The Minsarah Trio (July 16, 2009)

Last Thursday, I was lucky enough to be able to go to the Minsarah Trio’s July 16th show, the penultimate in the Farrell Family Jazz at the Athenaeum series.  For anyone interested in listening to the group further, I’ve re-created the set list from Thursday night.

Personnel: Jeff Denson, bass. Ziv Ravitz, drums.  Florian Weber, piano.

First Set:
Color – Deep Lee (Lee Konitz and Minsarah)
Song name always changes, not currently finalized
Untitled song from the group’s upcoming album*
Cactus – Deep Lee (Lee Konitz and Minsarah)
Alone Together – to be recorded on the group’s upcoming album
Second Set:
Nuage – Minsarah (the group’s latest trio album)
Intersection – to be recorded on next album
Either this one wasn’t introduced, or I missed the title. Sorry! As a point of interest, it featured Ziv’s whistling towards the end.
Close to the End
The Gallows*

After the show, I was able to hang around and briefly interview the artists.  Unfortunately, I was only able to talk briefly with Florian Weber – I learned from him about the influence of Mahler on several of the group’s songs.  *Florian told me that these songs (marked with an asterisk *) were inspired by the life and works of Gustav Mahler.*  “The Gallows” was influenced by Mahler’s “Des Knafen Wunderhorn,” while the untitled song was influenced by letters written by Mahler to his wife.

I started off talking to Ziv Ravitz, the trio’s drummer, asking him what his influences were.  He responded first with a grin, telling me I had asked him a really difficult question.  Then he answered with a really cool metaphor.  “Influences are like a wall of water,” he said.  “You run through, and whatever sticks to you on the other side is an influence.”  He encouraged me to listen to all types of music, from folk to heavy metal, stressing “openness” as crucial and urging that one should “get affected by anything [one] hears.”  Jeff Denson, the bassist, said that everything that happens to him influences him as a musician, especially nature, human interaction, and other art.

My next question dealt with suggested listening.  Ziv told me that “all albums with a true connection between the artist and the music are worth listening to,” and emphasized that this was in no way limited to jazz.  He rattled off a diverse list of artists – Radiohead, Sepultura, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis, John Coltrane – all of which he said showed such a connection to their music.

The final question I asked the artists addressed how they approached composition.  Both Jeff and Ziv said that although they always try to act as equal forces in the creation of new pieces, they aren’t able to write together due to their physical separation.  Instead, Jeff described the process this way:  each member of the band will write a composition with the others in mind, and then bring it into rehearsal, where each member makes the piece his own.  For this reason, Jeff says that as he writes his compositions, he envisions the group playing them, and lets that influence him.  Ziv said that he takes a similar approach, and also told me that the trio wants to collaborate on at least 2 songs on their upcoming album; that is, they plan to actually compose them together as a group, not individually.

The trio will be recording a new album this August.  Thursday’s performance featured several tracks from it.  Although the entire performance was very well received, many of the standout pieces are the ones slated for release on the upcoming album – it seemed like “Intersection” was an audience favorite (at the very least, it was one of my personal favorites!).

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