BILL McHENRY at the New Languages Festival @ McCarren Hall, 9/18/09
SEPT 18, 2009 --WILLIAMSBURG: Watching the Bill McHenry Quartet fill McCarren Hall with sound, I felt a moment of clarity, and was struck by McHenry's music in a powerful way. I think he may be the ultimate bridge between tradition and transformation, the past and the future, the weird and the beautiful. I try not to make such bold statements, but holy shit is this music great.
It's the multiple dimensions of the music that really sells me so fully. On the X axis resides classic jazz traditions, not so much in the language of the music as much as song form, the melody into solos, featuring background lines from supporting band members, and tunes with melodies that you can sing back. Though tried and true, it is a difficult feat to operate within those parameters today and not sound a bit stale or if nothing else, unoriginal. There are plenty of exceptions, but McHenry's band is my favorite one of them. He opened with a blues, but breathed a personal life into it that was captivating. In that piece, and the ones that followed, the band displayed a tremendous understanding of the melody and form, but still realized so many approaches of free improvisation and sound manipulation.
A truly stale jazz tradition is "clapping after solos." In many clubs and settings, there lurks a dark cloud of obligation to approve of improvisations with the clapping of hands. Always. Often the sound completely breaks the energy of the performance piece. But with McHenry's group, the strength of the band's improvisations commanded audience exclamation, and the outcries became a part of the energy, rather then a distraction from it.
Bill McHenry's trust in his band members definitely played a part in encouraging such enthusiastic and listenable improvisations. The Maine-born tenor player spent a good chunk of the set sitting on the side of the stage, smiling in admiration of the music he facilitated. McHenry himself is one of the strongest composers and improvisers in the city. Although the venue of McCarren Hall is quite a large space, the band opted to go without microphones, and McHenry filled the warehouse with his deep tenor tone. An awesomely watchable sight was McHenry making full use of the large stage, pacing in a 5 foot square as he blew up down and around the changes of his pieces, which included the gorgeous, symphonic "Violetta" and the loose cannon "Norman." On the latter, alto saxophonist Andrew D'Angelo whipped his horn around, his notes breaking the air, pretty and harsh at the same time. Drummer RJ Miller's obscenely stiff swing and loose free playing held the lower grounds with bassist Joe Martin, and trumpeter Duane Eubanks was the ultimate third stream in the melodic trio that fronted the stage.
The group sound was always represented, with McHenry ripping 10 choruses, and Eubanks following with a modest two, somehow it all made sense, and became all the more stimulating; not a stale note in ears' reach. It may have been a giant warehouse, and the sound may not have been pristine, but this honest raw space was the perfect way to be bowled over by this band. I'd take this over the Village Vanguard any day.
