Come To Qathra This Sunday For A Unique Jazz Trio Performance

Two Ditmas Park musicians have invited a Grammy-nominated violinist to join them in a free concert at Qathra Cafe at 5pm on Sunday, July 10. Saxophonist Roy Nathanson and singer/bassist Tim Kiah perform together regularly in Sotto Voce, a band that mixes poetry with jazz and hip hop.

Their guest for the Qathra show, however, is better known to classical music fans; Jesse Mills received a Grammy nomination in 2004 for his recording of Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet Concerto.

Playing with a jazz duo isn’t Mills’s first experience breaching musical barriers. “The classical music world is so fractured that there are people who specialize in music that was written in the last 50 years or so, or by living composers,” he said. “That style of music could sound extremely different from Mozart and Beethoven, and many people focus on one or the other in the classical world. But I do play both and I feel they inform each other. I am inspired when I go back and forth between the different genres.”

Schoenberg was a logical bridge for Mills as a musician. “Schoenberg’s music was written about 75 years ago; it’s pretty old music actually,” he explained. “But because of the style, it’s considered contemporary. People think of Schoenberg as the guy who pushed the limits of classical music in his time. He’s still a very controversial figure to some people.”

Mills developed a reputation for playing contemporary music early in his career. After leaving school at Juilliard, he began performing with the Flux Quartet. “Their mission was just to play music that was written in the past 50 years. Some people know me because of that as a contemporary player, but these days I kind of do everything.”

“As of late, I’ve been concentrating more on the classical stuff,” Mills said. “I have a piano trio. We play a lot of Brahms and Beethoven.”

However, neither classical nor contemporary music left enough space for another of Mills’ interests. “Musicians who play orchestral instruments usually don’t improvise. Improvisation is something that I’ve always had a passion for. It’s part of my musical voice,” he said.

He indulged that passion as a young fan, listening to jazz while he trained as a classical violinist. Later, he got an opportunity to perform music based on improvisation when he joined his friend Tim Kiah in a band called Nurse Kaya, which brought together musicians from jazz, rock, classical, folk and avant garde traditions.

In 2004, Kiah and Roy Nathanson recruited Mills to play violin with Sotto Voce on a European tour. Since then, the friends hadn’t played together, but for Mills it felt like they could rejoin at any moment.

And that moment arrived serendipitously; Mills said he probably wouldn’t have gotten Sunday’s Qathra gig had it not been for a shopping trip to Sears in Brooklyn. “I decided to give Tim a call because it [Sears] was just around the corner from him. We got talking and he said, ‘Are you free to do a gig with us?’”

The Qathra show is part of Nathanson’s Ditmas Park performance series, dedicated to his friends and neighbors. A world-renowned artist who has recorded with Deborah Harry, Elvis Costello and Mavis Staples, Nathanson grew up in the neighborhood and later returned, buying a house after he had established his name in the East Village music scene in the 80s and 90s.

A previous Qathra garden show by Nathanson and Kiah in May had to be moved indoors when heavy rains began to fall a couple of hours before curtain call. The resulting standing-room-only show had an infectious intensity, culminating with Nathanson’s dual saxophone performance on “Inflated Tear”. Sunday’s forecast calls for rain in the morning, but we should have clear skies before the music begins at 5pm.

Nathanson and Kiah are scheduled to play Qathra again on July 24, but this Sunday’s show is the only one that will feature Mills on the violin.