Creative fusion

Jazz has a rough time of it. The under appreciated genre rarely nets the audience it deserves and often has a hard time at that.

However, a little research will quickly reveal that anywhere with Blue Cranes on the bill should serve as a good entry point for newcomers and a breath of fresh air for genre devotees. This local group’s sound is as invigorating as it is disarming. They gracefully merge nostalgic tributes to old jazz with completely fresh innovations on the genre. Even the band itself sees its sound as something of a conundrum.

“Jazz, rock, electronic, Latin. We don’t really know,” says saxophonist and arranger Reed Wallsmith, “I feel like we’re just trying to draw on all of the influences we have, and play the music that comes out of us.”

In 1994, at Portland’s Grant High School, drummer Ji Tanzer and Wallsmith met to form a musical project and creative outlet for their jazz-leaning sensibility. Nine years later, in 2003, they joined with bassist and fellow jazz enthusiast Keith Brush to form Blue Cranes.

The group soon began looking for a keyboardist, a role eventually filled by Tanzer’s wife, Rebecca Sanborn. Finally, to round out the quintet, Sly Pig joined on tenor sax.

With years of playing together now under their belt, Wallsmith explains how familial each other’s company can be.

“I feel really fortunate to be playing with four other musicians who are amazingly compassionate people,” he says, “Regardless of what is going on musically, they are so supportive.”

When asked about his influences, Wallsmith mentioned The Bad Plus and Happy Apple.

He later explained what a good jazz-fusion band must offer to impress him, saying, “It’s when I’m inspired by how they work together as a group. When they are amazing, amazing musicians but aren’t using their music to showcase their abilities as individuals. They’re working as a group. That’s inspiring.”

Blue Cranes is part of a tight-knit, once prominent and now rapidly re-growing community of musicians who remain convinced of the belief that the making of music is a group art, not to be wasted on show dogging. Each musician has a role to play, contributing to the wellbeing of the whole.

Another unique aspect of the band’s music is its lack of vocals, the inclusion of which would take away from the music’s purity and the audience’s freedom to interpret and respond however they are inspired to.

The band’s music is heavily reliant on subtle yet infectious interactions between the instruments, with random doses of electronics and high-powered rock that one would never find on an early-period jazz album. The audience is inspired to pay close attention, listening as each piece contributes its part and supports the next, with no foreshadowing of what’s to come. The music is completely unpredictable, especially when experienced live.

“I think a lot of pop music in the U.S. doesn’t involve much improvisation,” says Wallsmith. “For me that’s what can make a live show. You’re playing something that is never going to happen again.”

As far as recent accomplishments go, Blue Cranes has an impressive list. They released a self-produced album entitled Homing Patterns in May 2008, earned a raving write up in the Willamette Week, completed a successful tour of California and played a sold-out show with the Portland Cello Project. Wallsmith considers the latter performance one of his most impressive moments as a musician.

“To be up there in front of all those people, playing really quiet so everyone has to lean forward and listen,” says Wallsmith, “We had seven cellists from the Portland Cello Project. I just felt so proud being up there.”

This sort of “color outside the lines” approach to jazz is exactly what the Blue Cranes have tried to cultivate. When jazz music was at its prime, it was revolutionary, hip and a little irreverent.

Perhaps Blue Cranes’ greatest accomplishment has been its ability to reintroduce jazz as it was intended; a little familiar, a little rebellious, entirely unpredictable and breaking every single boundary it can find.

Blue CranesHoming PatternsAvailable at Everyday Music, Music Millennium

Blue CranesOct. 19, 9 p.m.Rontom’s Free21-plus