Todd Sickafoose Returns With Bear Proof
An exclusive chat with the Grammy and Tony Award winning double bassist
While many jazz artists construct their careers around their releases as bandleaders, double bassist and composer Todd Sickafoose has taken a different approach.
Bear Proof is the first release under his name in 15 years, and although it is every bit as stunning as its predecessor, 2008’s Tiny Resistors, it is also an album with its own distinct character.
Readily apparent from the opening track, “The Gold Gate,” Bear Proof is a lush album that seems to place nearly equal emphasis on what happens underneath the solos as it does the solos themselves. Given Sickafoose’s work as both a composer (he won both a Grammy and a Tony for best musical theater and best orchestration for his work on Hadestown) and producer it’s not difficult to hear his extreme attention to orchestral detail on Bear Proof. Each composition moves through various sections and instrumental combinations, and outside of the improvised solos themselves, little seems left to chance. Is it jazz, third-stream, or some other hybrid?
“It’s jazz very much so,” Sickafoose states. “With open ears to the wide world of music-making. But yes, I’m trying to blur the edges between what is written and what is spontaneous. Part of that is getting the pacing right, so that when a soloist launches off, they know what their role might be in the zoomed-out sense and they have the right landscape to do it. Does the soloist emerge in a moment of openness, where tension is being released and the canvas is simple again, or are they prolonging a sense of urgency? In a continuously-played long piece like this, an intuitive soloist can really help you get from one emotional place to the next.”
The ensemble does indeed lead the charge. “Bent Into Shape” finds freer and more abstract interplay while the aforementioned possesses an almost indie-rock feel. “Flush” veers from pointillistic group phrases to more lighthearted romps, almost like moments in Secret Chiefs 3 or Mr. Bungle minus the nod-and-a-wink satire. “Boom Bust Startup Ruin” even finds a chance to subvert traditional twelve-bar blues and wrestle into their own configurations.
Along with the compositional focus, Sickafoose assembles a group that possesses a unique character by virtue of its instrumentation. It doesn’t hurt that he’s assembled an all-star cast with Jenny Scheiman on violin, Ben Goldberg on clarinet, Adam Levy on guitar, Kirk Knuffke on cornet, Erik Deutsch on piano, Rob Reich on accordion, Allison Miller on drums, and of course, Todd Sickafoose himself on bass. They are as talented as their collective voice is unique. One wonders what came first, the instrumentation or the people playing them.
“For me, it’s foremost about personalities – musicians who totally delight me, and each other, and get my mind going as a composer,” Sickafoose states. “But also I think I veered towards more folky or chamber music instruments for this particular project – instruments with less jazz baggage and the ability to blend in unique acoustic ways. The accordion is a bit of a secret weapon in this context, at least to my ears! It adds something three-dimensional to almost any combination. In a room all together, these eight instruments can sound like a mini-orchestra.”
Indeed, the accordion in particular gives the record such a unique feel. The aforementioned “Flush” gyrates between Estradasphere and a recontextualized Astor Piazzolla, with Schieman’s impressive violin solo further blurring the lines between jazz and everything else this composition contains. “Magnetic North” also sees Reich performing a gorgeous solo and generally setting the tone for the entire piece.
Despite being released fifteen years apart, Bear Proof was actually recorded in 2013. While that places the album closer to its predecessor chronologically, it still possesses its own character.
AUDIO: Todd Sickafoose, “Boom Bust Startup Ruin”
“Regarding the difference between this album and the last: Tiny Resistors represents a studio-focused way of approaching a jazz aesthetic – layers and collage and overdubs are all part of the sound – but for Bear Proof I sought to swing the pendulum the other way” he explains. “Here, the complex textures and transitions are all scripted – written carefully into the hour-long piece. So you get a rich, sometimes unpredictable palette with a kaleidoscope of instrumental combinations, but it’s very much repeatable from performance to performance. That’s what I was going for. I will probably swing back the other way again because I love studio creativity, too.”
Despite the compositional complexity at work, Bear Proof is both organic sounding and memorable. Sickafoose certainly deserves credit for the production, but even more for writing this fabulous music. One gets the sense that it almost was lost to the outside world, that we nearly missed out on the magic.
“We recorded Bear Proof quite a few years back – but there’s a lot to do in life and it got put on a back burner,” he admits. “When I returned to the music during the pandemic I realized how much I stood by the writing, even a decade later, and how much joy we had captured on tape.”
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