Time won't give me time.
Glimpses of creative music past, present, and future at the Vision Festival… plus live-music picks for the next seven days in NYC.
The terms shamanic (adj.; pertaining to a religious practice that involves a practitioner interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance) and shambolic (adj.; disorganized; messy or confused) aren’t far apart in a dictionary. They were closer still on Thursday night at Roulette, when the mesmerizing guitarist and singer James Blood Ulmer wrapped up the third night of this year’s Vision Festival.
Ulmer’s Black Rock Trio, with bassist Mark Peterson and drummer G. Calvin Weston, felt agreeably loose and steamy when they gelled under the leader’s inimitable surges of notes and tides of chords—but it usually took at least a few bars for Weston, the reliably magnificent drummer who appeared on some of Ulmer’s earliest records, to find his place in a swampy gumbo that more often than not felt uncharted.
Opening with “Jazz Is the Teacher (Funk Is the Preacher),” from Ulmer’s 1980 album Are You Glad to Be in America?, the trio offered a string of simmering free-blues rambles. One song opened with “your blues and my blues, baby, we can have a whole lot of fun,” and ended with “no escape from the blues” – the title of a Muddy Waters song Ulmer recorded in 2003 for a Vernon Reid-produced album of the same name, on which Peterson had played – repeated like a mantra.
It was evident there were original songs involved; Ulmer referred to a folder on a music stand throughout the set. One was the selection identified as “Reparation” in an intense solo set Dave Bryant hosted in Cambridge, now posted on YouTube; another, the song identified as “America” in the same show. (You couldn’t miss a passing reference to Ulmer’s anthemic “Are You Glad to Be in America?”)
Ulmer started one song with interrogation – “Woman, who do you think you are/Woman, where did all you girls come from?” – and ended it with adulation: “When all is said and done, you are the one all life came from.” Elsewhere he pined for Africa, or spurned the devil, declaring, “I’m a believin’ man.” He coaxed a lyrical solo out of Peterson, then abruptly stopped playing and recited:
I was born in South Carolina
My daddy taught me how to play
He told me if you stick with music
You may have something to say
And don’t let no woman take you off the track
If she gives you love, don’t let her take it back
Cause she is a woman, and lord knows she’s got something to say
She brings life to the planet, and there ain’t no other way
And if she gives you babies, she’s sure gon’ make you pay
Don’t take her for granted and misunderstand her way
If she don’t give you enough love, she will let you know every day.
Cueing the band, he intoned those same lines over a murmuring slow blues—and then called for another bass solo.
No one looked more surprised than the aforementioned Vernon Reid when a giggling Ulmer plucked him out of the crowd and handed over his guitar, on which Reid obligingly played his own handsome version of harmolodic choogle. Gently urged to reclaim his instrument by festival founder Patricia Nicholson, Ulmer ended the show as he began: another stomping account of “Jazz Is the Teacher (Funk Is the Preacher),” full of yodels, howls, and smoldering guitar.
It was unlike any Ulmer show I’d seen previously, going back to an initial encounter at Fort Worth’s fabled Caravan of Dreams in the late ’80s. But if a lack of cohesion sometimes proved befuddling, Ulmer remains a wholly original artist: singular and playful, demanding acceptance on his own terms.
The lineup preceding Ulmer on Thursday had been formidable, to say the least. Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu opened with a portion of Fertile Land, Fertile Body, an ambitious project conjoining aspects of ecology, fecundity, and identity. Shyu assembled a band positively thrumming with presence and power – vocalist Martha Redbone, Layale Chaker on eight-string violin, Maeve Gilchrist on Celtic harp, and bassist Devon Gates – and deployed it in rich instrumental textures and five-part vocal arrangements.
Lilith, the newest ensemble assembled by saxophonist and composer Ingrid Laubrock, includes a fierce foil for the leader in trumpeter David Adewumi and a lithe rhythm section comprising pianist Yvonne Rogers, bassist Eva Lawitts, and drummer Henry Mermer, with the inventive vocalizing accordionist Adam Matlock providing varying modes of counterpoint.
Laubrock’s compositions were characteristically sophisticated, full of angular contours, dizzying rhythmic shifts, and vocal asides from Lawitts and Matlock. But the playing never lacked visceral kick, particularly when Laubrock and Adewumi darted, sparred, and soared over the band’s trigonometric pulsations.
If Laubrock’s set suggested a lineage extending from Anthony Braxton, that of saxophonist Darius Jones could evoke Henry Threadgill with its sinuous melodies, knotwork counterpoint, and mesmeric grooves. That’s not to say Jones sounds much like his venerated elder, but rather to imagine he’s invented a vocabulary that accommodates useful lessons taken aboard and transformed.
Alongside the leader’s keening alto, guitarist Nick Sala and cellist Christopher Hoffman ventured out and back with agility and sharp contrast – one punky, the other pointed – while bassist Liani Matteo and drummer Jason Nazary provided nuanced propulsion, all underneath enigmatic videos by Laura Sofia Perez. The band was just as compelling in passages of untethered rumination, from which new grooves stealthily coalesced.
Nights grow long at the Vision Festival, no question, making it a challenge to remain wholly present and retain every detail. And on this particular evening, what I found myself missing was the elemental free jazz of longtime Visionaries like David S. Ware, Charles Gayle, and Peter Brötzmann, along with fundamental collectives like Test and Other Dimensions in Music—paradoxically, the idiom this festival remains most closely associated with.
Unquestionably, such primal art still nourishes this festival’s lifeblood. But how remarkable it is that, under the guise of consistency and assurance, the Vision Festival grows and evolves year after year, presenting newcomers and mainstays alike with something that will open their ears to new experiences.
Eight days a week.
A quick note about the calendar listings below: Last week I realized citing Tuesday events for the first time in a calendar circulated on that day means people might not read about events until it’s too late to act. So starting with today’s missal, listings will run from the Tuesday of publication through the following Tuesday. (A small irony that this particular batch of listings doesn’t include anything on either date.) Hopefully this will help to enable readers to plan their outings more expeditiously.
The Night After Night Watch.
June 25–July 2
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
26
Eliza Bagg
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, June 26–Saturday, June 29 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
Eliza Bagg, the Los Angeles-based new-music soprano who performs original electroacoustic music as Lisel, comes to The Stone series at The New School for a sequence of serial one-night stands with Catherine Brookman, Booker Stardrum, Chris Pattishall, and Bakudi Scream.
Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name
HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave., SoHo
Wednesday, June 26–Sunday, June 30, times vary; $10–$100
here.org
Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name, a new work by writer, director, and actor Sylvia Milo and composer, sound designer, and performer Nathan Davis – the team behind the award-winning phenomenon The Other Mozart – taps ancient texts and contemporary sources to investigate 2,000 years of controversy surrounding the biblical figure of the title.
Tyshawn Sorey
Dizzy’s Club, Jazz at Lincoln Center
10 Columbus Circle, Midtown West
Wednesday, June 26 at 7 & 9pm; $60–$65, students $20, plus $21 food/drink minimum
jazz.org
Drummer, composer, and bandleader Tyshawn Sorey is the driving force behind this centenary tribute to an iconic forebear, Max Roach, featuring a new arrangement of his landmark 1968 album Members, Don’t Git Weary. Leading a band that includes trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, saxophonist Mark Shim, pianist Lex Korten, and bassist Tyrone Allen, Sorey will present the entire album apart from the title track, which Roach recorded with singer Andy Bey—and which Sorey has vowed never to present without Fay Victor, unavailable tonight.
27
Five Ways to Die
HERE
145 Sixth Ave., SoHo
Thursday, June 27–Sunday, June 30, times vary; $39.50
experimentsinopera.com
Resourceful indie-opera cabal Experiments in Opera presents the premiere of a new work jointly written and composed by artists in the company’s innovative Writers’ Room program, comprising episodes by Britt Hewitt and Jesse Gelaznik, Jason Cady, Marcella Murray and Seong Ae Kim, and Joanie Brittingham and Del’Shawn Taylor. The show is directed by Shannon Sindelar and conducted by Dmitry Glivinskiy.
Scott Wollschleger
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn
Thursday, June 27 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
I wrote just a bit last Friday about Between Breath, the new album from composer Scott Wollschleger, and perhaps you’ve seen the choice pull quote from Ethan Iverson: “Scott Wollschleger possesses an ear for fresh notes, and delivers them in a slow and almost terrifying manner: Morton Feldman meets Thelonious Monk meets H.P. Lovecraft.” (Nice!) Ethan’s gone long on Wollschleger in his own newsletter today; read up, then grab your tickets to hear works from the album and more besides. If you can’t be present, the concert will be streamed live, then archived for on-demand viewing, on the Roulette website and YouTube.
28
Chartreuse + Fonema Consort
Americas Society
680 Park Ave., Upper East Side
Friday, June 28 at 7pm; free admission
as-coa.org
String trio Chartreuse – violinist Myra Hinrichs, violist Carrie Frey, and cellist Helen Newby – joins Chicago’s dynamic Fonema Consort in new and recent works by Costa Rican composer and Fonema co-founder Pablo Chin. Admission is free, but advance registration is requested; sign up here.
29
Holland Andrews
Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort St., Meatpacking District
Saturday, June 29–Monday, July 1 at 8pm; $25, seniors, students, and visitors with disabilities $20
whitney.org
Appearing as part of the 2024 Whitney Biennial, vocalist, composer, clarinetist, and producer Holland Andrews presents a newly commissioned performance piece, Speaker, tantalizingly described as a project that “engages harmonic disintegration and language transmutation to solicit the wisdom held inside the body, producing somatic catharsis through sound.” While you’re at the Whitney, don’t miss the two sound installations Andrews created for the Biennial, located in the elevator and the stairwell.
Andrew Drury Tentet + Terry Jenoure Flame Trio
Zürcher Gallery
33 Bleecker St., Greenwich Village
Saturday, June 29 at 8pm; $20 cash only
galeriezurcher.com
One bill, two acts worth shouting about. Violinist and vocalist Terry Jenoure was a pillar of the NYC downtown-jazz from around 1980 to 1990, playing memorably with leaders like John Carter, Leroy Jenkins, and Henry Threadgill as well as serving her own muse; since returning to Amherst, MA, she’s pursued theatrical projects, visual arts, and more. She’s working here in a taut trio with bassist Joe Fonda and drummer Reggie Nicholson, and sharing a bill with drummer, composer, and scene organizer Andrew Drury—who’s fielding a 10-piece band with strings attached. The festive event marks the 200th installment of Drury’s community music initiative Soup & Sound, and the party continues with an ad hoc assemblage at Soup & Sound HQ (292 Lefferts Ave., Brooklyn) on Sunday afternoon at 3pm; details here.
30
20th Annual NYC In C
Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center
Amsterdam Ave. at W. 62nd St., Upper West Side
Sunday, June 30 at 8pm; free admission
lincolncenter.org
This vivacious annual performance of Terry Riley’s 1964 watershed minimalist work, organized by composer-performers Nick Hallett and Zach Layton, has made its way through a series of crucial NYC new-music spaces, including Galapagos, Issue Project Room, and Le Poisson Rouge. Now, for its 20th anniversary, the event comes to Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City festival with a jaw-dropping ensemble of orchestral proportions, driven by twinned drummers Brian Chase and Billy Martin. Admission is free, but you can also book in advance on Mondays at noon using Lincoln Center’s Fast Track program.
Find even more events in Night After Night Watch: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.