The Angelica Sanchez Nonet 10/16/26 Firehouse 12

 I have to be honest, last season I witnessed an excellent female pianist at the Firehouse in a solo setting. She was Marta. This evening showcased Angelica. While they are both piano playing Sanchezes, the shows couldn’t have been more disparate. Angelica rolled in with her nonet, a number that tested the stage-craftery for space and seating arrangements of the usually ample space. This is before we get to the space required by the house piano that spans the length of two football fields. They made it work, which might just be the moral of tonight’s story. These were modern big band compositions, where sounds ebbed and flowed depending on the number of players engaged. You have to appreciate the inter-musician cohesion required for a group this size, it was obvious that all members functioned as a team. The music was unlike any big band in the traditional sense. There were  composed passages that required conducting from Sanchez and others that complemented  the free wheeling solos  which were epic. Angelica on piano and composition was joined by John Hebert on bass, Sam Ospavot on drums, Michael Attias on alto and soprano sax, Hery Paz on tenor sax and flute, Thomas Heberer on trumpet, Kenny Warren on cornet, Ben Davis on cello, and Ben Goldberg on clarinet and contra-alto clarinet. That’s right, a one woman eight guy group. I was situated in front of the brass line and it was a treat to see the interplay. The creamy cornet offset by a stabbing trumpet. Attias, an F-12 regular, at one point played both of his horns simultaneously. Paz, of Cuban heritage, played one sax solo sequence that would make Pharoah Sanders blush. The drummer wasn’t flashy, but was critical in the mix. The positioning of the cello in front of the standup bass emphasized the jazz classical junction of this music. The contra alto clarinet looked like a high school metal shop reject that made beautiful sounds which straddled the reed-brass line. The flexibility of the instrumentation gave the composer a myriad of options to ply her trade. This crew made it work, beautiful set of music.