“I play energy, not notes,” Nathan-Paul declares on his press site, and if you’ve ever heard him play, you know it’s true. With interests as a broadcaster, musician, label owner and composer. Stephen Philip Harvey seems to be energy embodied. So catching up with these two protean creators reveals only a single frame in the epic film of their careers.
But this week is a rich moment to do so as both bring new projects to northeast Ohio on Friday, Harvey at BOP STOP and Nathan-Paul at BLU Jazz+.
Stephen Philip Harvey: Mythos Maker
Stephen Philip Harvey is constant motion. Credit his big nerd energy or just a restless and insatiable interest in all sorts of things, from superheroes to current events. A life change prompted a move from Maryland’s Eastern Shore to Philadelphia a few months ago. It’s a change that is better measured by vibes rather than by geography, and Harvey is still taking the measure of it.
“It’s crazy. There are world-class musicians everywhere,” he said. “Outside of the Black church, I have never been around this many people of color who are inspired and passionate and go-getting about instrumental music. My goodness!”
Hey Stephen Philip Harvey, welcome to the club. You’re not only going, you’re getting—specifically, getting the kind of recognition and support that comes with prestigious grant awards. He’s won two of them recently, one of which, from Chamber Music America, supported the creation of the new work that Harvey will bring to BOP STOP Friday.
It’s called “Mythos,” a suite for octet, that reflects, Harvey said, “a cultural refocus that I wanted in my career.” Within that narrow focus, though, Harvey’s field of vision was wide.
“We have a piece based on John Henry, the African-American folktale that is the man-versus-machine story of the Transcontinental Railroad. We have a piece based off of the African trickster, Anansi the Spider. There’s even tunes dedicated to the practice of herbalism,” Harvey said.
The band is the familiars Cleveland/Pittsburgh octet: Chris Coles on alto saxophone, Garrett Folger on trumpet, Reggie Watkins, on trombone, guitarist Dan Bruce, Theron Brown on keys, bassist Jordan McBride and Dustin May on drums.
Harvey and the octet will head into the studio soon to record “Mythos,” but meanwhile, the group has just released a single from a forthcoming recording of yet another suite, “The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword.” It might be Harvey’s strongest work to date and you can hear it at the YouTube link below.
Stephen Philip Harvey Octet Fri., Oct. 30, 8 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, Tickets $25 available here
Nathan-Paul: Chasing The Sublime Ridiculous
Nathan-Paul, too, is a man on the move–literally. When we spoke last week, he was walking the streets of his native Cleveland Heights, on his way from an unspecified somewhere to somewhere else (the image below was captured when Zoom froze on that walk).
That fairly describes his musical life, too. His latest destination, The Ridiculous Club Society, will make its debut Friday at BLU Jazz+, but don’t think of it as a band, per se.
“It’s a literal society. It’s a club like Steve Coleman’s M-BASE Collective,” the saxophonist said. “It’s just a group of musicians. A bunch of different bands or groups could be represented under that.”
On Friday, the band will include longtime collaborator Zaire Darden on drums, Pittsburgh bassist and producer Denzel Chismar-Oliver and Timo Jin-En Mok on keys. “And then Gabe Jones will be there playing drums to some capacity,” he added. “He might play three songs. He might play seven songs. It literally depends on how the smiles on people’s faces look.”
Those smiles matter to Nathan-Paul. He’s not particularly interested in impressing music nerds with his mastery of arcane musical language. “If you went to a doctor, and the doctor uses all fancy terms the whole time, you’re just like, ‘Well, only one of us went to medical school, bro.’ Yet when we go to music concerts or when people come to our shows, a lot of us don’t wanna kind of break down who we are for people. We just assume they’ll get it. And that’s incorrect.”
Call him a musical populist, a moniker that’s only reinforced by the title of the Society’s first single, “I Be Screamin’.” Pay attention to that title. Nathan-Paul starts with the jittery, upbeat-accenting funk rhythms of M-BASE, but replaces Coleman’s almost mathematical precision with the incendiary fervor of Albert Ayler’s energy blowing.
The saxophonist recently posted a video to his social media account arguing for more emotional honesty in music. He called the video “Spiritual Constipation.” It’s not exactly Ayler’s “Spiritual Unity,” but the message is the same: play what you feel.
That’s what Nathan-Paul is doing in some of the most interesting music being made in northeast Ohio today, music that feels a lot like our frenzied, distracted, nonlinear world today.
Ridiculous? More like real life.
Nathan Paul & The Ridiculous Club Society Fri., Oct. 30, 8 p.m., BLU Jazz+, 47 Market St., Akron, tickets $25 in advance, $30 at the door, available here.
For the most complete listing of jazz and jazz-adjacent events., look to Jim Szabo’s essential, weekly Northeast Ohio jazz calendar.
