Alan Barry

Dave Fiuczynski plays a lot of notes—in the sense that is usually meant and in another sense that is decidedly a path less traveled. For sure, his musical approach includes cleanly picked note barrages and long peaks-and-valleys jazz-fusion lines, but its most unusual salient feature is microtonality. Fiuczynski explores the notes between the notes of the twelve-tone equal tempered Western scale, drawing inspiration from a variety of both the scales of non-Western musics and the explorations of microtonal composers who fall under the broad classical umbrella.

Pretty much all guitarists are familiar with a little bit of microtonality. When you bend a note ever-so-slightly to get it to sound just like Eric Clapton, for example, that’s a tiny bit of microtonality.  Often transcriptions will notate these bends of less-than-a-semitone as quarter tones, though I kind of doubt that Clapton or the blues greats who inspired him intended anything so precise. More elaborate microtonality, however, is a game changer. Fiuczynski joked from the NuBlu stage that microtonal music sounds out of tune, and that’s not an unusual first impression. Microtonal music certainly sounds different from the styles of Western music that have found their way around the globe. Like many adventurous flavors, it starts out as an acquired taste. For some, acquired tastes become flavors they can’t live without.  

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I had the good fortune to catch the second set of the Sheryl Bailey Quartet’s February 2 performance at Fat Cat, in the West Village. In the same large NYC basement as dozens of people playing pool, ping-pong, Scrabble, table bocce, foozeball, and who-knows-what-else, guitarist-composer-leader Bailey guided pianist Jim Ridl, bassist Andy McKee, and drummer Sylvia Cuenca through a five-tune set of her originals.

Throughout the set, the band played with a clear, unexaggerated, almost-light-definitely-not-heavy attack. At no point do I recall them rising to a bashing, thunderous level. While their set was certainly not meditative, can-hear-a-pin-drop-in-space quiet, just as much it wasn’t a self-consciously loud set. They infused the set with energy, but without spending much time at the extremes. In this ensemble, that tendency, shared among all, did not result in anything that could be mistaken for middle-of-the-road background filler. I understood the avoidance of volume extremes as saying to those in the distraction-filled environment who chose to put the music first, “Stay focused! Listen The interesting stuff isn’t only at the extremes.”

The set consisted, in order, of “An Unexpected Turn,” “Lazy Dazy,” “What She Said,” “Last Night,” and “Starbrite.” Bailey gave each number a brief introduction. Most memorable were her intros to “An Unexpected Turn” and “Lazy Dazy.” The former, she related, was inspired by unpredictable and creatively satisfying run-ins with NYC jazz cats, including her quartet bandmates. “Lazy Dazy,” Bailey said, came to her in the aftermath of a rare day off—something, as a self-described “type-A” personality who needs to “get shit done,” with which she’s not entirely comfortable. The tune, which is as yet not to be found on any of her albums, does conjure some discomfort; its A and B sections have a playful, but somewhat awkward relationship. It’s not difficult for me to imagine Bailey as constantly busy, not only from her involvement in numerous projects, but from my observation that every time I’ve been to one of her gigs as the leader, she has performed a new composition. I’ve come to expect and look forward to hearing her new and unrecorded tunes at her gigs. 

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Humanity Quartet played a late set full of original compositions, flowing improvisation, structural surprises, and humor to a packed house at Smalls, in New York City’s West Village, in what was actually the earliest hour of August 20. The group consists of esteemed New York City jazz veterans drummer Leon Parker, bassist Sean Smith, tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm, and guitarist Peter Bernstein.

They didn’t explain their name, and I have no official word on this, but it seems to me that the name of the group could be a reference to the subtle, hard-to-notice variations in human interaction that are always happening yet never undermine communication, and without which we’d just be complicated machines. Maybe I’m stretching in my interpretation, but most, if not all, of the tunes in their set of six contained a twist on jazz bandstand conventions. 

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On my way to Central Park one recent afternoon, I couldn’t resist investigating this sign:

“What’s the oldest song in the world?” is not a question I’ve ever asked. Given that audio recording didn’t exist until Edison’s phonograph in 1877 and we know of songs from long before that time, the question aims at the oldest known notated song. Through the end of August 2017, New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World hosts an exhibit that includes  a reproduction the ancient tablet on which the oldest known song is notated (pictured below-not very exciting), along with a video installation that shows some contemporary renditions of the tune. (See the links below for audio.)

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