Review: Fred Hersch & esperanza spalding: ‘Alive at the Village Vanguard’ AllAboutJazz.com, 25 January, 2023
Author: John Chacona
What’s the second-most exciting day in a composer’s life? The day of the first performance of a new piece, of course. So, what’s the most exciting day? The day of the second performance. World premieres are exciting, but many compositions are heard once and then disappear. A second performance confers a bit of staying power.
This is especially true in the concert music world, but composers of creative music in the Black American tradition face many of the same challenges in bringing their work to the stage. Enter The Third Law Collective, a gathering of local composer/players whose project to present and support new composition in northeast Ohio gets underway Jan. 26 at Bop Stop.
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On the day before he spoke with me for this piece, Chris Hovan’s active Facebook account, a worthy follow, by the way, featured a tabletop photo showed a CD jewel box next to a glass of scotch. The caption read, “One of my top 5 Blue Notes, period!”
The CD was Grant Green’s Talkin’ About, a storied 1965 Blue Note Records release with Larry Young (Khalid Yasin) and Elvin Jones. That lineup of guitar, Hammond Organ and drums, just happens to have the same instrumentation as Hovan’s Organic Trio, the band that the Cleveland drummer will bring to Bop Stop for a Friday night concert.
Was this a sign of what the Cleveland audience might expect?
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Being a creative musician in Chicago almost demands a willingness to play anything, everywhere with everybody. Percussionist Tim Daisy and saxophonist Ken Vandermark, who will appear at Convivium 33 Friday, Jan. 13, embody that imperative as well as anyone, having collaborated with hundreds of musicians, movement and visual artists on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet despite lengthy resumes that suggest an affinity with musical speed dating, the two are just as committed to long-term relationships, especially their own.
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