BRATTLEBORO-I recently spoke with jazz saxophonist and composer Jeff Lederer, who splits his time between Guilford and Brooklyn, New York, about the upcoming Nu Mu Festival No. 4, which he co-founded with John Loggia. (See companion interview this issue.)
Lederer is a Grammy-nominated reeds performer and composer whose work crosses the lines between jazz, improvised music, and Afro-Caribbean traditions. He teaches at the New School in New York City, where he advises graduate students on their composition projects; he also teaches at Long Island University.
He plays tenor sax, clarinet, and flute.
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Victoria Chertok: What are you most excited about this year at Nu Mu No. 4?
Jeff Lederer: We have an incredible lineup for the whole month planned.
On Friday, Aug. 8, there will be the world premiere of a never-before-heard work by jazz legend Eric Dolphy, performed by the Wildebeest Wind Quintet from New York City, with my wife, guest vocalist Mary LaRose.
The performance on Saturday, Aug. 9, Guilty!!!, will be based on my 2024 recording of that name, which won an Editor's Choice Award in Downbeat magazine. The album clearly has a political theme which still resonated, with the word Guilty printed 34 times on the cover of the record.
The origin of this project was from workshops I did at a Georgetown prep school where many of the students were sons and daughters of [lawmakers]. The focus was on the idea of truth and lying - both in politics and music.
V.C.: Oh, how interesting. What happened next?
J.L.: After those workshops, I created a body of music where I took electronic samples of political speeches - from both sides of the aisle, but mostly from the Republicans, because they were more ... provocative. I created musical pieces based on these speech samples that are quite humorous, yet abstract.
The core band performing that night consists of my recent graduates from Long Island University's program on music technology, entrepreneurship, and production. I feel really excited that I'm bringing my students to Vermont to perform and that they will be playing with a large group of local music improvisers.
There will be opportunities for the audience members to participate as well.
V.C.: There is much more to say about the Eric Dolphy world premiere that you are presenting on Aug. 8.
J.L.: We are performing an Eric Dolphy Wind Sextet world premiere. This will truly be a historic event in that it will be the first time this music, composed by a legendary jazz musician, has ever been performed. Dolphy [1928–1964] never even heard it in his own lifetime.
We worked with the Eric Dolphy estate on this project, which will culminate in a recording.
The rest of the program includes the premiere of a new set of my arrangements of songs by legendary saxophonist/composer Oliver Nelson. In that set of songs, the jazz vocals artist Mary LaRose has created a new set of lyrics that she will sing with woodwind quintet, which we will also be recording at Guilford Sound that same week.
The third saxophone legend whose work for woodwind quintet will be celebrated that night is Ornette Coleman, whose "Forms and Sounds" quintets are rarely heard.
Lastly, there will be another premiere of a work of my own, "Cruxifiction - Not a Word," which is based on the Marian Anderson performance of the traditional spiritual "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" and has a particular political message that is so relevant today. That piece will be performed by the woodwind quintet with electronics and clarinet solo played by myself.
There will be a related visual art installation in the 118 Gallery all month that will be created by the community on Gallery Walk night Aug 1.
V.C.: Cool! What ties the program on Aug. 8 and 9 together and reflects the focus of the Nu Mu festival?
J.L.: The best terminology for what we are doing that weekend is "third-stream music." That comes from a historical trend that began in Berkshires in 1960s at Lenox School of Music, where composer and conductor Gunther Schuller was working with some of the same jazz composers that I'm working with, such as Dolphy and Coleman. About that time, Dolphy composed this piece - a woodwind sextet for two clarinets, flute, oboe, horn, and bassoon. It's a beautiful piece of music that has never been performed before.
V.C.: You say there are three sons involved in this project?
J.L.: Yes, they are the sons of Oliver Nelson, Gunther Schuller, and Ornette Coleman. I love that fact. It's an amazing thing for me to bring together the next generation celebrating their fathers' compositional achievements, which didn't 100% get realized in their lifetime!
V.C.: What is the origin of the Nu Mu Festival?
J.L.: We've summered in Guilford for 45 years, and in 2017 we had a band that was playing in the area preparing for a European tour. We walked into 118 Elliot and met John [Loggia] and Lissa [Weinmann] and did an informal performance there. It was really successful.
John and I created the August festival to highlight the creative musical community in southern Vermont and beyond. I usually curate the second weekend in August because Aug. 8 is my birthday! I bring up collaborators from New York and other places. We also want to highlight the great contributions of the musicians in southern Vermont.
V.C.: Why is this genre of music popular today?
J.L.: We can say that in experimental music or improvised music - there are many terms - we flow in between cracks of other cultural institutions that don't present what we're doing. Yellow Barn, Marlboro Music Festival, and Vermont Jazz Center are all doing fantastic work, and we all work together to create a rich cultural environment in southern Vermont.
The Nu Mu Festival is unique in shining a light on creative work that falls in between the cracks of genre. It's important today more than ever, since we're in a time now where various communities are being shut down and iced out.
V.C.: The family of your wife, Mary LaRosa, has a long history in Guilford.
J.L.: In 1979 a working-class Italian immigrant family from Brooklyn found themselves wanting to find a summer place, and they found it in southern Vermont. My wife said it was because the hills in Guilford reminded her late mother, Mary LaRosa Sr., of where she grew up (in Calabria, Italy).
They bought this little place on Packer Corners Road in Guilford, right in the center of a huge hippie commune movement. Total Loss Farm was one of them, and there is a recent film out about it now [Far Out: Life On & After the Commune, by Guilford filmmaker Charles Light]. There was a symbiotic relationship and her interest in gardening and the hippies who loved that, knew that she was a gardener.
That was 45 years ago, and we love to come up every summer. It's been a huge part of our lives and our children's lives.
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Editor's note: Columns that include interviews in this format are edited for clarity, readability, and space. Words not spoken by interview subjects appear in brackets, as do brief editorial clarifications.
Victoria Chertok is a contributing writer to The Commons and The Keene Sentinel. Since 2017, she has published more than 200 arts and entertainment features, interviews, and columns in both newspapers, as well as in the Brattleboro Reformer.
This Arts item by Victoria Chertok was written for The Commons.