That Old Song: Ehud Asherie and his Friends

Abstract

That Old Song:Ehud Asherie and his Friends Molly McQuade (bio) When she sings jazz standards, Hilary Gardner sounds to me just like a musical instrument. When any other singers sing, they sound to me like themselves, singing. If you are a singer struggling to be heard, then sounding like yourself could bring a kind of comfort: you are who you are, you know it, and maybe someone will notice. On the other hand, sounding like yourself might also narrow your musical prospects, for it might narrow the scope and identity of your music. When I realize that Hilary Gardner sounds to me just like a musical instrument, that insight, like her music, abruptly raises a curtain on what singing can mean or be. Although I have learned since then how to recognize her voice, that's because to me it isn't just a voice. To put it another way: when we hear a flute, do we say, "Thanks, flute!"? Not me. Instead, at best, I heed exclusively the sounds coming from it. Those sounds are explicit, and they are iconic. Those are what I want to hear and keep, analyze and venerate. Gardner when singing almost disavows being only human, possibly because the music sings her. Why doesn't she need to be herself? Unlike other emphatic individualists, she offers no resistance to music's greater power. Her voice evokes cello, oboe, clarinet, and then some: open vowels, tonal depths, vibrato, swing, and yet no true debts. In her recent jazz CD, The Late Set, Gardner also shows a willingness to hand the lead over to the piano. But then, she deftly takes it back. While his piano sings with her, Ehud Asherie never comes across as mainly or merely an accompanist. As with Gardner, the music of Asherie plays him. [End Page 362] ________ For some years, he's been hosting an understated little keyboard hootenanny every month or so with his friends at the Fat Cat on Christopher Street. For New York it is unusual: no hoopla, and not all-star, but faithful, old-fashioned good stuff. Now and then, Hilary Gardner attends, whether to listen or to sing. Though he is esteemed by the high-minded of jazz know-it-alls, Asherie's own tendency is democratic-autocratic. When I sidle in from the afternoon glare of a Sunday, what I find hunkered down in darkness among the Fat Cat's ping-pong tables, caterwauls, bobbing ponytails, and beer glasses is unranked motleymotley-motley. And I like that. Amid the startling musical miscellany is Matthew, so raptly selfcritical that if he begins to play and doesn't love it right away, he may bolt from the piano bench, never to return—never, that is, until next month. I sometimes imagine that he must be playing one-handed; his music is meticulously united. Then there's Terry Waldo, Eubie Blake's upstanding protégé, who can translate Mozart into ragtime without a blink. Waldo's pinched, sad face atop a lanky slouch reminds me of a fatalistic El Greco. At times, his high-stakes skitter intensifies; leggy, maned women entreat him together, in the shadows. And there is a young man, Sam, encouraged by his father, who plays stride with his very own sense of rhythm. I can't quite describe it, but I always listen to Sam attentively. This fellow's feeling for time as it passes does not answer to anyone, not even really to time. I feel like the guy is inventing time before time can. His technique is far from flawless. But the trickling sidelong tempo is his alone. Uncommon things happen on Stride Sundays, if you stick around. In late March of 2019, someone named Jean-Baptiste Franc appeared at the piano, tearing it up, saying nothing, tearing it up again. During a session one April, a man wearing a bright white head scarf walked in and hurried to Asherie's elbow. He held a swaddled baby, slung tightly to his chest, directly above Asherie's keyboard, as if there were no way [End Page 363] to get the sentient infant near enough to manna. Asherie broke into a grin, solar...