A Musical Adventure with Ned Rothenberg and Sync
By Adam Phillips
|
|
|
Photos by Adam Phillips
On Saturday evening, September 25, local yokels and out-of-towners alike were treated to a fascinating musical adventure at the Old Town Hall, as Ned Rothenberg and Sync, his longtime jazz and world music trio, took the stage for the latest offering in the West Stockbridge Historical Society’s Jazz Series.
Rothenberg, long known to jazz cognoscenti as a virtuosic multi-instrumentalist and composer, began the set with a long clarinet solo, whose haunting and unpredictable cadences seemed almost like an invocation, a vessel for his seamless collaboration with Jerome Harris (acoustic bass guitar and guitar) and Samir Chatterjee, master of the tabla, a harmonic Indian drum.
Rothenberg addressed the audience frequently in a warm and accessible way that helped audiences feel open and relaxed during the original compositions that followed. They included “The Hotel Lazard Cafe,” inspired by a fictional New Orleans locale, and “Port of Entry,” which Ned played on an ultra-long bass clarinet. Another composition, “Gamalong,” sounded to me almost like Bach but with twists within twists.
New York-based Chatterjee, who had been living in Kolkata (Calcutta) for most of the pandemic, wowed the audience with the subtlety and range of his extended solos, punctuated with vocalizations that followed the notes and rhythms of his tabla, which he sometimes played at such speed one could not even see his fingers clearly. His music morphed beautifully into deeply “jazz” moments shared by Rothenberg and Harris’s masterly bass solos.
A great highlight was Rothenberg’s performance of “Lost in a Blue Forest” on the shakuhachi, a long Japanese bamboo flute originally developed for Zen meditation (but which legend has it came to do double duty as a weapon during the 19th century). He studied this instrument with shakuhachi masters in Japan, where he frequently performs on world tours. Rothenberg brought out the unique loneliness and contemplative spirit for which the instrument is traditionally known.
Although Rothenberg can play jazz standards with the best of them (and often does with many of his other groups), this unfamiliar concert program was an exhilarating new experience for many in the audience, who loudly insisted on an encore. As one audience member said with a broad smile as the “curtain” came down, “I could sit here happily and listen for another hour or two.”
To learn more about Ned, visit www.nedrothenberg.com.
Rothenberg, long known to jazz cognoscenti as a virtuosic multi-instrumentalist and composer, began the set with a long clarinet solo, whose haunting and unpredictable cadences seemed almost like an invocation, a vessel for his seamless collaboration with Jerome Harris (acoustic bass guitar and guitar) and Samir Chatterjee, master of the tabla, a harmonic Indian drum.
Rothenberg addressed the audience frequently in a warm and accessible way that helped audiences feel open and relaxed during the original compositions that followed. They included “The Hotel Lazard Cafe,” inspired by a fictional New Orleans locale, and “Port of Entry,” which Ned played on an ultra-long bass clarinet. Another composition, “Gamalong,” sounded to me almost like Bach but with twists within twists.
New York-based Chatterjee, who had been living in Kolkata (Calcutta) for most of the pandemic, wowed the audience with the subtlety and range of his extended solos, punctuated with vocalizations that followed the notes and rhythms of his tabla, which he sometimes played at such speed one could not even see his fingers clearly. His music morphed beautifully into deeply “jazz” moments shared by Rothenberg and Harris’s masterly bass solos.
A great highlight was Rothenberg’s performance of “Lost in a Blue Forest” on the shakuhachi, a long Japanese bamboo flute originally developed for Zen meditation (but which legend has it came to do double duty as a weapon during the 19th century). He studied this instrument with shakuhachi masters in Japan, where he frequently performs on world tours. Rothenberg brought out the unique loneliness and contemplative spirit for which the instrument is traditionally known.
Although Rothenberg can play jazz standards with the best of them (and often does with many of his other groups), this unfamiliar concert program was an exhilarating new experience for many in the audience, who loudly insisted on an encore. As one audience member said with a broad smile as the “curtain” came down, “I could sit here happily and listen for another hour or two.”
To learn more about Ned, visit www.nedrothenberg.com.