Ryan Keberle & Catharsis : Music Is Connection-An Aural Wonder of Textures and Colors

Ryan Keberle & Catharsis: Music Is Connection :Alternate Side Records

The talented trombone player/composer Ryan Keberle has been on my watch list for quite some time, so when he and his group Catharsis releases a new album I make it my business to check out what these musicians are up to. This is the twelfth year that Catharsis has been making music as a group and this latest release Music is Connection is their sixth album. Leader Ryan Keberle is joined by members Peruvian bassist Joege Roeder, drummer Eric Doob who originally hails from Boston, the Chilean guitarist/singer Camile Meza, and since 2018 the multi-reed and brass player Scott Robinson who makes a guest appearance on this album.

The Keberle family was originally from Bloomington, Indiana before his family relocated to Spokane, Washington where Ryan was raised. His father Dan was a professor of classical and jazz trumpet and a Director of the Jazz studies program  for thirty four years at Whitworth University. Ryan's mother taught piano and was a  choir director at their church. With such strong musical genes, Keberle took classical violin and piano lessons before he became inspired by the powerful horn-based sound of the rock/jazz groups of the late nineteen-sixties like Blood Sweat and Tears, Tower of Power, and Chicago. He retained his piano work and took up the trombone as his main instrument while still in his teens. 

Keberle enrolled at Whitworth before transferring to pursue his music at Manhattan School of Music in 1999. There he studied with trombone ace Steve Turre and graduated in 2001. That year he was selected as Artistic Director of the newly formed  youth orchestra for the Jazz Classic Program of the New York Symphony, along with receiving a prestigious excellence award from his alma mater at MSM. In 2001 he did post graduate work as a selected artist to attend Julliard's then new Jazz Program. There he studied with talented trombonist Wycliffe Gordon and composition with David Berger and was one of the first students who graduated from the Julliard Jazz Program. As a student he help support himself playing mostly piano as a professional. As a trombone player, he soon became a sought after session member of many a prestigious orchestra including David Berger's Orchestra, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and the Maria Schneider Orchestra.

Ryan Keberle (photo credit unknown)

As an artist, Keberle has continued to find diverse projects to stimulate his expressive psyche. Besides forming Catharsis in 2012, he also formed a chamber jazz ensemble Reverso with French pianist  Frank Woeste and French cellist Vincent Courtois and either Greg Hutchinson or Jeff Ballard on drums. Reverso has since released five gorgeous, often classically inspired albums that have received rightful  acclaim. Because of his love of Brazilian music, especially the Música Popular Brasileira, Keberle took a sabbatical in Brazil in 2017 to immerse himself in the style, culture and nuances of this vibrant music. That year he formed and recorded with his Colletiv da Brasil group and released two well received albums Sonhos da Esquina and Considerando.

Catharsis is perhaps the most exploratory of the trombonist's groups and Music is Connection is another theme based album that continues Kerberle and partner's  expansive vision. There is something special about the tapestries these talented and intuitive musicians create with the trombone, keyboard and voice sounds of Keberle, the guitar and voice inventiveness of Meza, the elastic and probing bass of Roeder, the expressive trumpet of now departed Michael Rodriguez, and the propulsive percussive drive that Doob skillfully supplies. These guys have a cellular connection that is nothing short of marvelous. The addition of guest multi-reedist Scott Robinson just adds another layer of colors and textures available to this very exciting group sound.

Whether they are exploring the connections between music and our feelings with their original piano-less, two-horn format on Music is Emotion, or are challenging our comfort level with their hopeful, politically oriented ideas and lush  orchestrations on Find the Light, Shine a Light  Catharsis is operating on a level of creativity that few groups reach.  

Camile Meza, Ryan Keberle and Scott Robinson (photo credit unknown)

Music is Emotion opens with Keberle's  "Throwback Moves" a reimagined song originally heard on the groups take from the 2013 debut album. Here we find a  penetrating electric guitar solo by Meza, synchronized bass and powerful drum work by Roeder and Doob and some entrancing synchronous playing of Meza's marvelous voice and Keberle's in step keyboards. There is a feeling of music as portal into dance in the way these guys play with such foot moving vibrancy and drive. 

"Sound Energy" is slow ballad that combines electric guitar accents with keyboard lines before Keberle's trombone enters the mix. Meza's voice as an instrument is a true gift and her communicative interaction with Keberle's voice or keyboard or trombone are telepathic. 

Meza brings her version of Chilean composer/singer/poet/teacher Victor Jara's "Lo Unico Que Tengo." She originally recorded this love song- in English "The Only Thing I Have"-on her 2013 album titled Prisma. On this version, besides her transcendent voice, we hear just how simpatico her voice and Keberle's trombone can be, beautifully complimenting each other's musical ideas in a aural conversation of intimacy and emotion.

Jorge Roeder brings an excitable, off to the races composition "Hammersparks" and the sparks are indeed flying. As Keberle wrote, Roeder provides an "insane bass line" that few can handle, but the Peruvian seems to shine. Doob has his hands full with this one, but he executes the maddening pace with propulsion and grace. Guitar and trombone trade bends and slurs and then meld lines with grace and style. 

"Key Adjustment" is another reprised Keberle composition from the debut album. The musician likes to revisit and reimagine his songs with different musical orchestrations and altered rhythms. Opening with a bass pedal point line, the guitar enters with a cascading of finger picked notes. The bass switches to a probing line that is accompanied by Doob's cadenced drum work. Keberle orchestrates the music with his large palette of sounds and textures. The guitar, the voices, trombone, bass, drums and keyboards all are all utilized with tremendous effect. 

Milton Nascimento's "Vera Cruz" is a bewitching composition that answers Keberle's endearment to Brazilian music. Meza's voice seems to have the flexibility, range and control that makes it a secret weapon, like Nascimento's falsetto, only with more warmth. Keberle offers a warm, melodic trombone solo.

"Sonic Living" is a musical commentary about how the new generation, through the impact of cell phones, musical videos and social media have lost the art of listening to music that is unattached to the images.  Careful uncluttered music listening today gets short shrift, scant attention, and Keberle is especially concerned as an educator how this trend can seriously effect negatively aspiring musicians. 

"Cycle" was a short song orchestrated by drummer Eric Doob. Through the use of overdubbing and post production electronic effects, the drummer creates a layered piece. Over a repeating piano riff, he adds multiple sounds and instrumentation- trombone, voices, drone electronics, bass and synthesizer swell, all melding into a choir-like chant.

Keberle's "Arbor Vitae" is the only piece on the album that adds the memorable sound of guest saxophonist Scott Robinson. His Getzian take on this samba-like composition is perfectly matched to the vibe of this song. His breezily fluid solo tenor work is  inventive, light and always a joy. Meza's voice inflections are light as a feather and Keberle and Robinson revel in their intuitive interplay. 

The last two pieces are "Shine Intro" a two minute guitar, trombone and cymbal  lead into the final composition "Shine" which is music inspired by the late French composer, the short-lived Lili Boulanger, who died at the age of twenty-four despite her rising star as a composing star that was being mentored by Ravel and Faure. The music features a ascending theme that brings in the ripping electric guitar work of Meza, the boisterous explosion of Keberle's trombone, the pulsing bass of Roeder and the percolating drums of Doob.

Music Is Emotion is an artful album that deftly uses sonic colors and textures, smart orchestrations, and excellent musicians to communicate that emotion can truly be found in beautiful music.

The Tomasz Stanko Quartet from a 2004 Concert in Munich, Germany: "September Night"

Tomasz Stanko Quartet: September Night: ECM Recorded Sept 2004

The Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko created his own approach to the sound of his instrument. Inspired by the Polish modern pianist and film scorer Krzysztof Komeda, the saxophonist Ornette Coleman and the American trumpeter Miles Davis' sparse approach to the trumpet. The more is less style allowed Stanko to add elements of drama, Slavic melancholy, sadness and a metaphysical, free-style sense of pain into his expressive music. He had a distinctive tone. There was never any doubt of who you were hearing when you listened to Tomasz Stanko. His music had an identity,  a tattoo-like imprimatur all his own. 

Tomasz Stanko was born on July 11, 1941 in the city of Rzeszów, Poland. He attended the State Higher Music School in Kraków, where he had a classical music education and studied violin, piano and trumpet. Despite his classical training, Stanko was attracted to the expression and freedom of jazz music. Following his muse, he founded a quartet with a fellow secondary school student and received some critical recognition. In 1963 at the age of twenty-one, Stanko was asked to join the quartet of the progressive and influential pianist Krzysztof Komeda. Komeda was renowned for his free approach to piano as well as his formidable film scoring talents. Komeda scored over forty films, including all of Roman Polanski's, from his first in 1958 to the last one being the score to Rosemary's Baby, before the pianist's untimely death due to an accident in 1968. Stanko's four year stint with Komeda was artistically expansive.

In 1973 Stanko became one of the early Polish musicians who embraced the use of electronics and experimented with synthetic sounds in music, but by the nineteen nineties the artist returned to his acoustical format. In 1980 Stanko released a solo album recorded at the Taj Mahal and the Buddhist Karla Caves in India. Besides his Polish musician based groups, in the eighties and beyond Stanko collaborated with a rainbow of jazz luminaries. These included bassists Dave Holland, Arild Andersen, Palle Danielsson, Thomas Morgan and Gary Peacock, multi-reedist John Surman and Tomasz Szukalski, pianists Cecil Taylor, David Virelles and Bobo Stensen, guitarists Terje Rypdal and Jakob Bro, drummers Jon Christensen, Gerald Cleaver and Tony Oxley, in various formations. In all these diverse combinations and as a solo artist it was always the frail humanity, the  and expressive emotion that came through so clearly from Stanko's plaintive horn.

Stanko's perceptive use of romanticism, melancholy, developed melodic patterns and his evocative trumpet tone provide the listener with a uniquely penetrating music that reaches the soul. 

            Tomasz Stanko photo credit John Broughton

Perhaps the most symbiotic group of the bunch was the quartet Stanko formed  in 1993 with then sixteen-year-old drummer Michal Miśkiewicz and his two friends pianist Marcin Wasilewski and bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz. This quartet was first  recorded work on the Stanko album Balladyne from 1994 on GOWI Records. The group became a working band for Stanko over the years and they released three other albums on ECM, Soul of Things (2002), Suspended Night (2004), and Lontano (2006) all studio albums.

The Tomasz Stanko Quartet ( photo credit unknown)

In June of this year, ECM decided to release September Night, a live recording from a Stanko and this quartet concert recorded in September 9, 2004 in Munich.  To any fan of Stanko and his music, it is certainly of interest to get a chance to look back and capture this soulful group in its most fluid situation, in front of a live an appreciative crowd. The album shows just how much this group had matured under the leadership of Stanko. Particularly noted is how much the quartet telepathically functioned with a heightened acuity to each other's ideas and responded accordingly.

The album has seven compositions six of which are by Stanko with only "Kaetano" credited to the group in total. The songs run from five and half minutes in length to almost eleven minutes. The opener "Hermento" starts with a pedal point bass line by Kurkiewicz as Stanko's searching horn enters the fray. Wasilewski's piano creates the barest of melodies upon which Miśkiewicz adds rolling percussive accents. Stanko creates the mood and you just find it enchanting.

"Song for Sarah" opens with Wasilewski's gentle piano lines that almost whisper out the melody. Stanko's horn has a film noir quality to it and the piano and trumpet dance with an elegant dialogue. Stanko goes silent as the trio show their own musical sympatico as a fully whole entity that can create their own beauty.  Stanko's plaintive horn always seems to bring a human voice-like quality to the music.

Kurkiewicz's plucky bass opens "Euforila" with tonally rich exploratory lines before he settles into a quick paced ostinato line that sets the music up for its throbbing pulse. Wasilewski and Miśkiewicz enter the swelling rhythm before Stanko's fluttering trumpet takes flight with repeating lines that raise the tension. Stanko and Wasilewski state a sparse melody before the pianist takes center stage with his own elastic solo that is beautiful and has elements of free jazz to it. Stanko's trumpet returns with his own sense of urgency to his horn as his backing trio create their own cauldron of excitement. Miśkiewicz finishes the composition with a roiling drum solo that leads to the group restating the brief melody at the coda.

Stanko's stark trumpet opens up "Elegant Piece" accompanied minimally by probing piano lines and roiling tom work. The music blooms into a beautifully  meandering trumpet stated melody. Stanko adds brief flutters, staggered stabs and piercing high register darts to low toned slurs create a tonal potpourri of aural delight that never losses it's elegance. Wasilewski's piano solo is particularly notable, filled with emotion, facility and harmonic creativity that is accented by uncanny angular sense of time and space. He plays his instrument with confidence and yet  chooses to never use speed or flair over expressiveness and taste. The music runs for over ten minutes and gives the team a real chance to stretch out within the concept of elegance and to demonstrate their individual strengths.

The group composed "Kaetano" and features a Latin-inspired rhythm that features a vibrant bass line by Kurkiewicz, some shimmering cymbal work by Miśkiewicz and a Wasilewski piano solo that bustles with inventiveness and melodicism. It's one of Stanko's most energetic and boisterous trumpet solos of the set. The group seems to be reveling in the vibe that they create.

"Celina" has Stanko stating the theme work with sensitive piano accompaniment and rolling tom work in the background. The trumpeter modulates back and forth establishing mood and tension. At the two minute thirty-four-second mark Kurkiewicz starts another ostinato bass line that builds under its own repetitive groove. Stanko's trumpet is like a clarion, an at times shrill warning  that can revert to an emotional gasp or a melancholic cry. Wasilewski's piano solo flows with a modernist approach that has a propulsion all its own, as the rhythm section maintains the heartbeat on the music. 

The final piece on the album is "Theatrical." The music develops like a theatrical story slowly, carefully building interest and being led into revelation. Stanko effectively utilizes changing rhythmic speeds to orchestrate his musical story. From a sauntering opening, the music is introduced as a simple melody with Stanko's trumpet leading the way. Suddenly, he blares a line that changes the pace abruptly. His trumpet erupts once again introducing another shift with shrieks and slurs slowly building the motion, increasing the pace, until he and his group again change direction. He returns to a slow descending pattern on his horn, a reduction of volume, intensity and pace that deflates, fading away to the disappearing coda.

Sadly, Tomasz Stanko transitioned from this world into the next on July 29, 2018, so we will no longer have this moving artist around to add to his musical canon, but it comforting to know that with retro releases like September Night we can continue to rediscover some previously unreleased music from this master. The trio of Wasilewski, Kurkiewicz, and Miśkiewicz continue on without him as a unit. They continue to grow on their own creative path but they will always be inspired by their association with their impressive mentor.

Is the World on Fire? Saxophonist Isaiah Collier and The Chosen Few Think So

Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few: The World Is On Fire Division 81 Records

The Chicago based saxophonist Isaiah Collier has made a powerful new album that highlights some of the tumultuous racial, social and political issues that this country has faced in the past decade. The album is titled The World is On Fire and was released in October of 2024. Events like the vigilante-like killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, the shooting of sixteen-year-old Ralph Yal in Missouri, the traumatizing killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and the upsetting events at the Capitol on January 6th were not just fodder for Collier and his Chosen Few group to create music. These guys memorialized these events by melding news clips, alarming street sounds and vivid commentaries with their own piercing, emotionally charged and plaintively expressed musical expressions. The music is both potent, brashly provocative and yet offers a feeling of hopefulness that cannot be denied. 

Collier’s tenor, alto and soprano work is attention grabbing. As the free jazz bassist William Parker said of saxophonist’s playing with own group, Collier’s playing is inspiring. There is certainly some lineage that can be clearly traced to some of the spiritual work of both John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, but this comparison is only a starting point for this expressive musician. His core group is comprised of the pianist Julian Davis Reid, the drummer Michael Skekwoaga Ode and the bassist Jeremiah Hunter. The group is supplemented by guest artist Corey Wilkes on trumpet, Ed Wilkerson Jr on alto clarinet, Kenthany Redmond on flute, Mayshell Morris on flute, Cassie Watson Francilla on harp, Oluga Negre on cello and Keila Adira, Manasseh Croft, Jessica Walton and Meghan McNeal on vocals.

Isaiah Collier and The Chosen Few (photo credit unknown)

The opener is a moving modal driven smoker titled “The Time Is Now”, a declaratory musical statement for change that Collier, who wrote the ten compositions on the album, believes needs to not only be stated but realized. “Trials and Tribulations” uses Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson’s statements of chastising Donald Trump for his implicit support of the unlawful storming of the Capitol on January 6^th and the subsequent chaos that it caused as the fuel for this musical statement. Collier’s saxophone wails with urgency and Reid’s piano flows with consistency as Ode’s drums lends powerful propulsion.

Kenthany Redmond’s pastoral flute work opens “Amerikka The Ugly” which is accentuated by Reid’s sensitive piano and Hunter’s playful arco bass work are all highlights. Collier adds his own sinewy soprano work at the halfway point along with some tasty bass pizzicato by Hunter. Despite the title of this song, the music has a spritely, uplifting feel to it that is hard to deny. Despite the darkness of the idea of ugliness Collier seems to always find the bright light that is still present.

The composition "Ahmaud Arbery" finds the core group expertly amalgamate their own musical strengths in a cohesive powerful statement that embodies emotions as varied as callousness, outrage, sadness, anger, sorrow and eventually hopefulness.

The album has six other equally compelling musical and social messages that bring energy and light to the social awareness stage. The closing  song "We Don't Even Know Where We're Heading" ends this awake call album with a joyous eruption of hopefulness. 

Jazz music has always had its town criers, those who actively rang the bell when portents of danger to society and justice needed to be warned against. Complacency is never enough. Before it was Charles Mingus, Gil-Scott Heron, Max Roach, Gary Bartz and others who at times used their music to make a statement against injustice, unfairness and prejudice. Today Isiah Collier and his Chosen Few are a new, young and important voice that seem to be taking over this mantle and thankfully their music is being embraced.