by Kevin T McEneaney
The annual Thanksgiving Jazzing it Up! Program by the Sherman Chamber Ensemble was held at St. Andrew’s Church in Kent this past Sunday. This year there was a dual focus that featured works by Charles Mingus and renowned drummer Chris Parker, former drummer for Saturday Night Live, who has played with and recorded with James Brown, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Cher, Chaka Khan,Michael Bolton, Quincy Jones, Sinéad O’Connor, Loudon Wainwright III,Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Palmer, Judy Collins, Natalie Cole, Elvis Costello, and so many more top tier singers and instrumentalists.
The six-piece jazz ensemble opened with a version of “Milongueando En El #39 & 40” by Armando Ponterie arranged by bassist Thompson Kneeland who offered serial solos for all players in the ensemble where each performer gave preview glimpse of the range their talents were capable of achieving and where Susan Rotholz on flute and Ted Rosenthal on piano were especially thrilling.
With that table set, they played three compositions by Chris Parker. “Coolypso” began with a long, sexy drum solo that sketched the plight of Odysseus as the sexual slave of the minor fictional goddess Calypso. Other instruments began to participate as Odysseus reaches the shores of the Phaeceans and enters into a more inter-active social life. This mini-epic remains rich with its vibrant contrast of isolation and transformation to communal participation, that dialectic of the artist practicing the solos craft of composition in isolation and then presenting it in performance with other musicians in public. This quite novel mini-epic composition of the portrait of an artist from home to concert remains an exciting and unusual composition that wears its allegory lightly like a Jacob’s many-colored coat and yet it has that intimate bounce that opens up the ear and heart of an audience.
“Dwa Serduzka (for Hanna)” (a Polish folk tune meaning Two Hearts, Four Eyes) featured lively variations by small clusters of different instruments. This was a favorite tune of his Polish mother-in-law transformed into a lovely cabaret number. “Minky, Don’t Weep” appeared to be an endearing portrait-dialogue with the composer’s daughter, whereby a dialogue developed between drums and alto sax played superbly by Eddie Barbash (who formerly played for Stephen Colbert’s Stay Human band on late night television). Here, normally stern drums tried to console solos wails of the sax, as other band members played ambient background. Deeply personal, this composition freighted so much emotion that I wanted to hear it again, immediately.
“Fables of Faubus” wittily ridicules Arkansas governor Orval Faubus who 1957 sent out the National Guard to prevent the racial integration of Little Rock Central High School by nine African American teenagers, in what became known as the Little Rock Crisis; it is the most performed Mingus work in the Mingus canon. After the introductory opening movement, an amusing, mocking tone is achieved, especially in Rotholz’s flute and Kneeland’s bass. Satire in music is not as common as satire in literature, yet even classical composers like Shostakovitch sometimes indulged in the genre. Rosenthal delivered a bracing, acid touch on the keys.
“My Jelly Roll Soul,” a tribute to Jelly Roll Morton appeared to inhabit a murky world of exuberance, ambivalent in awe with a mischievous undertone of satiric critique. “Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love” was a delightful straight-up tribute which was really endearing. “Boogie Stop Shuffle” was sheer impish fun as Barbash on sax and Parker on drums competed as to whom produced the sweetest sound.
In addition to his own repertoire and his jazz piano compositions, Ted Rosenthal noodles with arranging classical compositions as amusing jazz numbers. “Salut D’Amour” (Hello, Love) by Edward Elgar was one of these arrangements for the ensemble which featured the marvelously empathetic and resonant cello of Eliot Bailen in dialogue with the light racing fingers of Rosenthal at the keyboard. What a sweet, suite piece!
“My Jelly Roll Soul,” a tribute to Jelly Roll Morton appeared to inhabit a murky world of exuberance, ambivalent in awe with a mischievous undertone of satiric critique. “Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love” was a delightful straight-up tribute which was really endearing. “Boogie Stop Shuffle” was sheer impish fun as Barbash on sax and Parker on drums competed as to whom produced the sweetest sound.
They all concluded with “Sunny Side Up” in a snappy arrangement by Ted Rosenthal that displayed his lightning-fingered abilities on the piano as each member of the ensemble provided a brief solo in a tune which makes everyone feel happy as a lark! Director Bailen put together a supersonic program!
On leaving the Church, the gentleman sitting next to me (who had never heard the Sherman Chamber Ensemble before) was asked by someone if he enjoyed the performance. He replied: “That was the greatest jazz I have ever heard!” And so it was, since these musicians played so tightly together!
