Artistic Director Speaks: Harris Eisenstadt / Alexander Hawkins +++
(by Ken Pickering)
May 26, 2014
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Harris Eisenstadt's Golden State - The Ironworks - June 28
Alexander Hawkins / Francois Houle / Harris Eisenstadt - The Ironworks - June 29 and Performance Works - July 1
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about my ongoing friendship with drummer / composer / bandleader Harris Eisenstadt and the interconnectedness of the creative / jazz / improvisational music scenes around the world and how many unexpected encounters lead to constantly expanding networks and surprising outcomes.
Harris Eisenstadt (photo: Ziga Koritnik)
It was in the early 2000’s when I first started to hear about Harris and it wasn’t too long after that I heard from the then young man directly. This was back in the day when he was at Cal Arts studying with Wadada Leo Smith and around the time bassist Torsten Müller had moved to Vancouver from Bremen, Germany who also factors into this story.
It must’ve been around 2004/5 when I met Harris for the first time in London, UK at a church concert that he participated in –John Butcher was among the cast performing and I also remember eating pizza and attending that gig with Steve Beresford. Maybe he played as well. Eisenstadt was one of the rare young North American jazz musicians (a true blue Canadian) that was not only comfortable playing with European improvisers but was very conversant with that language and the players; happily discussing the merits of Tony Oxley or Han Bennink as he was dealing with the music of American jazz masters such as Jack deJohnette and Max Roach.
For the first decade of the new millennium our Time Flies (Vancouver Improvised Music Meeting) was in full flight each February with Torsten Müller joining me as co-artistic director and it was on his recommendation that we invited Harris to Vancouver. Torsten had met Harris around 2002/3 when he was in LA with Wolfgang Fuchs –which let to Torsten and Harris touring with the late great British improvising trombonist Paul Rutherford. Harris also attended a Detroit Tigers fantasy camp with his father around that time that made the travel section of the Globe and Mail, but that’s another story.
Harris Eisenstadt (photo: Evan Eisenstadt)
In the intervening years our friendship blossomed and I’ve had the good fortune to share many fantastic hangs with Harris and his wife Sara Schoenbeck mostly in Brooklyn (but in Vancouver too). In fact Rainbow Robert (Manager of Artistic Programming) and I actually commandeered their kitchen during an APAP conference and cooked orecchiette with cauliflower for many of our Brooklyn friends a few years back! What fun! One particularly funny moment at their place was captured when Harris photographed me holding his young son Owen in full Maple Leafs regalia – but you can’t hold being a Leafs fan against Harris, not when one of his main bands is called Canada Day (featured at the festival in 2010). Not sure if he still has that photo!
Eisenstadt also has numerous engaging projects beyond his stellar Canada Day, including the September Trio (with Angelica Sanchez and Ellery Eskelin); their second Clean Feed album – The Destructive Element is a must hear. Many Canadian listeners heard Harris with Francois Houle’s 5tet + Benoit Delbecq during their triumphant summer 2012 jazz festival tour. There’s a great disc from this band available on Songlines – features some of my favourite musicians and people; in addition to Francois, Harris and Benoit, Michael Bates, Samuel Blaser and Taylor Ho Bynum. The recent Clean Feed album (with Harris) led by trumpeter Nate Wooley’s also a monster. Nate and DJ Olive also play the fest on June 28th (The Ironworks) under the moniker Destroy Vancouver - deets here.
Another festival convergence represents an outgrowth of Harris’ musical relationship in a cross continental amalgamation with American trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum (he was here with Anthony Braxton’s Sonic Genome during the Cultural Olympiad 2010) and Brits Dominic Lash and Alexander Hawkins in their appropriately named Convergence Quartet. Right now I’m listening to their excellent second album (rec 2011) Slow and Steady. Check out this podcast of Alex Hawkins talking about that album.
Harris provided the initial introduction to Alex Hawkins and over the past year or more I’ve had some great twitter conversations with him about all kinds of jazz. Even more fun was the vinyl shopping (Jan Ole spent all the money), a Turkish kebab meal and listening to the final concert of the ICP Orchestra (with Misha Mengelberg) at the Vortex in London (last January 2013) in Alex and Jan Ole Otnaes’ (Oslo) company. In relatively short order this young pianist’s meteoric rise has cemented a reputation as one of Britain’s most highly regarded pianists (and organ too) working with Joe McPhee, Louis Moholo Moholo, Evan Parker, Mulatu Astatke and most recently he was found in Italy working with Wayne Horvitz’ conduction ensemble. His knowledge of jazz history from its origins and across all styles (Ben Webster to Roscoe Mitchell, Hampton Hawes to Cecil Taylor) is impressive (a vinyl collector) and would seem to belie his youth. Possessing great knowledge of the jazz tradition, Hawkins is at his core a staunch modernist as his musical associations attest. He’ll perform twice (plus a workshop lecture at the Roundhouse) at the festival as part of the Made in the UK series with a new trio that includes Harris and Vancouver clarinetist Francois Houle. Deets for June 29th gig here and July 1st here.
Alexander Hawkins (photo by: Edu Hawkins)
Finally the original point of this piece: to let you know that the Harris Eisenstadt Golden State Quartet is touring Canada (with the support of Canada Council for the Arts – his first touring grant!) to perform music from their gorgeous and quite recent album on Vancouver’s Songlines imprint - catching this unique one of a kind quartet live is a must!
Harris Eisenstadt's Golden State
The original band had a most unusual lineup: Nicole Mitchell – flute, Sara Schoenbeck – bassoon, Mark Dresser – bass and Harris – all great musicians and leaders in their own right. Check out this video with Harris talking about the quartet, the music concepts and how it all came together. The liner notes by Brian Morton explain the genesis of this group (rooted in Harris and Sara’s 2012 residency at Cal Arts) rather perfectly. Although Nicole will not be on this tour due to family obligations (and we’ll miss her), saxophonist / clarinetist Michael Moore (ICP Orchestra) is a more than able replacement as most of you probably know.
Here's a great review of Golden State in All About Jazz by Glenn Astarita.
The concert - June 28 at the Ironworks 9pm – deets here.
And there you have it – a rambling story, Harris Eisenstadt to Alexander Hawkins with multiple detours in the telling. See you at the concerts!
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