For the irrepressibly creative Chicago saxophonist Juli Wood, the only thing better than one big, rumbling baritone saxophone is, well, two of them.
Which is why she has created her Big Bari Band, which plays its second engagement anywhere — and its first extended run — this weekend at the Jazz Showcase.
The front line features Wood and Chicago saxophonist Rajiv Halim on the two low horns. If you’ve ever heard either one of these musicians, you know that the two together playing baritone suggests considerable sound and energy.
“I’ve always been a fan of Rajiv Halim’s playing on alto and tenor — he’s fantastic,” says Wood. “He’s just so soulful and very studied, though. He’s got so much harmonic knowledge, and his technique on saxophone is great.
“Then I heard he bought a bari.”
That’s all Wood needed to hear to begin conceiving the new band. For periodically she has picked up her baritone and has found audiences apparently eager to hear more.
“Whenever I play at Room 43, there are always people who say: When are you going to bring that bari out?” says Wood, speculating they’re familiar with the “Movin’ and Groovin’” quintet recording she made in the 1990s with organist Mel Rhyne. That album, and a later one, featured Wood playing baritone on some tracks, and lately she’d come to realize it was time for her to return seriously to the instrument.
“I knew Rajiv’s would sound great on bari, and he sure does,” adds Wood, “and then I wanted to play some bari to get back into it.”
Though only the audience at the Big Bari Band’s debut at Room 43 on Jan. 21 knows how these two baritone saxophones sound in tandem, Wood believes she and Halim are on to something.
“The ballads are really mournful and beautiful,” she says. “The bari can be kind of airy and eerie-sounding if you play it softly, so we really use the (hushed) dynamics for ballads.
“Then there’s a tune like ‘The Cooker,’” from guitarist George Benson’s “The Cookbook” album, “that’s just really fast, real aggressive. It’s low, and the baris are kind of low.
“The baritone actually has a lot of coloring to it. It certainly can get loud and raucous. Some of these tunes we’re playing really fast, and we’ve really got to move it. The bari — if you can move your fingers fast enough — it’s not like a tuba oom-pah-pah bass line. It can really move.”
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Certainly baritone masters such as Pepper Adams and Gerry Mulligan proved that point beyond dispute.
Double baritone repertoire is more rarefied, though Wood said she has drawn inspiration from Sun Ra’s 1950s “Sound of Joy” album, which featured Charles Davis and Pat Patrick on baritones. The work of prolific baritone player Ronnie Cuber also has been important to her.
As for the Big Bari Band repertoire, Wood says she has arranged ballads such as Horace Silver’s “Peace” and McCoy Tyner’s “Search for Peace,” which “sound really beautiful with the two baris. We do harmony with each other.” Thelonious Monk’s “Pannonica,” Silver’s “Enchantment” and the title cut of guitarist Grant Green’s “Matador” also have proved fruitful, says Wood, the latter because “it’s got a great bass jumping line that sounds really good with the bari picking that off.”
How does Halim sound on baritone?
“He’s just got a nice, big, big sound,” says Wood. “And his technique is fabulous. He can really move on it. He’s still kind of new on it; he’s talking about trying out different mouthpieces.
“Although the bari is big and cumbersome to have around your neck, it is in the key that he’s used to with alto. I knew he would take to it right away.”
Considering that the band — with guitarist Mike Allemana, bassist Joshua Ramos and drummer Samuel Jewell — has performed only once before, Wood clearly is taking a chance on bringing the new venture to a prominent listening room. Then again, unveiling fresh concepts at the Showcase practically has become de rigueur for her. Last year she collaborated with alto saxophonist Caroline Davis for an enlightening probe into music of Gigi Gryce; the year before she celebrated Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s works.
Wood chides herself a bit for having not yet incorporated music of Mulligan — one of the most versatile musicians ever to have specialized in the baritone — into the baritone band, but she plans to soon.
With a project this new, the possibilities are practically endless.
“We have enough material now for the gigs we have, but we will add on Gerry Mulligan (and) cover more of the jazz baritone saxophone world,” Wood promises.
When she started the venture, she confesses, “I was wondering: What will this be like? Will it be too heavy-sounding? Will it be weird?
“But I think it will be a cool thing.”
Sounds like it.
Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @howardreich