Trumpeter Ralph Alessi brings his quartet to Portland's 1905 Jazz Club

Ralph Alessi w /John Hebert and Mark Ferber at 1905 Portland  June 29, 2023

The lyrical and expressive trumpet artist Ralph Alessi brought the latest configuration of his quartet to Portland's 1905 this past Thursday evening. Alessi is one of those hybrid players whose music references many different strains, from classical, to avant-garde, to post-bop jazz to pop influences like Stevie Wonder. Alessi is from a musical family. His mother Maria was in the opera chorus and his father Joseph Sr. was the lead trumpeter in the Metropolitan Opera. Brother Joseph Jr. is the principal trombonist at the NY Philharmonic and is world-class on his instrument. Alessi himself is a respected educator who founded the School of Improvisational Music in Brooklyn, NY and has taught at Eastman School of Music, NYU, and the NE Conservatory to name a few.

Ralph Alessi 

Alessi is an ECM artist whose most recent March release is titled Its Always Now and included Florian Weber on piano, Banz Oester on double bass, and Gerry Hemingway on drums. 

At the Portland gig, Alessi brought along three more familiar artists. The talented Canadian pianist Andy Milne, who studied with master pianist Oscar Peterson, is a veteran of the Steve Coleman M-Base days where he met Alessi in the 1990s and has played with him on Imaginary Friends. 

ANDY MILNE

The loosely-limbed, propulsive drummer Mark Ferber, is a fixture in the downtown NY jazz scene and has recorded with Alessi since 2008. The new guy to the group this evening was the kinetic bassist John Hébert. Hébert hails originally from New Orleans, studied under Rufus Reid, and has worked with stellar artists from pianist Andrew Hill to multi-reed player Dave Liebman along the way. 

Alessi oftentimes is seen in a dual horn frontline, most usually manned by long-time friend saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, like on his Imaginary Friends album of 2019. But on this evening, the superb trumpeter found his foil to trade harmonic ideas in the often surprisingly inventive pianistic work of Milne and the rousingly dynamic bass work of Hébert. This group had an empathetic cohesion that spanned the spectrum of artistic expression through the evening. 

The music was vibrant, at times very impressionistic, all notated on sheets that seem a well-learned habit from Alessi's classical influence. The written score was more like an armature upon which Alessi's gorgeous command of the trumpet is used to create his hybrid style of music. 

The Allessi compositions, that I was able to catch the names of, were "First Dawn," which featured a wildly dynamic bass solo by Hébert. Hysteria is often considered a "Hysterical Hysterics," was a jagged, avant-garde style piece that utilized more sonic explorations than lyricism. Ferber adds a particularly exciting drum solo. "Planet Jumping," leads off with Hébert's bass creating a metronomic line. Alessi's trumpet explores some beautiful lyrics expansions and Milne's Monk-like pianistic work is a treat.  "Migratory Party" is a gorgeously expressive piece from Its Always Now. The finale "Fun Room" from Imaginary Friends opens with the Hébert/Ferber section setting up the rhythmic tone and features Alessi using a plunger on his horn, extending the aural field into a more varied sonic landscape that just sweeps you into it.