Tag Archives: Anthony Deutsch Trio

Jazz thrives in Milwaukee’s “music alley” a.k.a. Center Street

Posted on by
Reply

 

 

Baritone saxophonist Anders Svanoe

ASTRO (Anders Svanoe’s Teleporting Rhythmic Orchestra), Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, 926 E. Center St., 7 p.m. tonight, May 17, ($10)

The Ethan Philion Quartet, 8-10:30 p.m., May 24, Bar Centro,  ($10)

The Tlalok Rodriguez Quartet. Bar Centro, 8-10:30 p.m. , May 25 (free)

Donna Woodall, Bar Centro, 8-10:30 p.m., May 30

The Anthony Deutsch Trio with Juli Wood, 8-10:30 p.m., Bar Centro, May 31 ($25)

“Since the 1980s, Riverwest has moved like the river it borders—a place of restless culture and commingling social currents.”

That’s how I described my neighborhood for a Shepherd Express survey of distinctive Milwaukee neighborhoods in 2022. Nothing epitomizes that vitality more than E. Center Street, perhaps the commercial heart of Riverwest and pretty close to the geographic center of Milwaukee.

The next few weeks will demonstrate the jazz side of Milwaukee’s “Music Alley.” Center Street boasts at least six music venues, active to varying degrees.

There are comparable weeks of activity at any given time, but I decided that attention must be paid as “Up Jumped Spring,” as jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard might’ve put it. Such artistic buoyancy is important because, after all, “Spring can really hang you up the most,” as another memorable jazz standard puts it.

The space with by far the longest jazz-performance pedigree is The Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, 926 E. Center, located just one block west of the beginning of Center Street, which is North Humboldt Blvd.

It’s storied history is primarily “centered” on its first incarnation as the Milwaukee Jazz Gallery, which ran from 1978 to 1984, as a bastion of both national and local talent that a Milwaukee venue the size of an intimate nightclub has rarely equaled.

The venue’s new incarnation, the JGCA has endured financial ups and downs as did its namesake and has survived in recent years largely thanks to being a non-profit and its well-marketed art exhibits. But tomorrow night will exemplify the type of cutting-edge jazz and improv-oriented music the center now exemplifies.

A relatively new Madison-based ensemble called ASTRO will perform Friday, May 17 in support of their new album Eclipse, the ensemble is conceptually and somewhat nominally inspired by avant-bandleader and musical visionary Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra, and is led by baritone saxophonist and composer Anders Svanoe (the band’s name is an acronym for Anders Svanoe’s Teleporting Rhythmic Orchestra, which soars to the spirit of the outrageously and blissfully transcendent Sun Ra, whose band was always ably ballasted by powerful if pliant and fleet baritone saxophonists, including Pat Patrick and Danny Thompson for many years.

Eclipse is subtitled State of the Baritone, Volume 6, a concept nominally and somewhat aesthetically derived from the late saxophone giant Joe Henderson’s acclaimed two-volume live recordings State of the Tenor. However, those were magisterial and somewhat summative statements from a restlessly creative artist nearing his autumnal years. Svanoe, by contrast is a substantially younger musician, though clearly in his prime. And he’s absolutely dedicated to advancing the artistry and visibility of his primary axe.

Thus, Svanoe has now produced the sixth volume of albums that strive to define the aesthetics of the still underexposed and appreciated baritone saxophone for the present and future. He does so with all the authority of bop and post-bop masters like Pepper Adams, Nick Brignola, Gary Smulyan, and James Carter, and pathfinders like Ra’s bari travelers, Roscoe Mitchell (with whom he still performs), and fusion pioneer John Surman.

Eclipse opens fearlessly and auspiciously with “Klokka Er Fem,” a brief, flat-out free-jazz kaleidoscope, followed by the funky and propulsive “Whistle Stop,” evoking a bustling train loaded with musicians, like what you’d imagine a traveling swing orchestra might sound like jamming on the rails while on a cross-country concert tour of venues both grungy and glorified. Geoff Brady’s vibes riffing give this driving urgency, while Svanoe’s baritone lends it the sort of hard-driving swiftness that makes such time fly by.

Then Svanoe’s honors another truly historic Madison jazz musician who recently passed away, bassist Richard Davis. The small ensemble blending angular cubism and spacious pointillism with Bobby Hutcherson-esque vibes evokes two classic mid- ’60s modern jazz masterpieces, Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch! and Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure. and Svanoe hardly eases up on meaty free full ensemble interludes. Bassist Davis played on both of these ever-engaging and challenging Blue Note albums, and always proved supportive yet as artful and provocative as any of his co-players.

“Long Road” seems to gaze down to the horizon with an eloquently anthemic theme and highly musical horn riffing keyed by Svanoe’s improvised through-playing and a piquant guitar solo by Louka Patenaude. It lights the way with a reflectively lyrical theme, a piece that’s an album highlight. “Images” is free-playing again and seems to honor saxophonist Albert Ayler, who often used metaphysical beings in his titles, with big heart-bursting tenor sax playing from Pawan Benjamin. The players then seem to wander through the sonic haze, searching for, or perhaps embodying, ghosts of a genuinely spooky sort.

This leads to “Ghosts,” another sumptuous and regally outward-bound theme, promenading through fulsome whole notes, al a Sun Ra at his most magisterial. The processional closing harmonies are astringent yet spacious, almost hallowed.

The album ends, in utter irreverence, with a rock ‘n’ roll riff groove called “Memories” and Svanoe quickly drives it into a burn-out-the gears heat. Trumpeter Jon Ailabouni almost evokes a crazed-elephant trombone bleating in comic grotesquery, as does tenor sax player Benjamin. Guitarist Patenaude adds saber-slashes of crunching power chords, before the sax-heavy front line band brings it home breathlessly.

This should be great stuff live even if the Milwaukee band will be smaller than the album’s medium-sized big band.

Chicago bassist Ethan Philion (background) will lead a quartet including trumpeter Russ Johnson (foreground) next Friday at Bar Centro.

A week from Friday on May 24th, Center Street other leading jazz venue, Bar Centro,, now the area’s premiere place for straight-ahead modern jazz, will present The Ethan Philion Quartet. His name may still not ring bells with many Milwaukee area jazz fans, even if I’ve done my modest part to hop Quasimodo-like onto those resounding ropes.

I was deeply impressed by the Chicago-area bassist-bandleader’s dedication album to a great musical hero. And, for sure, it had been so long since I’d heard great new music in the letter and spirit of mighty Charles Mingus — that I did feel some of Quasimodo’s astonished gratification, when he says of Esmerelda, “She gave me water!”

In fact, I was so struck that I chose Philion’s Meditations on Mingus as the best album of the year in the NPR jazz critics poll bthat year, which I can’t say much more for, especially for a musician I hadn’t heard of before. Here’s my review: https://kevernacular.com/?p=14938

Meditations was recorded with a ten-piece band. Centro will present The Ethan Philion Quartet, featuring Greg Ward on alto saxophone, Russ Johnson on trumpet), and Dana Hall on drums. Their debut album, Gnosis, was released on October 6th on Sunnyside Records and drew praise from DownBeat Magazine, Chicago Jazz Magazine, JAZZIZ and more. Critic Larry Applebaum praised the ensemble’s “deep listening and open-ended solos” in his four-star review of Gnosis in DownBeat.

This should be a heavyweight group that floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. For my money, Chicagoan Ward and Milwaukeean Johnson are currently the best soloists on their respective instruments in the upper Midwest, yes, alto sax and trumpet. As for Philion the player, he was the winner of the 2019 International Society of Bassists Jazz Competition.

If Philion is still mining Mingus, the instrumentation suggests one of the bassist’s greatest small bands, with Eric Dolphy on alto sax and Ted Curson on trumpet, renowned for the 1960 Candid label album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus.

The ten-spot cover charge might be a steal.

Philion also leads an acoustic trio featuring arrangements of jazz standards in the Nat King Cole Trio style.

*****

Bar Centro will present Tlalok Rodriguez Quartet on Saturday May 25. The bassist-bandleader is a bilingual singer / songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Milwaukee. I don’t know him but Centro explains “Originally a Chicago native, he comes from a long line of musicians dating back to his great-grandfather who was a composer from Vicente Guerreo, Mexico.  A century later he keeps the family tradition alive through boleros, bossa novas, and vibrant performances channeling the passion of his ancestors.”

Thursday May 30 Centro will feature perhaps Milwaukee’s leading female jazz singer, Donna Woodall, who probably needs less introduction than any live performer in this column. She won the 2023 WAMI for best female vocalist. Period.

Pianist-vocalist Anthony Deutsch

Then on the following Friday May 31st, The Anthony Deutsch Trio with saxophonist-vocalist Juli Wood will play Bar Centro. Deutsch, now based in Viroqua in the Driftless region in Western Wisconsin,  developed in Milwaukee as a sophisticated jazz pianist who also has a powerful streak of nature-loving folk artist in him, in his original songwriting and singing, in the the guise of Father Sky. So expect some sort of vocals from him, but here probably jazzier than folkier. Wood is a versatile and popular performer best known for her long association with singer-bandleader Paul Cebar.

_________

 

.

 

 

 

Is the now-closed Jazz Estate about to become a “high-end” cocktail bar? The owner is making changes.

Posted on by
2

 

The bandstand at the Jazz Estate is the centerpiece if the club’s unusual layout. Courtesy Milwaukee Visitors Bureau

Jazz can be as intimate as any chamber music, or poetry reading, or any brooding songwriter softly strumming a small acoustic guitar. The performance space itself can make a huge difference.

If you wanted to literally feel a grand piano’s tickling upper registers, sharpest voicings or resounding percussive harmonics, or an upright bass’s straight-up-your-backbone thrum, or a drummer’s sparkle, dash and punchy paradiddle, the Jazz Estate may have rewarded music travelers as well as any jazz venue in America. And being that close, the improvising dynamics of jazz often kept you on the edge of a co-pilot’s seat for the swinging ascent of a combo reaching full flight.

I begin in the past tense because the uniquely famous venue stands in icy limbo, for at least January, to develop a “refreshed and expanded cocktail program that is the jewel of Milwaukee’s East side.”

This is the symbolic image accompanying Jazz Estate owner John Dye’s Facebook announcement that the revered jazz venue would close in Jaqnuary, then reopen wsome time in February as a “high-end” cocktail bar with, at some point, “limited music.” Courtesy Jazz Estate Facebook page

That’s owner John Dye’s Facebook explanation for canceling the six-days-a-week performance calendar, and he’s sticking to it.

Renowned Milwaukee native Lynne Arriale’s trio on November 20th may have provided the last glimmer of international jazz glory the Estate would host.

However, “We definitely aren’t done with live jazz.” Dye says. “We will be bringing limited live music back when the time is right, and it will be with a modified business model that is more sustainable.”

Yet it seems financially counterintuitive when he says, “We want people to feel comfortable coming by any time without the commitment of a reservation or cover charge.”

Isn’t it foremost the music they’re willing to pay for that draws people there, a model that has sustained the place for 40 years? And doesn’t Dye’s desired aesthetic of “high-end” cocktails – vs. Milwaukee’s “beer city” stereotype – cohere implicitly with the soulful sophistication of jazz, more than any other music genre?

Dye replies, “Through four decades and eight owners the space has always been, above all else, a beloved eastside bar.” That seems to minimize the reality that, in 1973, then-owner Sal Monreal made the central space into a jazz bandstand, as the venue’s name indicates. Ever since, it’s been consistently acclaimed by local and national press, especially by Down Beat magazine, as the best jazz club in Milwaukee, a strong, undeniable identity.

This artistic photograph conveys the Jazz Estate experience: live jazz by the Anthony Deutsch Trio blended with high-quality drinks and atmosphere. Courtesy foursquare.com

As to how reducing six weekly nights of varying cover charge for popular local and touring jazz acts would make for a more financially viable business, Dye says, “Drinks have always paid the bills.” As he sees it, “cover charges and ticket reservations can deter potential customers, so that is why we are moving in a more accessible direction without those added costs and logistics.” Drastically simplifying his business model, perhaps, but that also means losing substantial admission business, from the attraction of live, advertised music, for the uncertainty of casual bar traffic. As for what percentage of the door he divides between himself and musicians, or how much they are paid otherwise, he is vague: “Over the years we have paid musicians with guarantees, door deals and bar percentages. We have used various models.”

So, in the cold darkness of uncertainty, the jazz community now wonders how the Estate’s will spotlight their art form again.

Why has this place been so special? The unusual layout allows those lucky enough to share with the musicians a central small living-room size space with a single front seating row, with only a single standing-room “row” behind that one, with a narrow ledge for drinks on the north wall. The venue’s two long wings – the bar itself and a larger seating area – extend out from this Bird-like breast of a modern-jazz bastion. It’s not a perfect listening space, as the extension of the wings encourages chatter. But that acoustic layout also can help musicians focus on their intimate dynamics.

Bottom line: It’s been the most consistent home for jazz, and related music, in Milwaukee for 40 years. There’s even a Facebook page devoted to “Jazz Estate musicians.” What’s curious is that Dye is moving forward by going backwards or retreating, in effect, which he essentially admits. There’s been three phases of the Estate’s music booking policy over the years. He wants to return to the previous policy of limited music, a few nights a week.

To be sure, on the Jazz Estate website, the booking form for bands remains in place. But the prospect of jazz being seriously cut back spurs the mind to reflect backwards.

What did the late saxophone giant Joe Henderson think of this Bird’s-breast of a room when played it? What about trumpet master Tom Harrell, who struggles to manage his schizophrenia with anti-psychotic drugs but is a supremely attuned musician. What did feel in that space? Legendary bassist Eddie Gomez led a piano trio here, he a veteran of the most sublimely intimate jazz trio ever, that of Bill Evans.

Acclaimed trumpeter Tom Harrell performs at the Jazz Estate in October of 2017. Harrell is Grammy-nominated and has won multiple Trumpeter of the Year awards from Down Beat magazine. Photo by Leiko Napoli

Those are only a few of the big names the Estate hosted though, for the most part, it has served the ebb and flow of Milwaukee’s jazz community. Some musicians now fear for the place’s vaunted jazz tradition. Yet they also retain hope.

Trumpeter Eric Jacobson’s opinion holds extra weight, as he explains: “I was upset to hear about the Jazz Estate not having live music, especially after I had booked music there for four years. I felt like I created some amazing nights at the Jazz Estate with incredible local and national musicians. Having worked with the Jazz Estate, I did see the difficulties to sustain a business. I trust that John Dye is doing this, so he can stay open and hopefully get back to having live music.”

Jazz singer Jerry Grillo, who has performed there numerous times over 30 years and attended hundreds of Estate shows, says, “A jazz club needs special care from a community and its musicians. The cash register needs to ring. Covid is the real culprit. Many clubs and restaurants have had to close, but the doors will not be shuttered this time. Please support The Jazz Estate when it reopens.”

Then there’s the thoughtful guitarist Steve Peplin:

“We came to play, you came to drink and listen. But it isn’t called the Booze Estate. The drinks are great…but people would still show up even if the drinks were unsophisticated. The amount of time a jazz musician has invested in the art is vast. We used to play four-hour gigs for fifty bucks because we could relax into it and do it for the music.

“The Jazz Estate has always been my very favorite jazz club in all the world. I remember when I first sat in eons ago with Berkeley Fudge. I didn’t care about New York, L.A. or Paris. I only wanted to play at the Jazz Estate. It was an intimate, extra-dimensional portal, a testing ground, a laboratory and, later, a sanctuary.

“The place is tiny, but I would not change that. It sounds great. I don’t know how many hundreds of gigs I’ve played there with so many bands and artists, but everyone was about the music. People came to listen, trusting us to fly the spaceship.

I’m not worried about the Estate. The ship is strong and will, no doubt, be back. You can’t sink her.”

Happier times at The Jazz Estate: a promotional poster for an album recorded live at the jazz club. Courtesy kevernacular.com

Finally, pianist Mark Davis – who now directs the Milwaukee Jazz Institute, a major force as a performance and education operation – says, “I first started playing there in 1985 and, over the years, played a lot of gigs with local legends like Hattush Alexander and Berkeley Fudge and visiting stars like Charles McPherson and Tom Harrell. I also heard performances there by some all-time greats like Cedar Walton and Joe Henderson. But the thing is, the music is bigger than any one place. Jazz will continue in this city even if a venue closes. Other spots will spring up.

“The jazz scene is strong in Milwaukee. We have incredible established players as well as lots of young players just starting to come on the scene. I recently made a list of venues in our area that feature jazz and came up with over 30 clubs. We also have festivals and organizations that feature performances.

“Jazz isn’t going away. The Milwaukee Jazz Institute was formed to preserve this music and pass it along for future generations to develop.”

The cover of a notable album recorded live at the Jazz Estate. Courtesy Hollistic Music Works

Several excellent recordings, one by Jacobson and saxophonist Eric Schoor with Grammy-winning Milwaukee-raised trumpeter Brian Lynch, and two by trumpeter Nate Weiss, and a luminous one by the Jamie Breiwick Quartet, will help to preserve the memory and experience of live jazz at the Estate, regardless of what will remain when the doors open again.

_____________________

This article was originally published in The Shepherd Express in a slightly different form: https://shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/what%E2%80%99s-next-for-the-jazz-estate/

  1. The “live at the Jazz Estate” recording I know best is the marvelous music that the Jamie Breiwick Quartet recorded there. I annotated their 2013 album Spirits: Live at the Jazz Estate. My notes opening lines read:

“Open the door on the album cover and you enter the Jazz Estate, a Milwaukee club that exemplifies a venue that nurtures modern straight-ahead jazz and makes money at it.”

To what degree that last statement remains true, only owner John Dye know for sure.

Image result for Spirits by Jamie Breiwick Quartet

The original cover to “Spirits” depicts the front door of the Jazz Estate. Courtesy allmusicguide.com

Here’s the current cover of “Spirits” as redesigned by Jamie Breiwick of B-Side Graphics. Courtesy B-Side Graphics.

 

 

 

 

 

Music is alive (thank the good gods), and now LIVE again, in person, waiting for y’all

Posted on by
Reply

Breese Stevens Field in Madison. Courtesy breesestevens.com

Thanks to the swift development, distribution and receiving of Covid vaccines by a majority of adults in Milwaukee and Dane Counties, the dangerous coast is clearing for live music. You remember that — real musicians, breathing and blowing, singing and burning, with inspiration, melody, rhythm and beauty. Audiences responding.

Yes, Summerfest will be back, but not until September. Far before that, one of the most notable big outdoor concert events will be the Madison Jazz Festival, running June 11 to 20, at various locations.

The following link to a festival announcement article provides the details, from Isthmus, the Madison weekly newspaper that hosted and sponsored the event for many years, as the Isthmus Jazz Festival :https://isthmus.com/events/nate-smith-greg-ward/

Madison, however, has a well-organized jazz scene that bucks the tides of pure commercialism to survive and “thrive,” at least by jazz and creative-music terms. The longtime Madison Music Collective remains integral to making this a citywide event, as does a younger organization, the innovative Art + Lit Lab, also hosting and presenting, notably an ongoing Dig Jazz series that, as the pandemic wanes, will go live again. Outdoor concerts will take place in various neighborhoods around Madison.

So your very block, or around the corner, temporarily may become a ‘hood in the best sense — hip, rhythmically alive, and attuned the the lifeblood of urban American musics.

The Madison Jazz Festival’s headline event will feature Grammy-nominated drummer-composer-bandleader Nate Smith + Kin Folk, along with saxophonist Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade, performing at Breese Stevens Field, 917 E. Mifflin Street, on East Washington Avenue, at 6 p.m. Sunday, June 13. Admission to this concert is $30.

Drummer-composer -bandleader Nate Smith + Kin Folk will headline the Madison Jazz Festival on June 13. Courtesy Peter van Breukelen/Redferns via Getty Images

Saxophonist Greg Ward leads his Rogue Parade at Breese Stevens Field on June 13. Courtesy comarcalcv.com

Smith owns an impressive resume, having worked with the Dave Holland Quintet, Pat Metheny, Chris Potter, José James, John Patitucci, Ravi Coltrane, and Brittany Howard (of Alabama Shakes), among many others. As a bandleader, his style is surprisingly lyrical and sometimes contemplative — for a drummer — with alluring vocals by Amma Whatt. It’s a natural bill match for alto saxist Ward, whose outfit is a bit more bracing, with a double-guitar front line, but also quite melodic.

Ward’s album Stomping Off from Greenwood was among this critic’s choices for top ten jazz albums in the 2019 NPR Jazz Critics Poll. Smith’s already twice-Grammy-nominated debut album, KINFOLK: Postcards from Everywhere, should be a poll contender this year.

Other festival performers include the brilliant Chicago trumpeter-composer Marquis Hill, (with The Donna Woodall Group) June 19 at the Wisconsin Union Terrace; vocalist Sarah M. Greer, June 18 in a live-streamed concert at the Stoughton Opera House;  jazz and world-music saxophonist Arun Luthra, June 15 at Robinia Courtyard; and the powerful young Chicago saxophonist-composer Isaiah Collier and the Chosen Few, June 12 at Cafe Coda; which will also host the legendary multi-instrumentalist-composer and co-founder of the Art Ensemble of Chicago (and former Madison resident), Roscoe Mitchell, on June 20. Also on that bill is the Douglas Ewart Ensemble, like Mitchell a seminal member of Chicago’s internationally-influential AACM. Mitchell is one of the most visionary and innovative musicians of post-1960s creative music.

Isaiah Collier and The Chosen Few will play June 12 at Cafe Coda as part of the Madison Jazz Festival

Local favorites will include the Acoplados Latin Project, Mama Digdown’s Brass Band, vocalists Donna Woodall and Gerri DiMaggio, and many more. In addition to concerts, the Festival will feature a public virtual master class by renowned bassist and UW-Madison Jazz Studies Professor Peter Dominguez, a livestreamed presentation by Ricardo Gonzalez and Nick Moran on the Camaguey Jazz project, and more. For more details on the various events, visit this site: https://artlitlab.org/programs/greater-madison-jazz/madison-jazz-festival

***

If you don’t get to Madison for the start of the festival (as I won’t, alas) you can still get a fresh dose of live music this Saturday, June 12 in Milwaukee: the fast-rising jazz-hip-hop-soul band KASE, will perform at 7 p.m. live at Saint Kate Arts Hotel, 139 E. Kilbourne, in downtown Milwaukee. The band — which often features acclaimed Milwaukee singer-songwriter-keyboardist-saxophonist Kellen “Klassik” Abston — has a penchant for building intoxicatingly sinuous grooves (what they call “improvised sonic explorations”) with Klassik riding atop, on any manner of vocals or rap, sometimes evoking classic soul singers like Marvin Gaye, thus his name. Both Klassik and Breiwick are skilled musical conceptualizers, so this daring stylistic synthesis can expand to precipitous boundaries while maintaining atmospheric buoyance, afloat even over the edge.

(However, Klassik is not “officially” scheduled to perform with KASE Saturday.)

Jazz-hip-hop ensemble KASE, was formed by trumpeter Jamie Breiwick (L-R, above) with Madison bassist John Christensen, and DJ/turntablist knowsthetime. The band frequently features singer-rapper Klassik (below). KASE will perform live Saturday at Saint Kate Arts Hotel. Courtesy OnMilwaukee.com Above photo by Brian Mir

Klassik. Courtesy J-S Online

Another Milwaukee option for Saturday (June 12) is The Anthony Deutsch Trio at 8 p.m. at Bar Centro, 804 E. Center St. in Riverwest. 

Deutsch who plays piano and sings, joined by Minneapolis bassist Billy Peterson and the superb percussionist Devin Drobka. Deutsch is a quirkily ingenious pianist with lyrical undertones of Fred Hersch, and a warmly cavernous singing voice on jazz standards and mystical-nature folk-jazz originals.

Both KASE and The Deutsch Trio have also performed at the Madison inDIGenous series, now called DIG JAZZ. 

The Anthony Deutsch Trio. Courtesy badgerherald.com

___________