From Ragtime to Early Jazz – Gunther Schuller Legacy Concert

Scott Joplin (ed. Gunther Schuller) | The Easy Winners

NEC Ragtime Orchestra
—Hankus Netsky, director
Hila Dahari, Michele Zimmerman, Mitsuru Yonezaki, violin
Rita Hugues Soderbaum, Jacqueline Armbruster,
        Maureen Sheehan, Nathan Emans, Po Sung Huang, viola
Giulia Haible, Yu Qin, Shannon Ross, cello
Lawrence Hall, bass
Itay Dayan, clarinet
Ethan Shen, bass saxophone       
Max Ignas, trumpet
Aiden Coleman, trombone
Elfie Shi, percussion
Chi Wei Lo, piano  

Wilbur Sweatman | Down Home Rag

NEC Jazz Department Early Jazz Ensemble
Itay Dayan, clarinet
Lemuel Marc, trumpet
Michele Zimmerman, violin                                                  
Jake Walters, piano
Roman Barten-Sherman, banjo
Mark Abramovski, bass
Noah Mark, drums

Program note

Wilbur Sweatman (1882–1961) is mainly remembered for four things: playing three clarinets at the same time, giving Duke Ellington his first job in New York, holding onto Scott Joplin’s archives (which were later tragically lost), and Down Home Rag. The underlying 3/8 pulsation/polyrhythm that Joplin used so strategically and creatively is here joyfully pounded into the ground, creating a kind of Trance Music of its time. As a 1913 sheet music ad put it: “Everyone who has heard it declares it to be the greatest stage hit since the days of the now old and famous Turkey In the Straw”. Nothing much I can add to that.        
– Anthony Coleman

Scott Joplin | Bethena

Chi Wei Lo, piano

Eubie Blake | Charleston Rag

Chi Wei Lo, piano

James Scott (arr. Aaron Jonah Lewis) | Frog Legs Rag

Aaron Jonah Lewis, banjo
Roman Barten-Sherman, guitar
Giulia Haible, cello

James Scott (arr. Aaron Jonah Lewis) | Grace and Beauty

Aaron Jonah Lewis, banjo
Honor Hickman, flute
Corinne Foley, oboe
Evan Chu, clarinet
Abigail Heyrich, bassoon
Graham Lovely, French horn
Ethan Shen, bass saxophone

Scott Joplin (arr. Aaron Jonah Lewis) | The Ragtime Dance

Aaron Jonah Lewis, banjo
Honor Hickman, flute
Corinne Foley, oboe
Evan Chu, clarinet
Abigail Heyrich, bassoon
Graham Lovely, French horn
Ethan Shen, bass saxophone

INTERMISSION

Duke Ellington | Drop Me Off in Harlem

Alex Stening, piano
Raquel Fioroti, Genny Kunkel, dancer

Johnny St. Cyr | Unidentified Rag

Roman Barten-Sherman, guitar

Haoyu Zheng | The Timeless Echo of Shanghai, 1923

Chinese Traditional Music Ensemble
        —Hui Weng, director
Emily Mitchell, voice, guitar
Shutong Li, erhu
Ethan Shen, tenor saxophone
Hui Weng, guzheng
Moyu Zhang, piano
Elfie Shi, percussion
Amber Sang, pipa
Harry Liu, zhongruan

special guests:
Xiaomei Bu, jinghu, erhu
Xiaojing Feng, guzheng

Program note

In the spirit of Gunther Schuller, we are delighted to include The Timeless Echo of Shaghai, 1923 in this evening’s program.  When he first formulated the concept of “Third Stream,” Gunther expressed the hope that, eventually, Asian musical traditions would become an integral part of the musical tapestry he envisioned and he lived to see that realized, not only through the music of such composers as Chou Wen Chung but also right here at NEC when Hui Weng arrived as the first Chinese student in our masters program. 

Hui writes: 
Reflecting on Shanghai in 1923 reveals a metropolis at the crossroads of transformation, with Western influences permeating Shanghainese culture—from fashion to the proliferation of electricity, trams, and the introduction of café culture, to the celebrated Bellagio ballrooms. The city's essence was one of rapid change, especially in music, where there was a unique Shanghainese approach to blending emerging jazz styles with a Chinese sensibility as well as the heritage of Chinese Traditional Music.
        The composer re-arranged these historical soundscapes, drawing inspiration from the traditional Chinese Opera "Ding Jun Shan" (A Battle at Dingjun Mountain) and integrating the sweetness of "Maomao Yu" (Drizzle), the first-ever Chinese-Mandarin pop song. This harmonious collision and fusion of Chinese and Western music, where instruments from both traditions converse and intertwine, echo the rich, eclectic tapestry of Shanghai. Here, the timeless and the modern coalesced, giving rise to an innovative and lasting cultural identity.
         Through the lens of a young girl who comes from Shanghai of our time, the composition navigates the vibrancy and complexities of a city pulsating with life yet marked by the scars of war. Her narrative, from her dreamscape,  set against the bustling backdrop of Xiafei Road and enveloped in the strains of "Ding Jun Shan" and "Maomao Yu," captures the fluid cultural exchange and the enduring allure of Shanghai.
 

Jelly Roll Morton | Mamanita

Anthony Coleman, piano
Paul July Joseph, drums

Program note

In one of the most important statements Jelly Roll Morton made about his music, he claimed “If you can’t manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, I call it, for jazz.” This “Spanish Tinge”, as it has come to be called, was an essential aspect of Early Jazz, particularly New Orleans Early Jazz. If we had time and space, we could try to parse out which rhythmic elements from which parts of the Afro–Hispanic diaspora made their way into Jazz practice. But for the moment, I’ll just say that Morton, as the first great Jazz composer, made brilliant, systematic use of these elements, and Mamanita (dedicated to his partner, Anita Gonzales) is one his masterpieces of same.    
— Anthony Coleman

Jelly Roll Morton | King Porter Stomp

NEC CMA Early Jazz Ensemble
Itay Dayan, clarinet
Michele Zimmerman, violin
Yoona Kim, ajaeng
Roman Barten-Sherman, banjo
Giulia Haible, cello
Anthony Coleman, piano
Paul July Joseph, drums

Program note

Jelly Roll Morton’s King Porter Stomp, one of the most important of all Jazz compositions, was first recorded in 1923. The actual date of composition will, unfortunately, have to remain a subject of conjecture. Morton said that he composed it in 1906 but that seems highly unlikely. He said that he sent a copy to Scott Joplin, which would date it before 1917, but unfortunately most of Joplin’s papers were lost.
        In any case, King Porter really spells out, in the most elegant and coherent fashion, both the differences and the similarities between Ragtime and Early Jazz. The multi-thematic March-like structure owes a lot to classic Ragtime as it was practiced by Joplin and a few others, while the culminating section simplifies the final section of a classic rag, transforming it into rhythmic riff-based music that both encourages and supports improvisation.                                                 
 – Anthony Coleman
 

Eubie Blake, Andy Raz | Memories of You

Bo Winiker, trumpet
Hankus Netsky, piano

Scott Joplin (ed. Gunther Schuller) | The Maple Leaf Rag

NEC Ragtime Orchestra
—Hankus Netsky, director
Hila Dahari, Michele Zimmerman, Mitsuru Yonezaki, violin
Rita Hugues Soderbaum, Jacqueline Armbruster,
        Maureen Sheehan, Nathan Emans, Po Sung Huang, viola
Giulia Haible, Yu Qin, Shannon Ross, cello
Lawrence Hall, bass
Itay Dayan, clarinet
Ethan Shen, bass saxophone       
Max Ignas, trumpet
Aiden Coleman, trombone
Elfie Shi, percussion
Chi Wei Lo, piano  

Biographies

Roman Barten-Sherman is a Boston based guitarist, singer, and banjo player who performs American vernacular music inspired and informed by a lifelong exploration of pre-war country blues, ballads, and spirituals. Roman grew up in the high desert of Bisbee, Arizona; during formative travels to Mississippi, she learned the Bentonian blues style from Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, and the trance blues of Robert Belfour in Clarksdale juke joints. Her polyrhythmic guitar and banjo stylings and nuanced vocals have been honed through hundreds of performances to national and international audiences.

Anthony Coleman has been one of the key figures of New York music for nearly four decades. His work bridges the gap between Composition and Improvisation, Uptown andDowntown, and spans a wide range of genres and practices including Free Improvisation,Jazz, Jewish music (of various types), and Contemporary Chamber Music.
       Coleman immersed himself in New York City’s forward-thinking circle of genre-confounding composers and improvisers that would come to be known as the DowntownScene. The first two records Coleman played on, Glenn Branca’s Lesson No. 1 and JohnZorn’s Archery, are classics of a then-emerging avant-garde.
       Balancing a powerful sense of structural logic and expressionistic color, Coleman has hada prolific career as a composer. His works have been commissioned by the Concert ArtistGuild, the Ruhrtriennale, the Festival Banlieues Blues, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars,among others. He has received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, NewYork State Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, etc.
       Coleman has recorded 20 CDs under his own name and has played on more than 150.His most recent recordings include You (New World) and The End of Summer (Tzadik),and …im Gebirg (ROS4), all of which are recordings of his Chamber Music, and threesolo piano albums. His Damaged by Sunlight (2010) was issued on DVD by the Frenchlabel La Huit.

Champion fiddler Aaron Jonah Lewis has been elbow-deep in traditional American fiddle and banjo music since their first lessons at the age of five with Kentucky native Robert Oppelt. Lewis has taken blue ribbons at the Appalachian String Band Festival in Clifftop, WV, and at the Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax, VA, the oldest and largest fiddlers convention in the country. They are also noted for their mastery of multiple banjo styles.  They spend most of their time teaching, touring as a solo performer, with the Corn Potato String Band, and other projects.
      Lewis has appeared on dozens of recordings from bluegrass and old time to traditional jazz, contemporary  experimental and Turkish classical music projects. They have taught workshops at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and at the English Folk Dance and Song Society in London. They also play and teach banjo, mandolin, and guitar and are currently based in Detroit.
       As a banjoist, Lewis explores some interesting veins in the roots of Old Time, Bluegrass, Ragtime and Jazz music through their newest recording, Mozart of the Banjo: The Joe Morley Project. This project is devoted to the music of the great English prodigy and virtuoso composer Joe Morley (1867-1937), who wrote a significant body of great banjo pieces in a technique that people today call “classic fingerstyle.” Greg Adams, Archivist at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, says, “Lewis is one of the few performing musicians with the facility to build compelling musical bridges between the printed banjo music and techniques of the 19th century and the instrument’s journey into recorded sound by the turn of the 20th century.”
       Other musicians featured on the album include banjoist Ben Belcher, pianists Tessa Hartle and Cami Celestia, Grace van’t Hof on ukulele and Rachel Pearson on bass. The album has been released on Tiki Parlour Recordings in early 2020.
       Aaron Jonah Lewis is passionate about sharing early fingerstyle banjo music. They bring light to the fact that classic banjo was the most popular form of music a hundred years ago, though today it’s almost entirely forgotten. They are “trying to keep (classic banjo) alive and spread it around, as it’s a delightful style that brings joy and connects us to the depth of our shared American history.”

“Nervy, cerebral, passionate, mysterious, and sensual”—as described by BMInt—Chi-Wei Lo is a pianist, improviser, and arranger who effortlessly breaks down the fourth wall. Lo’s work has graced esteemed stages such as the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts, Harvard Musical Association, Longwood Symphony Orchestra, Ukraine Forward, College Music Society, Lancaster International Piano Festival, Tufts University, Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, UCLA, Chinese American Museum (LA), and The German Society of Pennsylvania, among others.
       In 2018, Lo was commissioned by the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corporation (KRTC) for its 10th-anniversary celebration, resulting in the creation of the album Twelve OverTwelve and the release of a limited edition metro-card bearing his portrait. 
       Currently pursuing a doctoral degree in contemporary piano improvisation at the New EnglandConservatory, Chi-Wei Lo shares his knowledge as a theory faculty at the same institution andteaches piano/improvisation at the South Shore Piano School. He is also a co-founder ofPsychopomp Ensemble and contributes as an author to the Boston Musical Intelligencer.

Also known as “The leading ladies,” dancers RaquelFioroti and Genny Kunkel have a passion for lindy hop style of jazz social dancing made famous in the 1930s. Lindy hoppers have been swinging out to artists like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie ever since! Raquel has performed for a variety of events including film productions and vintage lawn parties. Genny is the co-founder for local dance non-profit, Lindy Hopcats, and organizes regular street performances. Both teach classes to help inspire community and creativity. Odds are, if its got that swing, you will find them dancing to it!

A multi-instrumentalist, composer, and ethnomusicologist, Dr. Hankus Netsky is co-chair of New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Musical Arts Department, founder and director of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and former Vice President for Education at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. He has composed extensively for film, theater, and television, collaborated closely with Itzhak Perlman, Robin Williams, Joel Grey, Theodore Bikel, Robert Brustein, Eden MacAdam-Somer, Rosalie Gerut, and Robert Pinsky, and produced numerous recordings, including ten by the Klezmer Conservatory Band. He has taught at McGill University, Hampshire College, Wesleyan University, Hebrew College, and for Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshops. His essays on Jewish music have been published by the University of California Press, the University of Pennsylvania Press, Indiana University Press, theUniversity of Scranton Press, Hips Roads, and the University Press of America. Temple University Press published his book Klezmer, Music and Community in 20th Century Jewish Philadelphia in 2015.

Alex Stening is a Boston-based hornist, pianist and teacher. Alex is a graduate from the New England Conservatory with a Master of Music degree in performance studying with Eli Epstein, former second horn of the Cleveland Orchestra and additional instruction with Hankus Netsky, co-chair of New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Musical Arts Department. As an orchestral player, Alex has performed with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, The Florida Orchestra and has spent previous summers attending the Aspen Music Festival and School and Eastern Music Festival under the direction of major conductors including Robert Spano, Leonard Slatkin, Joann Falletta and Gerard Schwarz. Alex is a dedicated teacher and has led jazz workshops in Florida and Massachusetts and teaches private lessons at the John Payne Music Center in Brookline, Ma.

Bo Winiker began his professional music career at ten years of age, performing in his hometown of Millis, MA alongside his mother, father, and older brother as the Winiker Family Band. Bo went on to graduate from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he joined the Grammy-award-winning New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble. Bo remained a member of the ensemble for 25 years, touring around the world under conductor and former NEC president Gunther Schuller. From 1972-1973, he was the featured trumpet soloist with the Stan Kenton Orchestra and has also soloed with the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestras. In 1992, Bo recorded the movie soundtrack for A League of Their Own with Billy Joel. He has performed at the White House for President Ford, at President Carter’s Inauguration, and at Bill Clinton’s Inaugural Ball alongside the incredible Aretha Franklin. Bo conducted the Boston Pops Swing Orchestra for five consecutive sold-out New Year’s Eve Galas from 2013-2017. On NYE in 2018, Bo was honored to once again take the stage at Symphony Hall, opening for the Pops with his swing orchestra. Bo and his band members can be seen performing all over New England at a diverse range of parties and events. Bo’s horn playing, singing, and band-leading have been described as captivating, and he brings his infectious energy to every performance, no matter how large or small the stage!