When Johnny Adams, Earl King and Eddie Bo travelled to Detroit, those New Orleans music legends often tapped Richard “RJ” Spangler to lead pick up bands for them. Now the Motown drummer is bringing his own band, the Planet D Nonet, to the Crescent City for performances on Monday and Tuesday in Central City and on Frenchmen Street.
Planet D Nonet features nine veteran improvisers from Detroit
Planet D swings too hard to be labeled a “repertory ensemble,” but Spangler’s hotshot improvisers keep their roots firmly planted in 20th century musical styes that were popular when Detroit was a rich industrial powerhouse — and big bands toured the nation by rail and bus. The group’s playlist includes compositions by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Fletcher Henderson, material associated with early R & B “jump bands” and the pan-stylistic avant-garde jazz of Sun Ra.
For its New Orleans
appearances, the nonet will focus on Sun Ra’s legacy.
“Ra’s music fits our
range of interests. We love swing — and we love to play for dancers — but we
don’t want to be a full time swing band,” Spangler said. “Ra had a similar
breadth. I’ve seen him play boogie-woogie piano, but he also wrote bop and
swing charts, incorporated modal African elements, and explored total freedom.”
One of the great
eccentrics of jazz history, Ra was born Herman Blount in 1914, grew up in
Birmingham, Ala., and relocated to Chicago after World War Two, joining
Fletcher Henderson’s band as an arranger. His own band, the Arkestra, was easy
to spot. Ra had his musicians dress in glittering, Egyptian style outfits, and,
in his public pronouncements, he dished up a spacey line of mumbo-jumbo about
pyramids and inter-planetary travel.
Arkestra members
frequently lived communally, and star players, including saxophonists John
Gilmore and Marshall Allen stayed with the group for decades. The Arkestra
recorded prolifically, including a legendary 28 CD collection, that documented
a string of shows from 1986 in Detroit. (Spangler was around for all of them).
When Ra died, in 1993, he had already entered the jazz pantheon, trailing honors that included an 1982 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters
designation — America’s highest award for improvising musicians.
Keeping Sun Ra’s music
in the spotlight was one of the goals for the Planet D Nonet when it formed in
2007. But Spangler and his Planet D co-founders — trumpeter James O’Donnell and
trombonist John Paxton — brought a career-long obsession with Ra to their 21st
century ensemble.
“To me, as a musician
who came of age in the 1970s, Ra was a natural part of the jazz mix. From Louis
Armstrong to free jazz, it’s one big happy family,” Spangler said. In those
days, the drummer had friends in the Arkestra and used to hang out with the
band in nearby Ann Arbor. Later, Spangler and Paxton worked with former Ra
trumpeter Michael Ray — on one occasion at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage
Festival. Over the years, Spangler has assembled a huge file of big band charts
of Ra’s music by trading with similarly obsessed musicians in San Francisco,
New York and Ohio. A friend stumbled onto a Ra-penned fakebook at a fleamarket
in California. And Spangler also transcribes Ra’s original arrangements from
recordings.
None of that would
matter of course, if Planet D lacked fervent improvisers.
“Part of Planet D comes
from listening to scratchy old records, and part comes from working with the
older, swing era musicians we met as kids,” Spangler said. “Playing
side-by-side at gigs, we got a feel for the early styles and learned the old
techniques — half-valving and using the plunger mute — when nobody else was
paying attention. But in the end, we’re improvisors with our own ideas. We want
to make this music our own.”
Planet
D Nonet
What: This tightly rehearsed nine-piece jazz band from
Detroit will perform the music of Sun Ra at two New Orleans venues.
When: 8 p.m. Monday, Zeitgeist, 1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. Call
504.352.1150 or go to zeitgeistinc.net; and 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. Tuesday, Snug
Harbor Jazz Bistro, 626 Frenchmen St. Call 504.949.0696 or go to snugjazz.com.
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