TT 268: Sam Newsome and the Ultramodern Blues

and also, the great Sylvie Courvoisier

Sam Newsome’s 2009 album Blue Soliloquy (Solo Works For Soprano Saxophone) made an impression. The first track was “Blues for Robert Johnson,” named for the legendary guitarist, but the sounds were relentlessly avant-garde, with multiphonics and dissonant lines.

Finally!

I sought Sam out; he opened for the Bad Plus a couple of times, we played duo a bit, and eventually I hired Sam for Pepperland, the dance score for the Mark Morris work of the same name, where avant-blues solos from Sam and Jacob Garchik on “Wilbur Scoville” were a highlight each and every night.

Sam is unique in many ways. He is the only person who would have been considered a “Young Lion” (he played in the Terence Blanchard quintet and recorded an album for Criss Cross with Mulgrew Miller) before giving up all that and taking on a proudly avant perspective. Sam’s also an important writer, and his 2014 essay “What’s the Deal with Interview Music?” is still a fresh read.

He’s currently posting the most outrageous extended technique stuff on Instagram. Good lord. The brand-new album is awesome duo soprano saxophone improvisations with elder statesman Dave Liebman, Soprano​-​Logues.

I asked Sam to play at Sono Fest!; he asked Sylvie Courvoisier to join him for half the set(s). Courvoisier is a fascinating musician, someone comfortable living at the border of composition and improvisation. For “50 tracks for ECM at 50” I chose her “Ianicum” from Abaton.

Courvoisier’s current release is The Rite of Spring - Spectre d'un songe with Cory Smythe, which features the Stravinsky classic played accurately (in the composers’s own arrangement for two pianos) before the explosive response Spectre d'un songe. “Spectre uses primarily idiomatic impressions of The Rite but also specific reharmonization of previous Courvoisier creations in a Stravinsky-like mode of bitonality.”

Cory Smythe is great, too. If Sono Fest! had run a little longer, I would have asked both Courvoisier and Smythe to do their own evenings. Like Sam Newsome, they are very involved in making future music.

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Last night the first concert with Miranda Cuckson was great! Candid photo by Savannah English:

Tonight I’m back at the stand with Chris Potter.