It doesn’t take a degree in mathematics to recognize that Stephanie Chou’s music is a singular equation fashioned out of an idiosyncratic array of influences.
The New York alto saxophonist, composer, vocalist and bandleader makes her Bay Area debut this weekend with a series of gigs, introducing a beguiling body of tunes shaped by her Chinese American heritage and deep engagement with various jazz, folk and pop idioms.
For her performances Nov. 8 at SFJAZZ’s Joe Henderson Lab, Nov. 9 at the SJZ Break Room, and Nov. 10 at the Palo Alto Arts Center, she’s drawing on music from her second album, 2016’s “Asymptote.” It’s a term “that relates to two curves coming infinitely close together and never touching,” said Chou, who earned a BA in math from Columbia University.
She also completed graduate studies in composition at City College of New York, and over the past decade she’s written songs inspired by traditional Chinese music featuring her lithe vocals in Mandarin. She also sets ancient Tang Dynasty-era poems to music, crafts chamber pop ballads and writes instrumental post-bop jazz tunes. Rather than shedding her older pieces as she explores new musical territory, Chou continues to expand her far-ranging repertoire.
“Early on I leaned more on the instrument to tell the musical story or paint the picture,” she said. “As time has gone on I’ve tried to find a balance between something that’s accessible for audiences who might not be into experimental jazz. The Bay Area shows we’re playing are definitely mixed, with something for everybody, whether you love fully improvised music or prefer really clear song forms.”
If much of her music reflects her family’s lineage — her mother is from Taiwan, her father is an American-born with Chinese heritage from Philadelphia, and she grew up speaking English and Mandarin at home — Chou’s band represents the New York scene’s global reach.
For the Bay Area gigs she’s joined by Taiwanese-born Andy Lin, a longtime collaborator who moves between viola and the two-string spiked Chinese erhu, and Korean-born pianist Hyuna Park, a recent addition to the band. The rhythm section features Israeli drummer Ronen Itzik and bassist Bryan Copeland, whose acclaimed band Bryan and the Aardvarks has included Bay Area-raised luminaries such as vibraphonist Chris Dingman and saxophonist Dayna Stephens on EWI (electronic wind instrument).
A key Chou collaborator since her first album, the 2011 sextet session “Prime Knot,” Itzik has embraced Chou’s creative journey as she’s increasingly featured her vocals on singer/songwriter material and jazz settings for traditional Chinese songs.
“What’s so challenging and fun about Steph’s music is that it’s a combination of influences from different cultures,” said Itzik, who performed widely in the Bay Area before the pandemic in bands led by saxophonist Shay Shalov and bassist Jeff Denson.
“In New York you’re exposed to a bunch of different styles and traditions,” he said, but noted that Chou is the only musician he knows of playing “traditional Chinese music arranged in a way that’s also jazz and pop and classical.”
“It’s whatever she’s influenced by and one of her main influences is being Chinese American,” he added.
Another source of inspiration is her love of math, which will manifest particularly in Palo Alto. During the first year of the pandemic, Earthwise impresario Mark Weiss commissioned her to write a piece in honor of the late Stanford mathematician Paul Cohen, who did groundbreaking work on solving a longstanding problem known as the continuum hypothesis in the early 1960s.
“People had been working on it for more than 50 years and Paul Cohen made breakthroughs in this theory,” Chou said. “Mark contacted me about writing a piece and we’re going to perform ‘Continuum Hypothesis.’ I spent a lot of time researching it, and it was a unique experience to revisit my math background and learn something new.”
Chou doesn’t shy away from ambitious projects. She’ll be giving a preview of her new album “Comfort Girl,” a deeply researched song cycle about the lives of Chinese women pressed into sexual slavery by the Japanese military in the 1930s and ‘40s. It’s the kind of historically grounded work that parallels music made by saxophonist Francis Wong and pianist Jon Jang, pioneering Asian-American jazz artists she’s hoping to connect with in the Bay Area.
“As far as Asian American jazz, I wasn’t thinking about that lineage and history when I embarked on writing this music, which is very much about being Chinese American in New York and finding your own compositional voice,” she said. “But I know about their work and it would be interesting to draw some connections.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
STEPHANIE CHOU QUINTET
When & where: 7 and 8:30 p.m. Nov. 8 at SFJAZZ, San Francisco; $25; sfjazz.org; 8 p.m. Nov. 9 at SJZ Break Room, San José; $27; sanjosejazz.org; 8:30 p.m. Nov. 10 at Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto; $20; www.eventbrite.com (search for Stephanie Chou)
