One of the happy signs of summer in New York City is its wealth of music – both indoors and out – and for fans of free, improvised, and “avant-garde” jazz, the Vision Festival is the flagship and stalwart festival. This year’s Vision Festival – the 29th one, opened with a night of the great Roscoe Mitchell (on June 2) and over six nights was full of other standouts like David Murray’s “Francesca” Quartet, Marilyn Crispell’s solo piano, Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble and many more. I had a chance to go on June 5, which was the fourth night of the festival. It was a fabulous start to my summer, and I’d like to tell you about the night. Art moves us into a new place, and while the music has, as Eric Dolphy said, gone “into the air,” we can still tell stories.
Davalois Fearon’s Up/Right
(L-R – Davalois Fearon, Marýa Wethers (other dancers obscured), Adriel Vincent-Brown (d), Mike Mcginnis (ts), Peter Applebaum (p) out of frame; photo – James Koblin)
The evening started with Up/Right, a multi-disciplinary performance created by Davalois Fearon that featured four dancers (Davalois Fearon, Jalisa Wallerson, Marýa Wethers, and Myssi Robinson), pre-recorded poetry by Patricia Smith, and music by the trio of Mike McGinnis on multiple reeds, Peter Applebaum on piano and Adriel Vincent-Brown on drums. This piece was the premiere of Up/Right, which Fearon’s website describes as integrating “research on non-Western African diasporic forms” which “explores how cross-cultural movements, mainly stemming from the African diaspora, have shaped the development of contemporary dance and celebrates the forms that helped build American dance.”
Of course, reporting on dance performances is not what this blog is about, but Up/Right struck me as bold and engaging. Fearon began the performance at the front edge of the stage, her back to the audience, arms raised. The dance, and simultaneously the music, were cued by Fearon in the style of a concert conductor. It was clever and thought-provoking to reverse the narrative roles of the dancer and the music, which, to me, played as a riff on the Eurocentric idea of music direction. Soon, the dance and music settled into a more African (and jazz) paradigm of dialogue, the highlight for me being Jalisa Wallerson’s kinetic movements set to energetic snare drumming by Adriel Vincent-Brown.
Up/Right also incorporated an abstract visual element, where the dancers took turns drawing on paper spread across the floor, which eventually became visual art hung across the stage. McGinnis was credited as music director, and the music fluidly morphed from abstraction to more genre-specific ideas (memorably a dance hall/Rocksteady portion) and then into a fantastic Sons of Kemet-like groove. McGinnis is a very talented multi-instrumentalist, and he transitioned from tenor to bass clarinet and ultimately to soprano sax, playing with a glowing tone that I don’t often hear on the straight horn. I certainly hope Fearon’s Up/Right will receive the support it needs to be performed in other venues so that audiences can experience this multimedia feast live.
Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio
(L-R – Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Ivo Perelman, Mat Maneri; photo – James Koblin)
Matthew Shipp was clearly excited to present this long-time-in-the-making group. Earlier, Shipp had been greeting attendees to Vision in Roulette’s lobby as they entered, and he could be seen darting here and there before the set, a bundle of energy ready to take the stage. Before the set, emcee Patricia Nicholson Parker introduced Shipp and his band, saying, “Matthew Shipp would like to say a few words.” Shipp took the mic and shared why he was so animated. Shipp explained that as the Matthew Shipp String Trio, he, bassist William Parker, and violinist/violist Mat Maneri had recorded two albums for the Swiss Hat Hut label – Expansion, Power, Release (2001) and By The Law Of Music (2002), but the group has not recorded together since. Enter the prolific Ivo Perelman, who has recorded many times with Parker, with Maneri, and especially with Shipp (Shipp said of Perelman, “We’ve recorded maybe 40-50 albums, I’ve lost track at this point’). However, before the new album Armageddon Flower (recorded last year and released June 20 of this year), these four musicians had never played together as a group. After questioning why this had never happened before, Shipp slipped behind the piano, and the music started.
During the following 45 minutes, Shipp and this group drew on themes and ideas from Armageddon Flower, yet the set stood apart as a distinct and spontaneous performance, which the group played as continuous music without interruption. A recent (and excellent) review of Armageddon Flower asserts that Perelman is the leader of this group, but that was not what I was hearing. Not only did Shipp introduce the ensemble, but his stormy block chords and unmistakable chromatic patterns cued each transition and dynamic change. For much of the set, the quartet played simultaneously, developing thick overlapping lines that gave the music a dense feel. A pleasurable kind of density for sure! But after fifteen minutes, either Perelman or Shipp would periodically lay out and turn the music over to the strings – Parker (usually on arco) and Maneri’s violin. In one particularly memorable passage, Maneri jumped out as the lead voice with a solo of fractured melody that sounded ancient and modern at the same time, prompting spontaneous applause even while the music went on. Maneri’s great solo was a moment of quiet beauty at the center of the stormy set.
Like Shipp, my excitement and expectations were sky-high. Having heard Armageddon Flower before the show, I can tell you it’s a highlight from the discographies of all its esteemed players. It’s also a record built around subtle dynamic shifts and exquisite interactions that made me wonder how such introspective music was translating. At one point, an attendee on my left was visibly having a cathartic experience while to my right, somebody else was impassively munching on a bag of Kettle chips (so rude!). I can tell you for myself I’m looking forward to the chance to hear this remarkable ensemble again and spend some time pulling apart the intricacies of the music. In the meantime – the album has my highest recommendation.
Oliver Lake Poetry Set
(L-R Jahi Sundance Lake, Oliver Lake; photo – James Koblin)
In an abrupt change from the heavy communion of the Shipp group, Jahi Sundance Lake stamped his turntable cases down on a table on stage right and set up his DJ gear to accompany his father, saxophonist, visual artist, and, as I’ve now discovered – poet – Oliver Lake. In her opening remarks, Patricia Nicholson Parker stated it’s so rare to have someone good at all these things. I miss hearing Lake’s beautifully acerbic sax, but it seems Lake – who’s 82 years old – is not satisfied with his chops and opts not to play alto publicly any more. Lake’s poetry set reminded me a lot of fellow sax player Joe McPhee, who sometimes lays aside the sax for poetry.
I have to concur that Lake’s poetry was a lot of fun. Lake performed several poems he’s recorded in the past, such as the political and still timely “Shock & Ave” and “Land Line” from the 2011 album Lakes at the Stone, and “Ain’t Nothin’ Real BUT Love” and “Lucky One” from Justice – The Vocal Works of Oliver Lake (2022). His poetry is a mixture of observations on life’s hardships, political references, and often humorous allusions to pop culture. My wife and I particularly enjoyed a poem with a funny refrain from the chorus of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” I came in a bit of a skeptic, but I wouldn’t mind hearing more Oliver Lake poetry.
Michael Wimberly’s Spritworld
(L-R – Lisa Sokolov, William Parker, JD Parran, Michael Wimberley, Oluyemi Thomas; photo – James Koblin)
I don’t really know drummer Michael Wimberley, and the only album of his I’ve heard before is the R&B-influenced Afrofuturism, which doesn’t sound much like the music he presented here, which he calls “Spiritworld.” This group played a continuous set of music (an approach shared with every group on June 5 except the last), and the conception was drawn in equal parts from African musical (and visual) concepts and jazz improvisation in the style of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The music was always quite rhythm-based, and Wimberly’s drums powerfully filled the role of a drum choir.
Apparently, the “Spiritworld” ensemble was a group that performed in a museum space about 15 years ago, playing among visual works painted by Jeff Schlanger. For Roulette on night 4, the reconvened “Spiritworld” group played with a backdrop of video footage from the original art installation, which featured the group members captured at their inaugural performance. The reunion was almost complete – unfortunately, Joe McPhee couldn’t make it (Nicholson said something about him being in London), but he was ably replaced by multi-reed virtuoso JD Parran. Also on multiple reeds was Oluyemi Thomas, and one of the delights of this set was seeing them break out all of their hardware as the music developed. Every few minutes, Thomas and Parran were playing some new clarinet, saxophone, or flute in a display that was as visually compelling as it was musically adventurous. Not to be outdone, William Parker accompanied on at least three instruments – a guembri (a three-string guitar of Gnawa music), a colorfully painted giant double reed instrument, and a trumpet-like horn with a wide rubato sound that cut through the music.
While the instrumentalists were all great, for me the star was vocalist Lisa Sokolov, who alternated between wordless singing and lyrics that often incorporated poetry or referred to jazz musicians. Sokolov’s voice has been called “stealthy, restive, forceful and fearless,” or an instrument that can “lull you to blissful sleep” and then “sweeps and crashes you further along the rocky coastline.” I quoted those so I don’t have to stretch metaphors – I’ll say at Roulette on June 5, Sokolov’s voice often jumped out of the ensemble with a bright energy and captivating rhythmic complexity that created needed movement in music that relied on static vamps. She was (for me) the main point of interest in a set that reached back to ancient modes and made connections from the ancient to the future.
Mary Halvorson’s “Canis Major”
(L-R – Mary Halvorson, Henry Fraser, Tomas Fujiwara, Dave Adewumi; photo – James Koblin)
It’s great when an evening of music builds to a natural and inevitable endpoint, which, in this case, was undoubtedly the new band of the doyenne of creative music, Mary Halvorson. Halvorson’s main band since 2021 has been the “Amaryllis” sextet, a wonderful vehicle for Halvorson’s rich writing, but where her guitar playing takes something of a back seat. With the “Canis Major” group which debuted at The Jazz Gallery in March and headlined this night at Roulette, Halvorson gives herself and her more than able bandmates a lot more solo space. Why “Canis Major?” I’m not sure, and I could not find any interviews with Halvorson about this yet-to-be-recorded group. However, the name means “greater dog” in Latin, and (more likely Halvorson’s reference point) is the constellation in the southern sky that contains Sirius, the brightest star. Halvorson and her music burn just as brightly in the world of creative music, and a new band like this is something to celebrate (and go see when you can).
So, back to the music. The opening tune, a dynamic fanfare (I don’t have song names, but Halvorson seems to have written new tunes for this band), gave an opportunity to really appreciate the playing of Halvorson, who took the first solo, and the new (to me, at least) trumpet player Dave Adewumi. Halvorson has always been one of the most dynamic and unique guitarists in music, and her playing only gets more sophisticated, expressive, and just plain fun. On June 5, her fierce rhythms, sculpting of melodic phrases, delightful logic, and idiosyncratic originality were all utterly compelling, and the immediacy of live performance only heightened the experience. I was totally enthralled.
Adewumi was terrific as well – I want to avoid the clichés often used to describe the sound of the trumpet, but I’ll say that he has the chops to play dynamic and strong phrases, and I was super excited to hear such a wonderful trumpet player with the good sound and focused presentation that Roulette provides. If you want to listen to this rising talent now, you can check him out with trumpeter Dave Douglas on the 2020 album Dizzy Atmosphere – Dizzy Gillespie At Zero Gravity and on Douglas’ forthcoming Alloy, out September 5. I also loved the bass playing of Henry Fraser, who sounds like he’s from the Charlie Haden mold; a long and melodic bass intro to one of the tunes really stood out. Not least in scenery-chewing was drummer Tomas Fujiwara, who played detailed and exciting lines on his cymbals and snare throughout the night and, on the penultimate tune, incorporated a squeaky drum stool and a long false start into the structure of an irreverent and funny drum solo. There’s a lot to be excited about with “Canis Major,” and while I can’t get enough of the “Amaryllis” band, I need to hear a more of this one too. There’s more than enough room in this world for two brilliant bands lead by Mary Halvorson.
What an evening of music! Vision Fest has been a key supporter of New York City’s arts and live music for 27 years and is better than ever. Music from evenings like this builds on each other cumulatively and leaves you with a content, joyful feeling. While Vision Fest 2025 is in the books, every night across NYC and around the world, there’s glorious and exciting music being played. Right now, on a bandstand somewhere, some incredible musicians are just killing it! If you have the chance to go to see and hear live music – art created right in front of you – GO!