Four days into this nine-day event, we ask: is the most-important instrument at the Rochester International Jazz Festival the Doppler radar? Just two hours before Monday’s fourth day of shows was to get underway, cars were pulling to the side of the road on I-590, waiting out a torrential downpour, hail pelting innocent windshields.
Then the sun came out.
But enough about the weather, we’re not old men eating lunch. Instead, we ask: Is jazz the purest American form of music?
We’ve had this argument many times. The blues genre is American, Buddy Holly’s guitar is American, the notes that bleat from John Philip Sousa’s sousaphone are American. The first two rocks banged together by a Neanderthal to create rhythm might have been the purest of American music.
(Until he threw them at another Neanderthal who was trying to steal his antelope leg. Then, punk rock broke out.)
In truth, everyone steals from everyone else. Words are especially a shared piece – shared experiences – of American jazz. We were hearing that Monday at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, with American Patchwork Quartet and Joe Robinson.
Except, yeah, Robinson’s a native of Australia. But that jazz stuff, he admits, came from us.
The soul of everyone
Right away, Clay Ross had to level with the audience that had come for American Patchwork Quartet’s first show at Temple Theater.
“I know it’s very strange to see a three-piece quartet,” the band’s guitarist conceded.
Blame the weather. American Patchwork Quartet’s drummer was supposed to catch a flight from New York City to Rochester on Monday. But because of storms, his flight was delayed, and delayed, and delayed… and Clarence Penn never got here.
So the quartet was a trio. But they certainly made the best of it. Perhaps because there is no audience grounding for a group that’s ethnically diverse and draws its musical influences from around the globe.
Both Ross and bassist Yasushi Nakamura swing from the folk-jazz side, while vocalist Falu Shah reflected on her heritage of India. Truly a group that could, as Ross said, “bridge some universes.”
And the band’s universe was sometimes a few centuries old. The bulk of American Patchwork Quartet’s songs are drawn from deep in American history. There was “Bury Me Beneath the Willow,” the most famous version of which is the 1927 recording by The Carter Family. It’s the story of a woman who has died just before she was to be married. And now she is to buried. But, she says of her nearly-husband-to-be, who’s already replaying the field, “perhaps he’ll weep for me.”
There’s a lot of such dark stuff in the traditional American songbook, as well as lighter deviance. American Patchwork Quartet warbled its way through the handy metaphor of “Coo-Coo Bird,” notorious for laying its eggs in another bird’s nest. “Lazy John,” which the group connected to automotive pioneer Henry Ford, seems to argue against employees taking time off. How lazy! As American Patchwork Quartet noted, “There’s nothing more American than working for your weekend.”
The group reached back to The Reverend Gary Davis’ “John the Revelator.” A terrifying story drawn from The Bible, American Patchwork Quartet said, updated with electric guitar. The band also dipped into the 18th century for British balladry.
This patchwork of song is darkness and light. The achingly beautiful “Shenandoah” dates back to the American Revolution.
It’s all simple horse sense. “I’ve never seen a horse sing,” is a quote American Patchwork Quartet attributed to no less a music authority than jazz great Louis Armstrong, apparently a reference to drawing lines where none were obviously needed. Yet, Armstrong supposedly added, “all music is folk music.”
And the group’s audience itself wasn’t afraid to update some of these folk chestnuts. As American Patchwork Quartet announced it would be dusting off Blind Willie Johnson’s “What is the Soul of a Man,” a female voice from the audience retorted, “Or a woman.”
Today’s jazz haiku
Diamonds falling
breaking against the windows
where music resides
Robinson’s guitar metroplex
With just one guitar in hand, Joe Robinson sounded like he was playing two guitars. Then he’d run that guitar through a loop – a device that records a riff and plays it back endlessly – and play a guitar over it.
Then, he was reaching for an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar and, with his first loop still filling the room, he was playing the two guitars at the same time. A little awkward-looking maybe, like Lucy Ricardo scrambling to clean the apartment before Ricky Ricardo gets home from the club.
Yes, Robinson’s looping, guitar-balancing act and his popping percussion on the instrument’s body was quite a bag of tricks. Yet throughout his second show at The Little, it was also stunning musicality. A one-man band of melody, bass line and chords.
Born and raised in Australia, Robinson was a self-taught guitarist at age 11, and a winner of “Australia’s Got Talent" before moving to Nashville. During his show, he readily cited the influence of guitar legends Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and, more recently, Australian Tommy Emmanuel. It was in Nashville that Robinson met the Rochester icon Bat McGrath, who took Robinson under his wing for a while (I remember McGrath talking about this wondrous kid he’d been working with).
Now, Robinson lives with his wife in Montana, which is about as Australian as the 50 states get. And he does look kinda Montana now, sporting a trucker hat and a stage wardrobe that suggests he’d be OK with mowing your lawn. Despite the pyrotechnics of his show, Robinson modestly brought only two guitars to the stage, when other touring pros pack a dozen.
Robinson untangled all of his guitar acrobatics during the concert, showing off fingerpicking wizardry on recognizable pieces such as “Misty,” which he unexpectedly turned into a real bluegrass picker.
And he slipped in The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love.” The tune is so familiar to the audience, that as Robinson played an instrumental version, adroitly filling in every crack of the song, the brain readily filled in the words.
Robinson writes his own songs as well, and he warned his audience that some can induce queasiness. “Hitchhiker” is a true story, he said, about his family picking up a hitchhiker in Australia. The guy was a collection of physical deformities, including the stump of a foot. The hitchhiker explained he’d stuck it under a lawnmower so he could qualify for government worker’s compensation.
Robinson returns for a set of shows at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 27 at the Theater at Innovation Square.
Spevak's picks for Tuesday, June 27
Tonight’s show featuring Bonnie Raitt at Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater is sold out (insert sad face here).
Joona Toivanen Jazz & Fly Fishing, Christ Church, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.
A Finnish fly-fishing, filmmaking jazz quartet. What could go wrong with this pick?
Person2Person, Kilbourn Hall, 6 and 9 p.m.
Houston Person and Eric Person are not related, except in their mastery of the jazz saxophone.
Tia Fuller Quintet, Hiatt Regency Grand Ballroom, 7:45 and 9:45 p.m.
What, another saxophonist? Yes, Fuller’s played with Beyoncé, and is a music professor as well.
Jeff Spevak is senior arts writer for WXXI/CITY Magazine.