Emory Jazz Fest highlights intricate artistry and big band power

Mike Shaw & Matt Miller | 19 FEB 2025

The annual Emory Jazz Fest, which took place February 13 – 15 at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts in Atlanta, was founded and is directed by pianist Gary Motley, who also founded and directs the Emory Jazz Studies program. Here is our take from two of this year’s Jazz Fest programs:

Sanchéz and Motley Trio combine to define orchestral jazz

Jazz, by its very nature, is complex, and improvisation is the defining characteristic of jazz. That combination makes the music challenging enough to play, but add the condition that the players take the stage without rehearsal, without ever having played together, often without having met each other. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, is in fact rather common among working jazz musicians.

The scenario found its ultimate expression Valentine’s Day in the Emerson Concert Hall of the Emory University Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. Short of a mid-afternoon discussion of the tunes they were to play that night, Grammy Award winner saxophonist/percussionist/composer David Sanchéz (pronounced “Da-veed”) took the stage at 8:00 p.m. for the feature presentation of the 2025 Emory Jazz Fest with a trio led by pianist Gary Motley, the musicians new to Sanchéz except for Motley with whom he had played once some 20 years earlier.

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If your concept of jazz is a group of musicians playing through the “head” of a tune then taking turns soloing, this was hardly that. This assembly of Puerto Rican-born Sanchéz, Hall of Fame pianist, composer, and Emory professor Motley, bassist Kaleb Thompson, and percussionist Leon Anderson combined for something beyond jazz. The lines and structures of the tunes, the flights of improvisation as esoteric and intricate as melodic, the fluctuating rhythms demanding the most skillful precision: all emblematic of the jazz genre, but moreover, an orchestral presentation, rich and deeply textured, worthy of the term symphonic.

The evening opened with “Blue Pulse,” announced later in the set as composed by Veronica Motley, a note that generated “ahs” of appreciation and surprise from those in the audience who might not have known of the musical partnership of husband and wife. The tune, one of several co-written by the Motleys for their most recent album, Muse and the Flame, a title designed to reflect their creative partnership, established a format followed by others throughout the set: opening with a drifting, delicate melody before exploding into a breakneck pace driven by Sanchéz’s tenor sax and ably supported by the trio. What evolved was often furious—but never frantic—including flurries of imaginative lines and harmonies and rhythms. And typically the denouement: a return to the opening melody, drifting, spaced, concluding as simply as with a single, if unresolved, note.

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The evening’s program consisted of seven pieces, two from legendary pianist Kenny Barron’s revered album Spirit Song, including “The Pelican” and the album’s title cut. But the bulk of the evening’s nearly two hours of music was built around three Sanchéz compositions, all from his album Carib: “Wave Under Silk,” “Canto,” and “The Land of Hills.” Each featured jaw-dropping solos and accompaniments, the stuff of unique expertise, from Motley’s lethal left hand, to Anderson’s deft finger-drumming, to Thompkins’ acrobatic precision and use of harmonics. Sanchéz’s Caribbean roots were evident throughout, as were his equal fondness for mainstream and Latin jazz. As aptly described in an online bio, “Throw in some Pan-African polyrhythms—all while he’s leading the band—mellowed by a kind of transatlantic fusion vibe—mixing bass with bongos—and you have one complex sound.”

Upon the 2019 release of Carib, Sanchéz wrote, “I believe some of the greatest contributions to contemporary music and culture have come from the African diaspora throughout the Americas. Unfortunately, there seems to be too little awareness of their influence, especially the vital stories told by the music. So I wanted to approach this album as a means to pay tribute to all Afro descendent communities who have helped define my music and the culture’s broad ranging beauty and idiosyncrasies.”

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Weeks before the evening, Motley had presaged the event perfectly in an interview: “Fasten your seat belts. David is a very creative and imaginative player. We all come from very different musical backgrounds, and it’ll be a unique experience to watch four musicians get to know each other on stage. It will definitely be fresh.”

Beyond the music, the night wound around a series of tributes to Sam Yi, whom the jazz community lost on February 3 to colon cancer at just 61 years old. The evening started with a moment of silence for—and a voice recording of—the man who owned and operated Churchill Grounds, for nearly two decades Atlanta’s mecca for jazz, and after its closing in 2016 continued to find venues for our city’s jazz musicians until he had mustered enough support to open what now unfortunately will not come to fruition, a new Churchill Grounds. Friday night, February 14, 2025, Sam Yi was alive again at Emory. ■

~Mike Shaw

Emory Big Band shines on Saturday night

The Emory Big Band under the direction of Gary Motley took the stage at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory University on Saturday night shortly after 8:00 p.m. and opened with a burst of brass. “Our Man Dan,” composed and arranged by Mike Tomaro, blends elements of swing with a strong back beat in the rhythm section while the brass section and saxophones trade blues-inflected lines. Throughout the set, the band navigated complex composed parts before turning things over to impressive soloists. On arrangements of Wes Montgomery’s infectious “Full House” and Duke Pearson’s “Jeannine,” soloists shined, particularly saxophonists Jay Hammond and Alex Greenberg.

Throughout the hour-long performance, Motley walked to a mic positioned at the front of the stage to address the crowd, explaining elements of the music and tactfully soliciting donations to the Emory Jazz program. Motley is most in his element, however, at the piano, and when he sat at his instrument mid-set and was joined by guest artists Kaleb Thompkins on bass and Leon Anderson on drums, the room was transfixed by his splendid piano introduction to a trio version of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.”

The big band closed out the evening with “Señor Salsa,” a rousing mambo that featured Emory saxophone professor Randy Hunter and “The Neighbor from Naylor,” an attractive contrafact based on the chord changes to “Bluesette” that once again showcased the many strong soloists in the ensemble. ■

~Matt Miller

EXTERNAL LINKS:

• David Sanchéz: davidsanchezmusic.com
• Gary Motley: garymotleymusic.com
• Emory University Jazz Studies: music.emory.edu/performance/jazz
• Schwartz Center for Performing Arts: schwartz.emory.edu

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