Posts Tagged ‘allen’

Frank Gratkowski is visiting the Bay Area for a number of weeks – busy with all kinds of concerts. A few weeks ago we both played in ROVA’s sax cloud at the ODC theater in San Francisco. 16 saxophones in a circle with the audience in the middle (some very nice music). Damon Smith suggested we play together in a quintet with Tim Perkis and Kjell Nordeson, and I was all for it. Damon, Kjell, Tim & I have played as quartet a few times in the past, and the results have always been musically complex, diverse, quickly changing and ultimately rewarding – adding Frank into the mix didn’t derail our past efforts. We played several improvisations, with Frank on bass clarinet and alto saxophone, myself on soprano and alto – the group had a nice and wide orchestration palette with Tim’s electronics, Damon’s non-amplified bass and Kjell’s percussion. Everyone was mindful of the use of space and silence, and there was some good & strong music made.

The first set of the night belonged to Joshua Allen on tenor saxophone, Matt Montgomery on bass, and Spirit on drums. A number of improvisations – Josh has been playing with Spirit for at least 17  years and they play well together. Josh did a particularly nice solo point where he explored overblown harmonics in a methodical yet visceral way. Here’s a shot from their set:

josh allen, matt montgomery and spirit play at the ivy room

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