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Owen McNally writes about jazz and other music events in Connecticut's Jazz Corridor, stretching from the tip of Fairfield County, right through New Haven and Hartford, and on up beyond the state into the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. Keep up with the best our area has to offer in music.

Globe-Trotting Cassandra Wilson Brings Billie Holiday Homage to Connecticut Playhouse

Ojah Media Group
Cassandra Wilson pays tribute to jazz great, Billie Holiday in her new album, Coming Forth By Day.
Tune into Wilson’s emotive interpretations, whose resonant phrasing and reverberating words are lovely, dark, and deep.

Long before Cassandra Wilson became an iconic and iconoclastic diva, her preternaturally beautiful voice and naturally charismatic way with phrasing and lyrics earned her comparisons with Billie Holiday, the most deeply expressive and tragically doomed jazz singer of the 20th century.

It wasn’t just the mesmerizing quality of Wilson’s voice, which is one of the jazz world’s most gorgeous, exquisitely expressive, yet darkest sounding instruments. Other singers have sounded much more overtly Billie-like. The incomparable Abbey Lincoln’s incredible voice, for example, could, on certain material, virtually channel the sound of Billie, as can Madeleine Peyroux, who can also evoke the spirit of country great Patsy Cline.

Maybe the Cassandra/Lady Day link that critics heard back then was due to some ineffable quality that Wilson had somehow absorbed from Holiday into her own creative DNA.

In any case, Wilson, a perpetually restless artist who places her distinctive imprint on whatever genre she taps into, pays tribute to her early idol with a most otherworldy, even eerie, yet spiritually evocative, new and bold tribute album to Holiday with her upcoming release, Coming Forth By Day. Marking her first CD for Legacy Recordings, the Holiday homage will be released April 7, the date that Holiday, who died in 1959, would have turned 100.

As part of her far-flung promotion tour celebrating the new disc and Holiday’s centennial year, the globe-trotting Wilson performs at 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 26, at the Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge, Ridgefield. This sole Connecticut date comes just a few days after Wilson’s appearances in Tokyo and Hong Kong on a road trip that includes performances at The Kennedy Center, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the Apollo Theater, and The Newport Jazz Festival. Tickets for the Ridgefield concert: $76.00. Information: ridgefieldplayhouse.org and (203) 438-5795.

On April 6, the day before the album is released, Wilson, in her first-time as a headliner at the legendary Apollo, will perform in a one-day-early, gala birthday party in celebration of Holiday’s 100th. As part of the birthday bash, Holiday will be posthumously inducted into the Apollo Walk of Fame, joining such demi-gods as Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and the most recent inductee, Louis Armstrong, one of Lady Day’s early inspirations.

Holiday had genuine roots in the Apollo, making her debut there at 19, moving a notoriously critical audience with her renditions of "If the Moon Turns Green" and "The Man I Love." She played the Apollo at least 23 times, according to the venerable theater’s archives. And, in a fascinating historical note, in the late 1940s, after she lost her New York City cabaret card because of drug busts, the Apollo remained one of the few venues in the city where she could perform. Without that required cabaret card, clubs—a life-source for her income—were off-limits for Holiday and other musicians in trouble with the law because of drug-related arrests.

Wilson’s Holiday tribute tour moves on to Newport, Rhode Island, on August 1, where she performs at the Newport Jazz Festival as part of an all-star packed show that runs from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm. Later that day, she sings at the Newport Festivals Foundation’sfifth annual gala celebrating festival founder George Wein’s 90th birthday at The Breakers, one of Newport’s swankiest, historic “summer cottages.” Actually, the apparently ageless impresario’s official birthday is October 3.

Moody, soulful and mysterious, Coming Forth by Day features Wilson’s highly original reimaginings of eleven pieces from the Holiday canon, ranging from "What Little Moonlight Can Do" and "These Foolish Things," to "Good Morning Heartache" and the scathing anti-lynching anthem, which was once banned from the airwaves, "Strange Fruit."

A hint of the haunting, ethereal atmosphere to come on the album is provided by its mystically-enveloped name, Coming Forth by Day. It’s an English translation of the title of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, a collection of religious texts consisting of magic spells invoked to aid the dead in their perilous journey through the underworld to the afterlife. Or as Wilson describes the album, Coming Forth by Day is “a collection of musical spells, prescriptions for navigating the dubious myths surrounding her (Holiday’s) life and times…a vehicle for the re-emergence of Billie’s songbook in the 21st century.”

Credit The Artist
Cassandra Wilson will spend the coming months on tour, celebrating what would have been Billie Holiday's 100th birthday.

Or as the tribute project’s noted producer Nick Launay explains: “We set out to dig deep into the lyrics, and the meaning behind why they were written. The result is a whole new experience for the listener. Bone-healing…it’s moving and engaging beyond words…This one is for the ears and soul.”

The album’s thickly textured backup, which can morph in mysterious ways from spacey and eerie to downhome soulfuness, is woven by guitarists T Bone Burnett and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; lush string arrangements by Van Dyke Parks, and a rhythm section consisting of The Bad Seeds drummer Thomas Wydlerand bassist Martyn P. Casey and such Wilsonite regulars as pianist Jon Cowherd and guitaristKevin Breit. If the riddles, wrapped within the enigma-shrouded textures, are too thick or too exotic for you, simply tune into Wilson’s emotive interpretations, whose resonant phrasing and reverberating words are lovely, dark, and deep.

Besides the eleven Holiday classic covers, Wilson contributes an original dreamscape piece called "Last Song For Lester," her poetic imagining of a final message from Holiday to her soul mate and kindred spirit, tenor saxophonist Lester Young.

Upon getting the news that Prez (Holiday’s loving nickname for the most empathetic of all her musical partners) had died at 49 on March 15, 1959, the ailing singer flew from overseas to her beloved friend’s funeral in New York, but was shattered when not allowed by the Young family to sing a final farewell to her musical alter ego.

On that mournful but sunny day just before the dawning of spring, there was, in fact, music performed by musician friends at the funeral. Trombonist Tyree Glenn played a somber solo on "Just A-Wearyin’ for You." Al Hibbler sang "In the Garden", a piece that Young’s biographer Douglas Henry Daniels says the great blind singer had just composed in Young’s memory.

But there was no musical eulogy from Billie, no final bar, no end notes.

Just a few months later, Lady Day, her health ravaged by years of heroin and alcohol addiction, died July 17, 1959. She was 44.

By proxy and 56 years after Young’s funeral, Wilson, a consummate conjurer, gets to sing her poetic imagining of Holiday’s farewell to Prez.

A symbolic, magical text worthy of Book of the Dead, it yields a Coming Forth by Lady Day.

Glasper Muses at Monk Series

Credit The Artist
/
The Artist
On the heels of a Grammy win for Best Traditional R&B Performance, Robert Glasper preforms at The Thelonious Sphere Monk Jazz Series at Yale,

Robert Glasper, a two-time Grammy Award winning pianist/composer/arranger and record producer, kicks-off The Thelonious Sphere Monk Jazz Series at Yale, as he performs at 7:00 pm on Saturday, April 4, at Yale University’s Woolsey Hall at 500 College Street in New Haven.

A groundbreaking, genre-bending prestidigitator/pianist, Glasper won his second Grammy recently with his original cover of Stevie Wonder’s "Jesus Children of America" on his album, Black Radio 2, in the category of best traditional R&B performance. The song, which features vocals by Lalah Hathaway and a spoken word poem by Malcolm-Jamal Warner, is dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Returning to the acoustic trio format of his first two Blue Note recordings, Glasper has cut a new album for Blue Note Records called Covered. Recorded before a live audience at the famous Capitol Studios in Hollywood, the CD reunites him with his trio mates, bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Damion Reid. Set for release in June, the album features songs by Radiohead, Joni Mitchell, and John Legend, among others, as well as Glasper originals. Currently, the versatile artist is composing original music for Don Cheadle’s film on Miles Davis, Miles Ahead. Tickets: $25.00 at the door.

Besides Glasper’s marquee concert at Woolsey Hall, the series showcases the dynamic teaching skills of drummer/composer/bandleader T.S. Monk, son of jazz titan Thelonious Sphere Monk.

Credit T.S.Monk
T.S. Monk spreads a musical education in several upcoming workshops with New Haven schools.

T.S., who enjoys visiting with his extended family in the Elm City, loves to come to town whether to play with his sextet or, as in this case, just to roll up up his sleeves and teach school kids all about jazz, its history and its magic, along with its sociological impact and communal cultural force. As chairman of the board of the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, T.S., who’s also a jazz historian and journalist, thrives on spreading the word about the music, especially to young people, delighting in bringing a taste of the Monk Institute to New Haven public schools.

Monk’s litany of hosannas to jazz are illustrated not just with his impassioned, eloquent words, but also at workshop sessions with live examples of the music in which he uses his drum kit to speak in a language beyond words about what jazz is all about, both physically and even metaphysically.

T.S. begins his latest missionary work in New Haven at 10:30 am on Thursday, April 9, at Woolsey Hall. That’s followed up at 2:00 pm as he leads a history and jazz assembly at Brennan/Rogers School. Wrapping up his stint as a peripatetic scholar of syncopation—sort of an ultra-hip Leonard Bernstein of jazz—Monk conducts a master class/workshop at 10:00 am on Friday, April 10, at Troup Middle School.

Hubbard Room’s Jazz Cupboard Booms

Credit Fernando Azevedo
Known for his far-flung collaborations, Freddie Bryant now joins with forces with Resonant Motion's Jazz Up Close series.

With jazz and classical guitar mastery at his nimble fingertips, Freddie Bryanthas played in such premier jazz groups as Ben Riley’s Monk Legacy Septet, the Mingus Orchestra, and Tom Harrell’s band, as well as with such world music luminaries as the Brazilian pianist Eliane Elias, Malian singer Salif Keita, and the Argentina-born, Israeli klezmer clarinetist Giora Feidman.

A cosmopolitan figure with eclectic taste and a graduate degree from Yale in classical guitar, Bryant has toured some 50 countries. Crossing over musical genres as easily as he traverses national borders, he’s a 21st century, world-travelling troubadour, fluently expressing himself whether collaborating with Indian classical musicians or traditional Arab players.

As the headliner for the non-profit Resonant Motion’s free, worthy, yet much under-heralded Jazz Up Close series, the guitarist leads a quartet at 2:00 pm on Saturday, March 28, in the Hubbard Room at the Russell Library, 123 Broad Street, Middletown. He’s accompanied by the celebrated, Middletown-based pianist/composer Noah Baerman, who is the series’ curator; bassist Henry Lugo, and drummer Willard Dyson. Enhancing the series’ cozy, up-close and intimate ambience, Bryant will intersperse musical selections with discussion of his creative process and sources of inspiration, and also engage in Q&A with the audience. With any luck, he’ll serve selections from his recent albums, Dreamscape and Live GroovesEpic Tales.

Dreamscape is dedicated to the guitarist’s mother, the great operatic soprano, Beatrice Rippy Hollister who died in 2012. It is graced with his signature lyricism, sensitivity, clarity, and warmth presented on 12-string, arch top, electric and nylon string guitars.

Bryant’s appearance marks the first of four concerts in the admission-free series, which is co-sponsored with the library and made possible by a grant from the Middletown Commission on the Arts.

Gale Force Consumes Firehouse 12

With incendiary support from drummer Chris Corsano, the dynamo saxophonists Paul Flaherty, and Steve Baczkowski unleash furious fusillades of free jazz firepower at 8:30 and 10:00 pm on Friday, March 27, at New Haven’s Firehouse12.

On its amusingly titled release, The Dim Bulb, a live recording made in 2003, the power trio blitzkriegs through three free, extended improvisations, each an extemporaneous co-creation of riotous, surrealistic sonic fireworks, with Flaherty, a Hartford native, flaming full blast on alto and tenor, while Baczkowski blazes away on baritone sax and a secret weapon called a vibratube. Even the CD’s titles have a Dadaistic ring, as with the opener: "Return to the Pasture of Ants and Sweet Rapture", a name blending mock-heroic pastoral elements with deliriously delicious Dali-like overtones reminiscent of The Persistence of Memory or Lugubrious Game.

Collectively, the trio members describe their music as free improvisations done “in their own idiosyncratic styles.” Flaherty’s open-ended recordings have been praised as “gloriously unhinged,” making him an ideal interactive collaborator with Baczkowski, a fellow apostle of gloriously unhinged free improvisation.

Corsano has brought his high-energy attack to free improvisation, avant-rock, and noise music since the late 1990s. Besides his long standing musical partnership with Flaherty, he has worked with such heroic rebels with a sonic cause as the saxophonists Joe McPhee andEvan Parker. To heighten his palette of textures and dynamics, the drummer sometimes augments his drum kit with everything from cello strings stretched across the skins to disassembled saxophone parts. Tickets: $20.00 first set; $15.00 second set. Information: firehouse12.com and (203) 785-0468.

Credit Steven Laschever
Mario Pavone, a Connecticut native, joins trombonist Dan Blacksberg at the in The Uncertainty Music Series.

On Saturday, March 28, at 3:00 pm, New Haven offers more cutting-edge music as the celebrated avant-garde bassist/composer/bandleader Mario Pavone and his group perform with trombonist Dan Blacksbergin The Uncertainty Music Series at G Café, 141 Orange Street. An ascending player from Philadelphia, Blacksberg is noted for his burly, rough-edged sound that fits smoothly in all contexts.

Pavone, a Waterbury native, is one of Connecticut’s premier cultural exports to the world of the international jazz avant-garde. Suggested donation: $10.00. Information: uncertaintymusic.com.

Please submit press releases on upcoming jazz events at least two weeks before the publication date to omac28@gmail.com. Comments left below are also most welcome.

Owen McNally writes the weekly Jazz Corridor column for WNPR.org as well as periodic freelance pieces for The Hartford Courant and other publications.

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