The summer Post-Pitchfork was a relatively relaxed period, with some highlights including a Vandermark Five tour that took us to some favorite places, as well as a gig on the Newport Jazz Festival, which is now known as George Wein’s Jazz Festival 55. It seemed that the loss of a major corporate sponsor (JVC) gave Mr. Wein the opportunity to program a somewhat broader array of the modern world of jazz, including us, The trio of Charles Gayle, William Parker, and Rashied Ali (two days before his death…) and some other more adventurous stuff. We weren’t exactly sure what kind of reception to expect at a festival which has been extremely “mainstream” for the last two decades, but as soon as we hit the stage, we were met with a lengthy and enthusiastic round of applause that went on much longer than normal, letting us know that many of the folks there actually knew the band. And plenty more who had never heard of us responded similarly to the music during the set. Perhaps the best moment was after the third tune, as we were about to go into a ballad, a 7-year old kid shouted out “they’re great….” which made the band and audience all break up. Mr. Wein himself, now 82, and in his 55th year of programming the festival, sat at the side of the stage for the majority of the set, and sent Ken a really gracious and enthusiastic email after the festival saying he had really enjoyed the music. Overall, a very positive experience, and definitely something that I’ll remember for a long time, since so many of my jazz heroes (Coltrane, Monk, Miles, Ellington, Shepp, Dolphy, etc.) were all featured on the festival at one time or another. (below you can see me, Kent Kessler, and Fred Lonberg-Holm onstage at the festival. Fred dressed up in his best Fred Katz outfit, as tribute to the documentary on the festival made in 1958 called “Jazz On A Summer’s Day,” that featured Katz as part of Chico Hamilton’s band with Eric Dolphy.)
Vandermark Five at Newport
The rest of the tour went well, especially in some of my favorite places to play like the Sala Rossa in Montreal, and Union Hall in Brooklyn. It’s actually been about a year and a half since I’ve done a tour in the States, since the financial side of things is so difficult here. It’s somewhat depressing at times to see how many cities and towns that used to be viable places to play no longer have a venue or audience. But, at least some of the ones remaining are still good.
After returning home, I did a few more gigs in August. Frank Rosaly and I played at Elastic in preparation for our duo tour in December, and I also did a duo with Michael Zerang - something we’ve been working on a bit since our brief tour in Serbia in May. We also had another chance to work with the double quartet of myself, Jeb Bishop, Mars Williams, Jim Baker, Kent Kessler, Brian Sandstrom, Steve Hunt, and Michael Zerang. Working with this group is incredibly fun, but it’s also amazing for me since so many of these guys were the ones who got me really excited and interested in this music back in the mid-90’s when I was first discovering the scene here. Brian Sandstrom played bass in the Ed Peterson Quartet at the time, a group that also featured Willie Pickens on piano and Robert Shy on drums. They used to play every Friday night at the Green Mill, doing mid-period Coltranish type stuff which really blew me away. During my freshman year of college I went there almost every week to see them.
A little bit later, I started going to the Lunar Cabaret, where I first saw Kent and Jim with Steam, and Mars and Steve with Witches and Devils. All of these bands made a huge impression on me, and the work these guys were doing was one of the things that made me decide to stay in Chicago after I graduated from college. So it’s a huge honor to stand onstage with all of them at the same time! Locking horns with Mars, who has one of my favorite sounds on both alto and tenor, is especially great.
So now, into the fall, with some touring in Europe with Ken Vandermark’s Resonance Project, and in the US with Frank Rosaly. The Umbrella Music Festival in Chicago in November also promises to be great, as I’ll have the chance to work with both Bobby Bradford and Joe McPhee…..
