CHUCK ANDERSEN
ARTS&LIFE MUSIC
Top of the Charts! Decades-old Ann Arbor jazz band reunites to find fame and success. SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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lthough reunions are generally geared toward looking back and catching up, that hasn’t been so for the Lunar Octet, a Latin jazz group formed in 1983 by students at the University of Michigan. A performance reunion of the octet, after some 12 years of changing memberships and almost 20 years of being disbanded, is moving the group forward with a recording now receiving international acclaim as it is played on many radio stations. Convergence, holding 14 tracks of original Lunar Octet compositions, was released by Summit Records in May. It is topping the jazz charts and drawing performance invitations from venues across three continents. To celebrate their accelerating success,
Aron Kaufman on the congas
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AUGUST 5 • 2021
members are returning to Ann Arbor for a performance of the tracks and perhaps numbers written since. They will appear Wednesday evening, Aug. 11, at the Blue Llama Jazz Club. Aron Kaufman, a composer-percussionist in the original group and still living in Ann Arbor, composed five of the numbers with each one having a story behind it as does the title of the album. Kaufman’s commitment to the Lunar Octet style continues as he teaches Jewish studies at Hillel Day School and Adat Shalom Synagogue, both in Farmington Hills, and performs with other groups. “Jon Krosnick, our drummer who lives in California, got people motivated to perform again,” Kaufman said. “We did a show and were encouraged to record the numbers. We came up with the title Convergence because of the way we had to coordinate rehearsals of the mostly instrumental tracks. It involved travel from both the Eastern and Western United States so everyone could converge in Ann Arbor. “Convergence is also a convergence of musical styles that bring together a jazz matrix with world flavors from the continent of Africa as well as countries that include Cuba and Brazil. There are sound variations that you wouldn’t normally find on one recording as we highlight our
Members of the Lunar Octet about to appear in Ann Arbor are (from left) Paul VornHagen (tenor saxophone, flute, alto clarinet), Keaton Royer (piano), Brandon Cooper (trumpet, flugelhorn), Sam Clark (guitar), Steve Hiltner (alto saxophone, clarinet), Jeff Dalton (acoustic and electric basses), Jon Krosnick (drums) and Aron Kaufman (congas, percussions).
individual musical expressions that have many world influences.” CONGA CREATIVITY The members’ original musical intent was captured in the group’s first name, Lunar Glee Club, which was to suggest singing through instruments, not vocalizing. In that vein, the first song on the album, “Norm’s Nambo,” was written by Kaufman with a mambo beat in tribute to a former mentor. “When I first began playing conga drums, I studied with Norm Shobey,” Kaufman explained. “He had performed on Broadway and played briefly with the 5th Dimension music group. Norm was an incredibly creative conga player who would take different rhythms and combine them creatively. That inspired me to think about music creatively.” Another number by Kaufman is “Heart of Congatar,” based on a pattern he played using four conga drums. After a fellow musician commented that the four drums in combination sounded like a tune, Kaufman realized that composing was something that could be done using congas instead of the usual piano or guitar. The title is a wordplay that associates the conga and guitar. Other Kaufman songs on the recording, sometimes explained in live per-
Details
The Lunar Octet will appear starting at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 11, at the Blue Llama Jazz Club, 314 S. Main, Ann Arbor. Three 45-minute sets. $10. (734) 3723200. bluellamaclub.com.
