When local jazz venues reopened after the pandemic, one name was conspicuously absent from their show calendars: the Either/Orchestra, the Boston band whose daring but swinging approach has earned it reams of critical praise, tours across multiple continents, and a Grammy nomination. But the group’s schedule has been empty ever since a November 2019 show at Tufts University with Teshome Mitiku, one of the many classic Ethiopian singers that the band has played with over the years.
“There just weren’t any opportunities that presented themselves,” explains leader and tenor saxophonist Russ Gershon. After three decades of coordinating the schedules of 10 busy musicians, Gershon admitted that a bit of a break was nice.
Now, those opportunities are finally back. The band just released an album of material by Armenian-Ethiopian composer Nerses Nalbandian, and is playing its first show in six years at Regattabar on Dec. 17, which happens to be the 40th anniversary of its first-ever show.
Gershon credits famed producer Joe Boyd with the Either/Orchestra’s comeback. He went to see Boyd talk at Porter Square Books about “The Roots of Rhythm Remain,” a 1,000-page look at the histories of music from around the world, including classic Ethiopian music and the Either/Orchestra’s role in preserving and performing it.
“I introduced myself, and he said ‘You know, you’re in the book,’” said Gershon. The two kept in touch, and Boyd ultimately helped arrange for the Either/Orchestra to appear at the 2026 edition of Big Ears, the ultra-eclectic tastemaking festival that takes over Knoxville, Tenn. every spring.
At Big Ears, the group will play two shows: one devoted to Ethiopian music, and the other focusing on the band’s original compositions and arrangements, which draw on the more adventurous side of the jazz tradition. This week’s Regattabar sets will each be a mix of both.
With dates in Cleveland and at New York’s Winter Jazz Festival also coming up, Gershon has been choosing which of the band’s 200 charts to rehearse. Nearly 60 musicians have been full-time members over the group’s history, including such future luminaries as Miguel Zenón and John Medeski. The Regattabar show will feature three new members, as well as veterans like baritone saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase, bassist Rick McLaughlin, and percussionist Vicente Lebron, whose addition in 1999 sent the group into new rhythmic territory.
Gershon joked that revisiting some of the older Either/Orchestra material with members who weren’t alive when the pieces were first recorded “makes me feel like I’m in a cover band of myself.”
“I really missed having this musical family,” said trombonist Joel Yennior, who joined in 1998. Sitting across the table from Gershon at a Chelsea bakery for an interview, Yennior said the sound has stayed fresh because the outfit has been an ongoing musical workshop.
“It was always a collaborative process where we felt like we were able to contribute, rather than Russ just coming in and telling us what the parts are,” he said.
As a “little” big band, the Either/Orchestra occupies a distinct niche in the jazz world. As the sole trombonist in the six-piece horn section, Yennior said that the smaller format means he can be “a rogue player, in a way.”
“Sometimes the trombone will voice with the trumpets, or be playing with the saxophones, and sometimes it will be doubling a bass line,” he added. “So for me, it’s interesting to be able to fill some of those different roles.”
As a jazz outfit that splits the difference between Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, and Charles Mingus, the Either/Orchestra’s path changed when Gershon’s collaborator Mark Sandman came back from a European tour with a CD of classic Ethiopian music.
“It didn’t leave my CD player for two years,” the saxophonist recalled.
Gershon and longtime trumpeter Tom Halter (who is sitting out the Regattabar show because of health issues) came up with a suite of vintage Ethiopian songs that the orchestra could play on the road. One day Gershon got an email from French producer Francis Falceto, who had compiled the CD that Sandman found. After connecting with Falceto, the Either/Orchestra would go on to make multiple performing and recording trips to Ethiopia.
They also became the only American act to record for Falceto’s seminal series of mostly historic compilations, called “Ethiopiques,” with their 2005 release “Live in Addis.”
On one of those trips, the band members were introduced to the family of mid-20th-century composer Neres Nalbandian. His uncle, Kevork, had composed the Ethiopian national anthem and directed a band of 40 Armenian orphans that mid-century Ethiopian ruler Emperor Haile Selassie had discovered in Jerusalem.
Neres’s compositions, inspired by both traditional Ethiopian melodies and mambo rhythms, helped shape the golden age of Ethiopian pop.
“His family threw these scores at us and said ‘You must play these,’” remembered Gershon. A series of sessions from 2011 to 2015 are finally seeing the light of day as “Ethiopiques 32 – Nalbandian The Ethiopian,” the Either/Orchestra’s first new album in 15 years.
For years, Gershon released records by both his group and many other jazz greats on the Boston-based Accurate label. While the new economic realities of running an independent label are daunting, he’s still hoping to release a record of original material that the Either/Orchestra recorded pre-COVID.
Another item on Gershon’s wish list is to commission an entire repertoire of Either/Orchestra compositions that are under three minutes. Asked if this would appeal to the TikTok generation, Gershon explains that the concept was actually inspired by the earliest jazz pioneers who were limited to the length of a 78.
“In those days, big bands could say so much in just eight or 16 bars,” he concluded.
THE EITHER/ORCHESTRA
At Regattabar, 1 Bennett St., Cambridge, Wednesday, Dec. 17, shows at 7:30 p.m. (sold out) and 9:30 p.m. Tickets $35. ticketweb.com