JJJJJerome Ellis, Walt McClements
First Unitarian Side Chapel
2125 Chestnut St.
Philadelphia
May 14, 2026
As listeners, we might have habits, instincts, or intuitions we’ve honed over time, that tell us where to aim our ears. Maybe you're keyed into chord changes and harmonic function; maybe lyrics and tune; maybe texture or formal structure or something historical. I often wonder about what happens when the music we’re listening to demands more of us than those initial predilections or assumptions, when the artist essentially says, “Sure, look there, but you better look elsewhere, too.” What does deep listening really mean?
I kept thinking, throughout this show at First Unitarian with JJJJJerome Ellis and Walt McClements, about the idea of noticing, of really accounting for what is present; JJJJJJerome Ellis began their performance with simple, yet achingly evocative descriptions of the space we occupied: “Dark brown wood carved into intricate patterns, carved into flowers; warm yellow-and-white light coming from sconces, dark blue cloth on the upper part of the wall. Where I’m standing, there’s a hammer dulcimer, a trapezoidal wooden stringed instrument; a saxophone, the color of honey.” Even this small gesture, of drawing our attention, slowly, deliberately, to the immediate physical environment – accruing detail, doing away with metaphor, describing things almost to bring to light our unintentional, habitual neglect of the immediate – prompted me (and others, I suspect) to really attune ourselves to the moment, to our surroundings.
All night, these performers had me listening, and paying attention, with all my senses, with my whole body. At times my senses were overwhelmed to the point that I was more like a weather vane or pinwheel or lightning rod than a person, heart climbing out of my throat. Both McClements and Ellis conjured whole, enveloping worlds, and both gave performances that felt like gifts lovingly bestowed. Ellis even directly thanked McClements for his set, observing his “sensitivity to the wind and the breath and the air...” It wasn’t just the sensitivity, tenderness, or lightness that struck me, but the strength and stamina and control, the pure physical feats of what McClements could do, the endurance of playing the accordion and the trumpet at the same time, holding the trumpet up with one hand, breathing through the horn while he pulsed the accordion. The pieces McClements played – mostly drawn from last year’s album On a Painted Ocean, with a gorgeous cover made by local artist Erik Ruin – were far from ambient; they contained too much drama, too much melodic and harmonic guidance and feeling. There was a grand compositional energy that he matched sonically, the accordion bolstered by a generous helping of effects pedals, adding depth and dimension to the sound so that it felt more like listening to a proper church organ. This was the first indication that I’d be listening with my whole body tonight, listening with my chest: the huge rumbling of low notes, like I was experiencing a tectonic event (like those low-registering earthquakes that knock things loose without causing any damage) as I sat there in the front pew, eyes closed.
But it was JJJJJerome Ellis’ performance that truly floored me. Ellis is a multimedia artist, combining elements of storytelling and performance art with their music: they sang, sometimes to backing tracks, and played saxophone and flute (which they had to run to their car to retrieve, mid-set, hilariously) and hammer dulcimer. They sang or played woodwinds both on and off mic; they moved up and down the aisle between the pews throughout the set, with the room and the crowd small enough that they could engage with each one of us. At one point Ellis identified a young child, named Omie, in the very back of the room – I assume they must have been only five or six, I couldn’t see from where I sat – and played a saxophone piece just for Omie, right next to them, with such blooming, elegiac beauty that it took my breath away. I felt as incapable of not falling in love with this artist’s music as I am of not breathing air.
I feel words failing me in terms of describing the set satisfactorily, what with all the artist’s open-hearted stories and anecdotes regarding their grandparents and family, not to mention their beautiful singing and musicianship, and songs stuffed with poetic beauty, so suffice it to say that it was one of the best, most complete sets of artistic expression and presence I’ve seen in a long time – maybe ever. They made at least one new fan for life.
