(photo of Jamie Baum by Erika Kapin)
New York-based flautist Jamie Baum has wowed us twice—once as our first post-pandemic performer—with her flagship Septet+, a midsize ensemble with a boundless vision and an outsize reputation. Last year that band celebrated its 25th anniversary with a new album, What Times Are These, that garnered extravagant praise from all over: the UK’s Jazzwise called it “one of the most powerful things you’ll hear this year,” PopMatters “a revelation,” Paris-Move “indispensable.” Journalist Bill Moyers pronounced it “a masterpiece of sound and spirit.” And in DownBeat, legendary Scottish jazz writer Brian Morton gave it a coveted five-star review, declaring: “It’s past time that Baum was elevated from the ‘other instruments’ ranks”—where she’s a perennial placer in the critics’ polls—“and recognized as an important composer/leader.”
But it’s not only with the Septet+ that Baum “reaffirms her position as a first-rate composer with a vast imagination” (All About Jazz): over the course of her career as a bandleader and sidewoman, she’s repeatedly returned to the jazz quartet as a vehicle for more intimate (and sometimes more familiar) forms of composing, arranging, and improvising. A number of notables have occupied the piano, bass, and drum chairs in Baum’s quartets over the years; one recent configuration featured RJA familiars Carmen Staaf, Tony Scherr, and Allison Miller. For this 2025 West Coast tour, it’s a group with comparable chemistry whose members have played in one another’s bands and a wide variety of others: pianist Leo Genovese (Wayne Shorter, esperanza spalding), bassist Matt Penman (Joshua Redman, SFJazz Collective), and drummer Rob Garcia (Noah Preminger, Ghost Train Orchestra). The quartet’s repertoire includes a mix of originals, jazz standards, and “new standards,” with highlight’s including Carla Bley’s “Lawns,” Geri Allen’s “Skin,” Ron Carter’s “Eighty-One,” Miles Davis’s “Filles de Kilimanjaro,” and Lennon & McCartney’s “With a Little Help From My Friends.”
A longtime Sunnyside Records artist and 2014 Guggenheim Fellow who has toured in over 35 countries (often as a jazz ambassador for the Kennedy Center or the State Department), Jamie Baum has also taught at Boston’s Berklee College of Music and New York City’s New School, and she has been a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music since 2007. In addition to her own projects as a composer and bandleader, she has performed and recorded with jazz masters past (Paul Motian, John Abercrombie, Roy Hargrove, Richie Beirach) and present (Randy Brecker, Tom Harrell, Kenny Barron, Kenny Werner, Dave Douglas, Fred Hersch, Jane Bunnett, Wadada Leo Smith).
Sponsors
We couldn’t present such world-class artists at such low prices 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, and North Coast Co-Op.