'Bitches Brew' gets revisited - Brooklyn style

Forty years ago, one of the most seminal jazz albums — Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew” — was released, a record that changed the course of music history.

This month, the classic jazz-rock fusion album gets revisited, as a multi-generational array of contemporary and experimental jazz artists explore its legacy as part of the Celebrate Brooklyn festival this Saturday.

Davis recorded the double album with a mix of electric guitars and piano, plus some rock rhythms — novel for a jazz recording at the time. He was so impressed with the results, that he called his collection of jazz players “the greatest rock band of all time.”

In this modern incarnation, Brooklyn’s own jazz super-group, Bitches Brew Revisited, gives the band a run for its money, comprised of guitarist James Blood Ulmer, keyboardist Marco Benevento, DJ Logic, for an updated hip-hop flavor, saxophonist Antoine Roney, bassist Melvin Gibbs, percussionist Adam Rudolph, drummer Cindy Blackman, and, filling in the role of Davis himself, cornetist Graham Haynes.

And who better to kick things off than Mike Stern, one of the premier jazz-fusion guitarists of his generation and a veteran of Davis’s band?

It’s history in the making.

Bitches Brew Revisited at the Prospect Park Bandshell [Prospect Park West and Ninth Street, (718) 855-7882], June 19 at 7:30 pm. Free. For info, visit www.bricartsmedia.org/celebrate.

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Brass act: Big Band Bonanza sounds

By Meredith Deliso

Traditionally, Monday night is big band night in New York City, at classic Manhattan jazz venues like the Village Vanguard.

Luckily for Brooklynites, some of the biggest names in contemporary jazz are coming to the borough, big bands in tow, with the Big Band Bonanza October 19 at The Bell House in Gowanus.

“This is our downscale, Brooklyn indie rock version of that,” says Carroll Gardens-based composer Darcy James Argue of the Brooklyn jazz night. “It seemed like a cool idea to take that Monday night and do a real post-modern take on that.”

Hence, bands like his own, Secret Society, Industrial Jazz Group, and Travis Sullivan’s Bjorkestra, which take three completely different approaches to the big band tradition with a contemporary spin. There’s Argue’s band, which draws on a wide variety of musical influences “without tipping my hat too much,” says the composer and conductor. As the name implies, “There’s some sense of mystery to the music, a sense of unexpectedness.” There’s Sullivan’s band, which deconstructs and radically reinvents the music of Bjork, reconstructed note by note for a big band. And there’s the Industrial Jazz Group, led by Andrew Durkin, who’s “more of a prankster,” says Argue, with his radical juxtapositions of different types of music. “There’s some incredible wit and sense of playfulness in what he’s doing,” he says.

All and all, between the three bands, there will be close to 60 musicians taking to the Bell House stage, a venue picked precisely because it isn’t a traditional venue for contemporary jazz.

“We’re able to bring out people who aren’t the sort of usual suspects, the usual people you’ll see at the 55 Bar every night,” says Argue. “For people who are curious about jazz but possibly have negative associations about it, the whole point of what we’re doing is to challenge that and make a case for jazz that it’s a living music that’s actually relevant to people today.”

Adam Schatz agrees. The founder of SearchAndRestore.com, a jazz Web site that books shows around the city at non-traditional venues like the Bowery Poetry Club and Drom in Manhattan and Public Assembly in Brooklyn, he’s helping promote the Big Band Bonanza.

“It’s exciting to be able to bring this music to this part of town,” says Schatz. “There’s not much jazz represented in the Gowanus area, and where so many of the musicians live, it makes sense to put something big on there. And you can’t get bigger than having 30 musicians in one room.”

The Big Band Bonanza is October 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the Bell House (149 7th St.). Tickets are $15. For more information, call 718-643-6510.

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Just the jazziest 'Odyssey' you'll ever go on

By Meredith Deliso

(Published in the 4.16.09 issue of 24/Seven)

The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey are used to packed shows. Two years ago, when the band last played Southpaw, the Park Slope venue had a full house. Earlier this year, when the Tulsa, Okla.-based jazz band debuted their new, four-piece lineup, they did so to a sold-out crowd during the NYC Winter Jazz Festival.

When they return to Southpaw this April 15, expect no less than lines around the block, as this time around, the band – comprised of Haas, drummer Josh Raymer, upright bassist Matt Hayes and guitarist Chris Combs, will also have Peter Apfelbaum in tow.

So far, 2009 has been quite the year for the band, led by pianist Brian Haas, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. In addition to adding a new member to their lineup and that debut show, the band released “Winterwood,” their eighteenth album.

JFJO’s creativity is in full force on their inventive new album, 13 tracks that start at one place and pull the listener along on the band’s, wait for it, odyssey. A track like “Songs of a Viper,” for instance, goes from old-timey pickin’ and piano riffs that jump off the track to being interspersed with synth and furious piano for an unexpected tug of war between the old and the new (the victor seems to emerge on the electronicy track “Oklahoma Stomp,” which is nothing like what you’d hear at a hoedown). “A-Bird” sounds like a B-side to Radiohead’s “Amnesiac,” just minus any vocals. Simple prettiness isn’t lost in all this experimentation, such as on oddly charming “Walking Before Daylight.”

Sitting on the album for a while after a disagreement with their record company, the band decided to release the record themselves on their Web site, all 13 tracks for free.

If Griffin had any doubts about releasing the album at no cost online, they were immediately squashed by the response in the week following the release. In just four weeks, the band’s e-mail list went from over 5,000, the total in the band’s decade-plus existence, to over 10,000. And they’ve seen an increase in their audience attendance as well.

“From our standpoint, it was the most successful capitalism we’ve ever engage in, ironically,” says Griffin. “We’d had a lot more people at shows, and more interest in the band in general. We got way more people listening to our music for free than if we tried to sell it. We just want people listening to the music and getting them out to the live shows.”

Haas was so impressed by the results, he followed suit and decided to release his own solo project, “Petting Sounds,” for free on his own Web site. Beach Boys fans will recognize the play off their album “Pet Sounds.” An improvised symphony for solo piano, Haas’ album was made using the same mixing board that was used for “Pet Sounds.”

“I thought ‘Petting Sounds’ was a catchy title,” says Haas. “It’s also soothing, beautiful music.”

And while we’re on the subject of names, Haas was inspired by another musical project in the anointing of his band (which has no one named Jacob or Fred), pulling from Spinal Tap’s “Jazz Odyssey” and the made up name Jacob Fred, one he was obsessed with as a kid, to get JFJO.
While in Brooklyn, the band will be joined by a big name in the contemporary jazz scene – saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum.

“He’s one of our heroes,” says Griffin, who’s also looking forward to the Brooklyn show to just be in the borough. “It’s such a vibrant music scene all unto itself over there. I always look forward to being in the city, especially Brooklyn.”

Once their back home in Tulsa, there’s more work to be done for the band, which is getting ready for a gig later this fall with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, a performance of Beethoven’s Third and Sixth Symphonies together but rearranged by the jazz quartet, as well as finishing a new record of jazz standards with vocalist Annie Ellicott.

“It already feels like I did a whole year. Is it 2010?” jokes Griffin. “There’s so much going on, I can barely keep track.”

The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey play Southpaw (125 Fifth Ave.) on April 15 at 9 p.m. (doors at 8 p.m.) Tickets are $10 in advance, available for purchase at http://www.ticketweb.com/, or $15 the day of the show. To hear more of Brian Haas, go to http://www.brianroyhaas.com/.

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