Tag Archives: Heirloom

Riverwest Jazz Fest postscript: Man, it was a hundred-proof happening!

Posted on by
2

 

The Erotic Adventures of the Static Chicken, performing in Madison. isthmus.com

It was small and compact, but the first Riverwest Jazz Fest delivered a blow — a wake-up call — that should leave the city’s consciousness slightly dazed, and asking for more, if it has a cultural backbone.

Apologies if that lead exceeds an acceptable testosterone limit, but sometimes such associations seem more apt than others. Of course, it’s really too early to tell what sort of impact this event will have on the neighborhood or city, but you can begin to imagine by realizing that it was planned to be twice as big, and strives to be just that in the future.

As it was, the event, tucked neatly in a slightly two block-plus parameter of Center Street right off of Humboldt Blvd., allowed patrons easy access to all three bubbling venues: The Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, Bar Centro, and Company Brewing. Plus, there was at least one band jamming in the storefront studios of Riverwest Radio, located between JGCA and Centro.

Talk about concentrated. Let’s say you couldn’t do much better even if you were a jazz-aholic who needs to down a row of hundred-proof musical shots.

Yes, I know, Wisconsin “has a drinking problem.” Maybe I’m better off retreating into comfy cliché-land for the faint-hearted. This was “the little fest that could.” * 

Three other venues were all originally solicited to be pioneering fest participants. Each had some reason to decline.

Their loss, of course, but hopefully herein lies a lesson or two about smart marketing, especially in your own neighborhood, the lifeblood of such small venues. Each venue did have to pony up pay for the musicians, as the whole event was free admission, donations and tips aside. But that sort of commitment is the first step in smart collaborative marketing. An organized event like a jazz fest pretty much assures a built-in audience and revenue boost.

Although none of the crowds were literally shoulder-to-shoulder, everywhere on Center, people either milled and chilled in the Harvest Moon nocturne, or strolled to another venue.

Kudos to JGCA president Mark Lawson, reportedly whose brainchild this was. I suspect Lawson might’ve sensed this was an urgent moment to give the neighborhood a cultural jolt, as his space had foundered somewhat in terms of consistent recent musical activity. That’s hardly to diminish the place as a consistently and successfully operated art gallery.

And yet, as is fairly well known, the venue has a tremendous music legacy to maintain, that of the historic Milwaukee Jazz Gallery, whose inspired grotto of a ghost it inhabits.

The venue now has the cultural audacity to be a grants-dependent, community-oriented “arts center.” Though sans the original venue’s bar, it remains the sort of thing this neighborhood should embrace gladly. So, JGCA is an ever-colorful listening space, and still boasts the now-vintage checkerboard stage that hosted many famous jazz names in the Milwaukee Jazz Gallery days, and a respectable Yamaha baby grand house piano, and new sound system. The space’s success as a visual art gallery derives from the owning entity, the Riverwest Artists Association, strongly oriented to visual artists, and its president, Lawson, is a professional gallery curator.

Drummer Victor DeLorenzo, formerly of The Violent Femmes and currently in the chamber rock duo Nineteen Thirteen, guest performs at the long-standing “Seeds Sounds” free jazz series at the Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts. riverwest.org.

His musical tastes lean toward more experimental and offbeat music than straight-ahead jazz, so “ya-never-know-what-you’re-gonna-get,” as a chocolate-loving pop philosopher once declared. Friday night strongly reinforced that reputation. The headline act proved as provocative and engrossing as its name, The Erotic Adventures of the Static Chicken (pictured at top) sports one of the most hilariously mock-bildungsroman monikers for a jazz band I’ve encountered.

The trio is led by ace and, yes, adventurous saxophonist Aaron Van Oudenallen (a.k.a. Aaron Gardner), who might be the second coming of electric-saxophone pioneer Eddie Harris; or what we hope Eddie would be doing today, if alive and pushing the hip envelope hard. Their set was a kaleidoscope of electronica, from slyly lyrical big-sky starbursts to Ab-Ex grunge, almost invariably underpinned by powerful currents of funk and driving rhythm. Van Oudenallen often plays with one hand twiddling an electronic effects box — as if an expose’ of the man behind the curtain, The Wizard of Odds.

Fender electric bassist Matt Turner regales the audience with his potent, pulsing virtuosity, and his eccentric affability. Drummer Jeremy Kunziar delivers multidirectional piston-like power.

This electronically deep-diving band has been around for a number of years and evidently has a decent (or indecent, as their name might suggest) following, at least slightly beneath “the lower frequencies,” where they speak to you, to paraphrase the great Invisible Man novelist Ralph Ellison.

The Chicken’s set included a boiling jam with trumpeter Jamie Breiwick sitting in, which climaxed with the band scorching Harris’s masterpiece “Freedom Jazz Dance,” a propulsive, shaman’s-shake of chord changes.

If you’re on Facebook, here’s a clip of The Chicken in full flight at the fest, during “Freedom,” courtesy of Tami Williams: https://www.facebook.com/fiilm/videos/3616003828679078

Meanwhile, over at the street’s straight-ahead jazz refuge, Bar Centro, a surprise waited in unknown-to-me bandleader and tenor saxophonist Tael Estremera, He was possibly the youngest performer in the fest, yet also the most modern trad-oriented, as I heard them covering small masterpieces from John Coltrane’s classic album Giant Steps, including the title tune and the exquisitely modulated “Naima.” The quartet’s guitarist, Ben Dameron, whose own band Heirloom did the opening set, seems to be everywhere these days, and is a flash-firing virtuoso, slightly reminiscent of John McLaughlin. You should him check out ASAP.

The stylishly curvaceous bar at Bar Centro is a strong feature of this fast-rising Riverwest jazz venue. visitmilwaukee.com.

Finally, a happy hubbub brimmed at a nearly packed house at Company Brewing. Trumpeter Eric Jacobson, best known for his bristling hard-bop, was delivering an appealingly relaxed set of modern jazz with a primo quartet of local vets, reflective of his excellent recent album Discover.

Jazz trumpeter Eric Jacobson. foxcitiesmagazine. com

Just about then, the festival’s headliner, double Grammy-winning trumpeter Brian Lynch, sauntered into Company and the table was set for the climax of the festival.

Alas, I had to depart just before Lynch’s set, but I have no doubt it was a compelling and bracing topper to an auspiciously-debuted event we hope becomes annual.

As for newborn Riverwest Jazz Fest, here’s a toast:

Let your garden grow,

in our pastures of cultural plenty,

as in, plenty mo’ music,

every which way you go.

________________

1. However, the arts center has consistently hosted a weekly “free jazz” workshop and, more recently, the Milwaukee Jazz Institute’s weekly educational jam sessions, and other community gatherings.

  • who says Riverwesters don’t have a politically incorrect sense of humor? I just took this snapshot of by back-alley Riverwest neighbor’s handsome new wooden security fence with the following sign. (Apologies for my impertinence).

Trumpeting Riverwest’s first Jazz Fest

Posted on by
Reply

Except during the swing era, jazz has almost always had to play the survivor’s game. The seminal American art form migrates, like small, hungry herds of mammalian musical genius – and, of course, at least one genius “Bird” — incessantly wandering urban savannahs for watering amenable holes that usually lubricate patrons with at least coffee drinks as they dig the sounds.

Milwaukee’s no different. Accordingly, three self-consciously hip neighborhoods in this city have sustained the music to varying degrees, along with a smattering of venues in the near-north side Harambee and Bronzeville neighborhoods.

However, the East Side’s long-standing Jazz Estate has largely abdicated it’s nominal attraction, leaving that neighborhood a relatively arid region for live jazz — ironically given the Estate new identity as “specialty drink bar.”

The most conspicuous jazzy neighborhood, in terms of an organized presence, has been the southside’s Bay View which annually hosts the large, one-day Bay View Jazz Festival. This successful endeavor is built along the festival’s backbone, Kinnickinnick Avenue, a promenade of quirky and fascinating storefronts, galleries, bars and music spaces.

Now, the third hip neighborhood, Riverwest, is trumpeting its “look-at-me” moment. Three music venues on Center Street are teaming up for the first Riverwest Jazz Fest, this Friday night at The Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, Bar Centro, and Company Brewing.

The fest lineup (below) is colorfully diverse and headlined by two-time Grammy-winning trumpeter Brian Lynch. Another notable act is the fast-rising band Heirloom.

Heirloom

The venue with the most auspicious history is the Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, located in the same space originally occupied by the Milwaukee Jazz Gallery which presented “a dazzling lineup of many of the most significant musicians in jazz history,” notes one of the fest’s organizers, trumpeter-bandleader-recording artist Jamie Breiwick. “With great respect for these pioneers of jazz, contemporary jazz isn’t an art form that recycles the past, but a dynamic evolving collaboration of inventive musicians that mirrors the present while creating the new future.” He invites patrons to “be a part of this new future with the first ever Riverwest Jazz Fest.”

The new fulcrum among the three venues that’s now offering jazz most consistently is the stylishly intimate Bar Centro, located kitty corner from the larger Company Brewing space.

All three venues are on Center Street within a couple blocks of each other, so there’s no excuse to not make the rounds, and support all three. The festival is free admission, but donations will be welcome as will be offerings to tip jars for the performing groups.

Here’s the Riverwest Jazz Fest lineup:

5:30 PM – New Orleans-style March with the Big Style Brass Band from Jazz Gallery to Company Brewing

Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts (926 E Center St)

6 PM – Jazz Flux

8 PM – The Erotic Adventures of the Static Chicken

Bar Centro (804 E Center St)

6 PM – Heirloom

8 PM – Tael Estremera Quartet

Company Brewing (735 E Center St)

9:30 PM – Eric Jacobson Quartet

11 PM – Brian Lynch Quartet

__________

This article was originally published in The Shepherd Express, here: https://shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/trumpeting-riverwests-jazz-fest/

 

Heirloom passes the modern jazz tradition down and forward

Posted on by
Reply

(L-R) Saxophonist Jeanne Marie Farinelli, drummer Hannah Jonson and guitarist-composer Ben Dameron are the core members of Heirloom.

Heirloom will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15 at Bar Centro, 804 E. Center Street, Milwaukee. For information: https://centrocaferiverwest.com/bar-centro/

One of the brightest and most auspicious recent manifestations of the Milwaukee jazz scene is a band called Heirloom. Their name seems well considered, as one senses how two distinctive talents, a man and a woman, have begat at jazz group with a firm sense of modern jazz tradition—the valuable object, in effect—and the skill and imaginative vision for how to cultivate their sense of it in beautiful and stimulating form.

The group is the byproduct of the confluence of guitarist-composer Ben Dameron and drummer Hannah Johnson, both rather unique musicians who add up to something greater than their parts. Dameron has developed into an electric jazz guitarist of distinct authority after becoming an accomplished classical guitarist. But the jazz bug bit him at some point and the first time I saw him perform was playing jazz solo on his classical guitar, at a house concert he shared with singer-pianist Anthony Deutsch a few years ago.

I first saw the couple sit in for one Thelonious Monk tune at Bar Centro in Milwaukee a few months ago. This one tune signaled the couple’s ease with the jazz tradition. Dameron was fleet and harmonically astute, as excellent as I anticipated on electric guitar. Johnson was an immediate revelation on this tune. I’d heard of her leading her own jazz group and good things about her. But she stunned me with her effortless mastery of modern jazz swing, in the propulsive style that makes the music a stimulating, sparkling conversation. Frankly, Johnson outplayed the drummer in the band she briefly sat in with and, I dare say, after seeing her now twice with Heirloom, she’s as good a jazz drummer as any in the region. I think of one who’s comparable with straight-ahead, yet more versatile, but damn, she swings like a windblown willow tree.

Feeling the Music

She flips out rimshots, tom-tom thumps, triplets, and paradiddles with the accenting flair of a master linguist. The language is jazz but you feel it sooner than you comprehend it, which is the way it should play. 1

Out front is tenor saxophonist Jeanne Marie Farinelli, another superb player. I heard a pensive, lyrical quality in her tone which reminds me of Wayne Shorter, as does her resourceful use of her horn’s full range, with occasional bottom notes for powerful punctuation.

The band opened the set with Miles Davis’s “Nardis” which resembles a Shorter piece in its epigrammatic spaciousness, so I momentarily mistook it for a Shorter tune even though I’ve played it many times on piano and it was actually made famous by pianist Bill Evans. That seamless stylistic commingling, intentional or not, seems one nominal quality of Heirloom’s style.

Similarly, their rendition of Thelonious Monk’s “Let’s Cool One” blended sensibilities: graced with lyricism like a garland of smoke curving around a line that typically rises like a cubist sculpture.

Although Johnson handled band introductions and naming the tunes, Dameron seems to be the conceptual leader. He typically polished the thematic statements to a gleaming sheen by harmonizing his guitar tightly with Farinelli’s sax. That, and his frequent use of a “chorus” pedal, recalled the “bright sized life” of Pat Metheny’s popular quartet.

Impressive originals

Plus, he filled out the two sets with his ambitious, impressive originals. The first one, “Messages from the Deep” was a drink of water you might drown in if your mind can’t swim. When I asked him if it was 64 bars through-composed, he just laughed and said “Yes, it’s pretty long. That came out of me one day when I was really feeling something deep way down inside.”

He explained that he’s a fan of sci-fi, like Dune (another Dameron tune, “Spice Trance,” specifically honors a scene in that book), and enjoys writing with a feel for metaphysical atmosphere, though his tunes are far more substantial than, say, typical New Age music, which often trivializes science fiction and metaphysical sensibilities.

Watching Dameron is revealing and sometimes amusing. He spent most of the gig with his right foot on the “chorus” pedal (though not overdoing the device), but the posture seems ingrained—classical guitarists always use a right-foot stand, which the pedal resembles. Then, while soloing in fast grooves, his left foot swung back and forth like a slightly overwound clock pendulum.

The current bassist is John Christensen, the band’s elder statesman, who lends vibrance, musicality and gravitas to any band. Plus, he’s the living pulse, a crucial quality.

By contrast was a guest pianist. Heirloom has worked as a quartet, which they did when I heard them play a few weeks earlier, at the Brady Street Festival. And outdoors, they cranked the volume and sounded like a great fusion band. At Bar Centro, dynamics and the repertoire were more tempered.

 

Heirloom as a quintet at Bar Centro recently, with pianist Lucas LeBeau (far left) and bassist John Christensen background). 

But Dameron had described the pianist sitting in as “a 17-year-old wunderkind.” Check that box. Slender, dark-haired Lucas LeBeau might resemble a young Jackson Browne, but even more boyish. Yet he has the extraordinary facility of someone deeply trained, if not innately gifted.

LeBeau seemed to ride the sustain pedal a bit much, perhaps striving to approximate the leader’s spiritual atmospherics. But he sounds like a keeper and Dameron hopes he remains one.

The guitarist is an imaginative thinker. But make no mistake, this is a serious but buoyant band. Both leaders, especially Johnson, brim with joy as the group percolates, and you hear their smiles in the music.

This band is a vine-fresh, living heirloom of jazz, something I’d buy as readily as anything in an antique shop, because you always feel their bass pulse and musical arteries, not just redolence of past glory.

Yet, like the most timeless jazz, Heirloom’s improvs reveal the mining and molding of artistic thought in real time.

___________

This article was first published in Shepherd Express, here: https://shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/heirloom-at-ease-in-the-jazz-tradition/
1. Hannah Johnson earned a degree in jazz studies at Indiana University’s prestigious jazz studies program.