Best valuable player
In the beginning, Charlie Kohlhase was known simply as the baritone player in the Either/Orchestra - that
band's Harry Carney. But over the years, Kohlhase has become ubiquitous and, finally, essential. You'd find
him behind the counter at the local record store; then you'd hear him hosting Research & Development (also
the name of a Kohlhase Quintet album), spinning jazz Mondays at 8 p.m. on WMBR (88.1 FM), the MIT campus
radio station. And then there was his quintet. Here's where Kohlhase went his own way, finding inspiration
for collectively improvised, blues-tinted jazz in the legendary New York Art Quartet and the Charles Mingus
small bands. At places like the Willow in Somerville (from which they were ultimately displaced for a more
popular local evening, immortalized in the title of another album: Dart Night) or the Middle East, and in
appearances at the Regattabar and new-music events, one could follow the Kohlhase Quintet as an ongoing
story. The best working jazz band in town, they find something new to say, night after night. In time,
Kohlhase made albums with his NYAQ heroes John Tchicai and, most recently, Roswell Rudd. "You're all
lucky to have Charles," Rudd told a crowd at the Regattabar recently. Don't we know it.
|
|
