Australian Chamber Orchestra
Richard Tognetti artistic director
Dawn Upshaw soprano
Guest musicians for Winter Morning Walks:
Scott Robinson clarinets
Jay Anderson bass
Frank Kimbrough piano
Bailey Hall, Cornell University
April 27, 2012
8:00 pm

Since 1975, the Australian Chamber Orchestra has built a reputation for adventure. For this we can thank longtime director Richard Tognetti, whose eclectic programming has brought the orchestra back on its feet, lending every performance a dynamic edge that few chamber ensembles can match. For Friday’s performance at Bailey, which capped off a successful academic year for Cornell’s premier concert venue, the already phenomenal outfit was joined by soprano Dawn Upshaw, whose voice turned every word sung into a morsel of sonic caramel.

Upshaw

Yet before she even took the stage, I was overjoyed to discover that the ACO was to start us off on a bold foot with selections from George Crumb’s Black Angels. This work was something of a touchstone in my formative explorations of twentieth-century music, and to hear it live at last was thrilling. It may or may not have been the most perplexing facet of the concert for those unfamiliar with the opening blast of Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects. Horror fans will have recognized it from the 1973 classic, The Exorcist. Yet as I imagine was clear from the reaction of Friday’s audience—which began with a few chuckles of surprise (mingling with some, like mine, of nostalgic recognition) and ended with sighs of wonder—Crumb’s sound-world is less about fear and more about the music hidden in our shadows. The precision of the score also means that the Black Angels experience is carefully marked: we can trust in the composer’s obsessions.

The Five Pieces for Strings of Anton Webern, into which selections from Black Angels were shuffled, may on paper seem a curious weave. Yet as pairings before—with Shostakovich, Fauré, Stravinsky, and, most profoundly, Bach—have shown, the young Darmstadter’s music lends itself to a wide range of company, whose works provide windows, if not mirrors, of interpretation. From the sinewy, ghostly chasms of the opening movement to the whispered conversations of the last, the Five Pieces strike a balance all their own. The fourth and fifth, however, couched one of the evening’s most transcendent turns in the form of Crumb’s God-music, the beauties of which seemed to win over even the most resistant traditionalists. The movement featured tuned crystal glasses, each filled with water and bowed to ethereal effect while a cello wept in solitude, suspended from the stars in a sky blinded by battle smoke and wasted lives. It cried like an operatic scene change, revealing something in the night which can only be played but never sung, lest the voice lose itself in its own spell.

In light of this startling prelude, Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks, written for Upshaw, was like a massage after a grueling work week. For this Schneider drew on the poetry of Ted Kooser, whose unassuming Americana went down like sunset. Improvisation literally took center stage in the form of a jazz trio comprised of clarinet, bass, and piano. The wintry whip of the air struck us in the opener as the trio folded itself into the orchestral batter—a mere taste of the confections to follow. Schneider’s mastery of her palette became evident in the second song, “When I switched on a light,” which evoked the fluttering of moths on the piano’s dampened strings. A similar panache was to be found in the swirls of “I saw a dust devil this morning” and later in the incessant gales of “Our finch feeder,” the latter describing a group of birds struggling against the wind in the name of sustenance. Yet it was the third, “Walking by flashlight,” which was the evening’s highlight. This piece was cinematic to the utmost: an early-morning walk, animals peering out from the bushes at a protagonist who describes his circle of light on the ground as “the moon on a leash.” Lovely improvisations from pianist Frank Kimbrough made the experience all the more sweeping. From the first, one could see the concentration on Upshaw’s face as she attuned herself to every mood and image. Her unparalleled diction and deferential temperament broke the fourth wall and then some, and in the jazzy lows of “Spring, the sky rippled with geese” we were especially amazed by the depth of her range.

Schneider

My inaugural encounter with Upshaw was through her benchmark Nonesuch recording of Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915. The work remains a personal favorite, and I can only say that the unfettered pastoralism of Schneider’s settings inspired anew what I heard in that first listening. These sentiments flowed logically into the three German lieder that followed intermission. In Robert Schumann’s Mondnacht (Moonlight), Upshaw seemed to bind Heaven and Earth with the power of her voice, while the two songs by Franz Schubert—Geheines (Secret) and the notorious Der Tod und das Mädchen (Death and the Maiden)—contrasted buoyant, flirtatious energy with the darkness of mortality. The latter’s low D rang soulful and true, ending the singer’s tenure for the night on a trail of liquid mercury.

In light of this, Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) turned dusk into midnight. Named after the selfsame poem by Richard Dehmel, its unsung words draw us back to Kooser: “Two people are walking through a bare, cold wood; / the moon keeps pace with them and draws their gaze.” All the drama of a Wagner opera was compressed in this work for strings into a droplet of darkness falling in slow motion amid knots of evening cloud. Between every inhalation and exhalation the orchestra drew a chain of sometimes-overwhelming consummations. Each harbored something of the next, wandering sparkling meadows with moonlit footsteps amid a changing landscape of rustlings and baying winds. In spite of the title, some of Schoenberg’s brightest writing can be found here, and its slow build from stasis into infinity is one of the defining transformations of modern music. The ACO gave it heartrending justice.

Tognetti and company bring a crisp and earthly sound to everything they lay a bow to, and during the encore they drew the shades on their fiery passions with a haunting rendition of Astor Piazzolla’s pensive tango, Oblivion. Yet it was Upshaw whose voice rang clearest in my mind as I left the hall. I couldn’t help but recall the words she sang in the final song of Schneider’s cycle: “This morning the sun stood / right at the end of the road / and waited for me.” So, too, did the shining, life-affirming star of her gift wait for us at the end of this long and winding series, embracing us warmly and with hope on an unseasonably cold evening.

(See this article in its original truncated form at the Cornell Daily Sun.)

As a reviewer, my job is twofold: 1) to introduce artists to those who may not be familiar, and 2) to wax informative on the art they bring to studio or stage. The latter comes naturally. The former is where my pen begins to drag. Sure, I can mosey on over to any number of online bios and tell you that bassist Reid Anderson, pianist Ethan Iverson, and drummer Dave King—known collectively as The Bad Plus—have been wowing the discerning listener since the group’s 2000 redux. Sprung from the bedrock of Minneapolis (with Iverson’s biographical thread stretching back to neighboring Wisconsin), TBP lay their matches to a wealth of fuses, including a heaping portion of group originals and a smattering of enticing sidelines drawn from the popular canon. TBP now bring their latest project, “On Sacred Ground,” a reimagining of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, to Cornell’s Bailey Hall.

But does any of this tell you who Iverson, Anderson, and King really are? If you weren’t at the show (in a word: invigorating), then what service can these words glowing on your screen possibly bring to transient eyes? We can be thankful, then, that TBP is not the kind of outfit to hide behind publicity in lieu of interacting with fans, other musicians, and the errant reviewer whose starry considerations need not sugarcoat the already inexpressible. Out of graciousness and an abiding interest the spontaneity of open conversation (and what is jazz if not?), TBP participated in a Composer’s Forum on campus the afternoon of.

“Where are we in this?” posed King in reference to the band’s initial approach to Stravinsky. The transparency of their trial and error, of their frustration over and acceptance of the music, was refreshing. Of course, many words were spilt over the Classical vs. Jazz question, but by the end of the 90-minute discussion the trio had mopped them all up with one sentiment: “It’s honest to us.” They weren’t acting, King went on to say, but simply “playing our music.” Thus engaged, the band could discard the quibbles of classical expectations in favor of a feeling, of a kick and a smile, and steep both stage and audience in “the obviousness of how good everything is,” which is for them the heart of jazz.

It comes as no surprise that King was so adamant about integrity, for one imagines his challenge in the Stravinsky nexus to be the greatest of all: How does one bring out the rhythmic challenges inherent in Rite without coming across as “square”? Their solution was to approach these challenges from the inside out, laying the piece down before imagining what they could do with it. Working from the piano four hands arrangement, they began to see the Stravinskian tools they’d already been using in their own. Anderson expanded these sentiments by making a case for irreverence. In not being beholden to particulars, they could be true to the piece in a fundamental way. What was there, beyond and within the score at hand? How did their assimilation fit and what could they hear in it? To play a high concept piece like Rite, they realized, one needs to be an improviser. Score one for the away team.

Yet even with the orchestral peel and improvisational feel, how does one bridge the gap? Iverson’s answer: chamber jazz offers the guarantee of always hearing a voice. Consequently, instrumentation was not so much an issue. More important was maintaining faithfulness to a sense of communal spirit through the composer’s art. In this vein, Iverson admitted to a preference for older jazz recordings, which read for him more like folk music. In other words: freely. The goal in taking Rite was to give shape to those notorious rhythms in an attempt to move something forward.

Despite the lore surrounding its shocking 1913 premier, it was less the music and more the choreography (in combination with other social factors) of Stravinsky’s defining opus that induced the infamous riot that ensued. And sure, the structures are complex, the dissonances still formidable, but one would hardly have known it by the sheer exuberance with which TBP played it, for its outside-the-box aesthetic proved to be a smooth fit for the band’s avant-garde proclivities.

The performance was further enhanced by snazzy lighting design from architect Cristina Guadalupe and video from filmmaker Noah Hutton (all of these were cued in real-time response to the musicians). The imagery added an arguable dimension. On the one hand, it provided some moments of illustration, while on the other I found that it distracted from the decidedly acoustic processes unfolding before us. Either way, I appreciated those moments when sound and image fused well—in particular, in the movements of dancer Julie Worden, whose filmed body brought a taste of Nijinsky to “The Sacrifice.” Also effective was the opening sequence, a teetering journey through a melting winter landscape amid a collage of what sounded like manipulated scratchy LPs of Rite’s famous opening bassoon (familiar to anyone who’s seen Disney’s Fantasia and its churning creation sequence). Only now the bassoon line was intoned through the piano’s harp strings, toying with its own galactic edges in a swirl of resonant chains.

All of which made the band’s implosive entrance all the more exhilarating. The boom of that unified hit showed us just how dynamic a piano trio can be. Right off the bat, Anderson’s bass was a clear winner, especially in the distinctive refrains shared with Iverson. His slinking phrasings foreshadowed the more incendiary moments of cohesion, even as Iverson spread his fingers wide to capture every nuance he could. With King their language was even more lucid, and as a unit they translated the muddiness of it all with gritty, tactile clarity. Indeed, the presence of drums proved to be a guiding force in the fusion before us, seeming at once to react to and dictate the goings on.

TBP captured the freshness of a first hearing, such that even (if not especially) those of us familiar with the score could nod anew at the novelties therein. The shadows loomed somehow darker, the exuberances somehow brighter. And when the projection screen rose to bathe the audience in a vivid red light for the final dance, we were fully hooked in to the vibe they’d so diligently communicated.

TBP’s sacred ground was exactly that: a hallowed moment of music history poured into a bed of firewalking coals, still glowing. The playing was as gushing as the season it sought to evoke. The ultimate success, then, was whether or not the listener liked The Rite of Spring to begin with (my wife, for one, does not, but nonetheless appreciated the care and immediacy of the interpretation). One can only hope that those hearing it for the first time will have found doors newly opened.

“Thank you, that was a song by Igor Stravinsky,” said Anderson after this marathon introduction. With the ice of that intensity now broken by laughter, the band was ready to show us a different facet of its honesty, for now it was time to put away the music and dive into some originals.

First on tap was a jog around the memorable bass line of “Giant” (off their 2007 joint, Prog), which enchanted with its leapfrogging tenderness. Now in the absence of film, the cinematic qualities of these three talents came shining through with unstoppable vigor, glittering behind the veneer of Iverson’s downright oceanic pianism, riding a crescent moon’s arc into dreamland. This was the first of three tunes penned by Anderson, whose “Big Eater” (see 2003’s These Are The Vistas) rushed headlong into Iverson’s pointillist cascade, while the title cut off their latest, Never Stop, made for a fitting encore. With its hip lyricism and head-nodding charm, it was the perfect pick-me-up to let us down into the night.

Before the standing O, we were treated to two blasts of energy from King. The newish mosaic of staggered vistas and wild pianism that was “Wolf Out” made for a fitting window into its composer’s art. “1972 Bronze Medalist” (a touchstone of the TBP repertoire) was another colorful groove—machine music for the intelligent programmer.

Iverson’s contribution came in the form of “Re-Elect That.” This skittering romp off the beaten politic was like a tight fist uncurled finger by reluctant finger and sprinkled with gunpowder. It also sported King’s best solo of the night—a delicate, breathy thing of brushes and sensitivity—before ending on a John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt kind of fadeout.

The requisite cover came from the songbook of Aphex Twin, whose masterful “Flim” opened the trio to some of its most exciting territories. Those first notes had not a few gasping with recognition, leading into more of King’s superbly detailed visions, including a notable moment that found him pulling at the snare wires to get that unmistakable card-shuffling effect toward the end.

A house on fire? Hardly. More like a fire that needs no house to gain purchase. The moment is The Bad Plus’s kindling.

Dave Liebman soprano and tenor saxophones
John Abercrombie guitar
Marc Copland piano
Drew Gress bass
Billy Hart drums

Birdland, New York City
February 10, 2012
11:00 pm

Contact is as appropriate a name as one might come up with for saxophonist Dave Liebman’s newish outfit. This star-filled quintet—in which he joins forces with guitarist John Abercrombie, pianist Marc Copland, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Billy Hart—practices what it preaches, bringing a surprisingly permeable sound to bear upon equitably spread writing and performing. Once the group took to the stage at Birdland last Friday night, Abercrombie quipped on the name, assuring us it had nothing to do with the Jodie Foster film of the same name. Then again, he added, such a connection might prove valid as they develop their interactions over time. If this show was any indication, I am inclined to agree, for most intriguing were the dramatic developments it underwent over the course of its four long tunes.

Liebman’s soprano, at once flute- and trumpet-like, was the first to catch our ears as it danced through a tentative midrange guitar in “Soundup” (Abercrombie), also the opener of the group’s 2010 Pirouet album, Five On One. Hart set a precedent of color for the night with his glottal cymbals, while Gress’s well-tuned fingers brought an omnipresent depth. Abercrombie’s first solo was buoyant, if conservative, and seemed to end just as it was flapping its wings. Copland was almost inaudible at first, preferring, it seemed, to linger like a trembling breath. Liebman’s bubbling gestures, on the other hand, sprouted a wealth of chromatic foliage. Every note had its own tone, shaped by a rare breadth of embouchure. Once he and Abercrombie receded, Copland at last came to the fore. Spearheading some lovely trio action, he brought out the classic core that moves the heart of all of these musicians. Notable was the way in which he unraveled the number’s tightly woven themes, making the rejoinder all the more comforting.

“Footprints” (Shorter) arose out of a quiet eddy in which Liebman swam limberly on tenor, fading in and out, as he did throughout the set, like an ear selectively attuned to stillness. Abercrombie was visibly more comfortable in his solo this time around. He moved with a hum of wincing energy, seeming to first define a branch then trail from it like a spider from a thread of web. Copland kept his hands quite close for his turn, as if tied by one of those very threads to some hope through foggier days. Hart was the real star here, dialoguing on the light fantastic with the rest of the band in vast, metallic exchanges.

If the winds of improvisation had only begun to blow before, in “Childmoon Smile” (Copland) they now whistled through the trees of the audience with the insistence of a dream. The tune’s composer regaled us with a lush solo, gilded by Hart’s bronze, before Liebman dovetailed his soprano to the emerging carving. Gress evoked Gary Peacock in his solo, while Copland sparkled like a watery surface in soft focus. Hart’s brushes were at once ice and sand, brought to life with a kiss of warmth. After leaving the quiet vessel of Abercrombie’s solo, Liebman saw fit to ply more cosmic territories. Copland added his characteristic impressionism to the cubist splendor of Liebman, who enchanted with the most innovative solo of the night before Copland wrung out another verdant splash to close.

Abercrombie led us down an abstract path to “Blues Connotation” (Coleman), which kicked off the set’s final cerebral groove. Liebman was superb on tenor here, moving in clusters and high-flying loop-de-loops, echoed by Abercrombie at every catch. Both scaled and slid through this melodic plane like an uninterrupted game of Snakes and Ladders. Gress flickered like a candle in fast forward before Copland crept in from the periphery. Then, it was just he and Gress taking us into blissfully unexpected territories, uniting in moments that elicited gasps of admiration from the audience. Hart reprised his locomotive charm and unmasked a solo like an origami figure unfolding and refolding itself by fire alone. The final stretch went down like a swig of Jameson.

Liebman plays at the speed of thought. He allows for space, vital and alive, drifting in and out of the ear like an idea does the mind. His playing is something beyond melody, yet entirely devoted to it. Copland’s inventiveness is limitless, and in such a rich setting he had more enough to work with. Abercrombie was fluid as ever, though it seemed to take him a while to warm up to the feeling of the moment, and it a great pleasure to finally see Gress and Hart in concert, for the two of them provided a penetrating elasticity that was subtly surprising. Here is a band that really listens, and we can only give the same in return.