prt oe aApparitions “When | compose music, | try to create something that honestly reflects the time in which I'm writing it,” says guitarist Adam Rogers of the repertoire on Apparitions. It's his third Criss Cross release with pianist Ed Simon, bassist Scott Colley, and crummer Clarence Penn; his second in quintet format with saxophonist Chris Potter. “Their playing as individuals and collectively is in my mind when | compose,” he continues. “I'm heating all their sounds. | know that if | do write music that is virtuosic in nature, they can play it with aplomb and grace, and got to its essence.” Since the release of The Art Of The Invisible [Criss 1223] in 2003 and Allegory [Criss 1242] in 2004, Rogers has performed his music in such New York venues as the Jazz Standard, the Jazz Gallery, the 55 Bar and at festivals around the U.S.A. “Since recording my first album, I've been working quite a bit more as a leader while still being very busy as a sideman,” he says. “Adam is the most versatile guitarist 've ever known,” says Edward Simon. “He owns a great number of guitars, plays them all well, and knows @ huge amount about different styles of guitar playing and styles of music, Technically, he's so advanced. He can produce a classical sound out of the acoustic guitar, and he also can play really fast tempos with amazing facility. Like a master transcultural chef, Rogers deftly blends all the flavors he encounters as an instrumentalist to impart to his compositions a distinctive signature. His pieces frequently are technically demanding, navigate complex forms, and deploy shifting metric modulations. Yet the sound is anything but impenetrable and dense. Rogers knows how to conjure a mood, and he writes melodies that stick to your ribs. Asked when he began trying to organize notes and tones within compositions, Rogers recalls the early ‘80s, when he immersed himsetf in the music of Charles Mingus, and attended gigs by the David Murray Octet, the Gil Evans Orchestra, and the Dave Holland Quintet with Julian Priester, Kenny Wheeler and Steve Coleman. “There was something thriling about the sound of writing for three or more horns,” he recalls. “I put together a rehearsal band that played every week or two, for which | wrote these very polyphonic tunes. | was 17, and it was a big take-off point for me.” After high school, Rogers attended New York's Mannes Conservatory of Music, where he studied classical guitar exclusively. The son of an opera singer, for whom classical music was part of his lifelong soundtrack, he embarked on a systematic regimen of listening. “Initially | was interested in the great composers of 20th Century music, and then | started to go back,” he recalls. “Bach was important—even before | played classical music seriously, | practiced all his violin sonatas and partitas on electric guitar. When | got serious about classical guitar, | played the luie suites and cello suites. Then I got deeply into Beethoven, Mozart, and Brahms, among others. Although I've never used any particular classical form or method when | compose, I've played and listened to so much classical music that it’s influenced my writing tremendously, particularly the idea of individual voices working in tandem contrapuntally.” Throughout Apparitions, Ed Simon intuits Rogers’ intentions with characteristic nuance and empathetic precision. “I like to hear a lot of the chords | write on piano, while the guitar plays the melody,” Rogers continues.“Some of my chords are close-voiced, almost cluster voicings, and are clearer to the ear when played on piano. Also, the piano gives me another orchestral choice—| can use it to double an acoustic bass line, or write a set of chords in addition to the guitar. If | want to write contrapuntally, | can write two melodies for saxophone and guitar without losing the strong harmonic framework that the piano will provide.” At one time, Rogers considered making classical music his career. “! had a couple of wonderful performance experiences—for example, a recital of Benjamin Britten, Bach, Hans Wemer Henze, and Villa-Lobos,” he says. “But | realized that | love to improvise so much that just being an interpreter of classical music wouldn't satisfy me. | wasn't prepared to dedicate myself to it, to the exclusion of everything else. So I've continued to play classical music, and integrated classical guitar into my world of improvising. “I think all music is just music, and I'd prefer to see the similarities than the differences. But executing classical and jazz music are very different endeavors. Both have unique sets of demands. As an improvising musician, you can really tailor your playing style, technically and otherwise. Whereas in classical music, you have mold your technique and, to some extent, your style, to music that is already written and makes very specific technical demands. ) You can't play a piece that's allegro, lento.” J Like so many musicians of his generation, Rogers deeply assimilated the process of the late ‘60s Miles Davis quintet. “Miles featured ‘compositions by everyone in the group, but somehow the unique sound of the unit almost made it seem as if all the songs were written by some collective Intellect.” he says. “Then more than now, groups stayed together for years to develop a sound. For eleven years | co-led the band Lost Tribe [Dave Binney, Fina Ephron, Ben Perowsky], and I'm grateful to have had that opportunity. There's no substitute for having a group of musicians play together for years. That's when the unimaginable and the unspeakable starts to occur, even unbeknownst to the guys who are playing it.” ‘The unit on Apparitions, familiar with each other's predispositions and tonal personalities through frequent bandstand interaction as well as encounters along the various byways of their respective careers, achieves the quality of which Rogers speaks throughout the recital Labyrinth, the set-opener, embodies the Rogers touch. Structured in AABA format, the engaging melody evolves over a shifting harmonic background. Rogers executes a fleet counterline against Potter's melody statement, propelled by a bass ostinato and multidirectional drums. The fluent solos, which begin on a pair of open chords and evolve into a set of changes, make the tricky form sound like chile’s play. After a stunning solo by Penn over the B section ostinato, the group plays the A section melody to the coda. (On Tyranny of Fixed Numbers, Rogers—whose default guitar on jazz gigs is a Gibson ES-835—plays a Fender Stratocaster with distortion “The titie interests me as it pertains to the tempered tuning system—the fixed number of 12 notes in the scale,” he says. “There's incredible variation within those fixed numbers, but trying to come up with something of your own with those 12 notes, plus rhythms, is @ great challenge composers face, especially today.” The anthemic refrain builds on two pattems ot 8-bar figures. “The ‘second pattern is offset by a final bar in 5/4,” Rogers explains. “The A-melodyis set up twice, initially with just the chords, the second time by the chords and the bass, before Chris and | play it. The B-section consists of a bass ostinato and a melody over a chord figure. The guitar improvisation is in the key of G, and the saxophone in the key of D.” Spurred by Rogers’ skronky comp, Potter generates great heat, ultimately decrescendoing into the B melody and concluding with the A. The refrain of Persephone flows out of a melancholy vamp. Following a heart-on-the-sleeve Rogers solo, Simon's nuanced statement is @ model of understated emotion. “Somehow, | think this song is about an intemal struggle,” Rogers says. “In the bridge | feel there’s a hint of resolution, like it's trying to break through to something. With the restatement of the A melody, it returns to the initial feeling.” The quintet simpatico is evident on Continuance, a lively piece structured to transition from free-form to groove. “The initial melody is three bars of 4/4, one bar of 6/4, five bars of 4/4, one bar of 7/4, then 6/4, a metric, modulation, a triplet figure that suggests another time signature, and another fast melody with chords underneath it that’s repeated twice before going into an open saxophone solo over D-major,” Rogers states. “The rhythm section reflects even the merest suggestion of a time or feel change from the soloists, and it's incredibly satistying to play over.” “There's something appealing to me about the idea of faded glory. thinking about history. the inevitabllity and sadness of things coming and going,” says Rogers of The Maya, built on a plaintive melody over a bass ostinato. “When | wrote it, | wasn’t thinking of of this idea, but upon reflection, it seemed apropos. My initial idea was a simple melody over a deceptively simple bassline that would occasionally be harmonized. The guitar states the melody, which the saxophone doubles when repeated. It then goes through a number of sections where the melody is developed, and passes through different keys and time signatures.” “Before | wrote this piece, | was listening a lot to a record of his called Atlantis,” says Rogers of the through-composed title track, referring to American composer Morton Feldman. “I'm less familiar than I want to be with his harmonic and melodic techniques. | listen to the music as a sort of layperson, and I'm always struck by his sense of sonority and the way he orchestrates his magnificent harmonies. It's so beautiful and sparse, like a ‘small jewel reflecting light inside it. | would never compare this to any of his ‘works, but it represents his impact on me.” Rogers cites influences from classical music and Brazilian shaman Hermeto Pascoal in conceiving Amphora, which builds off an eighth-note refrain with a wide registral range. “The idea of writing a very busy melody that somehow remains emotionally evocative continues to interest me,” he says. “So does writing something over a static tonality and making it interesting and expressive.” Simon navigates the rhythmic and harmonic maze with panache and elegance before Rogers says his piece. “I wanted to write a traditional ballad made slightly untraditional by all the harmonic modulations,” says Rogers of Moment in Time. He plays it on steel string guitar with bass and drums. “The idea was something very spacious and understated.” It concludes a kaleidoscopic musical chronicle that seeks—and locates—the ineffable, “Music is such a rich endeavor.” says Rogers. “Thore's