Seattle Jazz Composers' Ensemble: The birth of something cool

For a high-school junior in the grips of a jones for jazz and sourdough pizza, the road trip made perfect sense.

Growing up on the Olympic Peninsula in the late 1990s, aspiring jazz bassist Nate Omdal had to drive 50 miles to find Miles Davis' seminal album "Birth of the Cool."

"I'd get paid from my job and I'd drive to Port Townsend to buy some records at Quimper Sound," recalls Omdal, 27. "I had started a 10-piece band the year before, so I was really motivated to get a copy of 'Birth of the Cool' and a piece of Waterfront Pizza."

Omdal's latest project, the Seattle Jazz Composers' Ensemble (SJCE), was born on a similar quest. On the way from Seattle to a Port Townsend gig with pianist Mike Owcharuk several months ago, they came up with the concept of assembling an ensemble with the same expanded brass instrumentation as "Birth of the Cool." The SJCE makes its debut tonight at Lucid Jazz Lounge, just north of the U District.

Owcharuk had already presented "Slava! — Ukrainian Carols and New Christmas Music," an ambitious concert featuring his jazz arrangements of folkloric songs and newly composed Christmas music. With a strong pool of musicians to draw upon, they figured that presenting a celebrated but rarely played body of arrangements made for an appealing and promising event.

"We kept getting yes's from everybody we asked," says Owcharuk, 31. "We had a lot of fun at the Christmas concert. It was such a good experience debuting original music and hearing really talented musicians play their work."

With so much attention focused on the 50th anniversary of Davis' modal masterpiece, "Kind of Blue," the 60th anniversary of the equally influential "Birth of the Cool" project has been mostly overlooked. Davis organized the landmark 1949-50 sessions and is the lead solo voice, but the project grew out of a confederation of modernists surrounding arranger Gil Evans.

As an alternative to the jagged lines of small-group bebop, the lushly orchestrated, elegantly swinging arrangements by Evans, Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis made a particularly strong impact on the West Coast scene.

When Capitol reissued the sessions on LP in 1957, the label re-christened them "Birth of the Cool," a brilliant marketing strategy that tied the recordings to Davis' newly iconic status.

For tonight's concert the SJCE performs 10 of the 12 original charts, as well as new works by Omdal, Owcharuk and a handful of other Pacific Northwest composers. The ensemble's first incarnation includes alto saxophonist Cynthia Mullis, baritone saxophonist Brian Bermudez, trumpeter Jason Parker, Cara Sawyer on French horn and Nelson Bell on tuba.

"We wanted to start a project from the grassroots, and it's snowballed," Omdal says. "We want to provide a forum for local composers to write for different kinds of ensembles."

The SJCE debut is the latest in the Live at Lucid series, which seeks to provide a friendly space for local jazz groups. Since opening last November, the lounge has instituted an innovative recording policy that enables bands to document an evening of music for limited CD release and digital distribution. The sextet Reservoir Cats released the first project for Lucid Live Records on July 11, "Spirit of Mingus."

"Artists will have complete control over the music," says Lucid's owner and manager David Pierre-Louis, 30. "We've recorded five albums so far, and our goal is to record and release 20 before the year is out."

Andrew Gilbert: jazzscribe@aol.com