Improvising a life together

by Ben Waltzer For The Nj Star-Ledger

For one Jersey City couple, "making beautiful music together" isn't just acorny cliché. It's their life.

Pianist Angelica Sanchez and saxophonist Tony Malaby, who will perform together Thursday at the Cornelia Street Café in Manhattan, have worked and supported each other for years to build jazz careers. By juggling day jobs and touring schedules, practicing on lunch hours and gigging late into the night, they have cultivated followings and earned critical acclaim.

Now, with the release of Sanchez's debut CD, "Mirror Me" (Omnitone), upcoming tours and recording projects, and a new home and rehearsal space near Journal Square,their struggle is starting to pay off. Most importantly, these Arizona natives finally feel settled.

"Me and Angie dig it," Malaby, 38, says of the neighborhood, which is fast attracting other professional musicians. Their new tenant is a jazz drummer. A French horn player and free-jazz trumpeter also live on the block.

"Our neighbors compliment us on the music we play, although sometimes they say things like,'I keep waiting for you guys to play the tune. It sounds like you're always warming up!'"Sanchez, 30, says with a laugh. "We play some crazy sessions at our house."

In performance, Malaby and Sanchez have distinct musical personas. Malaby roams, bear-like, through the musical landscape until he finds an idea - then, with his saxophone, he tears it apart like prey. At the piano, Sanchez is a sculptor, chipping away at silence with angular melodies that she develops into musical worlds.

Both, however, are interested in the relationship between freedom and structure in jazz. Ever since saxophonist Ornette Coleman revolutionized jazz in the late '50s by improvising without preset chord changes, jazz musicians have been faced with a fundamental challenge: How do I play freely without embracing chaos?

One answer is to structure compositions in ways that accommodate the openness and spontaneity of free improvisation. Listen to Malaby's recording "Sabino"(2000) or check out Sanchez's group; the songs sound like improvised symphonies. One movement flows into another, and group orchestration, rather than preset harmony, anchors the soloist, who is then free to take the music anywhere. "Their styles are totally open and unfettered without sacrificing energy, rhythmic impact or harmonic depth," says Chris Lightcap, a bassist and bandleader who works with them both. The two first met in the mid-'80s when Malaby, then a student at Arizona State, taught music at Sanchez's Phoenix high school. "Her vibe was incredible. She was like pretty-in-pink meets Joan Baez," says Malaby,laughing. "I took some lessons with him and used to go hear him play. I was madly in love with him, but I was a kid - what was I going to do?" Sanchez remembers.

In 1990, Malaby left Arizona to study music at William Paterson University. While in school, he worked with organist Joey DeFrancesco and the Mingus Big Band, and formed a lasting relationship with drummer Tom Rainey and bassist Michael Formanek. They exposed him to an intense form of group interaction.

Back in Arizona, Sanchez continued to grow seriously as a pianist. "My parents killed themselves to get a piano and pay for lessons. They were very supportive. Anytime I wanted a record, it was cool." Music was always in her household. Sanchez listened to the blues and Thelonious Monk. For fun, her father used to play bongos and sing along with Cal Tjader records.

After two years in New York, Malaby returned to Tempe, to teach at Arizona State and, as he explains, "open up my concept." He began running into Sanchez. Soon they fell in love and moved in together. With links to the Los Angeles jazz scene and steady gigs, Tempe proved to be a good place to grow artistically. Sanchez and Malaby also found inspiration and guidance from local musicians. One was a drummer named Hamza Abdul. "He showed us music by singing it to us, and used adjectives to describe chords: "more open' or "deeper purple,'" says Malaby. "His approach was really organic and modular. In performance, sections of the music could expand and contract. It totally affected us."

By 1995, Malaby and Sanchez were itching for greater challenges, in music and in life. When a friend's New York apartment became available, they headed east.

Sanchez taught music during the day and worked at Tower Records at night. Malaby worked there also, until gigs took him on the road. Is it difficult when one person goes on tour? "It's actually good for us, if it's not too long," says Malaby. "It makes me really want to come back to Angie, to come home." "You realize what's home when you're away," Sanchez agrees.

Over the next few years, both formed their own groups and began gigging steadily. Their reputations grew. Malaby was named twice in Downbeat magazine's critics' poll as a talent deserving wider recognition, and both were invited to teach at the prestigious Banff music program. As musicians say, they developed a voice, individually and together. Personally they grew closer, marrying in 1998.

In the jazz world, the ability to merge musicality and inventiveness spontaneously is highly valued. Bandleaders have increasingly tapped Malaby and Sanchez for that reason. "Tony's great," says drummer Paul Motian, with whom Malaby has worked for the past three years. "We just did a trio record. It was like going to a gig, having a great time, playing songs without rehearsals or hardly any second takes. He plays with so much originality!" "Angie plays bold, original ideas that are always "in the moment,'" says saxophonist Bill McHenry. "Depending on what's going on in the band, she's prepared to be lyrical, explosive or just not play at all."

For Malaby and Sanchez, personal and musical identities are intertwined in interesting ways. Both are Mexican-American and draw inspiration from their heritage. But to them, ethnicity is a starting place, not a destination. "People meet me or hear my last name and assume I play Latin jazz," says Sanchez. Malaby and Sanchez come from families that were supportive, yet, to varying degrees, skeptical of careers in jazz. "In trying to create an identity," ponders Malaby, "you rebel against where you came from, your parents' thing, and in some sense against the American thing. We became jazz musicians. And if you're a jazz musician, you live outside the changes of being a normal American. You try to create you own identity."

The struggle to improvise free-style, in life and music, can be unsettling. "We always felt struggle was good for our character," says Malaby. "We never felt stuck." "We always felt like we were moving forward," replies Sanchez. "Because of the music and because of each other," Malaby concludes, smiling.