Get Ready For Pelt-a-palooza
Trumpet master Jeremy Pelt plays the 8495 three times next weekend
Jeremy Pelt leads his quintet at an appearance at the Side Door in Old Lyme, CT, in February. (8495Jazz photo)
Call it a three-peat. Call it a trifecta, maybe. Or the big trey. Or just call it Pelt-a-palooza.
Call it what you will, jazz fans in the 8495 will have the rare opportunity to see Jeremy Pelt, one of the most accomplished trumpet players on the planet, not once, not twice, but three times next weekend, and each show is likely to have its own vibe (in addition to being close enough to his New York City home he can sleep in his own bed afterwards).
Friday night, Jeremy brings his Jeremy Pelt Quintet to Firehouse 12 in New Haven for sets at 8:30 and 10. The show is billed “Tomorrow’s Another Day,” after his latest album, but Jeremy told 8495Jazz about half the show will be songs from his next album, Woven, with a scheduled release at the end of January.
Saturday, he’ll be the featured guest at Uncle Cheef in Brewster, NY, playing with Uncle Cheef himself, New Orleans-bred saxophonist Ian Hendrickson-Smith. UC bills the show as “high energy, fun and exciting Christmas themed jazz that will simultaneously make you wanna wiggle and challenge your intellect.”
And last but not least, Jeremy will be at The Falcon in Marlboro, NY Sunday night, holding down the high brass in the Orrin Evans Quintet’s “Holiday Show.” (FWIW, Orrin’s album with his trio Tarbaby was named a “10 best in jazz” album for 2024 by the New York Times).
Jeremy said the three shows should “absolutely” provide him a nice variety of styles to perform, but doesn’t say that means his approach to them will be gig-dependent: “I don’t think I have to change my approach,” he said. “I think the older I get, my approach is me.”
The essence of that confident and accomplished “me” isn’t easy for an outsider to mine: In the constructs of the artificial conversation that is an interview, Jeremy is gracious but not loquacious, direct and concise but not short, and cordial if just a tad guarded.
Maybe guarded is not quite spot on, but “guarding” IS the key term here, people. There is more than enough information from Jeremy himself, on his social media feeds, in other conversations, and of course, in his prolific musical output, to say without reservation that in Jeremy Pelt, the spirit of jazz – both its rich history and its essence of innovation – has a guardian almost without peer.
Even before you get to the music itself, he has already published four volumes of his Griot book series of interviews with other Black jazz musicians (Volume 5 is coming out in February). The series carries on the best traditions of the West African griots, storytellers and musicians who serve as their communities’ institutional oral memories. And, both Jeremy and his subjects believe there is a fraternal element to these musician-to-musician conversations that capture something interviews with non-musicians can’t quite match: “It’s one thing when somebody’s asking questions based off of what they’ve seen from the outside, or what they’ve seen put together nice and neat on a piece of paper,” Camille Thurman told the New York Times in a recent story about the Griot series. “When musicians come together and talk, there’s something that’s really deep about it.”
But Griot is just one element of his reverence for the music’s culture. For instance, in a recent Instagram post, he wrote about the importance of the mentoring and apprenticeship type of relationship the old jazz firmament built up after watching the Renee Rosnes Quartet (Renee on piano, Steve Nelson on vibes, Peter Washington on bass and Lewis Nash on drums) at Smoke Jazz Club in New York.
“Hearing (and seeing) them reminded me of what I moved here, 26 years ago, to do,” he wrote. “When I moved to town, I had TWO generations to keep me in check: our grandmasters, like Jimmy Heath, Lou Hayes, Cedar Walton, Frank Foster, etc. and THIS generation- Renee, Nelson, Nash and Washington. I didn't try to be on their level (and YES, there are levels), because I knew my place and humbled myself to learn this music.”
His recorded output over the years demonstrates the breadth of “this music” he has learned. He releases a new album just about every year, and the variety is impressive: His 2023 release, The Art of Intimacy, Vol. 2: His Muse is awash with lush trumpet-centered ballads. Tomorrow’s Another Day, this year’s release, is a full-on exploratory ensemble showcase for the quintet with guitar, vibes, bass, and drums in addition to Jeremy’s horn.
Maybe one of the best indicators of Jeremy’s dedication to creating the best music he can at any given moment can be found in those with whom he works, and how they collaborate, going back to his first days in New York. One case in point is the late Rudy Van Gelder, a recording engineer so legendary he’d be on a one-man Mt. Rushmore (he is credited with “discovering” the best equipment with which to capture Miles Davis, and recorded John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, for starters). Jeremy and his band at the time recorded several albums at the Van Gelder studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. His 2010 release, Men Of Honor, easily conjures up aural images of post-bop groove.
“Rudy and I were always very cool and he allowed for things that he hadn’t done in a long time,” Jeremy said. “When I did Men Of Honor it was all the band in the same room, and he hadn’t done that in a long time. He never liked to let people be in the booth with him while he was mixing, but he let me come in, because I was always respectful. That’s all you really had to do with him, was be respectful.”
And, in the yin to the legendary Van Gelder yang, Jeremy said his friend and college classmate Deantoni Parks brought out the best in the innovations he was trying to get on Tomorrow’s Another Day. Deantoni, often billed (and only partially captured) as an avant-garde percussionist and technologist, had just come off of writing and playing on Andre 3000’s impossible-to-pigeonhole but thrice-Grammy nominated New Blue Sun album. Jeremy wanted Deantoni’s producing, writing, and playing chops on the collection to help broaden the artistic expression.
“As an artist, a lot of time you get tired of your own stuff,” Jeremy said, “and you look for other kinds of imports to give your thing a spark. Deantoni and I went to school together and I know him very well. He’s always been talking about getting together on some things.
“He’s such a sweetheart, he felt like he might have been interfering with my concept, but I told him, ‘Listen now, I want you to be you. I want you to take whatever I’m doing out of the arena of me, because that’s what I need to start my own creativity.’”
Jeremy joined piano master Hiromi with other top-shelf players for this performance of "Ue o Muite Arukō" (better known here as “Sukiyaki”) for the International Jazz Day 2022 All-Star Global Concert. Virtuosity all around on a popular and beautiful piece of music.
Yale Jazz Festival Returns in January! You Heard it Here First! (or at least in plenty of time if not first)
The Yale Undergraduate Jazz Collective is going to help us all fight off the late January blahs with the 12th annual Jazz Festival at Yale, Jan. 23-25. The first two guest performers have been announced: Vibes virtuoso Sasha Berliner takes the stage Fri., Jan. 24, and Grammy winner and MacArthur Fellowship winner Cecile McLorin Salvant performs Sat., Jan. 25.
The festival is free and open to the public, with performances at the Yale Schwartzman Center. Tickets drop at 5 pm Jan. 9. The email from the collective’s alumni board said the collective’s web site will supply details as they become available.
Last 2024 Paisley Jam at Carmine’s
Matt Dwonszyk will host the last Paisley’s All Star Invitational Series jam for this year, Tuesday at Carmine’s in East Hartford Tuesday. Featured band this month is the Rich Goldstein Quartet, with Rich on guitar, Jen Allen on keyboard, Matt on bass, and Jocelyn Pleasant on drums. Featured set begins at 7:30 with jam session following at 9-ish.
8495Jazz Spur of the Moment Jaunts TODAYPaisley Ramirez Allstar Invitational
Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT
Improvisations Now (completely improvised set, Darius Jones alto sax; Nasheet Waits drums; Adam Lane bass; Joe Morris guitar), 2:30 pm. $15 GA, $8 students.
The Parlour, Providence, RI
Ryan Peterson trio (guitar, combo), 6 pm. $10.
Other Shows This Week
Elicit Brewing Co., Manchester, CT
Hartford Jazz Orchestra, Mon., Dec. 16, 7:30 pm. Free.
VFW Post 399, Westport, CT
Paul Bollenback (guitar), Thur., Dec. 19, 7:30 pm. $15.76 - $20.76.
Buttonwood Tree Performing Arts Center, Middletown, CT
Waberi Jordan & Friends, Friday, Dec. 20, 8 pm. $20.
The Falcon, Marlboro, NY
Analog Jazz Orchestra Christmas Swing-A-Long, Thu., Dec. 19, 7 pm. No cover (suggested $30 donation).
Uncle Cheef, Brewster, NY
Ian Hendrickson-Smith Christmas Party w/Nicole Zuraitis (vocals), Fri., Dec. 20, sets at 7:30 and 9 pm, $15-25 plus $25 per person minimum per set. One ticket good for both sets.
Jams
Cafe Nine, New Haven CT
New Haven Jazz Underground jam, usually 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month: free admission
Saturday jazz jam most Saturdays, 4 pm. Free.
Blackeyed Sally’s, Hartford, CT
Jazz Wednesdays, featured set 7 pm, jam session afterward.
Jazz Societies and Organizations (great info on events, festivals, and more)
Jazz Society of Fairfield County
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