Playfair Sonatas Release Day

Spotlight on the Trombone Sonata

It’s here, the newest album! Streaming on all platforms and available for purchase everywhere. (Amazon link.)

Recorded December 2023 at Oktaven AudiO by Ryan Streber

Produced by Gene Gaudette

Cover art by Roz Chast

Liner notes by Mitch Tobin:

Ethan Iverson has long been interested in the intersection of jazz and classical music, and his career has been marked by significant milestones in both idioms. In the late 1990s, Iverson was the music director for the celebrated Mark Morris Dance Group, when he played all sorts of classical repertoire for large audiences, including Robert Schumann’s Fünf Stücke im Volkston with Yo-Yo Ma onstage with dancers including Mikhail Baryshnikov. During this era Iverson met the tenor Mark Padmore; eventually Iverson accompanied Padmore in several performances of Schubert’s Winterreise including at Town Hall in New York.

In 2002 Iverson left Morris and formed The Bad Plus, a revolutionary and wildly successful avant-garde trio that The New York Times said was "Better than anyone at melding the sensibilities of post-60’s jazz and indie rock." One of the Bad Plus’s most celebrated projects was a version of Rite of Spring where Iverson essentially played the Stravinsky piano part "straight." Their recording for Sony Masterworks garnered a rare five star review in DownBeat.

Since leaving TBP seven years ago, Iverson has released critically-acclaimed jazz albums on ECM and Blue Note, often accompanied by bonafide jazz stars such as Tom Harrell or Jack DeJohnette. Downbeat has called Iverson "A master of melody" while Hot House recently raved, "Known for his intellectual depth and adventurous musical spirit, Ethan Iverson has traversed the boundaries of jazz tradition while leaving an indelible mark on its evolution."

Piers Playfair has had a long history of curating, producing, and commissioning new work, especially — again — at the intersection of jazz and classical music. He was the founder of 23Arts Initiative, the Catskill Jazz Factory, and more recently has produced a number of shows for opera festivals which have deliberately crossed the two genres. Unsurprisingly, when Playfair and Iverson met, there was immediately a kind of simpatico and shared vision between them.

In 2020, artists everywhere hunkered down to do pandemic projects. Of course, freelancers of all types were often also worried about sustaining a basic economic baseline. Iverson and his wife did a major downsize, moving to a smaller apartment in Brooklyn and loading his grand piano into a cheap studio space. Playfair asked Iverson if he needed help, and Iverson said, "Yeah, I’d love to cover the studio rent for a few months."

Over dinner that summer evening Playfair and Iverson did a deal. In exchange for six months rent, Iverson agreed that he would write six sonatas, and that Playfair would be allowed to choose the instrumentation. Iverson relished the opportunity to create on deadline, and the work went quickly and smoothly.

Indeed, the Playfair project propelled Iverson into much more writing of sonatas and bigger pieces, including a Piano Sonata released on Iverson’s second Blue Note record, Technically Acceptable. Seth Colter Walls praised the piece this past February in the New York Times:

Classical in conception… it also contains traces of crunchy harmonic modernism and the bumptious sounds of vintage American jazz styles.

When it came time to record Playfair Sonatas as a set, the collaborators were assembled from the cream of the crop of current classical instrumentalists. Miranda Cuckson is a friend and colleague (Iverson and Cuckson have played sonatas of Louise Talma and George Walker in concert together) and she helped point the way to Gene Gaudette’s Urlicht AudioVisual label and several of the other participants. The colors of each instrument shine in a natural and playful setting. There is not improvisation as such, but everyone was encouraged to play the parts with as much personality as possible.

On top of his activities as a pianist and composer, Iverson has an active career as a writer, publishing significant criticism in The Nation, JazzTimes, and at the Culture Desk of The New Yorker. In February, his first think piece for The New York Times, "The Worst Masterpiece: Rhapsody in Blue at 100" went viral and is already part of George Gershwin reception history.

"People read the headline and thought I hated Gershwin," Iverson explains. "But that’s not true. I love Gershwin, and I call Rhapsody in Blue a masterpiece. However, because the piece was a hit, the blend of jazz and classical starts and almost ends with Rhapsody, and that is simply not good enough. We need to keep knocking on that door, looking towards a future American music where all the options are on the table."

With Playfair Sonatas, Iverson indicates exactly where he thinks fresh sounds can be found. The outer movements of each sonata are simply called "Allegro" or "Rondo" (or whatever relevant title) in the old European manner, while the middle slow movements are dedicated to a predecessor notably interested in blending "jazz" and "classical" music.

"These dedications came about late in the game," says Iverson. "I had scrapped a previous Adagio for clarinet, and wrote a new middle movement I really liked. However, was this ‘oom-pah' rhythm too much like one of Carla Bley's amusing ‘music hall’ pieces? Well, what if I dedicated the movement to her? That would fix the issue of appropriation. As it turned out, Carla passed away the same day I finished ‘Music Hall’ and devised the ‘dedications’ stratagem. The other five salutations to Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Paul Desmond, Joe Wilder, and Roswell Rudd came easily, for they had been in the back of my mind the whole time."

Playfair is delighted with the project. "It’s cool that out of a Covid dinner we were able to put a project together that so encapsulates one of our joint core beliefs, that the divisions that divide music, such as jazz, classical, blues etc, into neat little boxes are really just names that people put on them and shouldn’t define the artists." It was Playfair’s direct suggestion that the cycle needed the bookends "Fanfare" and "Recessional" with all members in consort.

— Mitch Tobin

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Mahler said the trombone was the voice of god. The orchestral palette requires trombone for climatic passages but solo repertoire is uncommon. However, jazz musicians have made the most of this epic and unwieldy instrument. My favorites include Trummy Young, JJ Johnson, Julian Priester, Ray Anderson, and Robin Eubanks.

All three movements of my Trombone Sonata address the blues and the preach; the last movement has some old-time train boogie as well. The middle dedication movement is Hymn (for Roswell Rudd).

I have a special affection for Roswell Rudd, especially the album Trickles with Steve Lacy and various features with Carla Bley. In addition to being a wonderful trombonist, Rudd practiced ethnomusicology, assisted Alan Lomax, and wrote the definitive essay on his friend Herbie Nichols, the pianist who may have done the most of anyone in the 1950s to combine classical and jazz tropes.

I did not really know Mr. Rudd but I met him briefly and thanked him not just for his music but for his writing, for there is no doubt my own scribbling follows his example.

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Scrolling score video of the complete work is on YouTube. Mike Lormand is the soloist. Mike is a great trombonist and understood the music perfectly. Bio:

New York City-based trombonist Mike Lormand performs eclectic contemporary and classical music.  He is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, IRIS Collective, Riverside Symphony, and Weather Vest. Mike’s love for the orchestral repertoire has led to performances with the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, The Knights, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a soloist, Mike has commissioned numerous new works, with notable premiere performances at Ojai Music Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival, and Alice Tully Hall.

As an instructor at Brooklyn College and St. Ann’s School, Mike encourages the development of lasting personal relationships with music, sharing the insights of his teachers, Per Brevig, David Taylor, Marta Hofacre, and Robert Schmalz. Mike is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music (MM) and the University of Southern Mississippi (BM).