Immerse Yourself in Maria Schneider’s Jazz Orchestra at Birdland — Just Don’t Call It Dance Music

Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra Birdland, through June 24‘Data Lords’ (Artists Share) Suddenly, everyone in the room felt very old. Maria Schneider, the jazz composer and bandleader, announced about halfway through her opening set of a week at Birdland on Tuesday evening that she was currently celebrating the 30th anniversary of her orchestra. I interviewed Ms. Schneider early in her career and I asked her why she billed her ensemble as a “jazz orchestra” instead of a big band, when it clearly was the latter. She explained that people associate the term “big band music” with dancing, and that was an association that she wanted to avoid.Maria Schneider’s music is danceable in the sense that Alvin Ailey or Andre De Shields could choreograph a formal dance to it, but it is not something you could lindy hop or do any other kind of “social dancing” to. Her pieces are in a regular rhythm — they’re not free form or avant-garde or anything like that — but they’re not necessarily hummable either, she doesn’t write ear-worms. Rather, a piece like “Bluebird,” from her most recent album, the Grammy-winning “Data Lords” (2020) which opened the first set on Tuesday, isn’t something you dance or hum, but something you immerse yourself in. While some pieces later in the set added two Brazilian-style drummers, this was one of several that used a second keyboardist, Julien Labro on accordion, as well as Gary Versace playing Birdland’s familiar concert grand. The piece stresses a very regular rhythm, a simple sequence of a few quick notes, repeated many times, suggestive of a bird call. She gradually weaves other elements around it — sounds from here and there, this and that — almost as if she were building a nest. First there are very soft horns, softer flugelhorns rather than brassy trumpets, a flute or two in the reed section. The piece grows louder and more aggressive, but in a highly subtle way. Most jazz in any instrumental format is structured on the concept of choruses and turnarounds; the melodies, inspired by standard song form, are usually 32 bars long, so you can expect changes to happen at the end of every 32-bar chorus. In Ms. Schneider’s music, there are no such stops-and-starts — she moves from one portion to another subtly, without pausing or telegraphing in advance when something is going to happen. Even the interjection of a soloist feels completely organic, as when alto saxophonist Steve Wilson comes forward to solo, and all the other horns drop out, it feels completely natural and unforced. Mr. Wilson turns the beat somewhat around, and while he solos with the rhythm section, the feeling becomes much more funky. It builds to a higher excitement level without anyone listening necessarily being conscious of it — it just carries you along emotionally. As Mr. Wilson winds down his solo, the piece becomes tacci — quiet — again as Julien Labro begins an extended solo on accordion. The solos invariably sound like a part of the composition rather than an addition to it, which might be even more true here than in the classic big band jazz of Basie and Duke Ellington, especially since we in the house at least are not processing what we’re hearing in terms of the usual succession of choruses. Mr. Labro doesn’t so much play louder, but the reeds and brass start to envelop him, as if to lift him to a higher level – giving us the audio equivalent of a bird’s eye view.By the end of Mr. Labro’s solo, he starts to diminuendo, to play ever more softly, and gradually he is joined by the piano, and the two keyboards play a set of simple bird-like patterns, rather like two bluejays having a chirpy conversation amongst themselves.This was only the beginning; there followed five more pieces, each equally worthy of an extended discussion. Some works were old, like “Thompson Fields,” probably my single favorite work of hers, which she had been playing for many years before she recorded it in 2015. Others were new, like another ornithologically-inspired work dedicated to the great potoo, an avian species from Central and South America, which included passages in something like march time — rather aggressive for a bird song.Other pieces were somewhat in between, both old and new. She recorded her arrangement of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” on her second album “Coming About” (1995). Yet, as she related, Herbie Hancock stopped her at an airport to suggest her she should revamp it by setting up the soloists — trombonist Marshall Gilkes, trumpeter Mike Rodriguez, alto saxophonist Dave Pietro — to have to constantly switch meters and change keys. Hence this new version, as yet unrecorded.Along the way, she also announced that she was preparing a 30th anniversary project, a three-disc set to be titled “Decades,” which will offer samples and highlights of her music from the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. (Unbelievably, she only released one full album in all of the 2010s, although much of the two-CD “Data Lords” was apparently recorded in 2019.) I hope it will include some new music as well, such as “Great Potoo” and the revised “Giant Steps.”And here’s a listening tip, or, rather, what my editor at the old Village Voice called “Consumer Guidism”: with most performers and groups, you want to sit in the center of the house. If you do this at Birdland this week, you’ll see mostly the back of Maria Schneider’s head, since she focuses visually on the band during the whole show. The best place to sit, for my dough, at a Schneider show is house left, since she angles her face in the general direction of the rhythm section. Especially during Mr. Labro’s solo on “Bluebird,” her beautiful face lit up even more than it usually does when she’s performing. None of those agonized-artists facial expressions for her, thank God. Watching her reaction to her own music somehow makes a good thing even better.

Immerse Yourself in Maria Schneider’s Jazz Orchestra at Birdland — Just Don’t Call It Dance Music

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