Fernando Huergo Big Band, “Relentless”

If Fernando Huergo’s band of A-list Boston players sounded especially inspired, it was certainly in no small part due to what he was giving them to play.

Fernando Huergo Big Band, “Relentless,” Live at Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, Sept. 26

The Fernando Huergo Big Band at Scullers. Photo: Andrew Scherbina

In case you missed it, big band jazz is still a thing. Though wildly impractical economically and otherwise (how many players can you book for a one-off gig on a given night?), it persists because jazz composers like to work with the larger palette afforded by the 16 or 18 or 21 pieces of big bands. And players enjoy playing in them. So, since the demise of dance bands following the swing era, there have been a number of major modern practitioners, from Gil Evans and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra to, these days, Maria Schneider, Darcy James Argue, and Michael Formanek, to name just a few.

In the Boston area, the Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra continues its four decades of progressive work with a show at the Lilypad on October 13, Ken Schaphorst leads his big band at the Regattabar on November 6 as part of that club’s ongoing big band series, and the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra enters its 51st season on December 14 with its annual Christmas concert at the Church of the Covenant.

Fernando Huergo, a bassist and composer who’s been busy on the Boston scene almost since his arrival from Argentina to study at Berklee three decades ago (he has taught at the school since 1996), recently celebrated the release of Relentless, his second big band album in recent years (The Possibility of Change came out in 2020), at Scullers.

The Scullers show was special for several reasons, but the foremost was that this was the entire 18-person crew from the album, with just two subs (trombonists Angel Subero in for Andy Garcia and Reinaldo Rousseaux Martínez for Chris Gagne). Huergo’s setup is straightforward: sections of trumpets, saxes, and trombones with a rhythm section of piano, bass, drums, and percussion. And the approach is mainstream as well: chordal jazz, regular rhythms, with solo features.

Huergo is a go-to guy for Boston’s Latin jazz scene, but I wouldn’t call this a Latin jazz band. Instead, Huergo deploys a variety of meters and rhythms that incorporate Latin grooves, but nothing screams “Salsa!” or even “Tango!” The trickiest rhythm of the night was perhaps the set closer “Groove Odds,” which mixed meters of 9 and 11. But like everything at the Scullers show, the groove was infectious and immediately accessible, built on clear riffing patterns and sleek melodic lines.

Huergo isn’t reinventing the wheel, but every piece in the show was beautifully designed, from those pliant melodies to the juxtaposition of tone colors from the different sections. Especially appealing was the use of Yulia Musayelyan’s flute as part of the sax section — it capped the top end and helped send each of Huergo’s reed melodies airborne with a bright, singing sound.

The other thing that jumped out in tune after tune was Huergo’s use of his soloists. Whereas the conventional practice is to have a soloist blow over the form with the rhythm section, Huergo liked to mix up his forms — primary and secondary themes returning in different guises. Solos were broken up, alternating with different backing from the other horns, the ensemble often modulating up, so that a soloist’s second chorus would get kicked up a notch in intensity as the piece changed shape or gave them new harmonies to work with. This is not unique in big band writing, but Huergo, again, does it exceptionally well.

On the album’s title track, Billy Buss’s flugelhorn came in high, fast, and biting, eating up the changes, but digging deeper for punchy riffs and an upper-register climax on his second turn. On “The Illusion of Hope,” Allan Chase, stating the theme, varied his alto lines and attack through several sections, from sotto voce asides and pearly ornaments to ardent exclamation. And on “Panorama,” bass trombonist Subero resolved a colorful solo with a display of salsa muscle.

The band played the album tracks in order from beginning to end, with the exception of “Modernities,” which was performed as an encore, a graceful medium groove in 5/4, in which the solos by trumpeter Daniel Rosenthal and trombonist Randy Pingrey folded their opening phrases into the mix with elegant transitions.

Electric bassist, composer, arranger, and bandleader Fernando Huergo at Scullers. Photo: Andrew Scherbina

In Huergo’s liner notes, he says the album title comes from Luke Mogelson’s New Yorker piece, “Relentless Absurdity,” which in turn was about Attention Servicemember, Ben Brody’s book of war photography (Iraq and Afghanistan). And you can read other implied connections in titles like “Consciousness of Reality” and “The Illusion of Hope” (the latter dedicated to Alexei Navalny). Though expressed explicitly in the liner notes, and in Huergo’s between-song comments at the Scullers show, the musical expression was more by implication. Still, the feeling was there — in pieces like “Relentless,” with the eloquent Chase solo, and often in the unrushed space left by soloists on, say, the lovely “Blues Sureño,” with its flowing beat based on the Argentine chacarera rhythm. On “La Vida Sigue” — a post-pandemic piece — unison flute and bass stated the spare melody before bringing in the consolation of community from the horns. The piece’s final soft phrase could be heard as a post-pandemic sigh of relief.

It should be said that despite the size of the band, the sound mix at Scullers was superb — individual voices clearly defined, textures transparent. But again, that owes a lot to Huergo’s writing (which included an expansive arrangement of Wayne Shorter’s “Deluge”). If his band of A-list Boston players sounded especially inspired, it was certainly in no small part due to what he was giving them to play.

And, since I can’t single out every solo, here’s the band’s complete lineup: Jeff Claassen, Billy Buss, Dan Rosenthal, and Greg Hopkins, trumpets; Randy Pingrey, Jason Camelio, Reinaldo Rousseaux Martínez, and Angel Subero (with Andy Garcia and Chris Gagne on the album), trombones; Rick Stone, Allan Chase, Rick DiMuzio, Joel Springer, and Daniel Ian Smith, woodwinds; Yulia Musayelyan, flute; Santiago Bosch, piano; Gen Yoshimura, drums; Ernesto Díaz, percussion; Fernando Huergo, bass.

from https://artsfuse.org