Allen Lowe, saxophone slung from his neck, looked down the ranks of the Fake Music Ensemble at Best Video in Hamden on Saturday, a line of horn players, two guitars, a bass, and drums.
“Everybody blowing,” he said. “A‑one. Two. One, two three.”
The band hit all at once, settling into a loose swing, a bluesy feel with a hint of abstraction. The members of the Fake Music Ensemble — Lowe on alto saxophone, Herbert Wilson on tenor saxophone, Rex Denton and Vance Provey on trumpets, Kevin Ray on bass, Rob Landis on drums, Michael Coppola and Christopher Morrison on guitars, and Isaiah Cooper on trombone — took their turns on solos, introducing themselves to the audience. They were also introducing Lowe’s compositions, a suite of tunes Lowe called Black, Brown, and Beige: Yellow, Trans, and Queer: My Country ‘Tis of This. The work is part homage to Duke Ellington’s jazz suite Black, Brown, and Beige, which Ellington debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1943. Lowe’s piece, like Ellington’s, celebrates the diversity in contemporary society, though as Lowe explained, “a lot of the purpose is to point to certain aspects of American heritage which are under the carpet, not as well-known.”
Case in point: The first piece of music was jarringly titled “Midnight at the Faggots’ Ball,” the widespread informal name for the annual Hamilton Lodge Ball in Harlem, which ran for several decades starting in 1869. Lowe explained that in the 1920s and 1930s — the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance — the ball was a focal point for the LGBTQ community at the time, drawing a cross-dressing crowd of thousands. Press articles about it throughout its ranged from bemused and curious to shocked and outraged. For this reporter, the existence of the balls was indeed something new; in that sense, Lowe accomplished part of his mission from his first tune.
Of course, another part of the mission was strictly musical, and in that, the Fake Music Ensemble provided a really nice evening of jazz. Lowe’s compositions by and large followed the standard form, with the band playing through the head once or twice in unison before taking turns on solos, then returning to the head to take the tune out. In keeping with Lowe’s conception of the tunes as a suite, the pieces did indeed hang together, feeling evocative of Ellington in his genius for writing gorgeous ballads and more adventurous music throughout his career, while also highlighting Lowe’s voice as a composer — which, like Lowe’s own solos, held a love for melody and abstraction in a fine balance.
Brian Slattery Photo
Provey and Ray.
As the band worked through its set, though, Lowe’s material also let the audience get to know the individual players in the Fake Music Ensemble. On trumpet, Denton’s quick, unfolding melodies contrasted nicely with Provey’s more pixelated style. There were Morrison’s clean lines versus Coppola’s arpeggiated complexities. Wilson’s solos gave the music visceral punch, while Cooper’s rhythmic meditations created moments of quiet. Through it all, Ray and Landis were a supple, sympathetic rhythm section, picking up the soloists’ ideas, playing with them, and giving them back to the soloists, supporting the other players and egging them on. The ever-shifting moods and textures let the band get quiet and contemplative, or raucous and aggressive, as needed.
Lowe was a longtime New Haven-area resident (and former director of Jazz Haven) who recently moved back after a stint in Portland, Maine. He returns to a scene that has kept many of its fixtures in place while also welcoming a new generation of players. Just as Lowe’s suite celebrates diversity, his music adds another flavor to New Haven’s complex musical stew.