Jamie Baum

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In Baum's music, the present knocks against the past, development knocks against nature, repression against indulgence, reality against dream, destruction against creation, Qawwali music against jazz, even masculine against feminine to create a fusion that is all of the above and none. The compositions stretch across time like a chalk line on a tennis court, rich and satisfying as chocolate cake with lemon frosting yet deeply textured and totally listenable. You will hear patches of funk, solid swing, delicate weaves, Latin and African percussion along with the echoes of other mentors like Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Any album on repeat is worth more than the sum of its parts. Why her Septet+ comes across as having tight playing, pure tones and slick chops is a tribute to its leader, who has put in the time and work to pull it all together from composition to practice. On—What Times Are These (Sunnyside, 2024)—she adds poetry, and vocalists Theo Bleckmann, Sarah Serpa and others. It is a step into the future. The human spirit requires surprise, variety and risk in order to enlarge itself. Imagination feeds on novelty. The result is music that infiltrates your cerebrum while a sweet mango melts on your palate.

Early on, Baum was drawn to India and through a 2004 Jazz Ambassador program from the Kennedy Center she was able to travel there, also going to Palestine, Thailand, Maldives, Sri Lanka and the country of her heritage, Israel. "I did grow up in the Jewish religious tradition," she affirmed. "I went to Hebrew school and studied Jewish music and prayer when I was very young, so I do have that in my ear, which is very similar to Maqam as is some of the approach of the scales and embellishment of the notes in Indian music, like that of the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan."

Baum extended her study of Qawwali, exploring its ancient intersection with Jewish devotional music with the aid of a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship, one of three jazz composers selected from nearly three thousand applicants to receive it. "I got turned onto Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and arranged some of his music for In This Life (Sunnyside 2013). There's just something about Nusrat's voice, something unearthly. It reminds me of Coltrane or Pavarotti."

What Times Are These showcases Baum's ability to be endlessly fun and innovative all at once while nudging large combo jazz to a whole new place. It gets you in its clutches and refuses to let go. The following conversation with her had essentially the same effect.

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