Noah Baerman’s Resonance Ensemble Playing New Composition For Monday Night Jazz

In the jazz world, some bandleaders prefer small-group situations. They’ll hire players, improvise over a curated collection of standards and originals and attempt to create some sort of chemistry that would compel them to play together again. Maybe they care about large-scale, multi-part structures or grand, overarching schemes, or maybe not; if their music lives in the moment, for five or six minutes at a time, that’s just fine.

Noah Baerman, 41, a pianist and composer from Middletown, paints on slightly larger canvases. His themes evolve and adapt across movements, weaving together textures and sections while instruments drop in and out, punctuating formal ideas or simply showing up to back a vocalist.

Baerman’s primary musical language is jazz — its harmonies, rhythms, formal conventions, and so on — but he will write gospel, soul, R&B and pop digressions, if that’s what’s needed. And he’s not shy about inviting the extra-musical — texts, myths, sayings, philosophies, political positions — to the party, to help create what he broadly calls “message music.”

On Monday, Aug. 3, Baerman and his Resonance Ensemble — Kris Allen (saxophone and flute), Chris Dingman (vibraphone), Melanie Hsu (cello and vocals), Henry Lugo (bass), Bill Carbone (drums), Latanya Farrell (vocals) and Claire Randall (vocals) — will perform “The Rock and the Redemption,” his latest work, in Hartford’s Bushnell Park, as part of the Hartford Jazz Society’s free Monday Night Jazz series. Showtime is 7:30 p.m., with trumpeter Haneef Nelson warming up the crowd at 6 p.m.

“Rock” is based on the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who endlessly pushes a rock up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, as punishment for messing with the gods. It’s a tragic story — or is it? “Maybe through all the days of pushing the boulder, Sisyphus found a sense of inner peace and calm,” Baerman wrote in a blog post. “Maybe his body became strong from the daily workout. Maybe he evolved past the narrow belief that the only reward is to get the boulder all the way to the top of the mountain and have it stay there.”

Baerman suffers from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that nearly ended his playing career. He’s well aware of the limitations of the body and the need for exercise. Jazz — the musical language — continues to resonate with him, even if he’s no longer able to participate in the endless cycle of gigging and traveling needed to register on DownBeat magazine polls.

“It would require a body transplant,” Baerman said, “and last I checked, they don’t do those.”

“Rock” premiered in April at Wesleyan University, where Baerman teaches, and was later performed at St. Peter’s Church in New York. The piece, which lasts about two hours (with one intermission), isn’t his first big, unified work. Along with more intimate works, Baerman recorded “Know Thyself,” a 65-minute suite of continuous music for septet, in 2010, and in 2014 he released “Ripples” in conjunction with Resonant Motion Inc., his not-for-profit organization.

Baerman performs on piano, organ, synthesizer and slide guitar. (He’ll also sing at the Bushnell Park performance.) In “Rock,” each instrumentalist acts as the sole accompanist for one vocal piece; at no point in the suite do all the singers and musicians perform together, until the final movement, “Keep On (Reprise),” a slow-burning, R&B rave-up.

Only one movement in “Rock,” in fact, finds soloists improvising over the same basic material. “If I’m going to be through the efforts of putting that many notes on paper and getting people together to learn all the stuff,” Baerman said, “I want to give it more shape and give each soloist his or her own unique context for blowing and being able to create a mood.”

“Rock” wouldn’t work, Baerman added, with a bunch of ringers coming in and reading down the book. “It’s difficult for a jazz musician to have personnel that’s both stable and committed to really inhabiting the music,” he said. “I’ve been able to get into more elaborate musical structures because I’ve had that.”

To a person, Baerman said, every member of the Resonance Ensemble is committed fully to the project, and that allowed him to take risks as a composer.

“This is not just a gig for anybody,” Baerman said, “That’s really touching and incredible as a bandleader and composer.”

He’ll write music for individuals, not instruments; he wouldn’t think, for example, of including a vibraphone in “Rock” if Dingman weren’t on board. “I knew Chris would bring the music to life,” he said. “I need Chris more than I need a trombone.”

“Here’s a moment when I needed to be lifted into the stratosphere,” Baerman added, “and I have complete faith that Kris Allen will do that, if he is the featured soloist. And he happens to play alto saxophone. If Kris Allen announced tomorrow that he was becoming an oboist, I’d figure out how to incorporate an oboe, because I need him.”

NOAH BAERMAN RESONANCE ENSEMBLE performs at Bushnell Park in Hartford on Monday, Aug. 3, at 7:30 p.m. with trumpeter Haneef Nelson opening at 6 p.m. Admission is free. Information: hartfordmondaynightjazz.com.