Musicians Make Music

No matter what, musicians make music.

Recently, I played at Bar Bayeux with Adam Kolker and Jeremy Stratton; a private gig with Dan Loomis, some very special concerts with a string quartet led by Janey Choi at NYC hospitals; Mezzrow with Debbie Deane; Raphael D’Lugoff at Cellar Dog; and with vocalist/pianist Kelly Green and bassist Luca Soul Rosenfeld at the Flatiron Room NoMad.

In a few hours I head over to Ibeam to play solo as part of an event organized by Matt Glassmeyer (according to Matt a few tickets are still available). We’re recording; I’m hoping this is the beginning of a wide-ranging project, a follow up to Saturday and Sunday.

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Tomorrow, I head out on tour with the Mark Morris Dance Group, performing Pepperland. Based on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, with music and arrangements by Ethan Iverson and choreography by Mark Morris, as Mr. Morris say, “Pepperland is for people who love or hate the Beatles”.

Morris’s dance is beautiful— celebratory, funny, heartbreaking, even elegiac— and Ethan’s score is a joy to play. We’ve been playing Pepperland since May 2017, when it debuted in Liverpool, England for Sgt. Pepper’s 50th anniversary.

I was a last-minute addition to the band, and at first, a fish out of water. After twenty or thirty shows, I realized that the more of myself I put in the show, the more everyone— the dancers (each one a creative, dynamic artist), the band, Ethan, and Mark Morris would respond. A big lesson.

Curiously for 2025, Pepperland isn’t really documented, beyond a few little YouTube clips (without professional sound) taken from Mark Morris Dance Group archives, which makes it even more special. Here’s Nate Chinen’s mention of us from 2022, along with a groovy photo from the curtain call. (Thanks Nate!)

I love Pepperland. I wrote my own part, and it’s a love letter to the band (Ethan Iverson, Sam Newsome, Jacob Garchik, Rob Schwimmer, Clinton Curtis, and Chris McCarthy), to the dancers, and to Mark. I don’t know if this comes across to the audience, but I have to trust that it sort of does.

So much has gotten worse in the world since we debuted Pepperland in 2017; more than ever, Morris and Iverson’s take on the Beatles is needed. I mean, I need it.

Before it’s a job or a profession, music is a vocation, a calling, something to which you dedicate yourself. Sustainability is always a challenge, and there is no permanent solution; everything is just a temporary fix. The only hope, the only possibility, is to play with love and respect for everyone. That’s the only way of getting anything going.