Joe Fiedler's and "Open Sesame" - Fuzzy And Blue (November 12, 2021)

In 2019 trombonist Joe Fiedler released Open Sesame, packed with inventive jazz readings of material drawn from his longstanding “day job” as an EMMY-nominated music director and staff arranger for the famed children’s show Sesame Street. The effort was equally beloved by lay listeners and the jazz world alike. DownBeat praised the music’s “diverse aesthetic,” in which Fiedler blends “elements of funk, rock, free-jazz and New Orleans polyphony into a potent mix that gives depth and texture to the lighthearted compositions.” When Fiedler and the band toured the music, including a stop at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola with guest luminaries Wynton Marsalis and none other than Elmo himself, the realization set in that the project would be no one-off. “I have these songbooks from the Sesame Street office,” Fiedler says, “and if you whip through the first 30 tunes, absolutely everyone knows them. But there are six or seven thousand songs they’ve done over the past 50 years, with plenty of gold in there to do a second album for sure.”

Fuzzy and Blue, Fiedler’s second volume of Sesame Street songs, shines still more light on the extraordinary wit and melodic gift of the foundational Sesame Street composers Joe Raposo and Jeffrey Moss, among others. The album boasts the same top-tier lineup as Open Sesame, with a couple of twists. Trumpeter Steven Bernstein, who played on only part of Open Sesame, now becomes an integral cog in a nimble three-horn section, expanding and varying the palette and allowing Fiedler to bring his seasoned orchestration skills to the foreground. Reedman Jeff Lederer plays tenor and clarinet and relies more heavily on soprano sax this time out, helping achieve the ideal blend of colors and registers that Fiedler was seeking. Drummer Michael Sarin and bassist Sean Conly keep the rhythms locked and creatively churning, from the Dr. John/Professor Longhair vibe of “Fuzzy and Blue” to the reggae feel of “Elmo’s Song” (by Tony Geiss), to the Hugh Masekela-inspired Afropop of “Ladybug’s Picnic” (originally a peppy country novelty by the late William “Bud” Luckey).

The ensemble also gets a visit from vocal powerhouse Miles Griffith, the very model of a guest on Sesame Street. On the “I Love Trash/C Is for Cookie” melange (a one-two shot of Moss and Raposo), Griffith’s singing is unabashed, larger than life, uproariously funny but insightful and firmly in control. He’s equally compelling in a sociopolitical vein on “I Am Somebody,” in which Fiedler combines an original song with the lyrics of Reverend William Holmes Borders — words recited to powerful effect on Sesame Street in 1972 by Reverend Jesse Jackson. Fiedler felt a need on Fuzzy and Blue to acknowledge social tumult at the close of the Trump presidency and the still-tentative aftermath of the COVID pandemic. “We Are All Earthlings,” a gentle and idyllic Jeffrey Moss folk ballad from 1993, accomplishes this as well, though Fiedler brings a stark added tension with his Stravinsky-esque horn voicings.

Together, Bernstein and Fiedler present a veritable master class in the use of mutes for endless color and timbre subtlety, in the spirit of early jazz. “We’re playing these Harmon mutes with the stems in,” Fiedler says, “which nobody does — that’s from the ’20s.” Bernstein plays his signature slide trumpet on Raposo’s “X Marks the Spot” (the only minor-key song) but otherwise is heard on valve trumpet and flugelhorn, not to mention the lower and darker G trumpet on Raposo’s “I Am Blue.” That song opens with beautiful muted trombone and is distinctly Ellingtonian in orchestration, with horns placed outside their more common registers.

Throughout the album there’s an atmosphere of fun, “a sense of burlesque” as Fiedler put it in the Open Sesame liner notes, that flows from the trombonist’s deep love of Ray Anderson, the Jazz Passengers, Carla Bley and other major influences. Steven Bernstein’s Sexmob is another. The improvisational openness and risk of Fiedler’s trio dates Sacred Chrome Orb, The Crab, I’m In and Joe Fiedler Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff also carry over to this more song-oriented endeavor. Fuzzy and Blue, like its predecessor, is Fiedler’s way of bringing it all together, reminding himself and all of us that inspiration can and does come from everywhere, and that everything is connected.

A native of Pittsburgh, Fiedler is an accomplished jazz improviser and bandleader with sideman credits including Andrew Hill, Charles Tolliver, Satoko Fujii, Eddie Palmieri, Celia Cruz and a host of others. In addition to his trio and other small-group lineups, Fielder leads the low-brass quartet Big Sackbut (three trombones & tuba), which has released the albums Big Sackbut, Sackbut Stomp and Live in Graz. He was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Music Direction and Composition in a Children’s Series in 2013 and 2016. He plays lead trombone on the 2021 movie soundtrack album for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, contributing horn orchestrations for five major numbers and underscoring cues as well. While playing the In the Heights stage production in 2008 he met chief arranger Bill Sherman, who went on to hire Fiedler for a reboot of The Electric Company and then Sesame Street as well. 

1. ABCDEFGHI

2. Bein' Green

3. Fuzzy and Blue

4. I Am Somebody

5. I Am Blue

6. Elmo's Song

7. I Love Trash

8. Bip Bippadotta Suite

9. Lady Bug's Picnic

10. We Are All Earthlings

11. One of These Things

12. X Marks the Spot

13. Captain Vegetable

Joe Fiedler, trombone

Jeff Lederer, soprano & tenor saxophones, clarinet

Steven Bernstein, trumpet, slide trumpet, flugelhorn, G trumpet

Sean Conly, acoustic and electric bass

Michael Sarin, drums

Special Guest: Miles Griffith, vocals (Tracks 4 & 7)

Recorded at The Bunker Studio Brooklyn May 10-11, 2021

Mixed and mastered by Dave Darlington at Bass Hit Recording

Art: Fran Pontenpié

Photography: Scott Friedlander

PREORDER

Shakers n' Bakers - Heart Love (February 14, 2018)

In 1968, after years of being one of the most charismatic and controversial characters in the free jazz movement of the 1960’s, the saxophonist Albert Ayler made a recording called “New Grass”, comprised of songs that he had created along with his musical and life partner Mary Maria Parks. These new songs spoke with the directness of the language of R n’ B and Soul music and were produced with a slick sound by Bob Thiele for the Impulse label. This music expresses Albert and Mary Maria’s beautiful vision of a world filled with happiness and universal love. While Albert’s own playing on the record shows the same fire and freedom he exhibited throughout his entire recording career, the album was a departure from the less structured sound of his previously recorded music. This music used the familiar forms of popular music forms to express an ecstatic millennial vision of Heaven on Earth. 

Upon it’s release, the album “New Grass” was subjected to great criticism, most pointedly by some of the people who had championed Albert in his early career and raised him up as a hero of the new jazz. In the magazine “Cricket”, Amiri Baraka and his editors accused Albert of being a “sell-out” who had appeased Impulse Records by making an album that was intended to broaden his appeal to a wider audience. Albert made one more album for Impulse, but within 3 years of the release of “New Grass” he was suddenly gone, the victim of a tragic drowning in the East River. 

The album’s utopian vision and millennial fervor resonate deeply and I have felt for a long time that my group Shakers n’ Bakers was the perfect ensemble to re-visit the rarely heard songs on this recording. In addition to these joyful and visionary songs you will hear some traditional Spiritual songs included here that Albert had previously recorded as well. I have made my case for the connections between the “Vision Songs” of the Shaker religious sect and the music of Albert Ayler in the previous two Shakers n’ Bakers recordings - here I focus only on the second part of that equation, although in the opening recitation you will hear a Shaker text that I uncovered in original manuscript form while doing research in 2013 as a NEH “Summer Scholar” at the NY State Archives in Albany. The opening words of this recording have not been uttered since the mid-19th Century and speak to the power of revelation of the divine through human expression that connects the Shakers and Albert. 

1. Message from Mother Ann

2. Everybody's Movin'

3. Oh Love of Life!

4. Deep River

5. Music is the Healing Force of the Universe

6. A Man is Like a Tree

7. Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

8. New Generation

9. Swing Low Sweet Chariot

10. Goin' Home

11. Heart Love 05:08

Shakers n’ Bakers: 

Mary LaRose / Miles Griffith – vocals 

Jeff Lederer – Tenor Saxophone, flute 

Jamie Saft – piano, organ, Baldwin electric harpsichord 

Chris Lightcap – bass 

Allison Miller – drums 

With: 

Steven Bernstein – trumpet, slide trumpet 

Kirk Knuffke – cornet 

Joe Fiedler – trombone 

Lisa Parrott – baritone saxophone 

Special guest on #7 and #9 

Matt Wilson – drums 

And the “Heart Love Singers”: 

Amy Cervini, Mary LaRose, Melissa Stylliano, Toni Seawright, Chelsea McClauren. 

All arrangements by Jeff Lederer ç ledrose music (bmi) 

Recorded May 1 and 2 at Systems Two, Brooklyn NY 

Engineered by Mike Marciano 

Mixed by Jamie Saft at Potterville International Sound. 

Mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Sound. 

Shaker “Gift Hearts” created by the women of the Shakers community graciously provided by the Hancock Shaker Village. 

Designed by Guillermo Prado, Eight Point Two studio.

Satoko Fujii: Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York - Fukushima (LIBRA RECORDS 2017)

Satoko Fujii Confronts the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

in Major New Work for Orchestra New York

Fujii's nuanced musical response to the disaster features some of her most powerful composing for improvisers

"Satoko Fujii's large ensemble music is one of a kind... For avant big band, this is an outfit on the cutting edge." -Grego Edwards, Gapplegate Music Review

"... a triumph of modern big band music, powerfully brought to life by an immensely talented group." -Stuart Kremsky, Journal of Jazz Record Collectors reviewing 2014's Shiki

"The Ellington of Free Jazz." -Cadence Magazine

Fujii conducts ensemble featuring Tony Malaby, Ellery Eskelin, Nels Cline, Dave Ballou, Natsuki Tamura, Joey Sellers, Joe Fiedler, Curtis Hasselbring, Stomu Takeishi, Ches Smith, Andy Laster, Oscar Noriega, and Herb Robertson.

Gathering together her all-star Orchestra New York to record for the tenth time, composer-pianist Satoko Fujii releases Fukushima (Libra, available December 15, 2017), a deeply moving and personal contemplation of the nuclear power plant disaster that shook Japan and the world in 2011. Fujii conducts the 13-piece ensemble in a monumental album-length composition that runs the emotional spectrum from despair to hope. With her characteristic attention to form, texture, and melody, she also provides a platform for some of New York's best improvisers, many of whom were founding members of the band 20 years ago, to make powerful statements of their own. The close collaboration between composer-conductor and performers results in one of the most riveting and moving socially conscious musical statements in recent memory.

"Right after the accident, I was afraid that we might not be able to live in Tokyo or even anywhere else in Japan," Fujii says. "A crazy-big area was affected by radiation and our country is not big. The distance between Tokyo and Fukushima is only around 200 kilometers. I felt hopeless. Of course, there were some people who didn't think it was a serious problem. The worst thing for me was the election right after the Fukushima accident. People still supported the politicians who said we need nuclear reactors. Other people in Japan thought differently and didn't support those politicians. And I have found people all over the world who think differently, as well. Fukushima is one of those issues that connects deeply with other matters in the world now-money, power, nationalism."

Fujii's musical response conveys the full weight of her feelings. Her assured handling of drama and pacing have never been more evident or used to such telling effect. The hour-long piece opens with the simple sound of air passing through instruments, echoing the sound of human breathing, creating a sense of vulnerable humanity that suffuses the entire work. "In the context of Fukushima, the breathing or air sound is peaceful, calm, and life-affirming for me," she says.

Shaping the music in real time as she conducts, Fujii leads the band on a spiritual journey through sorrow, rage, and ultimately to a stunning sense of hope and optimism. "I know we human beings can live brightly in any situation and circumstance," Fujii says. "I would like to believe it is not too late for us to make a change for the better."

Of course, Fujii's compositions are incomplete without improvised contributions from her remarkable ensemble. "My charts for large ensemble are not like classical music that can be played only by reading," she says. "With my charts, I need great improvisers to play and develop them. And with all these improvised parts, I need to conduct and give cues to the band to make the charts work, come together, and feel alive. I feel like the whole band is my instrument."

And what an instrument she has in this band, which includes saxophonists Tony Malaby and Ellery Eskelin, guitarist Nels Cline, trumpeters Dave Ballou and Natsuki Tamura, trombonists Joey Sellers, Joe Fiedler and Curtis Hasselbring, and the blue-chip rhythm team of bassist Stomu Takeishi and drummer Ches Smith, among others. With an ear for creative combinations of voices and contrasting textures and density, Fujii deploys them in different combinations, ranging from solo to duos and trios to full ensemble improvisation, throughout the course of the performance. Highlights include the close interplay between baritone saxophonist Andy Laster and guitarist Cline on the first track (the piece is continuous, but split into five tracks on the disc) and Oscar Noriega's melodic solo cradled by a lovely brass choir on Track 3. A sustained series of alternating passages for duet pairings of trumpeter Herb Robertson with drummer Smith and bassist Takeishi with guitarist Cline highlight the fourth track.

Fujii is also making available a second version of Fukushima, featuring her singing on Track 2. CDR copies of the vocal version of the composition can be ordered on her website: www.satokofujii.com/.

Fujii always tackles big musical ideas in her big band writing and sometimes turns to life's deepest spiritual issues as well. With this ambitious album, her first extended piece for large ensemble that addresses social issues, she has made another step forward with her art. "I just would like to have the listener take in the whole piece as an experience," she says, "and feel something."

Critics and fans alike hail pianist and composer Satoko Fujii as one of the most original voices in jazz today. She's "a virtuoso piano improviser, an original composer and a bandleader who gets the best collaborators to deliver," says John Fordham in The Guardian.

In concert and on more than 80 albums as a leader or co-leader, she synthesizes jazz, contemporary classical, avant-rock and Japanese folk music into an innovative music instantly recognizable as hers alone. Over the years, Fujii has led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music, including the ma-do quartet, the Min-Yoh Ensemble, and an electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins.

Her ongoing duet project with husband Natsuki Tamura released their sixth recording, Kisaragi, this year. "The duo's commitment to producing new sounds based on fresh ideas is second only to their musicianship," says Karl Ackermann in All About Jazz. Aspiration, a CD by an ad hoc band featuring Wadada Leo Smith, Tamura, and Ikue Mori, was released this year to wide acclaim. "Four musicians who regularly aspire for greater heights with each venture reach the summit together on Aspiration," writes S. Victor Aaron in Something Else.

She records infrequently as an unaccompanied soloist, but her latest solo album, Invisible Hand, led Dan McClenaghan in All About Jazz to praise her "stream of ideas, eschewing repetition and cliché in the crafting of her solo work, her loveliest and most accessible music." Fujii has also established herself as one of the world's leading composers for large jazz ensembles, leading Cadence magazine to call her, "the Ellington of free jazz."

Joe Fiedler - Like, Strange (MULTIPHONICS MUSIC 2017)

“The versatile Joe Fiedler has often been associated with the avant-garde . . . [but he] proves that he’s also a master of swing and blues-based music . . . he uses superb technique, which includes playing chords (multiphonics), and a wit worthy of trombonist Ray Anderson to invigorate straight ahead jazz, paying indirect tributes to tradition while simultaneously turning the music inside out” - Jazziz Magazine 

The imaginative and adventurous trio of trombonist, composer, bandleader Joe Fiedler, bassist Rob Jost and drummer Michael Sarin just accomplished the near-impossible; with the addition of saxophonist Jeff Lederer and guitarist Pete McCann they have broadened their melodic and harmonic range, and expanded rhythmically, becoming even more awe-inspiring. The Quintet is featured in all its splendor on Fiedler’s new recording, Like, Strange. After thirteen years of leading his trio (documented on I’m In, Plays The Music of Albert Mangelsdorff, The Crab and Sacred Chrome Orb), and that format being his primary creative outlet, Fiedler felt the urge to expand. He explains, “after more than a decade of playing trio I still love it, but I found myself wanting to branch out and bring different colors and textures to my music. Thus I thought that it was time to add some people who were both unique soloists and great interpreters of music in general.” 

Like, Strange, in many ways, is a continuation of the music from Fiedler’s previous critically acclaimed recording, I’m In (which also features bassist Jost and drummer Sarin). “In general, and similar to my previous recording, the compositions are more traditional forms and variations of traditional chord progressions, yet still pliable and able to handle both inside and outside playing. For my ears, adding Pete and Jeff turned out to be the perfect way to expand the trio and give it an added, richer depth of color and sound,” said Fiedler.

1. Go Get It

2. Maple Avenue Tango

3. A Ladybug in My Notebook

4. Like, Strange

5. E.T.

6. Guiro Nuevo

7. Tuna Fish Cans

8. Quasi...

9. Yinz

JOE FIEDLER (Trombone)

JEFF LEDERER (Saxophones)

PETE MCCANN (Guitar)

ROB JOST (Bass)

MICHAEL SARIN (Drums)