Jamie Saft - Atlas (feat. Joe Morris, Bradley Jones & Charles Downs) (2020)

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Jamie Saft - Atlas (feat. Joe Morris, Bradley Jones & Charles Downs) (2020)

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Jamie Saft is a virtuoso pianist, keyboardist, producer, and composer from New York. His stylistic versatility, multi-instrumentalist capabilities, and production skills have been featured with Beastie Boys, Bad Brains, HR, The B-52’s, John Zorn, John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Donovan, Antony and the Johnsons, and Iggy Pop. Saft leads the New Zion Trio, The Jamie Saft Trio, and The Jamie Saft Quartet.

The configuration of this group started with improvisation. Originally the concert was planned as the collective quartet Ticonderoga with the multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, Jamie Saft and Charles Downs. I was supposed to play bass. Joe had to cancel so we improvised a solution on short notice. I switched to guitar and Brad Jones came in to play bass. Brad, Charles, and I had never played together before this. Charles and Brad had never met before this. Working with new people on the fly is a normal thing for all of us, but there is usually some sort of familiar understanding about what might happen with new people, in this case not as much.

Most improvised music has some kind of technical default—a structure or foundation to build the music on, a familiarity with the way the others play, even if that is noise, sound, or something that might seem lacking in substance, that is a kind of substance. But this situation had only the structure of our collaborative engagement, no discussion or particular expectation about what we might do. And so we did a sound check and within a minute or two we could hear each other and we could try things out to see how we responded. This is when the structure becomes the mutual respect we share and the determination to make it work and deliver something special, something unique for the audience. We listen for pitches, for phrasing, for the way the groove is stated or implied. We consider basic musical things like, the group sound, sustain, articulation and the way we generate form. We signal with our own playing and with body language that we hear what the others are doing and we accept it and respond with complementary or contrasting material. In this case it quickly became comfortable and we knew it would work. But we also knew it was different, so in the break before the concert we were excited.

The sound of a chord on a Fender Rhodes piano, a walking bass line, or a guitar plugged straight into the amp are things we’ve heard before. The challenge is to re-contextualize all of it so that it has less to do with what we know and everything to do with how we can make it something else. In some ways a group like this is the most difficult to work in because every second of playing is demanding and there isn’t a rest point. But these situations are also among the most satisfying because you get to use your knowledge, skills, and especially your creative voice to change a known format. It requires honesty, being yourself, and trusting that you and your colleagues share the same goal.. And then it’s done. Over. Felt right. Fortunately this set was recorded. Now it’s a thing. Done as described above. Similar to other quartets like this, and also very, very different. The expression is ours, the impression of that is yours.