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| Upper West Side Love Story: a song cycle by Freddie Bryant Thursday, October 6th 7pm Aaron Davis Hall Guitarist-Composer Freddie Bryant Revisits his Roots on Nostalgic Masterwork Upper West Side Love Story NYC premiere on Oct. 6th 7 pm at Aaron Davis Hall on City College of New York campus in Harlem An active player on the New York scene for more than 30 years, guitarist-composer Freddie Bryant has worked with a Who's Who in jazz, including Max Roach, Ben Riley, Wynton Marsalis, Tom Harrell, Randy Brecker, Claudio Roditi and Sheila Jordan. A longtime member of the Monk Legacy Septet and the Mingus Orchestra, he has released seven albums as a leader that showcase his love of jazz, Brazilian and classical music. But nothing that he has done to date is as profoundly personal and affecting as the New York City native's latest undertaking. A song cycle based on eight haikus and eight long form poems, Upper West Side Love Story is Bryant's aural reflection on the vibrant neighborhood where he grew up on West 87th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, near the fictional setting of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. Throughout the 90-minute song cycle, Bryant expresses fondness and heartfelt nostalgia for his old 'hood while also addressing the darker side of drugs, crime, redlining, homelessness and emerging gentrification. Commissioned by Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works program and funded through the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, this monumental work captures a slice of New York City history that is both personal and life-affirming to the composer. As he wrote on upperwestsidelovestory.com: "A love story is about beginnings, about excitement and nurturing growth – love through joy and adversity over many years. And sometimes it's about growing distant, rejection and the search for the magic that seems to fade into distant memories. Either way, change is ceaseless and forever and love hopes to survive." Backed by a stellar crew of fellow New York musicians —saxophonists Donny McCaslin and Steve Wilson, violist Gwen Laster, cellist Akua Dixon, bassist John Benitez and drummer Alvester Garnett and featuring the radiant vocals of Carla Cook and a special guest violinist — Bryant leads this musical journey through the neighborhood where he lived for 54 years from birth until 2019, when he moved to Riverdale in the Bronx. His impressionistic brushstroke of his old 'hood runs down a long list of children's playground rhymes ("Kidz Rhymes: Remember This?") and recounts the numerous world-renowned jazz and classical musicians from, Thelonious Monk, Fats Waller and Billie Holiday to opera singers Betty Allen, William Warfield and Leontyne Price, who lived there over time ("A Walk in the 'Hood"). He revels in the culture and joys of community ("We Used to Dance, " "My Home Sings, " "Central Park Life") while also pointing to the challenges of homelessness ("His Bed Is a Box") and crime ("Always Be Aware"). The song cycle also contextualizes the development and gentrification that has been underway since the early '60s when Lincoln Center was built ("Moses the Pharaoh: Who Will Stay and Who Will Go, " which addresses developer Robert Moses, "the prophet for profit, " razing so-called slums and dividing neighborhoods in the 1960s). But Bryant's final take-away, to this day, remains: "Growing up in the neighborhood was a beautiful thing." Though he had gotten his CMA grant in 2019 and wrote all the hiakus and long form poems and composed all the music for Upper West Side Love Story during the pandemic, Bryant wasn't able to perform the piece in public, due to COVID, until March 24, 2022, when it premiered at Bombyx Center for Arts and Equity in Florence/Northampton, MA. It was subsequently performed on Sept. 11 at the Byrdcliffe Theater in Woodstock, NY. He described those riveting performances of Upper West Side Love Story as "the most important and unique events in my career." Bryant's haikus that serve as cinematic interludes throughout the song cycle vividly capture a particular feeling about some aspect of his old neighborhood. "Columbus/Quiet" is an evocation of a gentle snowfall on Columbus Avenue at night while "Life of the Playground" conjures up the old discarded red fire engine that children used to freely play in. "Lost MJLP" recounts the feeling of despair that young Freddie felt after realizing he had left his copy of Michael Jackson's first album, Got to Be There, on the Broadway M104 bus. Other nostalgic haikus recall his first kiss, the sight of a homeless man living in a box on the sidewalk, memories of kids smoking weed and listening to reggae in Central Park, and his harrowing 3 a.m. walk back home after a gig at Augies with his guitar and amp in tow. The long form poems deal with more complex issues happening in the 'hood back in the day, both positive and negative. Robert Moses' property grab is addressed in "Moses the Pharaoh: Who Will Stay and Who Will Go?" while "Roses and Rubies: The Cost of What We Lost" finds Freddie choosing to look back at his neighborhood with a glass half full attitude rather than half empty. The finale has Bryant resolving to leave his dear old 'hood: But now I look within/My heart is the 'hood I must live in) and saying a final goodbye (You've gone and left me now/Memories more beautiful each passing day/Our life was a vow/That faded as we turned to grey. As the guitarist-composer-lyricist explained, "I did interview several people before I wrote the lyrics so it's not entirely 100% biographical about me. And it's not meant to be an absolute historical account of the neighborhood. It's just personal and kind of what came to mind when I was writing during the pandemic." Musically, Bryant's song cycle ranges from Afro-Cuban bembé and changüí rhythms ("We Used to Dance, " "Love Can't Live on Nostalgia") to jaunty swing (the Thelonious Monk medley of "Lulu's Back in Town, " "Bright Mississippi and "Green Chimney's on "A Walk in the Hood") to soothing bossa nova rhythm ("My Home Sings"), crackling uptempo swing ("High-Rise Kiss"), Afrobeat ("Kidz's Rhymes: Remember This?"), Brazilian samba groove ("Roses and Rubies: The Cost of What We Lost"), earthy blues ("His Bed Is a Box") and reggae ("Central Park Life"). Elsewhere, he channels a searching, latter day John Coltrane spirit on "Moses the Pharaoh: Who Will Stay and Who Will Go?, ", then conjures up a Chick Corea-like Latin vibe on "Finale — Spoken Word" and summons a Trane-like "Naima" vibe on the wistful ballad "Last Song: It's Time to Say Goodbye." Taken as a whole, Upper West Side Love Story stands as a crowning achievement in his career. Watch for the upcoming release of a CD and accompanying music videos by filmmaker Heather White of each song from Bryant's masterwork. The son of professional musicians in an interracial marriage (his African-American mother, Beatrice Rippy, was a concert and opera singer while his white father, Carroll Hollister, was a concert pianist), Bryant was exposed to music at an early age, actually making his first appearance on stage at age six as page turner in New York's historic Town Hall. He picked up guitar at age eight and later studied classical guitar with Jeff Israel and jazz guitar with Sal Salvador, Gene Bertoncinni and Ted Dunbar. Graduating Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College in 1987, he later studied classical guitar with Ben Verdery at the Yale School of Music, receiving his Masters degree in 1994. He has been on the faculty at the Berklee College of Music in Boston since 2011. write your comments about the article :: © 2022 Jazz News :: home page |