Posts Tagged ‘hanes’

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)…

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