Walking the Same Streets: Adam O'Farrill Speaks

Photo courtesy of the artist.

by Sarah Thomas

Whether playing with the likes of Jason Moran, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and Mary Halvorson, or his own long-running group Stranger Days (who released a new album last year), trumpeter Adam O’Farrill has a particular quick-twitch reaction time, always ready for the music to turn in a new direction. As a composer, O’Farrill has begun to pair this sprightly improvisation with larger canvases.

This weekend at The Jazz Gallery, O’Farrill wil present his newest project For These Streets. Featuring an all-star octet, the project is inspired by numerous artists, musicians, and writers of the 1930s, from Virginia Woolf to Henry Miller to Octavio Paz to Olivier Messiaen. We caught up with O’Farrill last week to hear about the origins of this project and how the music blends in-the-moment interplay with a deco palette.

The Jazz Gallery: You have this new book of music inspired by artists from the ‘30s. What got you starting to think about this project and thinking about that era?

Adam O’Farrill: I think it was fall 2020 or maybe towards the end of 2020—still in the thick of COVID isolation and all that—and COVID made me read a lot more, watch a lot more movies than I ever had before. I watched the movie City Lights by Charlie Chaplin and I read the book Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller around the same span of time, and it was interesting. They're very different. They serve very different functions as works of art.

City Lights and just Chaplin in general, or at least his earlier stuff, I see as sort of medicine for the times and something that is meant to uplift, whereas Miller's work is much more critical and self-reflective. But what struck me was that they both had similar assessments of American industry at the time, critiquing the relentlessness of it. One of the things that Henry Miller returns to throughout a couple of his books is referring to America as a treadmill. And then, of course, Charlie Chaplin's famous character—I mean, you see in Modern Times it's the tramp, and how he’s going from job to job in these terrible working conditions. And it's interesting because one is like a slapstick comedy and one is this autobiographical kind of thing.

At that point, I researched them and I saw that they were released within the same couple of years. What else was happening then? I started this YouTube log that's like 15 pages long of links to different songs and pieces, and breaking it down year by year. It really began as a curiosity. I've never really been much of a history buff or anything like that. I just was curious.

TJG: I really like those connections. You’ve mentioned some of the other inspiring artists too, like Olivier Messiaen, Virginia Woolf, Duke Ellington. They’re also from the same era, but many people wouldn’t connect them. Did some of the connections you found surprise you, particular across media?

AO: The simple answer is yes, but with a caveat. I think what you see in something—like any time or work that you're looking at—is ultimately something that already is inside of you. And so at times, it was a process of discovering ideas and concepts for the first time. At other times it was like, “Well, this really resonates with me because I already have this inclination creatively and emotionally.” And so it was kind of a mix of those things.

I guess one thing I would say is that in some of these works, you get a sort of romance set off by pragmatism and realism. In Virginia Woolf’s book The Waves, it's really interesting because the way the book is written. It's like a series of—I don’t want to say monologues, but the narrative doesn't progress in the traditional narrative manner. It's much more like these little ruminations on what's happening, non-stop from beginning to end. But the things it's dealing with are very real, just following this group of friends from childhood to old age—one of them dies during a colonial trip to India—dealing with very real, grounded things. But the way in which it's presented is much more elusive and kind of impressionistic.

It's something you see in the Henry Miller book, but in a different way. It's all real, happening in his life, but he’ll write in a way where one little thing becomes this like three-page-long odyssey of relating it to other periods of life and literature. So in terms of what I noticed, I would say there is a general despair in a lot of the things just because of the time, still coming out of the Great Depression and leading right into World War II. It's definitely a lot of despair.

I think that really hit me the most when I listened to Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, and particularly watching the Leonard Bernstein performance of it. It was written towards the end of his life, and you really hear that. A lot of despair, but also a lot of mystery and a lot of curiosity, because it is the 20th century, and it is coming into surrealism and all those sorts of things.

Another big part of it that meant a lot for me personally was getting a little bit into some of the Mexican artists, because I'm part Mexican. So like Octavio Paz, the poet—one of the pieces I’m writing is inspired by one of his poems—and also some of Carlos Chavez’s early music. It was exciting to see that there were artists of my background making creative, progressive work, but also disheartening that they haven’t been recognized more. 

TJG: Clearly all of this resonated with you really deeply on a “comparison of times” level, and that it feels relatable even almost 100 years later. I'm curious what it's looked like for you musically to relate to these art forms on a musical level, and how it's been meaningful for your performance or writing practice in that way.

AO: Well, writing for me has always been some sort of pastiche process. I think that's how I learned to write, and I think most people, too—taking songs that you like and trying to write your own version or thing influenced by an element of that song. Writing this music was a bit more the process of consciously trying to echo certain harmonic, melodic, and rhythm ideas that I was seeing.

Circling back to the Ravel, one piece I wrote is kind of imagining if the flute entrance—it's this high like C-sharp above the staff—imagining if that flute, or even character, had their own piece. So this is a big flute piece for David Leon that's inspired by that.

And then there's this Messiaen organ piece called Diptyque, like a triptych but two instead of three. It almost feels like two separate pieces brought together. And I wrote my own diptych slightly inspired by some of the harmony in that piece. Another piece is built on this bassline that occurs in Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks. But I also think a lot of it was just as much music that I probably would have written on some level, in some shape or form.

I think having a reference point really puts your head in a different place, because it can be pretty daunting to just write music from scratch. And so it was good to have something a bit more external to work with, and discover myself eventually, but go into it with a bit more intention of relating to history and understanding history. Because writing music can be such a self-absorbing thing!

TJG: I want to shift over a little bit to your band, because you have this incredible group lined up. You mentioned David Leon, there's Mary Halvorson, Kevin Sun, so many other people. You’ve worked with some of these people a lot, some less. What is exciting to you about this particular group of people working with each other on this project and coming together to make music?

AO: I've only worked with two drummers before playing my own music—my brother and Russell Holzman. So that was probably the scariest part of it for me, just learning to trust someone else and the fact that I get a little complicated rhythmically. But Tomas [Fujiwara]—I think it really hit me when we were playing together on a tour of Mary’s band, because Tomas was playing as well and Tomas is somebody who has an astounding level of commitment and dedication and awareness in everything he does. I still wasn't sure what the music was going to be exactly when I called him, but I knew that whatever it would be he would figure it out.

Actually, this is something that I stole from Anna Webber when I did her Idiom projects a couple years ago, which is that she linked up with all of us individually before writing the music to just try some things and play and get to know each other a bit more on that level, and it would start with a free improvisation. So I did the same thing with everybody for this, and I think most of the improvisations I had with other people lasted about seven or eight minutes or something. With Tomas, I think it was like 25 minutes. And that was where I was like, man, this is really sweet.

Kevin is the person I’ve known the longest out of everybody and I’ve played in his groups a bunch. He really balances a deep theoretical and conceptual understanding with a sense of awareness, patience, and willingness to let go.

Then I met David shortly after, who was one of the silliest people I’d ever met, which is an important element of any ensemble. But he’s managed to channel that character and wit into something daring and unique, and I feel that every time I see him play.

I was a bit intimidated about calling Mary, because I’ve learned so much from playing in her projects, but that felt like even more incentive to go with her. When we play, her head is so deeply in the music and everyone’s connection with each other, and she doesn't let anything get in the way of that. I mean, the thing with all these people is they're all so dedicated and committed to trying to make progress and strides in their instrument. They all really care about the sound of their instrument and what tone their instrument is putting through.

I hadn't even played with Tyrone [Allen] when I called him. I just saw him play with Miriam Elhajli, and just the presence, the earthiness of his sound was incredible. I wanted that element, still not sure what the music was going to be.

Patricia [Brennan] makes every gesture feel like a universe, bringing such a deep awareness of touch and timbre into every phrase she plays. She can also play anything you put on the page in front of her, so I was excited to write for her.

And then Kalun [Leung], the trombone player, we'd only played together once in Lesley Mok’s band, and we did a lot of horn section-oriented stuff, playing parts together. And for me, coming from a big band tradition and playing in a lot of big bands growing up, when you find someone to connect with that you feel a really great chemistry with just in playing parts, to me that is golden. That's the best, and another case where I was like, you know what, we haven't played together a lot, but that experience was so rich just playing these parts together.

Lastly, Eli Greenhoe’s conducting, who was a late addition after I showed this music to some people, and they told me I needed a conductor. He’s one of my closest friends, as we both grew up in Park Slope and have been playing music together since we were 10 or so. He’s not only a composer, guitarist, singer-songwriter, and conductor, but he’s amazing at all of those things. So he’s able to see music on so many different levels, which is really helpful for navigating a project like this where there’s a lot of different styles, personalities, and forms at hand.

Anyway, I'm excited for them to all come together because everybody's coming from a different place and it's exciting, I think, when you don't really know how something is going to sound, particularly a group of people. But I have a lot of faith in just their willingness to get to know each other and transcend differences and approach and all that.

TJG: Is the fact that this music pays homage to the era of the ‘30s affecting how you rehearse together? Is that part of your conversation? How is the band engaging with that information?

AO: I've shared some of it in the process of just getting together with people, talking about where the piece is coming from. So Kalun, the trombone player, lives in Montreal, so we couldn't really link up in person. But one of the things I did was I gave him this document I made of a bunch of passages out of The Grapes of Wrath, the Steinbeck book, just to think about, just to put in his head.

But I think one thing—I'm working with a producer and engineer that I worked with a couple months ago on this new Stranger Days album, and we've hit a really good stride of working together. And one thing that we've talked about, because we’re about to record an album as well, is how back then, a lot more things were recorded with less isolation and just trying to capture the natural presence of the ensemble in the room. In that, I’ve thought a lot about these old Ellington recordings from the 1930s and hearing this really warm—just everything is kind of there together. There's no ultra-precision, crystalline kind of thing. It's really, to me, much more true to the performance.

Adam O’Farrill presents For These Streets at The Jazz Gallery on Thursday, August 4 and Friday, August 5, 2022. The group features Adam O’Farrill on trumpet & flugelhorn, David Leon on alto/bari sax & flute, Kevin Sun on tenor sax & clarinet, Kalun Leung on trombone & euphonium, Mary Halvorson on guitar, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, Tyrone Allen on bass, and Tomas Fujiwara on drums, with Eli Greenhoe conducting. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. EDT. $25 general admission ($10 for members, FREE for SUMMERPASS holders), $35 reserved table seating ($20 for members, $10 for SUMMERPASS holders). Friday night stream is $20 ($5 for members) for each set. Purchase tickets here.