Mat Maneri Quintet 4/28 NYC

[Steve Reynolds]

Saturday, Apr 28 - 9:00PM & 10:30PM

MAT MANERI QUINTET

Mat Maneri, viola; Oscar Noriega, alto saxophone, bass clarinet; Kris Davis, piano; Garth Stevenson, bass; Randy Peterson, drums

Mat Maneri regroups his quintet with an all new line up featuring veterans Oscar Noriega rich sound…opulent resonance…highly individualized voice JazzTimes, Kris Davis " in New York one method for deciding where to hear jazz on a given night has been to track down the pianist Kris Davis." - NY Times, newcomer Garth Stevenson and long time collaborator, Randy Peterson one of the great jazz drummers to emerge in the past couple of decades - JazzTimes.

The quintet will feature all new music blending contemporary jazz, microtonality and modern classical music. The unusual acoustic instrumentation of viola, bass clarinet, piano, bass and drums will also seamlessly weave in electronic ambience. The quintets goal is to follow in the great jazz tradition and lineage of expanding the boundaries of improvised music, they are currently preparing to record for the Dahabenzapple label who will be releasing the new Maneri/Peterson duet 27 later this year.

Mat (Maneri) upholding avant-garde excellence,…engrossing, ruminative viola improvisation of contrasting reticence - Boston Globe

As some who may have read my comments regarding a show this past December know, I saw a similar Mat Maneri quintet with Craif Taborn on piano (in place of Kris Davis) and Ed Schuller on bass (in place of Garth Stevenson).

Granted the talents of those two superior musicians may well be missed - as both were great during last Decemeber's show @ The Stone. Taborn especially was able to find his way inside the mysterious Maneri matrix which is difficult for a pianist to do as silence and space is necessary. I think Kris Davis has a chance to meld in well with the band and Stevenson played with a quartet last fall and was fine.

But this band is playing 2 sets - my guess might be that they may play some of Mat's compositions which are quite loose and leave most of the music up to the improvisors. Or they may play all free or maybe one of the 2 sets is free improvisation - mayeb the second would make more sense. In any case, the mix of Mat with Noriega was pretty damn incredible with Oscar bringing a far different vibe to the music than the late great Round Man did.

But despite Mat's somewhat inconsistent nature vis a vis improvising (to my ears) he remains as great a pure improvisor when he hits his groove as any musician alive.

strong praise - hyperbole? I used to be famous (infamous?!?!) for it back in the early days of the jazz internet wars.... - but damn the last 3 times I saw him, once he was good, once he was pretty damn great, and the time with the quintet in December he was beyond most anything I could imagine...without a net one cannot expect pure fucking brilliance all the time as the risk and reward is heavy. This band's dynamics were extreme - as soft as soft can be maybe even the first 15 - 20 minutes - not quite to the soft eai levels, but soft enough - one thinks @ Cornelia Street that they won't take that same tact or at least to that extreme - but I have never known a Maneri to play anything except what they prefer tp play.

And as I saif on another board, maybe what I am most looking forward to is when the *great* Randy Peterson gets it cranked up with boys or without, that a couple of rows of unsuspecting tourists are cleared right the fuck out....

still.....

Coming Down the Mountain, baby

Edited April 24, 2012 by Steve Reynolds

[CraigP]

I'm interested in how Maneri is now performing with what I consider a younger generation of musician like Kris Davis and her circle. Although I haven't checked birth dates, so maybe I'm off...

[Steve Reynolds]

My guess is that Davis and Stevenson are younger than Mat - Stevenson quite a bit younger, but Mat is only 42....

[Steve Reynolds]

well well.....

3 or 4 feet from Mat with Oscar Noriega in the center with Kris Davis on the left - the bassist in the back left and the drums behind Maneri - first piece must have been number 1 and it was a good 15 minute warm-up in which Davis impressed, Noriega was fine on the bass clarinet and the rest of the band started to find it's place. some problems with the reedist's microphone so he jokes "make sure they can hear the clarinet"

Mats then says ok - we will start off with a viola/clarinet duo - someone int he band asks "do we then go into number 2" and I think Mat responded with something like " No - then we hit it, or then we will just go"

and then they started to go, hit it, or whatever the height of so-called 'Maneri Music" is at it's very best. Kris Davis plays Monkian, Cecilian, Tatumesque even - certainly all of those influences are there - and some Paul Bley too for sure - but it is unimaginable, indescribable piano and I asked my new friend who we waited in line with about her - and he plays the piano - and I think his jaw was dropped - this was NOTHING like the Kris Davis I had seen with her own band or with Malaby's 9 piece. Had to be seen and heard for anyone reading this how great this set was getting.

the *great* Randy Peterson starts heating it up as well, and the first solo is typically awesome - as always (or so I THOUGHT) threatening a groove) the ceiling may have shook, but methinks at that point, still holding something back.

fwiw - this quality of off-kilter precision is a hallmark of what is now and has been for a while, Mat's music when it is played by his band.

with about 40-45 minutes gone, we knew they would play one more piece - maybe it was number 2 but I don't know - whatever it was it had a fairly typical jazzish head - and then I may have heard an almost walking bass - and mother of jesus, I heard the great drummerman playing as close to a groove as I have ever heard him play - and I also knew that there would be a viola/drum duet at the end as Mat had said to the band, that was where they were going - and maybe when he sometimes called out soloists - "Kris!" or "Garth" or what anyone who has seen the boys and girls a few times really wants to hear "RANDY!"

so Oscar plays Charlie Parker meets Jimmy Lyons and Eric Dolphy all rolled into one and blows the fucking roof off the place - and maybe this is the tune/performance that any doubter of the Maneri magic needed to hear. - and then the duet...

and Mat in about 5 minutes with Peterson starting to shake the walls really tunred up the intensity and closed the set with a ferocity and brilliance that no musician I know has matched in many years.

Stunning - and my wife who is not a jazz head was amazed.....

second set was said to be "short and sweet" and as with a similar quintet last December they started with a "ballad" - fine slow, then Mat tells them "slow down" and it gets to that tempo that is only heard in this music - as slow as stop and as stopped as slow - and the undulating dynamics continue - it gets very intense on all kind of levels - but still nothing like the heights of the first 60 minute set.

and then......

second piece was a free improvisation and Oscar Noriega took the b-flat clarinet to places I dodn't know it could go to, the band and the drummer found a new altered cryptic non-grooved swing thing with accents and cymbals in all the unknown and lost places that few if any drummers find and the band rocks the place the fuck out and then there is time for one more - an old Mat tune called Dolphy's Dance and it is equally stunning and it's over after a special lady who know someone in the band is screaming throughout the last 5 or 10 minutes like it was a rock band until Mat had the band bring it down - and then it was back and I think my wife may have thought it was the best band she had seen yet - and to me maybe the best since DKV in 2001 or maybe the second Brotz Tentet gig @ Tonic in 2001 or 2002.

the lady wants an encore (not my wife, the other one) and Mat says ok - "we will play 30 seconds of the most incredible shit ever played"

then they did.

plus Mat loves that my e-mail is dahabenzapple2@aol.com!!!

of course - for the reason he is here - even though it is Mat's band - it comes from the great man - it lives on through one of the greatest pure improvisors this music has known - they did say he was always the best musician in the band, even 20 years ago....

and until next time, when Mat most likely will start it us with 'here we go'

Get Ready To Receive Yourself