Tuesday, November 11th 12noon-1pm
Smith Reading Room, 1st floor Olin Library
252 Church St., Middletown, CT
Free and open to the public
Sponsored by the World Music Archives & Music Library
Jazz pianist and Director of the Wesleyan Jazz Ensemble Noah Baerman presents a program of instrumental interpretations of Stevie Wonder’s “message music” in celebration of his new album, Right Now Volume 4: Visions of Steveland.
Noah Baerman is a jazz pianist, composer, educator, and activist who has recorded sixteen acclaimed albums under his own name and several more as a co-leader of cooperative ensembles including Trio 149, Envisage Collective, and Playdate, earning praise from Downbeat, Jazz Times, Jazziz, the NYC Jazz Record, WNPR’s Jazz Corridor, and the Village Voice. He is the author of ten instructional books published by Alfred Publishing Company and has taught in various capacities at Wesleyan University, where he is the jazz piano instructor and has directed the Jazz Ensemble since 2007. In 2012 he founded Resonant Motion, a non-profit dedicated to the intersection of music and positive change. In recent years, he has been awarded an Artists Respond grant from the CT Office of the Arts and the Arts Advocacy award from the City of Middletown, where July 10, 2020 was declared “Noah Baerman Day” in the city.
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From the album press release:
RMI Records, a division of the nonprofit Resonant Motion, is proud to announce the release of Noah Baerman’s Right Now Volume Four: Visions of Steveland. The follow up to the first three volumes, Songs of Conflict and Comfort, Songs of Solidarity, and Our Search for Peace, this collection of Stevie Wonder interpretations is the final edition in the four-volume series created in the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election. Recorded alone at home, this represents a selection of Stevie’s “message music,” which is as pertinent to the present moment as it was decades ago.
On the morning of December 27, 2024, having already completed the first three volumes’ worth of recordings in the prior weeks, Baerman found himself still feeling restless, both musically and emotionally. Stevie Wonder had been one of his most central sources of inspiration dating back to Baerman’s “origin story” of pointing to the TV upon seeing Stevie perform “Superstition” on Sesame Street and saying “that’s what I’m going to do!” As such, the fire to use Wonder’s material to express the co-occurring sentiments of dread and hope became the obvious path, and by dinnertime, he had recorded these eight songs. As with the prior volumes, Baerman performs here on various combinations of piano, organ, and Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos, all but one of the tunes serving as duets between two of those instruments.
The album opens up with a driving jazz waltz interpretation of “Big Brother,” inspired in spirit and approach by Baerman’s other most central influence, John Coltrane. He has performed this one often in a trio setting, and here it is the piano and Rhodes taking center stage. From there he moves to the Wurlitzer for a contemplative and slow-building solo interpretation of the earliest composition in the collection, “Evil.” Following this is an up-tempo, swinging interpretation of the classic “Higher Ground,” also betraying a significant degree of Coltrane inspiration. The mood lightens a bit musically, if not necessarily in terms of substance, with a slinky cha-cha-cha piano and Rhodes duet on “Love’s In Need of Love Today.”
At the halfway point, the content takes a more optimistic turn with a tender piano and Wurlitzer take on the ballad “Visions.” The music and content become even more upbeat with a hard-swinging performance of “Smile Please” on piano and organ. The organ then pairs up with Rhodes for perhaps the most faithful-to-the-original track here, “As.” This piece is dedicated to Ana Grace Márquez-Greene, her family, and the spirit of enduring love even in the face of loss. The album then wraps up with a comparatively brief and straightforward romp through one of the most optimistic songs here (and the only one not from the 1970s), “Tomorrow Robins Will Sing.”
“Stevie Wonder is profound even when singing about seemingly simple matters like love and childhood innocence,” says Baerman, “but his depth as a cultural critic and an unyielding voice of peace is such a vital source of nourishment and such a wake-up call to our society’s soul and conscience.” While this album wraps up the “Right Now” project (for now at least), Baerman remains determined to keep shining a light on injustice and on our capacity for resilience and integrity in the face of it. “This may be an odd statement for an artist, but I do look forward to this music hopefully becoming less relevant,” he says, “and in the meantime I hope it can offer a balm to those who need it right now.”
Note that the album is being offered for as little as $1 by RMI Records, as listeners are encouraged to donate instead to charities working to protect our society and its inhabitants from the current onslaught. For those who choose to purchase from RMI in addition, all proceeds will go towards Claire’s Continuum, a Resonant Motion initiative, in Claire Randall’s memory, to commission first-time collaborators to create socially conscious art together.
Preview the album here.