Clayton and Wallace, both new to me, were stylish and soulful all night long, Clayton in particular showing off buckets of expressive effects including some mind-bending plunger-mute play. Wilkins was his reliably soulful, inventive self, with an especially frenetic solo right out of the gate on “Nektar” raising the bar and bandstand alike. The rock-solid Stewart got a couple of fine spotlights, as did Gilchrist, who made the most of a digital keyboard in place of a piano. Mingus Murray, mostly content to groove, had a few spots to blaze, and Carter got a whale of a solo toward the end.
As for the leader, Murray was on top form all night, wedding untameable spirit to an affinity for tradition as he’s done since his 1980s breakthrough. It’s clearly another ripe time for him right now, but it might be a while before we get to hear any of these charts on a recording; he’s focused on his next quartet record, due imminently from Verve—evidently titled Birdly Serenade. That’s all the more reason to hustle down to the Blue Note when the Octet holds forth again for two sets on Monday, March 17, after which Murray brings his quartet to the club on March 31 and April 14.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
4
David Grubbs + Sam Weinberg Trio
Sisters
900 Fulton St.; Brooklyn
Tuesday, March 4 at 8pm; $20
sistersbklyn.com
The eternally inquisitive guitarist and composer David Grubbs celebrates the release of his newest album, Whistle from Above, playing solo and collaborating with trumpeter Nate Wooley, fiddler Cleek Schrey, and fellow guitarist Wendy Eisenberg. Sharing the bill, saxophonist Sam Weinberg musters a trio with bassist Henry Fraser and drummer Jason Nazary.
Jon Madof
Chevra Ahavas Yisroel
306 Albany Ave.; Brooklyn
Tuesday, March 4 at 8pm; $36
chevraahavasyisroel.org
For a project titled “Joyful Noise,” guitarist and bandleader Jon Madof convenes a group of disparate but like-minded colleagues – pianist and composer Doniel Berry, cellist Laura Melnicoff, and percussionist Moshe Sobol – for an evening of imaginative elaborations on traditional Chassidic nigunim.
6
Composer Portrait: Miya Masaoka
Miller Theatre at Columbia University
2960 Broadway; Morningside Heights
Thursday, March 6 at 7:30pm; $10–$35
millertheatre.com
Members of the International Contemporary Ensemble assemble in varied configurations for an evening of new and recent works by composer, performer, and installation artist Miya Masaoka, including a world premiere.
Space
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Thursday, March 6 at 8pm; $20, seniors and students $15
roulette.org
Presented by the invaluable curatorial series Interpretations, the improvising chamber trio Space – saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and vocalist Thomas Buckner, joined lately by multi-reedist Scott Robinson – welcome a special guest, virtuoso flutist Robert Dick. If you can’t attend in person, watch live or later on the Roulette website or YouTube free of charge.
8
Sarah Cahill
Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave.; Upper East Side
Saturday, March 8 from 2 to 8pm; free with museum admission
engage.metmuseum.org
A sensational new-music champion with the sure communicative instincts befitting the seasoned radio host she is, pianist Sarah Cahill comes to the Met Museum with selections from her grand project The Future Is Female, a reframing of the piano canon built around works by 70 women composers from around the world spanning from the Baroque era to the current day. She’ll present a marathon recital drawn from this body of works in the museum’s European Paintings gallery, free with museum admission.
MATA presents Vapours + Charmaine Lee + Lea Bertucci
Public Records
233 Butler St., Brooklyn
Saturday, March 8 at 7pm; $25.75
dice.fm
MATA Festival presents the U.S. premiere of Vapours, a string quartet by composer, saxphonist, and sound artist Lea Bertucci, who applies subtle electronic processing and spatial mixing as the piece is performed. The quartet here includes violinists Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris, violist Joanna Mattrey, and cellist Alex Waterman; Bertucci and vocalist/composer Charmaine Lee open with solo performances.
Moby-Dick
Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center
30 Lincoln Center Plaza; Upper West Side
Saturday, March 8 at 8pm, Tuesday, March 11 at 7:30pm; $42–$400
metopera.org
Karen Kamensek conducts the Met Opera premiere of a 2010 opera by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer, which handily adapts Herman Melville’s classic novel into a lean, effective lyric drama resourcefully staged by Leonard Foglia. As I wrote in The New York Times about the world premiere at Dallas Opera (gift link), you’ll hear echoes of Debussy, Puccini, Britten, Glass, and more, deployed with shrewd dramatic instincts. The solid cast here includes Brandon Jovanovich, Stephen Costello, Peter Mattei, Ryan Speedo Green, and Janai Brugger.
9
Anzû Quartet
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Sunday, March 9 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
A new-music supergroup convened in 2020, Anzû Quartet brings together violinist Olivia De Prato, cellist Ashley Bathgate, clarinetist Ken Thomson, and pianist Karl Larson into a force designed to convey the poetry, profundity, and rigor of, say, Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du Temps. The program includes Anna Webber’s adjust – featured on the quartet’s debut album of the same name, due April 25 on Cantaloupe Music – plus new pieces by Ryan Carter and Mario Diaz de Leon.
loadbang
OPERA America’s National Opera Center
330 Seventh Ave.; Midtown West
Sunday, March 9 at 3pm; $20, seniors and students $10
eventbrite.com
Hard to find a combo more bespoke than loadbang, the excellent quartet comprising baritone vocalist Ty Bouque, bass clarinetist Adrián Sandi, trumpeter Andy Kozar, and trombonist William Lang. The affinities among these disparate musicians are extraordinary, one sound melding into another to emerge as something different and new. This matinee concert does double duty at least, serving as a record-release party for A Garden Adorned (from which works by Oscar Bettison and Christina George will be performed) while also introducing a gaggle of auspicious world and local premieres.
10
New York New Music Ensemble
Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation
87 Eldridge St.; Lower East Side
Monday, March 10 at 7pm; $20, seniors and students $10
eventbrite.com
A New York New Music Ensemble program titled “Boulez at 100: Celebrating His Legacy” includes that still-imposing artist’s Sonatine (1946) and Derive I (1984), alongside more recent works by Jeffrey Mumford and James Wood.
11
Karen Slack
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Ave., Upper East Side
Tuesday, March 11 at 7:30pm; $40, livestream $25
92ny.org
Grammy Award-winning soprano Karen Slack – about whom, read Olivia Giovetti – comes to the 92nd Street Y with pianist Kevin Miller and a program titled “African Queens,” featuring suitably regal new art songs by Jessie Montgomery (who’s having quite the season herself), Carlos Simon, Shawn Okpebholo, Fred Onovwerosuoke, Joel Thompson, and more. If you can’t attend in person, livestreaming tickets are available.
More vital directories of new-music destinations:
Find even more events in Night After Night Watch: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.
Great stuff! Unfortunately, the timing is wrong and I probably won’t get out until the JACK at Symphony Space on 3/12.