Date: 01/11/2011
9:30 pm: Konceptions at Korzo - Brooklyn, NY
667 5th Ave between 19th and 20th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11215 US
Contact Richard Read * 504 940 2808 * rread@noccainstiute.com
Performance also features Harrison’s work for cello, performed by NOCCA faculty member Jee Yeoun Ko
Friday, September 24, 2010 * 8pm * NOCCA’s Freda Lupin Memorial Hall
New Orleans, LA — Guitarist, composer, and Guggenheim Fellow Joel Harrison debuts a new project this fall entitled Singularity, featuring a septet of top-notch New York jazz musicians, including Christian Howes (violin), Donny McCaslin (saxophone), Dana Leong (cello), Gary Versace (piano), Stephan Crump (bass), and Clarence Penn (drums). These new compositions were commissioned by Chamber Music America’s prestigious “New Works” program. The project premieres at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) on Friday, September 24, in Freda Lupin Memorial Hall. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at www.NOCCAInstitute.com or by calling 504 940 2900.
Singularity, composed by Joel Harrison, has been made possible with support from Chamber Music America’s 2009 New Jazz Works: Commissioning and Ensemble Development program funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Alternative Guitar Festival
Curated by Joel Harrison
Monday- Wednesday, Aug. 2,3,4
Shows at 8:30 and 10 pm
Cornelia St. Café, 29 Cornelia St., NY
Mon. Aug. 2- Admission $10 for whole night
8:30 – Vic Juris and Mary Halvorsen
10:00- Pete McCann and Adam Rogers
Tues., Aug. 3 Admission $15 for whole night
8:30- Rez Abbasi and TBA
10:00- Brandon Ross and Michael Gregory
Wed., Aug. 4- Admission $15 for whole night
8:30- Joel Harrison and Anupam Shobhakar (sarod)
10:00- Marc Ribot and Elliot Sharp
Guitarist/ composer and guest curator Joel Harrison has assembled a cross-section of improvising guitarists for a three -day festival at Cornelia St. Café. He has focused on duos that bring together unusual, (mostly) first-time, pairings. The emphasis is on fearless innovators and improvisers- jazz, country, blues,prog, noise, Indian, and classical will seamlessly meld together. Surprise will be the order of the day. Mr. Harrison hopes that this will be a yearly event in which fine guitarists, who operate outside the commercial realm, will have an opportunity to demonstrate their skills.
The players, according to Harrison:
Aug. 2
Vic Juris is a master. He plays jazz standards as well as anyone alive, but also veers into all kinds of surprising modernism. His nylon string playing is lovely, and his feel and imagination are incredible. Mary Halvorsen is a fresh face on the scene, a Braxton acolyte, with a fiercely independent style. I have no idea what these two will sound like together which is absolutely enticing. I have a feeling they won’t play Stella by Starlight but if they do you may not know it.
Pete McCann is the Clark Kent of the guitar. Watch out when he steps into the phone booth- it will be deadIy force, no matter the style, delivered with a smile. Adam Rogers…what can I say about a guy who soloed next to Michael Brecker for many years? Everything he does comes out sounding perfect. Adam’s technique extends into so many avenues of guitar playing it’s silly. He is an encyclopedia of guitar.
Aug. 3
Rez Abbasi is one of the most lyrical jazz players alive. His ability to play long, beautiful phrases, using complex harmony is amazing. I love his tone and touch. Partner TBA
Brandon Ross first caught my ear in Cassandra Wilson’s band, but since then I have seen him in numerous settings. His commitment to individuality, creativity, and new sounds is fascinating and unpredictable. You can’t pin him down, which I love. He is joined by one of my primary early influences Michael Gregory. I first heard Michael in the late 70’s with Oliver Lake, and it was life-changing. I took a few lessons with him way back when. One thing I loved was that he sang as well as played. This is something he shares in common with Brandon.
Aug. 4
Joel Harrison is not going to write about himself! But he (I) can say that the pairing with sarod fulfills a lifelong dream to collaborate with an Indian classical musician. I plan to play mostly National Steel Guitar, using slide. These instruments, the multi-stringed sarod and National Steel, are like long lost brothers. Anupam Shobhakar, from Bombay, is a young master of his instrument, an immense talent, and the great nephew of the best-known sarodist of the past 50 years, Ali Akbar Khan. We’ll find common ground in Indian, jazz, and blues.
Elliot Sharp defines the word “innovative”. His bag of tricks on guitar is truly deep. Whether tapping, skronking, wacking, pulling, or caressing the instrument, it’s always unique and in your face. Marc Ribot is one of the few players who crosses over from absolutely insane new music to absolutely lyrical American roots music. Anyone who knows me will see why I value this openness.
Responding to Jason Marsalis
It is astounding to me that this conflict still rages between old and new trends in jazz. Anybody who cares a wit about culture knows that the only way forward in life is with change. Some change may be lasting and some not, but the dust bin of history is littered with individuals like Jason who fulminate against modernism, only to find that they won the battle but lost the war. Remember Louis Armstrong putting down Dizzy Gillespie? Does Marsalis accept that as fact, 70 years later?
NEW SHOW and PROJECT
Wed. June 23, 8:30 and 10 pm
Cornelia St. Cafe
29 Cornelia St
New York, 10014
(212) 989-9319
Debuting a new collaboration with an amazing young sarod player, Anupam Shobhakar
plus Dan Weiss, Gary Versace, Stephan Crump
original pieces featuring national steel guitar, plus reworking of older pieces
www.anupamshobhakar.com
Indian, jazz, country/blues
QUESTION of the day: Are romanticism and avant-garde tendencies irreconciliable?
ALSO:
Wed. June 23, 9 and 10 pm
Cornelia St. Cafe
29 Cornelia St
New York, 10014
(212) 989-9319
Debuting a new collaboration with an amazing young sarod player, Anupam Shobhakar
plus Dan Weiss, Gary Versace, Stephan Crump
original pieces featuring national steel guitar, plus reworking of older pieces
www.anupamshobhakar.com
Composer’s statement
Life Force
When Wendy asked me to write music for her second solo cd, I was thrilled by the challenge. The lessons I learned in composing in such an intimate setting have been a gift. Feelings about one’s own music are not always to be trusted- they change with the prevailing winds; however, I had the strong sense after we recorded this project that with this music I had finally begun my real life’s work. I find it very difficult to articulate why this is so. All I can say is that this project forced me to ask a question whose ramifications are substantial and ongoing: “What is most important to me? If I strip my music to its essence, what is left?”
In a sense my goal was simple (even if the process was not): I wanted to write music with soul. The cello and violin, especially in the hands of masters like Wendy and Tim, are deeply expressive instruments. Their ability to illuminate the extremes of human emotion are amazing. Though I have some familiarity with the wealth of Western classical string literature, I looked elsewhere for starting points. For instance, movement one of the duo was inspired by the great jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius (a favorite of Tim’s) and his gift for both passionate, lyrical melody and intensely driving funk. The relentless rhythmic activity contrasting with simple tunes is a way of speaking about the poles of Jaco’s, and my own, personna. The opening cello piece, “Go Towards the Light” came out the way it did largely because I am a guitar player partial to alternate tunings, the ringing sound and bell-like harmonics of open strings. The remarkable sound that Wendy produces in the “circular bowing” sections of the piece, sometimes roaring, sometimes whispering, comes from my attempt to bring into sound a vision I had as my father died of a great wheel that never stops turning, constantly bringing all things in and out of creation.
The sound world of this project is quite focused and particular, and it might surprise those who have heard my jazz music. Frankly, some of it surprises me. As the foundations of the pieces revealed themselves, Wendy and Tim helped reel me back in to the original intent. They were more than performers- they were editors and co-conspirators.
Much of this music is dedicated to, and inspired by, recent events with people I am very attached to. I truly hope that I have honored their singular spirits with this work. More and more it seems to me that music acts as a bridge to the dead, that the notes are rungs of a ladder that we climb in order to peer into other worlds. The wonder of music is that it can deepen the mystery, without ever claiming to offer answers to the questions that are raised.
ALSO:
Wed. June 23, 9 and 10 pm
Cornelia St. Cafe
Debuting a new collaboration with an amazing young sarod player, Anupam Shobhakar
plus Dan Weiss, Gary Versace, Stephan Crump
www.anupamshobhakar.com
Small Groups vs. Larger Groups in Jazz: Issues for me, and for others
I have been listening to George Russell’s music of late. A symposium on his life that Jerome Harris led last month piqued my curiosity, and when I began to dig deeper I discovered a treasure trove, cd after cd of fascinating music. The fact that I’d missed so much of his work was dumbfounding. If I, who profess to be a serious jazz composer, haven’t heard much of Russell’s work, who has?
The reasons are many- however, I want to focus on his work, in particular the sextet and septet music, and its implications on my own work, rather than the question of why one of the most important jazz composers of all time has been hiding in plain sight.
His cd’s Ezzthetic, Stratusphunk, Live at Bremen, and Jazz Workshop, all from 1959 through 1964 are marvels of innovation and balance. Russell was not so much inventing a new language (as Ornette did) but adding layers of nuance and complexity to existing norms. There are a few particulars that intrigue me:
What does this all add up to? For me it adds up to a small but important life change. Russell is a model in that he chose to continue to write for and perform with groups that ranged from 6 pieces to more than twenty pieces. He heard music this way and he stuck with it despite the diminishment of performing opportunities. He never wrote trio or quartet music just so he could tour, where he would have been forced into the role of featured soloist, where the layers of counterpoint, the three or four part harmonies were sacrificed in favor of a more improvised, less notated, setting.
I, however, have often sacrificed the live music that I hear in my head for expediency. The reasons are almost entirely economic. When I tour Europe I am never paid enough to bring more than four people. You will look long and hard to find any groups larger than a quintet, featuring band leaders with a similar or even higher profile than I, who can book a two week tour. Sure, a few dates might crop up, but that’s about it. Hardly enough to hang your hat on! I am forced to play music written for a sextet with four folks.
It works like this: the best non-festival gigs one can possibly hope for only pay enough for a quartet. There is a kind of “norm” that has been established, where a certain pay-scale is expected, and more is rarely possible. A bandleader must choose between not touring or touring with a small group. The result? An enormous loss for jazz. For me, personally, it means my music often ends up sounding less interesting than it could. One simply cannot justify losing thousands of dollars by bringing along a sixth or seventh person.
Why is this so? How have we allowed ourselves to be forced to squeeze our creativity into what has become a predictable format? Blame is tough to assess. It’s a question worth asking, that’s all I know.
I don’t deny the value of what one might call the “blueprint” for a small jazz ensemble. Some of our greatest music has been passed down by quartets led by Charlie Parker, Coltrane, Monk, and so many others, where a melody is played, there are solos by sax and piano, maybe the bass, and then the head is played out. This structure is fundamental to our history, and will continue to bear fruit for a long time.
But...it’s being WAY overdone. It is too often the fallback position. Just how many “great” solos is one supposed to suffer through in any given week in New York to justify the sameness of the orchestration? We do it because it makes life easy, it’s our roots, and because it’s fun, but also because we have been thrust into the ghetto of the jazz pay scale for so long. And I wonder if we are also a bit lazy? Are our aspirations as simple as blowing over another well-written melody, or if we could, would we lean more towards our writing and less towards our improvising for select projects? Sure many jazz musicians have multiple projects, often involving interesting instrumental or conceptual choices. However, these group rarely play live.
Can you imagine a world where classical music was almost exclusively made by quartets? With the SAME instrumentation everytime? Hell no! In classical music there is an enormous range of live instrumentation, but the same is not true for jazz. There is institutional support for classical mid-size and large ensembles in schools and concert halls. I can only summon a couple of venues to mind that do the same for jazz- Lincoln Center being one. However, devoted music omnivore that I am, I have almost NEVER been to Lincoln Center, as the programming is far too tepid for my taste.
So what to do?
t’s not as if I don’t play with brilliant musicians in a quartet setting. And it’s not as if we don’t come up with some wonderful moments. However, I HEAR larger ensembles, and I am sure other composers feel the same way. My best work exemplifies characteristics that I have just extolled in George Russell’s work. I, like him, enjoy placing other soloists than myself at the forefront.
I have come to the indisputable, but somewhat disheartening conclusion that I have to perform less. In return, when I do perform, the music will fully declare my intentions. The thing is, I love to play. I love to play so much that I have been willing to sacrifice compositional and ensemble ideals. I have projects that seemed plausible to present with smaller groups- esp. Free Country. But as one gets older, one’s focus damn well better get stronger. For me that means writing for larger groups, whether it leads towards a deficit of live performance or not. Do I worry about how I will develop the music if it is not played often enough? Yes. Still, I have to write what I hear.
Dear Alex
I wanted to comment on your thoughts on the state of classical music, especially as regards Poisson Rouge and new venues.
The reason that LPR is important, and is receiving seemingly endless press, is that it fills a critical need. I feel I have a unique perspective on this since I cross over between jazz, classical, and all manner of American popular music. Classical music is to my mind uniquely stuck in the past, in ways that have almost no parallel in the worlds of art, theater, movies, books. LPR is perhaps an antidote to that tendency.
Does Proust, Mann, Milton, Balzac etc., completely dominate the bookstores? No.
Is Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, or John Ford shown at every Cineplex monthly or weekly? No. Do we see recreations of 18th century court dancing at Lincoln Center and BAM on a weekly basis. No. True that many museums have older art in large part, but you can get in for free to, say, the Met if you like. And what is the musical corollary to MOMA? Imagine if there was a single concert stage, a big, beautiful endowed one, where all they did was modern music!
Why then do the ancients completely dominate the classical music stages? I love and worship Beethoven as much as the next person, but enough is enough. I know no one under 50 who cares much about Mendelsohn, or many other second-tier composers whose works dominate our concert halls, and in fact I know almost no one who cares much about what the Philharmonic does. It is dominated by one class and culture and is not even remotely representative of the feelings, the needs, the passions, the provocations of our great, whirring, wild, unruly country.
But I do not wish to single out the “ancients”. We are cursed, also, by a welter of “new” classical music that leaves the listener wanting to sprint for the exits. Again, much of this music is dominated by a certain class and culture and lacks that most crucial element without which we all wither- SOUL!
Counterpoint occurs…when George Wein seemed to dominate the jazz scene in June along came Michael Dorf in the 90’s with the Knitting Factory Festival. Of course he went bust, so that’s a consideration! Thus comes LPR, counterpoint to Lincoln Center.
It corresponds with a remarkable thaw in the classical world. It is a world that has often felt cold and forbidding to me- until recent times.
I call it a thaw because there are so many new, young groups now who do not approach classical music with quite the formulaic, upper crust stiffness that is historically part of this scene. They approach the music in a more unruly, relaxed way. Groups like Alarm Will Sound, Bang On a Can, Brooklyn Rider, Kronos play extremely serious music but the repertoire they choose, and their means of presenting it, give one the feeling of being invited more to a jazz or folk concert, than a “tails and fur coats” concert. I love seeing the Phil or Vienna play Mahler, ok? But we NEED counterpoint.
How well I remember when Kronos first came on the scene. What a breath of fresh air. That was THIRTY FIVE years ago! These days more and more groups approach classical music as Kronos does, inviting pop, jazz, world music into the mix, but it is only now that New York has a hall that specializes in this world view. (One could include Zankel, I guess, but that is way out of reach for most of us.) How nice that it exists, and how sad that it took that long.
But enough about me... One feels in the “eclectic” music, exemplified by the afore-mentioned artists, a connection to the concerns of the day, to the world around us. Alex, isn’t this what so many of us crave? To hear the world we live in come back to us through sound? Alarm has a way of making new music feel relevant, alive. They connect to the audience and at the same time make tremendous music. More and more classical musicians, perhaps because they secretly want to be rock and roll musicians, want to connect. They are willing to learn to improvise, amplify and distort, to expand their horizons into world music to do so.
The hybrid, or poly-stylistic music of today is not a passing fad- it represents the way we live. Many composers I know have been grappling with this “hybrid” style since the 70’s. In some ways one can trace the efforts of Riley, Glass, Reich, etc. to Bang On a Can, through Alarm Will Sound, etc. The influences of African, Indian, jazz, rock are giving classical music youth, soul, vigor. Of course not all efforts are equal, and plenty of mediocre hybrids exist, but that is inevitable in any era. One peeve of mine is that there is still so little conversation between jazz and classical. This dialogue consumes me more and more.
It is no accident that some of the more popular composers of the day make music that has…a beat! For thousands of years humans have made music with grooves. It would be nonsensical to expect modernism to do away with it all. As more and more variations and hybrids proliferate, more outlets will appear, whether small non-profits, or venues like LPR. I truly believe that the future of classical music depends on these smaller outlets, just as the future of jazz has always depended on the small clubs. This is where the dirty work, the searching, the growing is done. The major developments in jazz are NOT reflected at Lincoln Center Jazz, trust me, but at places like 55 Bar, Jazz Gallery, and countless out of the way door gigs in Brooklyn.
It feels a bit devastating to us composers that so few outlets currently exist, as compared to the volume of music being created. We need MORE places where a listener can relax, pay only $15 to get in, have a drink, stand at the bar afterwards and greet friends. We need more venues for whom jazz and classical are equals, not adversaries. We need more venues where Black, White, Indian, African, Chinese music sit side by side. Of course rich white people are the ones sustaining the Met and Lincoln Center because it serves their tastes and interests. Soon enough though I would love to see philanthropy flow more towards what is actually happening on the ground, in the minds of those who hold the present and future, not the past.
A.B. Spellman asked the question. Reviewing Ben Ratliff’s The Jazz Ear in the July/August issue of this magazine, he wrote: “Never before has this music had this many practitioners with so much technique, theory, and history, yet this is the longest that jazz has been without a defining genius or a radical new movement. I have been wondering if this is a composer’s era.” (my italics)
I believe the answer is “yes”: this is, indeed, a composer’s era in jazz. We are arguably in the midst of radical changes, driven not by one defining genius but by many forward-thinking individuals all working at once. What I find interesting these days is not so much how people are soloing- it’s the new materials they’re being fed. It used to be that jazz was predicated on improvisational interpretations of “standards” (often Broadway tunes), or brief “head charts” that offered a vehicle to solo off of. Now, however, almost all players write their own music, much of it of an increasingly complex nature.
Twelve years ago, when I released a composition-driven octet CD called Range of Motion, I felt that I was in rather sparse company. Long-form, multi-sectional pieces with world music influences, odd meters and unusual instrumentation were somewhat rare then—now they are not. The language of jazz has changed as much in the past 15 years as it did between Charlie Parker and Coltrane. These changes may be less easy to quantify than the changes Coltrane brought, but they are nonetheless real.
Call it the Great Assimilation: classical music and jazz are really beginning to blend now. Meters jump around like fruit flies. Indian, African, Jewish, and Balkan music are no longer used as window dressing—they’ve become a core compositional principle for some, as have Cuban and Central and South American music. The many guitarists now playing jazz have brought every conceivable subspecies of American roots music into the mix. John Zorn has pointed out that we may disagree on what to call this music. Maybe some of it isn’t “jazz.” I am not compelled to argue about who or what belongs in the genealogical tree. One thing’s for sure: the music I am talking about has far more connection to Mingus than Mozart.
There is a dichotomy at the heart of jazz composition: how can the soul and spontaneity of improvisation live within the framework of substantative notation? Conversely, how can notation enliven the presence of the soloist? The key is in finding ways to make the blend seamless, so that the two impulses are made stronger by their union, not weaker. The presence of the unknown in a piece of music is irresistible to a jazz player. Personally, I find it hard to live without mystery, where the music is different each time, but I am even more enthralled if I also hear a bedrock of writing that anchors the solos and keeps surprising me.
There have been important people throughout the history of jazz who have grappled with these issues: Ellington, Mingus, Gunther Schuller, Bob Brookmeyer, Gil Evans, George Russel, Jimmy Guiffre, Henry Threadgill to name just a few. In recent years, though, the numbers of composers following the “meta-jazz” path has begun to grow exponentially. There is a certain all-inclusive view that can be intoxicating when handled well.
I personally am indebted to Ran Blake of the 3rd Stream department at New England Conservatory. In our private lessons, circa 1978, he would encourage me to look past jazz standards for both writing and improvising; Greek folk songs, Marvin Gaye, Charles Ives and film music were all grist for the mill. My Free Country project was a direct descendant of his world-view, where the fundamentals of jazz are enriched by association with other traditions. This aesthetic is practically commonplace now for young musicians. In the space of one piece, or even one solo, you might find free-form blowing, luscious tonality, rock and roll, Indian raga, or electronics. I call this progress- and I see a direct line from the forbears mentioned above to where we are today.
Jazz, of course, is no longer the strict province of Americans (although most of its best practioners are still American). As it has become a music that is played all over the world, other nationalities are stamping jazz with their own imprimatur. There is a lot of interesting jazz composition coming from Europe now. Americans with a variety of ancestral roots also are stirring the pot, infusing their writing with their bloodlines. This year’s list of CMA New Works grantees includes individuals of Persian, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese and Cuban descent, all foraging for a new voice. In fact the very existence of the New Works Jazz Composition program helps illustrate my point—it fills a growing need, and a few years ago it did not exist.
Of course this multiplicity (or to use the word du jour, eclecticism) is also taking place in the classical world. Maybe there is a commonality between the “post-classical” adherents, as Kyle Gann recently described them (Reich, Lang, Adams, etc.) and a burgeoning “post-jazz” world.
Modern jazz composition has its pitfalls: in its more elaborate forms it consciously lives in two worlds, the spontaneous and intuitive, and the pre-ordained and immoveable. I maintain that bridging these worlds is amongst the greatest and most interesting challenges any composer can undertake. It is difficult to master one tradition, almost impossible to master two, and as far as I know the world has never known anyone who mastered three. I have found it incredibly hard to find the time and energy to equally serve the gods of improvising and writing, and my attempts to build a focused, personal sound have led me to stretch myself pretty thin. I felt it was necessary to study Western harmony, counterpoint, various formal 20th century compostional techniques, all kinds of improvisation, American vernacular like rock, blues, and country, and to some degree African and Indian music. As a result it took me a quite a while to find my own sound. I always emphasize to students how the myriad choices in today’s musical world creates an altogether modern enigma. Too many choices can make writing music harder, not easier! You have to dig deep for the hidden treasures in any tradition with great patience, or your music can end up sounding superficial. A key to success is choosing ONE medium as your foundation. I am at heart a jazz musician, even when composing music with no improvisation. This insight serves to ground all my endeavors.
The time will come when a non-improvising string quartet or chamber orchestra will regularly share bills with a jazz group. Conservatory trained players will more commonly learn to improvise with authority, seamlessly moving between jazz and classical; jazz players in turn will increasingly share ideas with classical composers. The borders between black, brown and white will continue to be more porous. Other cultures will find increasingly fluid ways to enter and enrich the jazz tradition. As this happens it is possible that mainstream jazz, the kind that emulates the sound of the 50’s, will go the way of Vivaldi—deeply appreciated and studied, but less and less relevant to contemporary practice.
As jazz grows it may become less club-centered and more a concert music, and will need corresponding institutions to support it. Will it continue to lose some of its all-important “street sound”, and therein its African-American historicity? Perhaps so… all the “technique, theory, and history” that is accumulating in schools all over the world are, of course, meaningless without soul and roots. But traditions always change with time and we must have faith that the music will maintain its vitality. My hope is that as jazz composers proliferate, their groundbreaking work will enjoy the same level of attention, support, and prestige as their brethren in the classical world.
Joel Harrison
Orange Mountain Music, Philip Glass’s record label, was founded in 2001 as an outlet for Mr. Glass’s archival and out-of-print recordings. But the label quickly began releasing Mr. Glass’s new works as well, and before long it was releasing discs by musicians in Mr. Glass’s ensemble and young composers who had caught his ear.
Artists From Philip Glass’s Orange Mountain Music Label From left, Tony Trischka on banjo, Foday Musa Suso on kora and the guitarist Joel Harrison, members of Fojoto String Band, at Le Poisson Rouge on Sunday.
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The label presented a few of its recent finds at Le Poisson Rouge on Sunday evening. Though Mr. Glass was present, he neither spoke nor performed, nor was any of his music played: the cellist Wendy Sutter was scheduled to play his “Songs and Poems” but withdrew because of illness.
The opening set was devoted to a suite from Trevor Gureckis’s soundtrack for “Les Adieux,” a score for piano, violin, cello and flute. Mr. Gureckis works as Mr. Glass’s musical assistant, but his boss’s influence is scarce: the three movements he offered here are built on mildly angular, light-textured piano themes, with the flute and string lines weaving intricate counterpoint around them. This is music with a Gallic urbanity, even in passages where the piano figures have an almost Webernian quality.
The guitarist and composer Joel Harrison was to have presented chamber works he is recording for the label, but those would also have required Ms. Sutter. So instead Mr. Harrison convened the Fojoto String Band, an improvisatory collaboration with Tony Trischka, the banjo player, and Foday Musa Suso, a virtuoso on the kora, an African string instrument that looks like a lute and sounds like a harp.
Mr. Harrison described the group’s music as African, Appalachian jazz, and that seemed about right. When Mr. Suso and Mr. Trischka provided the starting points for the ensemble’s extended explorations, they each drew on traditional styles and specific figurations associated with their instruments, yet when they played together, they created a texture so unified that it was often hard to separate them.
Mr. Harrison’s contributions, on acoustic and electric guitars, stood apart more clearly and often provided the impulse for the ensemble to shift directions and balances.
The trio was joined by the composer, pianist and percussionist Mick Rossi, who played a dumbek (a Middle Eastern drum) in most of the improvisations, and by the saxophonist Andy Laster and the percussionist Charles Descarfino for the wonderfully idiosyncratic arrangement of John Coltrane’s “Chasin’ the Trane” that closed the set.
Mr. Rossi was ostensibly on hand to promote his new recording, “Songs From the Broken Land.” But he played only one piece from that collection of solo piano works, the energetic, Bartokian “Lockdown.” He devoted the rest of his set to his appealingly supple jazz compositions, for an ensemble in which he was joined by Mr. Laster, Mr. Descarfino, Russ Johnson on trumpet and Kermit Driscoll on double bass.
