Back at the Ivy Room for the first time this year – I’d taken a little hiatus from the monthly series that I book there due to the holidays. The fourth mondays tend to fall right near thanksgiving and christmas, don’t they? For this night I asked Damon Smith, Tim Perkis & Kjell Nordeson to do a set of improvising. Damon, Tim and I have played in quartets with a roving fourth member – once with Josh Berman, a time or two with Jordan Glenn – and this time with Kjell. There’s a lot of activity musically with that quartet. Perkis is so flexible with electronics – his being computer based, a system that he’s developed over time – and of Damon can extract so many sounds from his bass that just having those two in a group creates endless possibilities. Add Kjell to that with his multi-layered rhythms and palette of sounds and it things move fast from point to points. Not that we didn’t have sections that were patient and textural, where the group’s sound really coalesced. An inspiring set – would like to play in that grouping again, soon.
The second set of the night was brought in by Jon Raskin, of ROVA. He brought his alto & baritone and was joined by Aurora Josephson, voice; John Shiurba, guitar; and John Hanes, on drums. A nicely varied set, they played several distinct improvisation that he chose either before or after (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that it was a concerto for each of the instruments. I appreciated his “concerto” where he let the other members play an exposition of sorts before he joined.
A really strong night of music at the Ivy Room, thanks for everyone who came out despite the intermittent downpours, that are so rare in the bay area (and because of that make for the perfect excuse for people to stay at home)…
Last night played up in Sacramento with Cylinder (myself, Darren Johnston, Lisa Mezzacappa, Kjell Nordeson). Ross Hammond has a series up there called Nebraska Mondays at the Luna Cafe, a small spot on 16th street in between N and O streets. Gotta love the grid style in Sacramento.
This was the first date for Cylinder since we had a recording session at the beginning of October, and though we were a little rusty on parts, it felt great to play together. I brought my Conn 6M for the show – it’s an alto that I got a few months ago – has a different kind of sound than my Pan American – maybe a bit more refined with more modern mechanisms, a really fast horn, built in ‘37. The stage was on the small size, a few times I moved backwards into Kjell’s ride cymbal, but in a perfect position in the room with tables in front and flanking. A good sized crowd came for the show, especially considering that it was Monday night, and they really responded to the music – such that we had to expand our set by three tunes… I was glad we played up there, it’s a quick trip from the Bay and completely worthwhile.
Played last night at the Uptown in Oakland. it was a busy night down there because of a Pixies concert happening across the street at the Fox Theatre. Hard to park! Thought I’d get a parking ticket, but was lucky….
Marches and the Oakland Active Orchestra played – Marches was up first, our line-up for the night was the organ version with Gene, Cory and Jordan. Good playing – we’re making some progress – I’m really into the way the organ fits in with the saxophones. We tried a new piece – maybe should’ve rehearsed it a bit more – but it’s been a busy time out here and it’s been tough fitting in enough rehearsals. The plan is to get some solid rehearsing in and then get into the studio so that we can have a release sometime early next year. We played on the floor of the Uptown – which is good for sound quality, but a little tricky for light. Gotta work on that…..
The Oakland Active Orchestra played our second show. This one was very good with new pieces by Cory Wright, Phillip Greenlief and Rob Ewing, plus an arrangement of Echoes of Harlem by Tom Djll. A wide range of music – particularly in Tom’s piece – one section the entire group explores the smallest range of dynamics with a quick transition to a section with two drummers going for it with a strong solo by Ewing. Had a few subs on the night – Erik Jekabsons on trumpet and Sam Ospovat on drums – they both sounded great and fit well aesthetically. Sam and Jordan playing drums together worked well – they had a good sense of playing at the same time without dominating the group.
We ended the night with Rob’s piece, one that is very patient and uses the entire ensemble simply – to create a slowly shifting re-harmonization of a chord -a fitting use of the group.
The full lineup for the group this night was:
Aaron Bennett: alto & tenor saxophones
Phillip Greenlief: clarinet, tenor saxophone
Aram Shelton: clarinet, soprano & alto saxophones
Cory Wright: baritone saxophone, bass clarinet
Tom Djll: trumpet
Erik Jekabson: trumpet
Rob Ewing: trombone
Kristian Aspelin: guitar
Marielle Jakobsons: violin
Lisa Mezzacappa: bass
Damon Smith: bass
Jordan Glenn: drums
Sam Ospovat: drums
The second Fast Citizens album, Two Cities, has been released by Delmark. The Fast Citizens are the Chicago based sextet of Aram Shelton, Keefe Jackson, Josh Berman, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Anton Hatwich and Frank Rosaly. Formed in 2002 by Jackson, the Fast Citizens have decided upon a rotating leader chair and for their sophomore release Shelton has taken the reins as main composer. The title Two Cities reflects the geographic locale of Shelton, (currently based in Oakland, California), and his continued relationship with the active music scene in Chicago. Focusing on orchestration and structural variety, the Fast Citizens present a stylistically diverse album that includes hard swing, lush ballads, high-energy free improvisation, modern composition and Sun-Ra inspired grooves.
Frank Rosaly was in town! Part of a multiple week solo tour that stretched from Chicago through the southwest and out to the west coast. Supporting his new solo album milkwork. It was great to see Frank play solo – he’s such a great drummer and percussionist. A great feel in many different styles – in Milkwork he uses electronics that are really integrated into his kit. Using contact mics to get the sound in, the electronics utilize the feedback in a way that emphasizes the tones of the drums. A very sophisticated integration with seemingly basic tools. too short of a set Frankie – you should’ve played longer!
Ton Trio hasn’t played in a bit – Sam has moved back from Paris, so this should start happening more often… instead of a bass, I asked Gene Baker to fill in on organ. It worked out well – he’s able to support as both a bassist and keyboardist, which makes his role very flexible. Also, he and Sam have together a good deal in the past – so they have a solid relationship as a rhythm section. Our set was satisfying and there was a good turnout that night.
Frank and Renee stayed at my place in Oakland that night, but we unfortunately didn’t have too much time to hang the next day, I was doing sound at a concert at CNMAT that night, so had to be there early, and of course they had to drive back to Chicago…..
Played with Trevor Healy at Tom Duff’s house in Berkeley – a nice spot for playing. It was two duos that night, the first being Jacob Zimmerman, an alto player at Mills right now and Mike Carreira, a drummer. Their set was first, Mike played a very stripped down set of small bass drum, snare and small cymbal. Spare sounds – worked well with the composed music that I think was written by Jacob. The music focused on distinct aspects of playing by Jacob – trills, high tones, etc. Mike has definitely explored the smaller sounds of drums -he used tiny scrapes and movements to good effect. A short break and Trevor and I played – the last time was back in early August (on another duo bill with James Fei and Kyle Bruckman) and we fell back into our style – which has developed over time to be a process of building up thick affected drone sounds with interspersed field recordings and ghostly melodies. Meditative. This was a good set and Tom recorded it with a nice pair of overheads. Hopefully that will be unearthed before too long….
There’s a monthly series happening at the Makeout Room in SF – first mondays of the month – the bay area is all about mondays – or so it seems sometimes….
So, Marches played our 3rd show – so far Cory, Jordan and I have been at all three – our bass / organ position has been moving around a bit, thankfully there’s good players out here that fit well into the music we’re playing. This night we had Eric Perney join us on bass, and he did a great job of interpreting the music. He’s a strong player, particularly when playing arco. We played a five song set, starting with the through composed ballad “the Walk”. On “Turning”, a kind of slow moving power waltz that disintegrates in an Aylerian way, my mouth completely dried out. It’s very hard to blow alot of air through a horn when you’ve got no more moisture…..Cory played some great tenor & baritone solos. Jordan took a drum solo that really changed the mood of the set ….KFJC came and documented the night with video and audio.
The first set was played by Nathan Clevengers sextet. In it I played tenor, alto and clarinet; Kasey Knudsen played alto & tenor; Sylvan Carton baritone & tenor; Sam Bevan bass; Eric Garland, drums; and Clevenger on the guitar. Nice tunes – interesting writing with independent parts for the different voices. We didn’t have a rehearsal – so I was pretty green on some of the arrangements… I also played mostly free solos, as specified by Nathan’s arrangements – these were good sections, Garland said it was the most interactive he’s felt while playing free. But, I did ask Nathan for some solos on changes the next time around.
Lords of the Outland played the middle set – alot of energy by that quartet of Rent Romus, CJ “Reaven” Borosque, Ray Scheaffer & Philip Everett. The crowd at Makeout was pretty talkative. The effect of having shows in bars that have happy hour until 10. Though, when you’re playing you don’t notice it quite as much as when you’re trying to listen.
Played duets on Thursday night at Blue Six in the mission with Kjell Nordeson. Part of the Active Music Series, it’ll be a monthly concert where I’ll be bringing a project and inviting another group to share the bill. This night Darren Johnston brought a new quartet called Farallon where he’s joined by Sheldon Brown on alto, Noah Phillips on guitar and Jordan Glenn on drums.
Kjell and I played the first set, all improvised – we played four pieces, the first two were more rooted in tempo based forms with Kjell creating multi-layered rhythms with lots of variations and colors of sounds stemming from his kit that includes many “little instruments” in addition to the standard elements. Really fun to play with him, I like his feel when playing time – driving & intense, with a solid pulse supporting all the variations.We played four pieces – the first two were pretty high energy tempo driven affairs, lots of forward momentum and repetition. I started on tenor and switched to alto halfway through the second. The third piece dealt with more quiet tones and silence at first. Kjell then created a pulsing theme utilizing some complex sounds which developed into an ostinato in a kind of 12/8 feel with cross rhythms on top. I was able to float on top of this with melodic material. A very patient feel to the piece. We were able to record it with 4 tracks, here’s the second track, where I play first tenor and then alto:
Farallon played the second set. It was quite good, some originals by both Darren and Sheldon and one Herbie Nichols tune which was quite an interesting interpretation largely due to the instrumentation and the playing style of Noah Phillips. Instead of comping in a jazz way, Noah’s concept has a strong rock influence, and he would create backings which reflected this, while maintaining the chordal aspects of the written music. It was a real juxtaposition which I thought worked well. The music written by Darren and Sheldon was strong and you could tell how much those two had played together in the past. Darren’s been sounding extra good these days – a benefit of playing alot of shows all over the place (I think he was in Chicago, Toronto and New York in the past month.)
Last night played with Weasel Walter’s Quintet – first show in a few months – me, Aaron Bennett, Darren Johnston, Damon Smith and Weasel. It was good. We didn’t have a rehearsal, we played the first piece Weasel had brought to the group, “On the Verge of Destruction”, so we all knew how to approach it. I think because of no rehearsing, the looseness that we played with actually helped the music. Darren, Aaron and I are all good readers, so the notated music was there, and the improvising was really interesting and varied. Probably because we hadn’t played in awhile: those situations always tend to freshen the ideas. I think structurally there was a good amount of variation too.
The first set was with Josh Allen, Mike Guarino and Tim Orr. Two drummers, one saxophonist. Alot of energy. I hadn’t seen Tim play before – used alot of extra percussion, cymbals and such, with his kit. Sounded good.
The last set was a trio made up of Derek Moneypeny and two fellows from Sacramento, Chad Stockdale and Kevin Corcoran. Drums, guitar and electric saxophone. More energy music! Loud – loving my westone earplugs these days………
