Joshua Breakstone. Photo by Steven Sussman.
For guitarist Joshua Breakstone, inspiration comes from the tune, and his cello quartet, inspired by a happy accident, provides an unusual vehicle for elucidating the tune’s heart. This Thursday, the quartet—with Mike Richmond (cello), Chris Conner (bass), and John Trentacosta (drums)—will explore tunes on Breakstone’s latest release, 88 (Capri Records), an homage to pianists, which has been rising on the airplay charts. Continue reading
Matt Wilson Quartet: Kirk Knuffke, Jeff Lederer, Wilson, Chris Lightcap. Photo by Tom Foley.
Drummer, composer, and Palmetto Records recording artist Matt Wilson doesn’t want you to just hear the music. “I’m always advocating to my students—and myself, too—that music
conjures more than just an aural response,” he says. “We want to be able to see music, we want to be able to taste music, we want to be able to smell music.”
He’s been entirely successful in provoking a synesthetic response from me. I just recently
realized that that’s one of the things I find so compelling in his music: it stimulates silent movies in my head for which he’s providing the soundtrack—and the title. Monikers such as “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark,” the title track of a previous album, or “Some Assembly Required,” off his quartet’s latest release, Gathering Call, just scream “Lights. Camera. Action.” The vivid musical personalities of the guys in the band become the characters in my little skully cinema.
“If you play music that conjures other images other than just someone hearing it, you’re striking [the listener]—either positively or negatively,” he says. “At least you’re getting some sort of
response out of them. I’d rather have that than the trough of blah, which is kind of like”—
dismissively—“ ‘Oh, yeah, it’s nice.’ ”
Wilson’s music, which he prefers to call “our music,” in reference to the contributions of the entire band, will never be accused of spending any time in the “trough of blah.” Concise, congenial, and energetic, it reflects his personality—and those of his band mates: Kirk Knuffke (cornet), who passed through here recently with Boom Tic Boom; Jeff
Lederer (tenor and soprano saxes, clarinet), and Chris Lightcap (bass). They’ll be offering up a smorgasbord of synesthesia at the
Outpost this coming Thursday.
Last summer, when bassist Asher Barreras and guitarist John Maestas booked a set for a nonet in the Outpost’s summer series, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew these two native Burqueans as primo players and ambitious composers who have swallowed a variety of genres while swimming in the jazz ocean. I’d heard them shine as sidemen and as coequals in their Humoso quartet. But a nonet with reed and brass sections? What exactly would two young string-plucking whippersnappers know about writing for a mess of wind instruments?
Well, it was a smokin’ set, and it featured some of the Southwest’s best players, several of whom also contributed fine compositions. It was so good, in fact, that the Outpost invited the nonet back for a full evening in the middle of the high-profile spring season.
Expectations have now been raised, but I’ve no doubt that this Thursday, Barreras, Maestas, and company—Kanoa Kaluhiwa and Aaron Lovato (tenor sax), Glenn Kostur (alto sax), Paul Gonzales and JQ Whitcomb (trumpet), Ben Finberg (trombone), and Paul Palmer III (drums), with help from special guest Albuquerque Poet Laureate Hakim Bellamy—will satisfy those
expectations and then some.
The summer 2012 version of the John Maestas–Asher Barreras nonet. Photo by and courtesy of Jim Gale.