Noah Haidu recruited Sharel Cassity, Jon Irabagon and Jeremy Pelt to play on his new album. JOHN ROGERS

NOAH HAIDU Subversive Soul

n his sideman days in the early to mid-’90s, the hard-bop lines,” Haidu said. “But then it’s After Haidu moved to New York in 1993, he Brooklyn-based pianist Noah Haidu had a got an abrupt 7/4 vamp and chords that sound discovered a similar vibe in Queens, where he lot to consider. The jazz scene was booming abrasive. I like the tension and the idea behind looked for work. He started at the now-defunct Iwith an array of new artists who were setting it. Everyone wants to categorize you—straight- club The Village Door and other small ven- out to make new statements about the future of ahead or modernist or avant—so that what ues like The Skylark and Club Tamara in the jazz. But Haidu kept to his own identity. you’re doing becomes marketable. But I don’t then-active jazz scene, linking up eventually “I didn’t feel like I had to follow any trends want to be categorized. I’m not in any one camp. with drummer Walter Perkins. “Again, there then, and I still don’t,” he said over tea and a So, in my mind, that’s subversive.” was a community feeling,” he said. “You had macchiato at the Kos Kaffe Roasting House in Haidu absorbed a wide range of music to learn how to play soulful and not be erudite, Park Slope. “I keep an open mind about music, growing up. He started playing classical piano, which would alienate the neighborhood folks but I don’t jump on any bandwagon. I’m follow- but switched to guitar because of his fascina- who hung out there.” ing my own path.” tion with the blues and then switched back to Haidu returned to school, finishing his That’s apparent with his third recording as a piano when he discovered jazz. Living in L.A. undergrad at New School, then gaining his mas- leader, the succulent and subtly insurgent with his father, who had a large record collec- ter’s at SUNY Purchase, where David Hazeltine Infinite Distances, released on the Vancouver tion, Haidu went to dozens of live shows, from had him transcribe and learn solos by the jazz imprint Cellar Live after two impressive Posi- Herbie Hancock and Oscar Peterson to Sting greats. “David put me under fire,” Haidu said. Tone albums (2011’s Slipstream and 2013’s and Eric Clapton. “My dad made sure that I “But at the same time I knew I wanted to write Momentum). For this outing, highlighted by the heard it all,” he said. my thesis on Kenny Kirkland, who I had heard dual saxophone drive of Sharel Cassity on alto Haidu studied at Rutgers University with with Branford [Marsalis] and Sting.” When and Jon Irabagon on soprano and tenor (and Kenny Barron, but he left after two years to interviewing Marsalis, he was surprised to find with guest Jeremy Pelt on trumpet for three move to Philadelphia. “I decided to investi- out that the saxophonist wasn’t all that close to tunes), the 44-year-old Haidu takes advantage gate the scene Kenny grew up in,” Haidu said. his late longtime pianist. He then paraphrased of the harmonic soundscape to create a sump- What he discovered working with such local- the poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “Among the clos- tuous record that swings and grooves with far- ly based players as pianist Eddie Green, saxo- est people there remains infinite distances.” out moments and rhythmic devices that jolt phonist Tony Williams and especially drum- Haidu reflected on that for years, eventually with cross beats. mer Mickey Roker was that there was a vital composing the six-song suite that is at the core “Noah writes so that we can envision the and trusting connection to the community. “It of Infinite Distances. In his liner notes, he wrote, blends he’s hearing,” Irabagon said. “He cre- wasn’t hipster jazz like New York,” he said. “It “The resulting work is a musical reflection on ates an environment that’s really comfortable was the soulful music for a neighborhood that relationships, loss and self-realization.” so that recording with him feels like a bunch of had grown up with jazz. There was a connec- That takes on a deeper, soberer meaning for friends playing his high-flying music.” tion between the musicians and the audience. Haidu, as a few days before the album was At its heart, Infinite Distances pulses with No one was putting on airs. It wasn’t about released, his father died. “He always took great soul. An early highlight includes the lead-off technique or tricks or playing your greatest pride in my recordings and performances, and tune, “Subversive,” with its fast gait and muscu- hits. It was just playing music that people real- he loved the new one,” he said. “That’s why I lar bounce. ”It’s a great way to start it off with ly responded to.” dedicated this album to him.” —Dan Ouellette

28 DOWNBEAT JUNE 2017