Month: March 2024

Christopher Hoffman – “What Comes” (featuring Henry Threadgill), from the album Vision Is The Identity

Listen to “What Comes” at Apple Music
Listen to “What Comes” at Spotify

(Out Of Your Head Records, released March 22, 2024)

Personnel on Vision Is The Identity: Christopher Hoffman – cello, electric cello, drum programming & synth; Frank LoCrasto – keyboards; Bill Campbell – drums; Henry Threadgill – alto saxophone (track 2); Ryan Scott – guitar (tracks 2 & 6); Anna Webber – flute (track 5); Alfredo Colón – EWI (track 7)

Sometimes, even amidst a fantastic album, one composition or song will stand out and demand your attention. On Christopher Hoffman’s new album Vision Is The Identity, I had that experience with the track “What Comes.” I’m not focusing on “What Comes” to suggest the rest of Vision Is The Identity isn’t great – far from it; I’m excited about this record as much as any in 2024 – it’s uniformly excellent! Each of its seven tracks is a compressed statement, and at 24 minutes, Vision Is The Identity is a wonderful example of only releasing the most impactful, potent content. But even on such a strong release, “What Comes” stands out, and I want to focus on this track – and my love for it is only partly for its star-featured soloist – but we’ll get to that.

“What Comes” perfectly distills the strengths of its creator, cellist Christopher Hoffman. If you are unfamiliar with Hoffman, his interview with PostGenre is an excellent place to start. There, Hoffman describes how, as a young musician, he was in the Suzuki program learning classical music, but ultimately, he “didn’t want to play in an orchestra” and looked for a more individualistic path. That decision led him to the improvised “jazz” world and approaches to cello that eschew the norm for the instrument. For example, Hoffman’s 2018 album Multifariam uses both acoustic and electronic backgrounds, a trajectory Hoffman continues with Vision Is The Identity. With his new album, he creates tracks utilizing synthesizers, keyboards, and programmed beats on top of acoustic drums. Then, he often plays his cello with pedal effects, making his instrument sound like a distorted guitar or sometimes like a bass. Frequently, on Vision Is The Identity, the distortion on Hoffman’s cello catapults the energy of the music to another level.

Hoffman’s nonconformist direction is embodied in his association with the most iconoclastic musician alive, Henry Threadgill. Hoffman plays in Threadgill’s band Zooid and has appeared on six of Threadgill’s albums so far. Threadgill’s music has often used the cello, starting with the Sextett of the 1980s, where Deidre Murray’s careening, explosive solos often dominated the music. More recently, Hoffman has filled the cello chair with his intense sound and rhythm, and you can hear him on standout Threadgill tracks like “Ceroepic” and “Dosepic” from In for a Penny, In for a Pound (2015), “Part 2” from Old Locks and Irregular Verbs (2017), and “Come and Go” from Poof (2021). All those performances feature dynamic playing from Hoffman, who has been part of the formula for the new heights that Threadgill has reached over the last decade.

Now, Threadgill returns the favor with his feature appearance on “What Comes,” where he plays a solo that reminds me of the unparalleled power improvised music can have. Here is what I’m hearing, but as always, the real point is for you to listen along, so by all means, hit the link above: Threadgill plays on the second half of the opening chorus and then a four chorus solo from 0:26 to 2:10 – you can really hear his gloriously acidic and intense tone throughout the performance. That sound is the first thing you notice about Threadgill; it’s a sound that occupies a unique emotional space in music. I love how Threadgill balances his phrases with dramatic spaces for breath, which only intensifies the emotional wallop. In his last half chorus, Threadgill plays an idea (1:58-2:03) that’s one of his characteristic rhythmic phases, which drives the solo home dramatically. I’m fascinated by this kind of phrase that is a soloist’s calling card, and which is much more than a mere “lick.” These ideas, honed through the crucible of practice and imagination, are compressed musical ideas used to intensify the rhythm, project a forceful melody, and reorient the direction of the music. In Threadgill’s rhythmic phrase, I hear a connection to a great tradition, which is the provenience of alto sax players like Bird, Ornette, Julius Hemphill, Jackie McLean, and others. Threadgill is part of that lineage, but he’s startlingly unique, too. You can only listen to his playing in wonder.

But Threadgill’s playing is far from the only amazement in “What Comes,” which showcases Hoffman’s craft at creating a setting to elevate all the players on this album. One of the things I enjoy about this track, and Vision Is The Identity overall, is how non-traditional it sounds, and how exciting the electronic settings are. “What Comes” opens with four bars of Frank LoCrasto’s keyboards, played out of tempo and using a memorable reverb that sets an eerie tone. The rest of the opening chorus uses Hoffman’s programmed beats, giving way to acoustic drums played by Bill Campbell for the rest of the performance.

“What Comes” has an interesting rhythm track, which layers Ryan Scott’s guitar and LoCrasto’s keyboards to create a gorgeous shimmering sound. I also love how Hoffman has chosen the solo order – Threadgill’s dramatic solo is followed by a keyboard solo by LoCrasto, whose restrained, emotionally calmer sound is the perfect release after the intensity before. After LoCrasto’s three breezy choruses, Hoffman’s distorted cello comes in, ramping up the tension and the urgency again. The combination of the distortion pedal on the cello (Hoffman is credited to both “cello” and “electric cello”) and the note choices drive the performance back into an intense peak that he sustains through the out chorus. “What Comes” also features guitarist Ryan Scott, who is a big part of the sound and elevates the music without getting in the way. He plays exciting counterpoint during Threadgill’s solo, creating an intriguing sonic landscape throughout the track. What I especially dug is the spooky overtones Scott gets out of his guitar near the start of the performance and again on the out chorus. His playing combines beautifully with Threadgill’s, and together, they create an incredible sound that I just not have been able to get out of my head.

I hope you do not mind over 1100 words on one song. Music this rich and that says so much deserves to be played multiple times and studied. It’s a valuable exercise to listen over and over and try to understand what’s going on to the best of your ability and experience. You test yourself and start to unlock the mysteries and meaning in the grooves. As I said above, I recommend “What’s Comes” and the entire album Vision Its The Identity. Each track is a standout, but I’ll also mention Anna Webber’s incredible flute on “Better & Better,” the riot of LoCrasto’s keyboards and EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument) by Alfredo Colón on the closer “Farewell Forever,” and the cinematic processed electronics on “It Is Done.” Also, I need to mention the fantastic album art by TJ Huff, which is the perfect match for the gripping music. While it lasts, check out Bandcamp’s merch, which includes a cool sweatshirt and stickers with the iconic cover art, and pick up a copy on vinyl.

Very striking cover art by TJ Huff!

My original intention for this post was an album round-up of about a dozen new releases with links and short descriptions. But after listening to recent music from Vinnie Sperrazza, I decided to shift my focus to this drummer, one of today’s most exciting musicians. Sperrazza has released two excellent but different albums – Saturday, which came out last March, and a sequel of sorts, Sunday, released in January of this year. These two releases are a delight – each in their own way – and demonstrate two sides to Sperrazza’s music. Let’s discuss both, and my goal is for you to check these out and maybe even listen along.

Vinnie Sperrazza – Saturday

(Fresh Sound New Talent, released March 4, 2023; Album graphic design – Jacob Sacks)
Buy from Fresh Sound New Talent
Stream on Apple
Stream on Spotify

Ethan Iverson – piano
Michael Formanek – bass
Vinnie Sperrazza – drums

Saturday is a trio album of Sperrazza on drums with pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Michael Formanek. While the music is in the tried-and-true piano trio format and sticks to a theme and solos design, that’s a strength rather than a weakness. The engagement and dialogue with jazz tradition is one of the highlights of this album. Sperrazza wrote all the tunes on Saturday, which are delightfully inventive. Innovation that is based in tradition, that’s what jazz is all about, right? I’ve found the music addictive and played this album over and over. Let’s talk about what makes Saturday so special.

First, I want to highlight a really attractive quality apart from the music itself. While this blog is not about evaluating audio fidelity, the sound of this recording itself is remarkable and worth appreciating. Saturday was taped at Van Gelder Studio, where legendary albums like A Love Supreme, Point of Departure, Fuschia Swing Song, and so many others were created. The close-up, warm presence of the instruments on Saturday is an absolute pleasure, especially Sperrazza’s drums – the cymbals are so vivid you feel you can reach out and touch them. The recording also does justice to the high notes of Iverson’s right hand and the low register of Formanek’s bass. It’s so good to have this hallowed recording studio back; musicians, if you want to make your next record sound great, you know what to do!

But of course, it’s the music itself we’re here for, which I found to be exceptional. Saturday moves quickly from one highlight to another, and I’ll run down (most) of the tracks with you. The album starts with “Stephen Paul,” a tribute to drummer Paul Motion. I especially liked Iverson’s piano here – on this opening track, he plays the pattern from the opening Prelude & Fugue of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. This was a really lovely touch! It feels appropriate that Sperrazza starts Saturday with a tribute to Paul Motion, who was the first subject of Sperrazza’s excellent Chronicles Substack. Sperrazza’s style, especially his wide multidirectional cymbal beat, is right out of the Motion school.

The next tune is the title track, “Saturday,” a blues. In a recent interview, Sperrazza called this his most successful attempt at a blues so far, and the result more than fulfills that humble promise. I love the development of the tune into a groover with a touch of boogie-woogie – what Sperrazza calls “the Duke Ellington thing” on his Substack page. “Don’t Mention the War” is a sly reference to the British TV comedy Fawlty Towers. Here, the band has fun with the bouncy-poignant melody, and Iverson gets into great use of the sustain pedal over tasty drumming. “Veiled Promise” is a hushed ballad and a feature for Iverson, who develops his solo with style and interesting ideas. If I’m hearing it right, he quotes the second strain of the love theme from Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, which, given Iverson’s recent controversial New York Times essay, is fascinating. Sperrazza again demonstrates his talent for melody with the Burt Bacharach-like “Just Forget It,” a title that shows his modest humor – far from forgettable, it’s quite memorable! “Angular Saxon” is a drum feature with layered and dynamic use of cymbals and a balance of structure and sonics. To me, Sperrazza’s solo echoes not just Motion but Max and Tony – but really, he sounds like himself.

Many of the highlights of Saturday come in the second half, surely a sign of an album with no weak tracks. “Ellipsis” has an effortless lyricism, with the band locking into a glowing pulse over which Iverson plays unhurried ideas. The choice to have Formanek solo with freedom through the head and during Iverson’s playing on “Ellipsis” is brilliant – the bass playing here is Formanek’s most striking on the album. The tempo ramps up with “Sunday,” a song based on rhythm changes. Over a quick groove, the band jumps from one chorus to the next, pushed on by Sperrazza’s pulsating cymbals. The band does justice to the Walton/Jones/Higgins paradigm of piano trio music here, another example of this group’s relationship to tradition and music history. Lyricism returns with “A Place Where Nothing Happens,” based on the chorus of the Talking Heads song “Heaven.” Iverson’s solo on this tune is his best on the record for me. The album closes with “One Hour,” a tune Sperrazza previously recorded in 2017 on the excellent Juxtaposition. While that version allowed each soloist five choruses over a 28-bar form (12+2, twice; hope I hear that right!), here Iverson and Sperrazza take three roiling split choruses that appropriately evoke Cecil Taylor’s “Air.” At a minute and 52 seconds, the performance is like an exclamation point, bringing Saturday to a satisfying conclusion.

Saturday is a rewarding album that benefits from repeat listening (which I’ve done with pleasure). I’m not sure this record got a lot of notice last year – when I googled it, I only found two reviews – one on the Marlbank blog and another in the May 2023 New York City Jazz Record. Surprising! This record deserves more notice – you should listen.

Vinnie Sperrazza Apocryphal – Sunday

(Loyal Label, released January 19, 2024; Cover collage and design by Espen Freiberg)

Loren Stillman – tenor and soprano saxophone
Brandon Seabrook – guitar, banjo, mandolin
Eivind Opsvik – bass
Vinnie Sperrazza – drums

Buy from Bandcamp
Stream on Apple
Stream on Spotify

If Saturday is full of satisfying melodies, Sunday is an open-eared adventure that shows a much different side of Sperrazza – this is one for the progressive music fan. The concept was born a decade ago while contemplating the word “apocryphal,” which Sperrazza wrote about on his blog :

“Around the time I kept noticing the word, I wrote a tune with a melody that sounded sort of like ‘My Heart Belongs To Daddy,’ but with a tonic chord that kept switching willy-nilly between major and minor. When I played the song through, with its fake Cole Porter melody, and changes that only sort-of worked, I realized: ‘this tune is apocryphal.'”

The eponymous opening track of that 2014 album is a statement of purpose for a band that plays songs created outside conventional rules of structure and instrumentation because this music tells new stories. Sperrazza convened the perfect band to realize this concept – with the leader on drums, saxophonist Loren Stillman, bassist Eivind Opsvik, and guitarist/banjo player Brandon Seabrook, they play tunes that are adjacent to tradition and then break the rules to make something idiosyncratic and memorable.

The new album, Sunday, is the third studio album from the Apocryphal quartet and is their most focused release yet. What I loved most is how this record feels like an unfolding narrative, something Sperrazza makes explicit in his post about the album. Too often, improvised music gets mired in formula and loses sight of the raison d’être of jazz, the “sound of surprise.” Sunday avoids clichés with its episodic structure, and the writing, arranging, and playing have those surprises at every turn – you never really know what awaits you next.

But just because this group favors rule-breaking does not mean it has left melody behind. For example, the opening track, “Presence,” starts with over a minute of Loren Stillman playing a beautiful melody, unadorned and alone on tenor saxophone. Sperrazza says this tune depicts waking up and how it “changes something about the air around you.” Stillman captures that idea perfectly – the see-saw sax lines have a quiet perfection and evoke the idea of a dawning consciousness. Stillman’s sax is followed by Brandon Seabrook playing Derek Bailey-like “cracked” ideas, and then the sax/guitar/bass play this material together. The tune’s ending is tagged by gritty guitar feedback, maybe signaling that our protagonist has been rudely awoken from a somnolent dream. The opening track says a lot about the clarity of Sperrazza’s concept – Sunday is an experimental album at heart, but it does not lose the listener because it centers simple, beautiful melody alongside a skewering of the rules.

Interestingly, there are no drums on the opening track, and the following track, “First Weather,” is just Sperrazza – a drum solo that subtly builds both musical and narrative momentum. Those first two tracks introduce the listener to a progression of textures and moods that are combined when the band plays “Caffeine Dream,” the standout performance for me. Here, the drums and bass dig into a slinky groove, over which Stillman plays the melody and then a memorable solo. But the real spark comes from Seabrook, riffing with an incredibly transparent and energetic tone and playing a solo at the end of the track that is pure fire. “Caffeine Dream” has been a bit of a soundtrack for me since I’ve heard it, and it’s been on repeat for days.

That’s just the first three tracks. The remainder of the album is full of excellent music, and running at 38 minutes, Sperrazza knows how to avoid overstaying his welcome. If you play this album in the background, there is bound to be some idea or gesture that will jump out at you and draw your attention. Later, some small bit of music you heard will pop into your head – like Seabrook’s rhythmically wild banjo at the end of “PM Drift” (I didn’t know a banjo could phrase like Cecil Taylor!) or Sperrazza’s authentic rock beat on “Sundowning (Culture Is Cosmetic).” Sunday is an insistently diverting album that presents an eclectic but coherent vision. After hearing Sunday, this group has become one of my favorite ones in music, and I look forward to seeing the Apocryphal quartet live.

There you have it, Saturday and Sunday. These are two excellent albums that rejuvenate the mind and soul but are very different, just like the contrasting days of your weekend. Sperrazza was somebody I had only heard about before listening to these albums, but now he is planted at the top of the artists making music today music for me. I’ll be looking for what he does next, and you should, too!

More Vinnie Sperrazza Links:

Listen to Apocryphal
The Apocryphal quartet has captured my ear; I love its open-minded and exciting approach to music. If you enjoy Sunday, check out the prior albums by this group: their eponymous 2014 release, 2017’s Hide Ye Idols, and a lo-fi recording of a 2015 gig released in 2020. All these records feature unpredictable, eclectic, and exciting music.

A Substack Supreme
If you’ve come this far, I know you’ll subscribe to Sperrazza’s Substack page, Chronicles. Don’t take my word for it; you can trust Nate Chinen when he says Chronicles is a “must-subscribe, must-read.” One of the things that makes Sperrazza’s writing so great is his obvious passion for the history of music, combined with the knowledge he brings to the table, especially about drummers. I love his posts on the underrated Phillip Wilson, TNB favorites Ed Blackwell and Gerald Cleaver, and the three-part centennial celebration of Max Roach. Sperrazza also writes about non-drummers, and I can hardly wait for what he publishes next.

Two other new albums are out!
This post has focused on Sperrazza’s two recent leader sessions, but he’s on two more new albums you should also check out. Both released on February 16, Sperrazza is co-leader with saxophonist Charlotte Greve and bassist Chris Tordini on The Choir Invisible’s Town of Two Faces and also plays drums on Mike McGinnis’ Outing: Road Trip II. Like Saturday and Sunday, these are two very different records – the first focusing on free and expressive interplay with no piano, and the latter a romp through large band orchestrations in a variety of styles from Carla Bley to Count Basie. Sperrazza, whose drumming is so flexible, is a first-call drummer for settings like these and more.

Interview on YouTube
To prepare for this review, I watched an excellent interview on YouTube on the Thanks For Dropping By channel. I especially like the section (29 minutes in) where Sperrazza demonstrates the complexity of traditional rhythms and how getting an authentic feel is part of a lifetime’s work.

Apple calls it Lounge!
At The Necessary Blues, we try to look beyond labels and words that describe genre – those labels can be helpful but also feel like a prison. So I think it’s pretty laughable that Apple Music labels the genre for Saturday “Lounge.” If you use genre descriptions, try to get them right! But on the other hand, maybe somebody searching for “Lounge Music” would benefit from hearing an album full of invention and ideas.

“Saturday and Sunday”
I’m sure this is off-topic, but I can’t write about Saturday and Sunday without thinking about “Saturday and Sunday,” the epochal Jackie McLean tune. The 1963 performance of “Saturday and Sunday” comes from a genuinely killer band: McLean with Grachan Moncur III, Bobby Hutcherson, Eddie Khan, and Tony Williams. In a blog focused on progressive and experimental music, we need to give a nod to the Rosetta’s Stone. You can listen here.