Jamie Saft

Keyboardist Jamie Saft, whose contributions proved inspirational, began surfacing on growing numbers of jazz sessions rooted in New York City from the 1990s forward and deep into the following millennium. Queens, New York, served as his birthplace, after which he pursued studies at the New England Conservatory of Music and Tufts University. There he worked under Paul Bley, Geri Allen, Cecil McBee, and Joe Maneri while also receiving guidance from composer and “piano technical guru,” as Saft himself termed him, Burton Hatheway. Returning to New York in 1993, he immersed himself in performances spanning opera, folk, heavy metal, and jazz within a self-described bar band. In 1995 he served as piano soloist for the New York and Paris premieres of John Adams’ opera I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, presented at Lincoln Center and MC93 Bobigny respectively. Throughout the mid- to late ’90s he supplied Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes, miniMoog, and bass for that same bar band, Bobby Previte’s Latin for Travelers, whose releases appeared on Enja. Accordion duties took him into the Peter Epstein Quartet as well as onto Jerry Granelli’s Enter, a Dragon, while steel guitar and additional instruments rounded out his palette. Appearances across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East accompanied collaborations with John Zorn, including membership in Electric Masada, plus Groove Collective, Marc Ribot, Drazy Hoops, and numerous others. A co-led project with trumpeter Cuong Vu produced the album Ragged Jack on the Avant label.

By the end of the ’90s, touring commitments coincided with the recording of a solo album for Tzadik featuring saxophonist Chris Speed and drummer Jim Black; Sovlanut reached listeners in mid-2000. Further Tzadik releases followed throughout the 2000s, among them Breadcrumb Sins in 2002, Astaroth: Book of Angels, Vol. 1, recorded by the Jamie Saft Trio and drawing on John Zorn’s Masada repertoire, in 2005, and Trouble: The Jamie Saft Trio Plays Bob Dylan in 2006. Additional projects emerged on other imprints, including The Only Juan with Jerry Granelli on Love Slave Records in 2001 and Merzdub with Merzbow on Caminante in 2006. Back on Tzadik, the anti-Semitism-themed heavy metal recording Black Shabbis surfaced in 2009. Film scoring commenced in 2005, and a 2010 compilation titled Bag of Shells gathered selections from the scores for Murderball, God Grew Tired of Us: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Dear Talula, and Brooklyn Exile, issued on Tzadik. Around the same period Saft formed the New Zion Trio alongside bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Craig Santiago. That ensemble supplied one track to the otherwise solo or duo album Borscht Belt Studies, also on Tzadik, an eleven-song all-original collection spotlighting the composer on acoustic and electric piano with clarinetist Ben Goldberg.

Serious work with Eraldo Bernocchi and Giacomo Bruzzo’s London-based RareNoise label began in 2012. The initial undertaking, Metallic Taste of Blood, united improvisation, dub, jazz, sonic investigation, and prog rock; Bernocchi and Saft were joined by Porcupine Tree bassist Colin Edwin and drummer Balázs Pándi. Membership in the all-improv ensemble Slobber Pup followed on Black Aces in 2013, alongside guitarist Joe Morris, bassist Trevor Dunn, and Pándi. The year 2014 yielded three further RareNoise recordings: Plymouth, featuring guitarists Joe Morris and Mary Halvorson, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and bassist Chris Lightcap, appeared in April; The New Standard, a structured jazz trio date with Bobby Previte and Steve Swallow, emerged in May; and the self-titled Red Hill, an improv quartet outing with Wadada Leo Smith, Pándi, and Morris on bass, arrived in September. Ticonderoga, recorded with Morris, Joe McPhee, and Charles Downs, came out on Clean Feed the next year. Strength & Power served as a thematic continuation of Red Hill, this time placing trombonist Roswell Rudd in the lead role supported by Saft, Trevor Dunn, and Pándi. Sunshine Seas then featured the New Zion Trio in tandem with Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista. For the 2017 follow-up to The New Standard, Saft, Swallow, and Previte welcomed punk icon Iggy Pop on three tracks. Early 2018 brought the bucolic Serenity Knolls, a collaboration with Larval multi-instrumentalist Bill Brovold.