Like many older fans, I’ve been waiting for a movement among jazz musicians to respond to the civil unrest and uprisings that have roiled the country for the last six years or so. The time seemed right for a new generation to follow the example of artists such as Archie Shepp, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln and make strong, forthright statements decrying injustice and state-sanctioned violence.
On Friday night at BOP STOP, Civil Disobedience, a quintet assembled by bassist David Ambrosio, will keep the flame of the ’60s alive, not just rhetorically, but musically as well.
With a classic lineup of trumpet (Marquis Hill), saxophone (Donny McCaslin) and rhythm (Ambrosio, pianist Bruce Barth and drummer EJ Strickland), Civil Disobedience inevitably recalls the sound of the bands that made Blue Note Records the most influential label of its time.
That’s no accident. The band is a repertory project of sorts, dedicated to surfacing lesser-known music from the label’s catalog. “One day, someone introduced me to these Blue Note recordings that I had never heard before, and the music itself just really drew me in. I started transcribing them, and then I started playing them, ” Ambrosio said on a video call. “Even avid listeners who have tons of recordings were like, ‘Wow, what is this music?’ And even more so, ‘How come I don’t know it?’”
It’s a good question. The compositions on the band’s self-titled debut, which will be released in April on Blue Frog Records, offer a fascinating portrait of a time when jazz was experimenting with ways to bring new sounds to the context of swinging small groups.
All of the music on the upcoming Civil Disobedience release comes from sessions led by the vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson with six of the seven songs recorded in 1968 and 69 but not released until 1980. These records, Ambrosio said, “seemed to be the most interesting to me in terms of modern music, but still very connected to the swinging hard bop era that had just come before it. I was like wow; these guys are really dealing with some stuff that jazz musicians today have been exploring for the past 20 years or so.”
Ambrosio’s immersion in the Hutcherson material began in 2017, and over the next year, his interest in the musical aspect of the compositions was amplified by what they said about their era. “A number of the songs had themes that related to this turbulent time where society was dealing with civil rights and anti-war movements and economic justice and all kinds of stuff, and I was looking at my world around me and going, ‘Man, we’re dealing with the same thing right now.”
The connection between music and activism is second nature to Ambrosio, who has been an advocate for animal rights (he is a vegan) and environmental issues in New York. “I’m also born in 1968, on April 1–three days before Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated–and so I have some connection to that time because I came into the world at that time. There’s some energetic thing there, and it just felt very timely and profound to me.”
He transcribed about 20 compositions from the records and assembled a band to present them. On the front line were McCaslin and trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, with whom Ambrosio had played in a band led by drummer George Schuller. Barth, a consummate and in-demand accompanist on the New York scene, joined, and for the drum chair Ambrosio approached Victor Lewis, who played and recorded with Hutcherson.
Lewis, now 75, has retired from playing. The Civil Disobedience release will almost certainly be his last recording. With Jensen unavailable, Marquis Hill, who will appear next week at the Cleveland Museum of Art with Makaya McCraven, is luxury casting for the trumpet chair.
The music has everything you want from the classic Blue Note era: a muscular rhythmic profile, exploratory harmonies, a touch of the blues and memorable melodies. Hearing them, perhaps for the first time, you might wonder why these strong songs sat on Blue Note’s shelves for so long—or why they aren’t covered more often.
Like so many notable discoveries, there was an element of serendipity attending the birth of Civil Disobedience. “I had no intention of doing this kind of project at all,” Ambrosio said. “I was just being a jazz musician who was performing. But to some degree, I think that we’re all activists in our everyday lives based on what we actually do with our lives.”
Civil Disobedience Fri., Feb. 13, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, tickets available here
Trading Fours
There’s never a bad time to get out and commune in the same room with creative musicians. Below are four musical events of interest in the coming week that you might want to check out.
Cowboy Princess Brigade
Wednesday, Feb. 11, 7 p.m.
BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, tickets
It’s not often that I drop a recommendation from outside the jazzosphere in this space, but rules are made to be broken–especially when I make the rules. So here’s a word about CPB for which my neighbor Freddy Hill is the bassist and which bills itself as a “Glam-mericana-soul” band. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, their EP release concert is sold out at press time, but now that summer weather has returned to NEO, you could maybe camp outside BOP STOP in hopes of a last-minute seat opening up?
Valentines Eve Eve: “Jazz for Lovers & Lonely Hearts” with Tommy Lehman and Friends
Thursday, Feb. 12, 8 p.m.
BLU Jazz+, 47 E. Market St., Akron, tickets
When I was an advertising guy, we had a name for the ploy of tying two unrelated propositions together for marketing purposes: borrowed interest. Even by the elastic standards of that discipline, “Valentine’s Eve Eve” is stretching it, but who needs borrowed interest when Tommy Lehman is on the stand? With his ability to baby a torch song until the tears fall at one moment then light your hair on fire with a high-altitude solo the next, his musicianship is self-recommending.
Skatch Anderssen Orchestra “Tribute To Thad, Mel and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra“
Monday, Feb. 16, 8 p.m.
Brothers Lounge, 11607 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, free
For years, Monday nights in New York belonged to the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. The stage at Brothers Lounge isn’t much bigger than that of the Village Vanguard, which Thad and Mel was the proving ground for the kind of innovation that the Blue Note artists were concurrently bringing to small group jazz. Times change, but the music goes on and on.
Zaire Darden Quartet
Wednesday, Feb. 18, 6:30 p.m.
Happy Days Lodge, 500 W. Streetsboro Rd., Peninsula, tickets
Now that the longest interval without a thaw in 120 years has ended and balmy summer weather has returned (well, it feels like that), going out might feel like less of a burden. And shouldn’t Cuyahoga Valley National Park be beautiful right now? Suggestion for jazz fans: Why not double-dip and catch a performance by some solid senders in a while you’re at it?
For the most complete listing of jazz and jazz-adjacent events., look to Jim Szabo’s essential, weekly Northeast Ohio jazz calendar.
