Sunday, February 26th 2012
Harris Eisenstadt’s Canada Day @ the Timucua white house
2000 S. Summerlin St., Orlando
7:30 pm, free admission

Harris Eisenstadt

We don’t expect that you’d think that we’d ever take the pedestrian path to garner a crowd and find some facile fast track to your hearts, do you? This time we’re presenting a jazz quintet led by a drummer, which sounds rather pat on the surface and rather predictable to a jazz know-it-all.  A bop head melody, horn solos, a big drum feature…and back to the head, right? Repeat if necessary, golf claps at the solos and your server drops off the bill for your two-drink minimum. Well, this is a Civic Minded 5 concert- we wouldn’t make it that easy.

Here’s our pitch: Drummer Harris Eisenstadt– who has recorded in the company of giants such as Sam Rivers and Yusef Lateef- leads with a big composer’s feature rather than the big drum feature. Each instrument in Canada Day, drum kit included, plays a supple, component role in Eisenstadt’s fully-formed writing, which moves without jarring transitions associated with much of the jazz avant-garde. With Harris Eisenstadt’s Canada Day, think Wayne Shorter’s late-1960s ensemble writing, think of the colorings of Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch, think of a Brookstone desktop wave machine with harmonic and rhythmic ebbs and flows replacing that blue oil stuff. The tenor saxophone, trumpet, vibraphone, double bass and drums of Eisenstadt’s Canada Day ensemble interject without the impression of the alpha dog ego inherent to much of jazz playing. However, there are many things familiar, even august, to pull out of any Canada Day offering. Tenor saxophonist Matt Bauder counts the classic triumvirate of Lester Young, Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins as major influences, extruded through the New York School modernists that redefined the American concert hall tradition. Trumpeter Nate Wooley seems equal parts Ellington abstract blues ninjas; Bubber Miley, Cootie Williams, et al filtered through the New Thingers; Bill Dixon, Lester Bowie and Leo Smith. There’s a present-tense, tai-chi-like flow to the rhythm section of vibraphonist Chris Dingman, bassist Garth Stevenson and leader Eisenstadt, looming an aural fabric in and around the post-traditional frontline of horns. Duke Ellington, Annie Albers and Morton Feldman? Yes/no/maybe- it’s your choice. Their stop at Timucua white house on Sunday, February 26^th is the second stop on an eight date tour of the U.S. and Canada.