(photo of Ted Nash, Ben Allison, and Steve Cardenas by Kasia Idzkowska)
Bassist and composer Ben Allison is somebody we can’t get enough of: from the moment he burst onto the national scene in the mid-1990s, we’ve loved his music, his playing, and the company he keeps. That’s why he was one of the first artists we set our sights on when we founded the RJA back in 2006, and it’s also why he’s been a repeat visitor over the years—with his own groups Man Size Safe and Think Free in 2008 and 2018, respectively, and with sometime bandmate Michael Blake’s Tiddy Boom in 2016.
As for company: the members of Allison, Cardenas, & Nash are companions of longstanding. Ben Allison and Ted Nash have known each other since the early 90s; Ben appeared on an album of Ted’s in 1993 (and many others since), and Ted was both a member of Ben’s late-90s group Medicine Wheel and a co-conspirator in the Herbie Nichols Project, an ensemble they formed with other founders of the musician-led, non-profit Jazz Composers Collective to honor the forgotten mid-century pianist, a contemporary of Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. (With pianist Frank Kimbrough, Allison also penned the liner notes for the 1997 box set Herbie Nichols: The Complete Blue Note Recordings.) Guitarist Steve Cardenas, meanwhile, joined Allison for the latter’s 2006 release Cowboy Justice—and never left. The three first united as a trio in 2011. Such a lengthy history of creative collaboration means that the bandmates, who take turns arranging for the group, weave musical conversations that are full of friendly familiarity but also subtlety and surprise.
Allison, Cardenas, & Nash modeled their co-operative trio after reedist/composer Jimmy Giuffre’s drummerless units of the 1950s and 60s. At a time when jazz was heading in directions that were sometimes wild and expressionistic, musicians like Giuffre were choosing different paths, envisioning quieter music that embraced aspects of “free” playing while maintaining strong elements of blues and folk. Prior to this year, AC&N had released three albums: Quiet Revolution (2016/2018), dedicated to the music of Giuffre and Jim Hall; Somewhere Else: West Side Story Songs (2019); and Healing Power: The Music of Carla Bley (2022). Their latest, Tell the Birds I Said Hello: The Music of Herbie Nichols¸ returns to the Nichols catalog and introduces several newly unearthed compositions by the still-overlooked genius.
In a career spanning more than three decades, bassist and composer (also producer, mixing & mastering engineer, label owner, writer, educator, entrepreneur, presenter, musicians’ rights activist, etc., etc.) Ben Allison has developed his own instantly identifiable sound. Known for his inspired arrangements, inventive grooves, and hummable melodies, Allison draws from jazz traditions and a broad palette of other influences—rock, folk, film music, “world” musics—blending them into a cinematic, cohesive whole. He has released twenty records of his own and appeared on over 100 by other artists; played on several continents; written music for film, television and radio; won a score of grants, awards, and critics’ polls; spoken before conferences and Congress; founded and/or served on several arts organizations; organized tours and produced concerts…we could go on. He lives in Manhattan and teaches at the New School.
Kansas City-born guitarist Steve Cardenas has been animating New York City’s jazz scene (and playing clubs and festivals around the world) since 1995. A longstanding member of the Paul Motian Electric Bebop Band, Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, and the Steve Swallow Quintet (among others), he has also regularly backed artists such as Madeleine Peyroux, Eliane Elias, Norah Jones, and Maria Muldaur. A respected educator who also teaches at the New School, Cardenas has issued six albums as a leader and as many more as a co-leader.
Nurtured by a musical family—his father and uncle were ace LA studio musicians—tenor saxophonist Ted Nash bloomed early, playing with legendary vibraphonist Lionel Hampton at 16 and debuting on record with drummer Louis Bellson two years later. Though he has an extensive discography as both a sideman and a leader of groups large and small, one of Nash’s most enduring associations is with Wynton Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, where his suite Portrait in Seven Shades, commissioned and recorded by the JLCO, garnered a Best Arranger Grammy nomination in 2010. (Nash would go on to win two Grammys, along with the Jazz Journalists Association’s Composer of the Year award, for his own 2017 big band album, Presidential Suite.)
Sponsors
Our programming couldn’t happen without the steadfast support of dozens of RJA members & sponsors, not to mention the community spirit of Arcata’s own dynamic arts agency, Playhouse Arts. Special thanks to Bug Press, the most steadfast of jazz allies, for its abiding generosity.
Additional support for this show comes from Cafe Brio, Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate, Bob and Amy Doran, John Helie & Monica Simms, Humboldt Retreats, Josh Meisel & Mary Virnoche, North Coast Co-Op, and Wrangletown Cider & North Story Wines.