On Stage: Fall in for some jazz with Jason Stein

By Denny Dyroff, Staff Writer, The Times

Fall has arrived in the area and a huge array of bands is following close behind. This is time of year when bands hit the road – looking to get in tours before the Christmas holiday season takes over.

A number of interesting acts will be performing in the area over the next few days beginning on October 3 with jazz ace Jason Stein at Boot and Saddle and Moon Hooch at Kung Fu Necktie.

Stein will bring his band Hearts and Minds to town as part of an Ars Nova Workshop presentation at Boot and Saddle (1131 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, 215-639-4528, www.bootandsaddlephilly.com).

Hearts and Minds has been called a “bastard organ trio,” weaving together various influences from jazz, rock, and noise into an intense, singular expression of contemporary composition and improvisation.

Originally from Long Island, Jason Stein is one of the few musicians working today to focus entirely on the bass clarinet as a jazz and improvisational instrument. Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune wrote, “The bass clarinet does not figure prominently in jazz, but it hasn’t had many champions as ardent or accomplished as Stein.”

“I wanted to play a woodwind because there were so many jazz saxophonists that I lived,” said Stein, during a phone interview last week from his home in New York.

 “I wanted to play an instrument to develop my own vocabulary so I chose bass clarinet. It’s a great instrument. But, it can be a very tricky instrument to play.”

Stein studied at Bennington College with Charles Gayle and Milford Graves, and at the University of Michigan with Donald Walden and Ed Sarath. In 2005, Stein relocated to Chicago and has since recorded for such labels as Leo, Delmark, Atavistic, 482 Music and Clean Feed.

He has worked with a wide range of creative musicians, including Michael Moore, Jeff Parker, Ken Vandermark, Rob Mazurek, Jeb Bishop, Ingebrigt Håker-Flaten, Michael Zerang, and Peter Brötzmann. He also leads the avant-jazz trio Locksmith Isidore, which continues to perform before arena-sized crowds as the opening act for Stein’s sister, comedian Amy Schumer.

“I’m home for the moment,” said Stein. “I just got back from shows in Austin and Louisville. They were with Hearts and Minds. I’ve also been doing a lot of shows with Locksmith Isidore with my sister Amy Schumer. It’s been totally cool opening for her. Going in, I didn’t know what to expect but the audiences have been great.”

Hearts and Minds teams Stein with keyboardist Paul Giallorenzo, a Chicago-based improviser, composer, and producer who uses piano, synthesizer, keyboards, and electronics in a wide variety of groups and contexts, ranging from jazz and improvised music to electro-acoustic noise to sound and video performance; and drummer Chad Taylor, the co-founder of the Chicago Underground ensembles who has worked with the likes of Fred Anderson, Derek Bailey, Pharoah Sanders, Marc Ribot and Peter Brötzmann.

“Hearts and Minds is a pretty long-standing band,” said Stein. “I’ve been friends with Paul since I was 11. We went to school together in Rockville Center in Long Island. The first year Hearts and Minds started playing was around 2008.

“We’ve played together with different drummers throughout the years. All three of us stay pretty busy with different projects. We kept talking about doing some recording but it never happened. Finally, it did. We recorded our debut album in 2014.”

The band’s debut album “Hearts and Minds” is being released in the United States on October 7 by Astral Spirits, a record label based in Austin, Texas.

The collective’s eponymous debut emanates from an eight-year incubation — sporadic and occasionally intensive gigging resulting in the accretion of a songbook featuring tunes and structures divided about equally between Stein and Giallorenzo.

Both based in Chicago, they’re long established members of the creative music community — key figures in the wave of players attracted to the city in the early 2000’s.  Frank Rosaly, another veteran jazz player from Chicago, played drums and did electronics on the album.

“We recorded the album in Chicago in June 2014 with Frank,” said Stein. “Later, he moved to Amsterdam so we had to find another drummer. Even though it was our first recording, we were playing compositions that we had been playing for a long time – compositions that leave a lot of room for improvisation.

“Improvisation is really an important part of this ban. We’re just inclined to find variations. We hired Chad as our drummer because he is so good. I’ve been listening to him since I was young.

“With our band, keyboard and synths play the role of bass quite a bit. It’s sort of a re-appropriated organ trio. The bass does a lot of walking. There are elements of noise music or even rock. But, at heart, we’re all jazz musicians.”

Video link for Hearts and Minds – https://youtu.be/xY2UNiESsNw?t=8.

The show at Boot and Saddle will start at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.

After spending the better part of the summer touring Europe, Moon Hooch returned the states for an extensive tour. Supporting the new studio album, “Red Sky”’ which was released in June, the tour includes a performance for the Brooklyn-based band on October 3 at Kung Fu Necktie (1248 North Front Street, Philadelphia, 215-291-4919, kungfunecktie.com).

With the exception of a handful of U.S. festival appearances, Moon Hooch—the explosive horn-and-percussion trio featuring Mike Wilbur (horns), Wenzl McGowen (horns) and James Muschler (drums)—has spent the majority of this summer touring Canada and Europe.

While on tour in the U.K., Moon Hooch impressively received to an invitation to perform on BBC Two’s prestigious “Later…With Jools Holland” television program. 

“We have two days off here,” said Muschler, during a phone interview last Wednesday from his home in Brooklyn.

“We just came back from a big tour of Europe, including Serbia and Russia. We have two days off and then we head out to san Francisco to start the next tour.

“I’m from Cleveland. Mike is from Boston and Wenzl is from the Canary Islands. We met in 2009 when we were in school at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.  But, we didn’t start playing together until the summer of 2010.

“I was playing with Mike on the side in various groups and Wenzl was in different groups on his own. We knew each other but had never played together. One day, I was busking in Washington Square with Wenzl – sax and drums. Mike was there busking on his own.”

Before long they were performing as a trio – with musical harmony but not personal harmony.

“Mike and Wenzl had some differences at the beginning,” said Muschler. “They didn’t like each other at first. It took a few years of deep psychological searching. We were all just young boys growing up. Still, it’s always been about the music. Mike is a fire. You can’t replace Mike.”

Mixing elements of indie rock, virtuosic jazz and pulse-pounding electronic dance music with a DIY spirit, Moon Hooch’s latest album “Red Sky” captures the spontaneous, manic energy of the trio’s live shows, while at the same time demonstrating the marked evolution from their early days busking in the New York City subway system with just two saxophones and a drum kit.

“We’re all composers,” said Muschler. “The writing process usually starts with one of us having an idea and then approaching the group with the song. Other times, we’ll all just be there working together on something.”

Though the band is heavily inspired by electronic music, the three musicians made a conscious effort to use as little in the way of “studio tricks” as possible on “Red Sky,” — aiming instead to capture the sound of their live show, which has evolved significantly from their days underground.

“Our new album is our best,” said Muschler. “We recorded ‘Red Sky’ in the spring of 2015 at a studio in Brooklyn called The Bunker. We’ve done all our records there.

“With the new one, we did a lot of pre-production. I think we were all better prepared for this one. The compositions were more focused and interesting. There is more variety. It’s really diverse but it’s also homogeneous. And, it’s definitely dance music.

“In our live show, we do a mix of all our albums – all kinds of stuff. We play four songs from ‘Red Sky’ – and a lot of new material that’s been made since the album came out. There is a lot of energy in this show.”

Video link for Moon Hooch – https://youtu.be/ZHOGHS0NqF0?t=34.

The show at Kung Fu Necktie, which has Honeycomb and Mindboys as openers, will start at 7 p.m. Tickets are $18.

When a band has a name like Cattle Decapitation, it’s a pretty safe bet that the group isn’t playing soft ballads and wistful Americana tunes.

When Cattle Decapitation takes the stage at the Voltage Lounge (421 North Seventh Street, Philadelphia, 215- 964-9602, www.Voltagelounge.com) on October 4, the walls of the club will be shaking from the band’s dense, ultra-intense music.

The San Diego-based band — Travis Ryan: Vocals; Josh Elmore: Guitar; Derek Engmann: Bass; David McGraw: Drums – released its first album “Homovore” in 2000 and its seventh album “The Anthropocene Extinction” last year on Metal Blade Records. It was Cattle Decapitation’s sixth straight album for Metal Blade.

“We probably have another year of touring on ‘The Anthropocene Extinction’ cycle,” said Elmore, during a phone interview last week prior to the band’s trip to a gig in Toronto.

“After this tour, we have nothing for the rest of the year. In the spring, we’re going to Mexico and South America and then probably do another U.S. tour. Then, we’ll go back to Europe for festivals in the summer. Next fall, it will be time to get back to work – to get back in the studio.

“We toured Europe three times this year. It’s pretty grueling but the festivals were great. Festivals put us in front of a lot more people. The first time we played Hellfest (an annual French music festival that specializes in extreme music), we played in front of 80-90 thousand people.

“Our first time to Europe was in 2007 after the ‘Karma.Bloody.Karma’ album. We’ve had a slow build over there ever since and then dramatic growth in the last two years.”

Cattle Decapitation has been in the “road warrior” category for a long time.

“From ‘Homovore’ in 2000 to ‘Karma.Bloody.Karma’ in 2006,we were on the road constantly – eight months a year,” said Elmore. “We’ve definitely scaled it back since. We’re still constantly consistently out but we’ve learned how to pick the stuff that is worthwhile.”

“The Anthropocene Extinction” took Cattle Decapitation’s music to a new level – far different than the previous album “Monolith of Inhumanity.”

The band’s press release explained the differences – “Whereas Monolith Of Inhumanity’ dealt with what could become of the earth and its life forms had humans continued their present course, with ‘The Anthropocene Extinction,’ we have been transported forward to man’s last gasps, reminiscent of what is currently going on with the Laysan Albatrosses on the island of Midway Atoll.

“The birds and aquatic wildlife of the Pacific Ocean are mistaking the vast amounts of man-made plastic items for food, ingesting it and are dying in large numbers, rotting where they fall and exposing to the world what is happening to the ecosystems of the earth’s oceans – the most unknown and unexplored part of our planet.

“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch of the North Pacific Gyre is just part of the problem – there are five gyres on planet earth and they’re all filling with plastic waste outnumbering the plankton vital for the ocean’s ecosystems. The breakdown of the earth’s ecosystems has begun long ago due to human interaction as well as the domino effect that will surely seal the fate for our species.”

“The new album was very unlike our last one,” said Elmore. “And, the album we make next year will definitely be different than ‘The Anthropocene Extinction.’ We want to keep growing – keep getting better.”

Video link for Cattle Decapitation – https://youtu.be/u8t8g8lU4ms?t=2.

The show at the Voltage Lounge., which also features Brujeria, Pinata Protest and Eat the Turnbuckle, will start at 7 p.m. Tickets are $22.

On October 4, guitar fans will be in for a treat when legendary guitarist Wayne Krantz brings his “Underground pop Tour” to the Sellersville Theater (24 West Temple Avenue, Sellersville, 215-257-5808, www.st94.com).

Krantz, one of the country’s most respected guitarists in modern jazz (and longtime member of Steely Dan) is bringing 2x Salvation with him. The group also features Kevin Scott on bass and Zach Danziger on drums.

For this project, Krantz has challenged himself to respectfully re-imagine some of the major influencers on his own music and create something completely new — compositions inspired by diverse artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Bob Dylan, Prince, and Sonic Youth.

“This tour we’re doing now is almost al covers – almost randomly chosen,” said Krantz, during a phone interview last week. “I figured out what’s going to be the most fin for us to play. Calling it a cover is a stretch.

“We play compositionally in every show but the improvisational part is the main focus. Part of its value is that it only happens once. In a way, that’s how it should be. The virtue of it is that it’s not going to be heard again.”

Krantz has a catalogue of 10 solos albums including his latest — “Good Piranha/Bad Piranha.” The album features Krantz performing four different tracks with two different interpretations of “Black Swan” from Thom Yorke, Ice Cube’s “My Skin is My Sin”, Pendulum’s “Comprachicos” and MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This.”

In the 1970s, Krantz moved from Oregon to Boston to attend the Berklee College of Music.

“Back when I was in high school, rock bands all had their own vibe,” said Krantz. “It wasn’t until I started listening to jazz that I really discovered guitar. I worked my way through my dad’s collection and found an album by Barney Kessel.

“There was this album ‘The Poll Winners’ by the Barney Kessel Trio. I was fascinated by the complexity of it. And, I was blown away by the playing on it. After that, I quickly discovered Joe Pass, George Benson and Jon McLaughlin.

“When I went to college at Berklee, that’s when I heard all these jazz musicians who were close to my age. I’m not sure I would have gotten into jazz if I wasn’t a player. Once I got out of school, I started practicing a lot and put together a fusion quartet.

“After that, I went to New York and began working as a sideman. But, there was something I wasn’t getting out of being a sideman. I put together my first trio with Zack Danziger on drums and Lincoln Goines on bass. I moved to New York in 1986 and I’ve been there ever since.

“The fact that the music I’ve been playing is so improvisational makes it hard because improve requires a very specific talent. Improv has reduced my options so I’ve had to stick with my stable of musicians. To my detriment, I’ve never thought about what I do as an effort to rise to the top. The important thing is that I’m motivated by the music.”

Video link for Wayne Krantz — https://youtu.be/egt-z9SCt-A?t=4.

The show at the Sellersville Theater will start at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 and $39.50.

The show on October 4 at Union Transfer (1026 Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia, 215-232-2100, www.utphilly.com) will feature Kishi Bashi.

Kishi Bashi is the pseudonym of singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Kaoru Ishibashi – a talented musician who is touring in support of his new album “Sonderlust.”

“My parents are academia and I grew up in several university towns where they were professors,” said Kishi Bashi, during a phone interview last week from a tour stop in Asheville, North Carolina. “My dad was a civil engineer and my mother taught Japanese.

“I think I had an inclination toward music when I was young. I started piano lessons when I was four and began studying violin when I was six. In high school, I played guitar. I was a metal head and also liked bands like Nirvana and the Chili Peppers.

“I got serious about music when I was a student in engineering at Cornell University for two years. After that, I went to Berklee College of Music to study music. It was do-or-die because music was all I had.

“My major was music composition and film scoring. I began playing a lot of jazz venues. I even got to perform with Stephane Grappelli before he died. I graduated from Berklee in 1999. David Bowie was our commencement speaker.”

Form Boston, Kishi Bashi headed down to the BigApple.

“I moved to New York and began playing in different jazz groups,” said Kishi Bashi. “In 2011, I started Jupiter One, which was an instrumental jazz group. I also played in the Big Apple Circus.

“After a while, I started singing and writing songs. I went solo and that’s when Kishi Bashi started. My first album was in 2012 and ‘Sonderlust’ is my third.”

“Sonderlust” is an album forged through heartbreak. After his two previous studio albums (“151a amd “Lighght”), Kishi Bashi was at a musical impasse.

According to the versatile musician, “As I sat down to write songs last summer, I went to all my usual conduits of creation: violin loops, guitar, piano, and I came up with the musical equivalent of fumes. I tried to create orchestral pop recordings that I assumed were my forte, and in turn I found myself standing in front of a creative wall of frightening heights.”

At this very same moment of musical uncertainty, Kishi Bashi’s personal life was falling apart. He and his wife of 13 years had briefly separated and were struggling to keep their marriage together. Touring and his music career had taken a toll on his personal life and his family.

With the help of producer Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear), engineer Pat Dillet (Angelique Kidjo, David Byrne) and drummer Matt Chamberlain (Morrissey, Fiona Apple, of Montreal), Kishi Bashi created his most personal and artistically adventurous work to date.

“I realized that it was O.K. for the album to be different from my previous albums,” said Kishi Bashi. “I used electronics and funky rhythms. I got a Wurlitzer and listened to Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder. I wanted to experiment more with my singing style.

‘In my live show now, I’m playing songs from all three albums. I play most of the songs that are on the new album. People seem to know the new album pretty well already.”

Video link for Kishi Bashi — https://youtu.be/0C6g7JfYztE?t=58.

The show at Union Transfer, which has Twain as the opening act, will start at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $18.

A Black-Italian raised in Miami and Venezuela walks into a bar. She’s flanked by some instrument toting lady friends and a few dudes. There’s a Filipino, a Jewish/Brazilian, a Motswana, a Japanese man, and a couple white guys with guitars (of course).

Although this might sound like a joke waiting for a punch line, it’s a fairly accurate description of the origin of the New York Afropop-influenced band Underground System.

The band recently released its new record “Bella Ciao” and will visit the area on October 4 for a show at the World Café Live (3025 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, 215-222-1400, www.worldcafelive.com).

Putting its original Brooklynized stamp on the classic Afrobeat style, Underground System is a huge band with a huge sound – four horns and seven rhythm players armed and ready to whip any space into a massive dance party.

The ensemble was formed in early 2010 as the brainchild of guitarist Peter Matson, who fell in love with the music and story of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti while playing in a group directed by members of the seminal Afrobeat group Antibalas.

Domenica Fossati (flute, vocals, percussion), the group’s Venezuelan born Miami raised frontwoman, makes Undergorund System one of the only Afrobeat bands around to exclusively feature a female frontperson. Trilingual on top of a strong familiarity with Yoruba and Nigerian tongues, she composes original Afrobeat lyrics drawing from a pool of three or four different languages at a time.

Fossati’s classical training on flute and studies of African Dance (including travels to Ghana) adds another layer of depth and diverse influence to each performance. The group also features a predominately female horn section and rotates many other great musicians on a regular basis.

“We put the group together in 2010,” said Fossati, during a phone interview last week from her home in Brooklyn. “I was finishing school at The New School and learned about Afrobeat from the band Antibalas.

“I joined with some friends in this band and from there it’s been a never-ending game of meeting people. It had a very organic genesis. I joined as lead singer a little later in the game after Peter saw me in the Afropop band Fu Arkistra. The New York family of Afropop is pretty tight.”

“We did our first New York show in March 2010 and we did a little recording in 2011,” said Matson. “We recorded and EP called ‘B.O.B.’ at Studio G in Brooklyn.

“After that EP came out, we did a couple remixes. Since then, a lot of other bands have done remixes of it. One DJ in Ibiza did some remixes that were really popular throughout Europe.”

For quite a while, the line-up of Underground System fluctuated with a combination of core musicians and added personnel.

“There were times when we had 12 or more musicians on stage,” said Fossati. “Now, we’ve narrowed it down. We keep it between seven and nine.”

The current lineup features Peter Matson (Guitar, band director), Domenica Fossati (flute, lead vocals), Elenna Canlas (keyboards), Jon Granoff (bass), Maria Eisen (baritone sax, backup vocals), Olatunji Tunji (percussion), Yoshio Kobayashi (drums) and Lollise Mbi (sekere).

“e started working on an album in April,” said Matson. “I think it’s going to be 10 songs and it will be an independent release.

“We started with Afrobeat as our roots and then other members came along. It still has Afrobeat roots but there is a lot more. We added electronics and lyrics in English, Spanish and Italian. We have a lot of different influences.”

Video link for Underground System – https://youtu.be/9pXWJie9E2M?t=4.

The show at World Café Live, which also features Matt Cappy Collective, will start at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.

On October 5, the World Café Live will present a show featuring two internationally-acclaimed musicians whose careers date back to the 1970s – Midge Ure (Ultravox, Visage) as the headliner and Richard Lloyd (Television) as the opening act.

Ure’s fans have bene waiting for a while to hear him play a full set with his band. The last two times he came to this area were with the “Retro Futura Tour” in 2014 which featured a number of popular acts from the 1980s playing truncated sets and then last year with his solo “Troubadour Tour.”

“The Troubadour Tour was great,” said Ure, during a phone interview Friday afternoon from New York City, “It was a hard work. This time, it’s a whole new outlook.

“I’ve got a band. It feels great to strap on an electric guitar. I have guitar, bass and drums with me. The bass player also plays keyboards and I play keyboards on some songs.”

You know Ure’s music even if you fail to recognize his name.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is a song he co-wrote with Bob Geldof and presented to the world as Band Aid. Ure co-organized Band Aid, Live Aid and Live 8 with Geldof. He also serves as ambassador for Save the Children.

Ure’s musical resume includes “Breathe,” which in 1996 became the soundtrack of a massive European “Swatch” campaign. He was introduced to the public as the vocalist for the British hit-making band Ultravox. His list of former bands also includes Slik, the Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy and Visage.

“Forever and Ever” was a big hit for Slik, while the Rich Kids was a band put together by ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock. Ure was the singer on such Ultravox hits as “Reap the Wild Wind”, “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes” and the timeless classic “Vienna.”

One of Ure’s most recent projects has been recording and performing live shows with Ultravox, a band that had an acrimonious breakup in 1985 and an amicable make-up in 2009. The classic Ultravox lineup released an album titled “Brilliant” in May 2012. Late last year, Ure released a new solo album titled “Fragile.”

“After such a long time, I wasn’t sure if anyone wanted another Midge Ure album,” he said. “It had been 12 years since my last album of original material After doing the Ultravox album three years ago, that inspired me to put my act together. I fueled myself up again. I gathered my ideas and completed them.

“I recorded the entire album at home where I have a Mac-based studio. I did all the instruments and was the engineer and producer. Then, I mixed it myself. I was very pleased with the whole process of doing it.”

Prior to the release of the album, Ure toured America with the Retro Futura Tour 2014 — a tour that touched down at the Keswick Theater in Glenside in August. The headline acts were Howard Jones, the Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey, Katrina (from Katrina and the Waves) and Ure.

“The Retro Futura tour went well,” said Ure. “There were some highs and some middling points. It was fun. We all got on very well and the reaction to the shows was very good.”

Then came his solo tour.

“I decided to do it totally alone,” said Ure. “I set up the shows, booked the hotels, rented the cars — all of it. It was just me — all by myself. I had my guitar, my suitcase and a bagful of merchandise.”

Now, it’s 2016 and Ure is ready to rock again.

“I’m doing songs from older albums along with a few Ultravox songs such as ‘Vienna.’ It’s like someone rattled your cage. I threw about 30 songs at the band and we figured it out at rehearsals. There are certain songs that people expect to hear like ‘Vienna,’ ‘Dancing with Tears in My Eyes,’ and ‘If I Was.’

“The obvious ones will be in there. We’re doing ‘All Stood Still,’ which was an Ultravox standard. Quite a few songs from the Ultravox era are 30 years old but they still seem fresh. I’m trying my hand with ‘Reap the Wild Wind.’ I’m still trying to figure out Visage’s ‘Fade to Grey.’ It’s part electronic sand part rock guitar.”

Ure’s next project will head in a different direction.

‘I’ve been working on an orchestral album,” said Ure. “It will be Ultravox songs and my music – from old tunes right up to ‘Fragile.’ I was always very cinematic with my writing.”

Video link for Midge Ure – https://youtu.be/Vj6g8Lc2QDc?t=41.

The show at the World Café Live will start at 8 p.m. Tickets are $18 (SRO) and $28 seated.