Jason Roebke: High/Red/Center

It’s been said that 80 percent of life is just showing up. A couple months ago I showed up at an improvising duo performance by bassist Jason Roebke and drummer John Niekrasz - and I was lucky I did. I’d been aware of Roebke’s Chicago presence through his associations with some other players, but wasn’t too familiar with his output or playing. However, I enjoyed Roebke’s performance so much in the improvised duo setting that I took to the Internet later that night to see what else I should check out. I discovered that he’d just released a recording as the leader of a Chicago octet titled High/Red/Center (Delmark Records, 2014). I went out and got it. And so should you.    

As opposed to the altogether appropriate Ellington and Mingus influences referenced in the recording’s liner notes (Art Lange), my first run-through impressions in terms of reference on H/R/C were more of Julius Hemphill, Sam Rivers (his big band…), or Eric Dolphy. Even the brash spirit of David Murray’s 80s octet I was fortunate to see back in the day at Union College in Schenectady, NY came to mind. Specifically, a single fleeting and mysterious harmony under Keefe Jackson’s tenor toward the title track’s end, and a few other moments from the same track reminded me of Hemphill’s “Leora” and “At Harmony” from his recording Big Band. In fact, both “Leora” and “At Harmony” would feel right at home on H/R/C. But it goes without saying that with this lineup of Chicago’s finest on H/R/C, the music is confidently its own breed.     

Though H/R/C is not a commercial record by any stretch of the imagination, it is firmly an idiomatic, modern jazz record: capital “J.” It’s not a straight-ahead, head/solos/head over changes outing a la, say, Horace Silver. But all the tunes (save one: “Slow”) are either essentially rooted in swing or are relatively straightforward ballads. There are surprises and free-ish sections incorporated that wouldn’t regularly be found on most major label releases (thank you Delmark!). And the harmonies and forms are a bit more ornate, oblique, and idiosyncratic than on most jazz records. But Coltrane’s Interstellar Space it’s not: “Ballin’s” occasionally overt bop gestures; the title track’s mostly driving swing and walking bass; “Dirt Cheap’s” slinky old-school slow blues riffing; “No Passengers” gives us more quirky bop-like lines for melody; “Double Check’s” relatively straight ahead melody with the occasional left of center/oddball counter line or accent, etc… This all adds up to something like the ultimate “gateway” record. For someone whose palate is accustomed to only digesting straight ahead jazz, this recording could smoothly move him or her along into more adventurous territory.       

The three ballads serve as features for their melodists: “Ten Nights” features trombonist Jeb Bishop, while “Shadow” features alto saxophonist Greg Ward’s inspired playing as some miracle Johnny Hodges meets Charlie Parker lovechild born through a post-modern birth canal. The set closer and slightly less traditional, amorphous modern ballad “Birthday” features a warm and searching, yet in-the-pocket turn from cornetist Josh Berman. “Shadow” is the most Ellington-like sounding piece on H/R/C and it’s not just because of the Hodges reference. Roebke’s carefully orchestrated background harmonies strike me as particularly Ellingtonian: richly textured, highly personalized by each band members’ individuality, balanced, and harmonically specific chords employing the occasional nasty “blue note” giving the sonorities a brief, dissonant buzz. It’s a highlight amidst a set of nothing but winners.  

Another highlight, “Blues,” displays Roebke’s charm and cunning as a conceptualist. Nearly the first three minutes of this piece are a free-ish, pulse-less, formless mass slowly accumulating a vague shape as the horn section begins to play non-idiomatic, oddly non-descript and cascading simple lines. Then, with no warning, drummer Mike Reed and Roebke hit on a dime and suddenly driving swing is propelling what was a second ago static and floating. It’s a stunning effect performed with intensity: adding a wholly unexpected element to a situation which completely alters the perception of the original previous element, even though you haven’t changed the original element: just its context. Like in a film when key information is withheld until late in the game, changing the meanings of earlier actions or behaviors of certain characters. Or, even revisionist history. When new information or documents are revealed, the past is seen in a different light. “Blues” plays like some kind of advanced game of musical memory.

Also in “Blues,” the melody (or lack thereof) seems to serve a different function than traditional melody. Its lines seem intended to create an atmosphere for a second atmosphere to be laid against it. And the effect of suddenly placing these two against one another is the goal as opposed to having some sort of memorable or hummable tune over a standard chord progression. This reminds of something Brad Mehldau said in an interview about not buying into the status quo jazz concept of melody always needing to be the most important thing in music: clichéd phrases like “Melody is Boss.” Why? Why not harmony? Why not [fill in blank]?      

“Slow” is the holdout: the lone staunchly non-jazz, relatively non-idiomatic piece on H/R/C. There’s something loosely reminiscent of Isotope 217 about this piece; minus the electricity. It’s an indescribably Chicagoan mysterioso mix: creative/collective improvisation, melodies that are almost folk-like in their simplicity, and an accumulating undercurrent of lush, romantic free-floating dread. If Mingus had lived longer and embraced more so-called “avant-garde” ideas, he’d surely have created music like “Slow.” There are other sections and themes on H/R/C which land somewhere between art song, jazz and creative improvisation. They hover in the shadows and defy our attempts to label. Like apparitions not of this world, they’re impervious to traditional categorization or descriptive devices, but at the same time can seem oddly familiar. The “style” is hidden in plain sight; like some sort of melodic déjà vu. Finding a way to describe this music in writing can be elusive – like trying to describe color to the blind. Or, God forbid, trying to force a narrow definition onto the concept of “swing.” The thing about this music’s (and this scene more broadly) subversion of accepted attitudes and processes is that, to a certain extent, it also subtly subverts the ability to write about it. This is both fantastic and frustrating.     

What some may cite as lack of polish or discipline in writing and improvisation on H/R/C (the same misdirected criticisms have be aimed at many great artists in the past), is actually an intended immediacy and grit resulting from a certain style of process. This is a reflection of the scene’s intense commitment to the embracing of both individualism and the collective. Being open, and prepared, for both allows for what many refer to as “magic.” This characteristic is related to the scene’s embracing of both free improvisation and composed material. The concept of being truly open to both the improvised and the written, as well as recognizing the necessity of both the individualistic and the collective, lives well beyond the boundaries of music or art. It recalls American journalist, socialist, and progressive activist John Reed’s Russian Revolution era concepts of Party loyalty, individualism, revolution, and dissent as portrayed in the key scene from Warren Beatty’s Reds. In the quoted exchange below, Reed is discussing Communist Party procedure and principles with Grigory Zinoviev, chairman of the Communist International (pardon the relatively extended quote):    

Zinoviev: “I took the liberty of altering a phrase or two [of your speech].”

Reed: “Yes, well, I don’t allow people to take those liberties with what I write.”

Zinoviev: “Aren’t you propagandist enough to utilize what moves people most?”

Reed: “I’m propagandist enough to utilize the truth.”

Zinoviev: “And who defines this truth? You or the Party? Is your life dedicated to speaking for yourself or…”

Reed: “You don’t talk about what my life is dedicated to.”

Zinoviev: “Your life? You haven’t resolved what your life is dedicated to. You see yourself as an artist and at the same time a revolutionary. As a lover to your wife, but also the spokesperson for the American Party.”

Reed: “Zinoviev, if you don’t think a man can be an individual and be true to the collective, or speak for his own country and the International at the same time, or love his wife and still be faithful to the revolution, then you don’t have a self to give… When you separate a man from what he loves the most what you do is purge what’s unique in him, and when you purge what’s unique in him, you purge dissent… And when you purge dissent, you kill the revolution. Revolution is dissent. You don’t rewrite what I write!”

If music is the revolution, then the band is the Party and the individual players are the dissenters. Political and related revolutionary characteristics and ideas can be realized through music and can be used as powerful creative tools and inspiration. But at the same time, just because these ideas or characteristics may be used in one form or another within the music doesn’t make the resulting music actually “political” or “revolutionary” in the political sense. Starry-eyed and overly romantic aficionados and artists alike can confuse the two. Like calling Pink Floyd’s “Money” a jazz tune because it has a saxophone solo. Or mistaking a photo for the actual object it represents.

Composer/leader Roebke and each of the players in the octet have all contributed to an exceptional recording. H/R/C may not necessarily be representative of a Chicago Sound (whether one even exists is debatable…), but maybe more a Chicago Scene aesthetic, or ethic. What allows a scene to sustain (let alone begin) for so long and to so consistently stay ahead of the curve? I don’t know. And honestly, I’m not certain I care so much. Scientific American in joint collaboration with Psychology Today and Downbeat Magazine could conduct some 5 yearlong, tightly controlled, methodically planned and researched study to determine the source of such longevity. And maybe they’d come up with some sort of “logical” explanation that shows how everything works; like the explanations many put forth to either prove or disprove the existence of God. But in the end, what sustains a truly creative, forward thinking music scene is likely the same elusively unnamable thing that makes the music itself beautiful and powerful. What is this thing called love? 

Tracks: High/Red/Center; Slow; Blues; Candy Time; Dirt Cheap; No Passengers; Double Check; Ten Nights; Ballin’; Shadow; Birthday (Delmark Records; 2014)  

Greg Ward – alto saxophone

Keefe Jackson – tenor saxophone

Jason Stein – bass clarinet

Josh Berman – cornet

Jeb Bishop – trombone

Jason Adasiewicz – vibraphone

Jason Roebke – bass

Mike Reed – drums

Listen to the title track HERE

Purchase here: H/R/C at Delmark Records 

Or here: H/R/C at iTunes

Paul Bedal, Tim Daisy, & Charlie Kirchen @ Myopic Books, 12/9/2013

Here’s a theory/some information for you to disregard completely[i]: For better or worse, whether standard operating procedure or totally idiosyncratic to my personal process, when I go to see live music and know that I’ll want to (or have to…) write it up later, it’s pretty basic what I do during the gig. I sit there, watch and listen, and occasionally jot down little notes or ideas that the music stirs into my head. Generally I’ll have at least 2-3 ideas or observations that come for each tune. Here’s the catch: these thoughts about the music can behave like a dream upon waking: if they’re not captured while I’m having them, or very soon thereafter, they dissipate quickly with next to no chance of retrieval. Gone like a train. Like the music, certain thoughts and ideas about the connections of things can be very “in the moment.” Of course, not all my observations end up being so interesting, clever, or illuminating. But I’ll generally get enough down to allow myself a good jumpstart on writing something.

So what’s all this bullshit about writing process, ideas, thoughts behaving like dreams, yada yada yada have to do with Paul Bedal, Tim Daisy and Charlie Kirchen? In a way, nothing I guess. But maybe this: I wrote nothing down as I was checking out this trio’s three-tune set. Why? Because all that “writing process” crap I tried to explain involves a certain level/style of thinking. The music these guys were making was wayyyyyyyyy too good for me to interrupt my enjoyment of it by forcibly turning my thought process away from the music to trying to capture and transform my thoughts in the moment to describe that music. Fuck that. Often the music can be really great but there are enough breaks that I can get my thoughts/ideas on paper without much interruption in the enjoyment. But this trio was too good and too consistent. Thinking would’ve gotten too much in the way.                    

The music was all freely improvised and in some key ways outside most folks’ listening comfort zone (pulse/no-pulse, lack of standard melody, structurally loose, etc…). But the fact that the group’s instrumentation was basically that of the most recognized and oft used jazz trio - piano, bass, and drums - and that, for the most part, the instruments stayed relatively close to their regularly scheduled timbres, gave it something of a built-in accessibility. This accessibility in no way should be seen as detracting from the creativity and depth of the improvisations. Apparently you can eat your cake and have it too. Bedal’s warm and inviting electric piano tone was at the heart of making this music immediately digestible while remaining adventurous to anyone within earshot. Kirchen and Daisy followed suit in their ability to combine the eating of things with the having of them. But no, they didn’t drop any musical references to tunes from the band Cake. Though that woulda been fine by me - I love me some Cake…       

This trio made a killer, classic rhythm section; with Bedal functioning as icing on the rhythmic cake (what’s up with all the cake?). Daisy and Kirchen came off as something of a rhythm section within a rhythm; and Daisy seemed to be a rhythm section within a rhythm section within the rhythm section. Daisy’s barrage of non-stop ideas and techniques in no way interrupted what ended up being an unbroken flow through each of the three pieces played in this endlessly enjoyable set. The ideas built on one another like findings through scientific method. And even when Daisy is playing free, there seem to be hidden rhythms present, which one can only feel and never count; like secrets which can only be told through the subconscious. Kirchen regularly seemed privy to the inner workings of Daisy’s secret method (maybe I should’ve called it his secret Cake recipe?). In addition to Kirchen’s clear and intricate bass lines, his focus and attention to his fellow players was empathetic and razor sharp: See his entrance with Daisy after the drummer’s short introductory solo on Piece 2 below. It may seem like it was outta nowhere on a dime, but he was simply paying close attention to his band mate, then trusting and acting on his own musical instincts; which can be harder than it sounds.     

Particularly impressive is that the current premise of the ongoing Myopic Books Experimental Music Series is “no bands;” 1^st time encounters only, please. Yes, this was Bedal, Daisy, and Kirchen’s first time playing together and their music was completely improvised. But there are other groups who completely (or near completely) improvise their music that play together for years, yet don’t come off as cohesive and fluid as this first time meeting. It was like making a perfect Flourless Chocolate Cake on your first try, and eating it too…

---

[i] From Philip Seymour Hoffman as the great Lester Bangs in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous.

Paul Mitchell Trio @ Myopic Books, 11/25/2013

“That is not what I expected,” remarked a previous Myopic Books music series participant after the set ended. I had the same reaction. Saxophonist Danny Kamins, guitarist Alex Cohen and drummer Ryan Packard called their trio Paul Mitchell. Yep – Paul Mitchell. You know, that hair products guy. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Or maybe not: That name seems more suited to an ironic punk band than an improvised/creative free jazz group. And much of Paul Mitchell’s vibe came closer to late 60s period, pure psychedelic freak-out “rock” jams than most relatively developed free jazz; though I sensed the intent was to be seen as closer to the latter. Pure musical freak-outs are always welcome in my book (well, almost always), so that’s not necessarily either good or bad. Unexpected is all.

The beginning of Paul Mitchell’s last piece felt a bit more like they were following the music instead of leading or forcing (not that that always has to be the goal…). It’s, of course, always originating in the players. But sometimes players are aware, sensitive, and practiced enough to create a feeling of near total organicness; an illusion of “channeling.” This illusion was not so present here. Still, I salute Paul Mitchell. Any person/group that has the stones to name their band after an icon of hair care/styling products deserves some props.

What they may have lacked in technique or subtlety, Paul Mitchell made up for in enthusiasm and energy – in spades; Particularly drummer Ryan Packard. In a Celebrity Drummer Deathmatch, Packard would easily TKO Muppet drummer Animal early in the first round; or any other drummer for that matter. Well… maybe not Keith Moon.

But whether or not pure energy and enthusiasm make up for a perceived lack of technique, cohesiveness, or subtlety will depend on the individual. And even then, the listener’s perception in this regard may vary depending upon that individual’s particular mood on that particular evening. Endless variables. But I’ll leave that type of “music appreciation and ideation as effected by subjects’ mood variants, coupled with personal background/history analysis” research to the pharmaceutical industry; or maybe some starry-eyed, hippie wannabe psychology grad student. Maybe Big Pharma – based on extensively documented, scientific journal confirmed, double-blind 3-yearlong studies - will eventually market a new line of drugs that will allow the “patient” to better enjoy and “understand” musical styles heretofore beyond their ability to appreciate. I can see it now: It will be found that stimulation of the blah blah enzyme in the blah blah portion of the anterior blah blah section of the posterior lobe will be discovered to trigger its synaptic serotonin bridge, which has been found to become nominally active whenever a subject listens to more than 3 minutes of late period Coltrane. Relatedly, pharmaceutical researchers will discover that their newly synthesized chemical compound, Stylopraxanol, has been shown to be effective in triggering the posterior lobe’s synaptic serotonin bridge function (now referred to as the “Coltrane Bridge”) in 50.1% of the study’s subjects. Stylopraxanol and its variants will be marketed toward specific stylistic demographics, heightening the user’s pleasure while concurrently broadening his/her “musical cultural affinity”: A black pill for blues/jazz, a white pill for heavy metal/bubblegum pop, a brown pill for Indian/Middle Eastern musics, etc… The possibilities are limitless. I smell fat year-end bonuses and lawsuits! Congress will pass legislation banning the marketing of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Hip-Hop/Rap pill for “public security” reasons. This legislation will be buoyed by Tipper Gore’s independent study group’s findings showing that the marketing of such a pill could increase the level of political/social unrest by 3%; upping the trace amount of true revolutionary impulse throughout the population to an “unhealthy” level. Historically, FDA regulations will be narrowly written and strictly enforced on this issue. Additionally, these new regulations will make the Debbie Boone pill (clear gel in its meds script form) a required ingredient in all breakfast cereals in its undetectable form, and will appear on the side of the box listed with the other ingredients as “artificial and natural flavors.”

Hearts & Minds @ Uncanned Music Over/Out Series, Bar DeVille: 11/19/2013

Apparently the band name Hearts & Minds is not necessarily a reference to the Oscar winning Vietnam War documentary. And I forgot to ask the group members (bass clarinetist Jason Stein, keyboardist Paul Giallorenzo, and drummer Frank Rosaly) what their name might be referencing. A safe, if somewhat reductionist, guess might be that it refers loosely to the combination of freely improvised periods (“heart?”) vs. the written/composed sections (“mind?”) that make up the group’s repertoire. Considering their general intensity and occasional ferocity, the group could almost as appropriately be named Blood & Guts. Almost…

Giallorenzo and Stein wrote all the tunes played last Tuesday (11/19). As challenging and inaccessible as the band’s improvisations can get, the written material tends toward the groovy. Quirky (catchy even) melodies that approach time and space in a playful way are written into relatively compact forms. The more challenging, ornate stuff comes through the band’s improvisations. Although it often might seem like the groove is thrown out with the bathwater, it’s often still there amidst the chaos; obliquely implied, deeply camouflaged – an undetected gravitational pull keeping the planet just within orbit. As a comparison, my best shot would be Medeski, Martin, & Wood meets The Clusone Trio meets John Zorn's Masada. And just like the three aforementioned groups, Hearts & Minds never comes close to strictly derivative.

Bass clarinet, relatively unusual to see at gigs, is one of my favorite sounds. So I was near ecstatic to hear Stein play it all night. That deep and rich reedy buzz is one of the most distinctive in all instrumentdom. Yeah, that’s right: instrumentdom. But from what I heard on this night, Stein is a very textural, searching player concerned more with non-traditional techniques and energy than the expected traditional sounds from the clarinet. Benny Goodman he is not - and thankfully so. Stein’s long split tones can evoke Tuvan throat singers guttural trance states. There were also occasional clarinet versions of what approached Coltrane’s “sheets of sound” where flurries of notes, honks and overtones mixed together flying off the instrument into the cool backroom air. In a trio who’s instrumentation might lead one to assume that the clarinetist would be ever the melodist, Stein broke with convention. He just said no. He is the Nancy Reagan of clarinetists. What?

While the “weight,” or roll, of all three musicians was equal to the music, keyboardist Giallorenzo seemed to play a somewhat more supportive character on Tuesday; but in the way a bassist’s role is felt as supportive in most traditional jazz contexts, when it is often, in fact, more important than it is perceived to be by the listener/audience. Also adding to this “supportive” nature was the subtle tonal palette of his instruments. Warm, deep toned left hand bass lines from Giallorenzo’s Moog formed the initial drive and pulse for much of the music. And his other keyboard (Wurlitzer/Rhodes type sounds from…?) produced mainly smooth, warm tones as well; never anything too bright and often functioning more as a colorist. Nevertheless, his function in the collective improvisations was deceptively strong and his more subtle tone in this context played an effective balance to the other two more brightly attacked contributions.

Hearts and Minds’s drummer is the wild card – the “unstable molecule” (yes, Chicago music scene pun/reference intended): Yet a paradoxically controlled, selective and intended instability; that swinging, driving clatter coming from all directions, often with no discernable starting point; this undefined, non-localized, deconstructionist/reconstructionist force moving ever forward searching for more, more. What is this force called? Yeah, it’s Rosaly. At times, there’s so much happening in his drumming that you sense an oncoming system overload; yet it never arrives. Some fitting, idiosyncratic musical balance is always achieved. It just works itself out. Like in some of Cecil Taylor’s solo piano work when it’s hard to believe all that music is coming from one person. But it is. 

Rosaly is occasionally like a dancer following after the cues from his body. His drums happen to be there and function as extensions of his limbs and movements. Part of what creates this dance is his searching through his trove of instruments, in media res, for the right sound at the right moment. Occasionally he used two sticks in one hand; a technique I had never seen used on a drum kit before - only on vibes or marimba. It reminded me of when I was a line cook and a chef taught me to use two knives in one hand for prep. I could chop twice as much. It was a very smart, simple solution: Two knives, more food. Two sticks, more sound. Rosaly is simply smart. He just gets more done that way. But it’s a unique technique that undoubtedly took a good deal of practice before being able to incorporate into performance. Cool stuff… 

As creative, reactive, and free as Rosaly’s playing can get, he can also lay down a groove that lifts the room and simply makes the space feel good. But more than half of the evening’s music was quite “outside.” His approach in these more unpredictable contexts often seems to create an abstracted shadow of a concrete object. Or he can seem to be using a sort of Completion Principal or “Beat” style “cut-up” poetry technique: like writing sentences/paragraphs, then taking out randm words or ltters. Lke   ths mayb  o     lie his. Bt ith     msic   and with ore  textcon than this   ampleex is gving.

It’s not unusual for groups who play free to move back and forth between pulse/groove and rubato/free. The trick is making those moves feel organic or somehow “right.” Hearts and Mind’s transitions from one to the other is crazy seamless and borders on telepathic. Some of their more extended, free-ish sections were like intentional studies in awkward. When these collectively awkward sections gradually worked their way back to a groove, it was like watching, in slow motion reverse, a car speeding down the highway getting into an accident where it flips and rolls and rolls and flips for a long stretch. Like a slow motion falling up. Together, when they’re really getting to it, Hearts and Minds are conjurers. It’s semi-scripted magic.

Excerpts:

Charles Rumback, Nick Mazzarella, Tomeka Reid, & Jeff Swanson: Uncanned Music Over/Out Series @ Bar DeVille, Nov, 12th, 2013

Nov. 12^th, 2013: The first real cold snap of the fall/winter season in town… and Bar Deville’s heat goes out. The great 2013 Bar DeVille chillout! The musicians – Charles Rumback, Nick Mazzarella, Tomeka Reid, and Jeff Swanson - weathered the conditions with hats, candles, and other assorted extended, extra-musical warming techniques. As in the previous week, before the live music an appropriate vibe was set for the space from the DJ booth on stage. This Tuesday it was Joe Darling, one of the organizers of the series, spinning the swinging, spiritual big band sounds of Detroit Jazz Composers LTD and other relatively under the radar jazz vinyl.

The band’s first piece set the general tone and trajectory: a warm, slow-ish rubato, floating guitar/sax unison melody lines over sparse and abstract modern harmonies, cymbal washes and mallet rolls, and a contemplatively searching 5-6 minutes of composed material before the 1^st solo of the night. I was immediately reminded of some of my very favorite music: Paul Motian Trio/Electric Bebop Band, Chris Cheek, Bill McHenry. It was like being transported to the Village Vanguard for the evening. Most of the music in the first set was written by drummer (and bandleader for the evening) Rumback. His melodies and forms combine more modern techniques with the occasional folksy, almost hymn-like simplicity. And his playing combines staccato attacks with relaxed round flourishes. He’s one of those drummers who creates warm, yet quite ornate and reactive backdrops for soloists to play over in which virtually anything played against them sounds “right.”

Altoist Mazzarella, the only member of the quartet to brave the cool, unheated indoor evening without a hat for warmth, was perhaps the chief interpreter of the tunes’ melodies and forms. Quicksilver in his phrasing and overall approach, his command of the instrument and the language apparently has no weak spots. In the 2^nd tune of the 2^nd set, he really began pushing/straining against the harmony and structure of the tune. Mazzarella’s stretching in and out of the piece’s harmony and form somehow illuminated the tune; as if outlining it with some musical version of creating a photographic negative. Or as placing a deep red next to a deep blue somehow makes both colors pop more through the contrast.

Guitarist Jeff Swanson and cellist Tomeka Reid created a modern, mini string section. Occasionally locking in together to play unison lines, they formed a muscular bond. Reid mainly projected a warm, punchy sound from the cello, occasionally bowing and creating firm ground for the tunes. In one part of a particularly creative and fiery solo, she seemed to throw off a barrage of bowed artificial harmonics combining in the air simultaneously conjuring a sort of small, string/bow-induced electrical storm cutting through and hovering over the tune. Exciting stuff. Swanson stood out on his own composition, not least due to the writing itself. His sense of harmony (consonant and dissonant) and pensively mindful right hand picking technique on the same tune was another highlight of the set.

At times, the group would ride the cusp between playing the form and playing free. But there was always some anchor disallowing such a disengagement: time/pulse, harmony, etc…  You could feel the strain but there was never a complete break away. And as Bob Avakian or Sunsara Taylor might say, “You cannot break all the chains, except one.” But playing totally free was not the intent here, nor should it have been. The chains in this group’s music do not shackle, but form an unbroken circle.

Here are some excerpts from the night's music:

Brian Labycz & Colin Peters @ Myopic Books Experimental Music Series: Nov. 11th, 2013

A few days ago I showed a co-worker some of my footage from a previous Myopic Books Experimental Music Series performance. His reaction, which undoubtedly would’ve been the same for this week’s Labycz/Peters performance, is exactly how I imagine the uninitiated majority’s initial response to this sort of performance: “What’s going on? Have they started yet? Wait… I don’t understand. Is this music?”

Plumbing the depths of improvised music’s subconscious this week were organizer Brian Labycz on his modular synthesizer and Colin Peters on assorted electronics and Casio. Peters’s small sized Casio keyboard, beautifully childlike old school sounds and all, was used to create some very simple intervals and harmonies that looped and looped. These were used as backdrop landscapes for his countless effected and distorted sounds/noises (pedals, mics, & drum machine in tow…) and Labycz’s occasional busy outbursts, but mainly cool modular synthesizer contemplations through most of their continuous hour-long set. It made for an effective dualism of man and machine; sometimes coming off as more man vs. machine - at times feeling like an extended struggle. While listening, I recalled Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, imagining that this music was a lost section of the film’s original score used for the scene where supercomputer Hal 9000 is dismantled by Dave: “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave? Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?” All the sputtering, whirring clatter of the ramping ups and winding downs of Hal’s “mind” coming to an end. The piece reached a sort of apotheosis of horrors and meditations about three quarters through the hour; then trailed off somewhat by rote.

While sonically the most unconventional Monday night I’ve attended so far, to my ear there was still a detectable conversation occurring. Though, truth be told, sometimes it’s hard to know whether the logic of the conversation is internal to the performance or an intellectual construct from without. In any case, this show wouldn’t disappoint anyone in search of aural adventure and weirdness, or some kind of post-art, meta-performance anti-art.

That being said, this type of sound/noise construction is, of course, not at all unprecedented. Even in the Pop music world, relatively extreme experimentation with what are mainly considered to be “non-musical” sounds/forms have been dealt with on occasion: consider Pink Floyd’s “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict” or The Beatles’ (John Lennon’s?) “Revolution 9” for instance. However, if we’re to believe much of the written and aural history, Floyd and Lennon were on some pretty heavy acid. The trip at Myopic was different. Sure, it was a “long strange trip.” But from what I could glean, Labycz and Peters simply seem to love all manner of sounds and a strong cup of coffee.

   

Justin Walter @ Bar DeVille; Uncanned Music Series

Justin Walter at Bar DeVille last Tuesday, November 5^th, 2013: Awesome! Two thumbs up! 4 ½ stars! Fresh Tomato! And I will share more deep thoughts on his music/performance shortly. But first things first: I don’t get out much. Not for the last… ohhhhh… 15 years or so. For a few years after college I still had what people would call “a life.” Since then, I seem to have settled into what I’ll generously refer to as my nerdy/stay-at-home period. IE: I don’t get around much anymore; pretty much never. This, of course, includes bars. So when I walked into Bar DeVille this past Tuesday to continue my new search for good music to experience in Chicago, I feared that I would feel awkward. Out of place. Old and in the way… So I walked in through the front door of the joint and what happens? The dude sitting at the end of the bar nearest the entrance looks me over and says, “ID please.” Cue the sun.

Ok… I’m not saying the guy actually thought I was under age. It’s 27 years past my bedtime for cryin’ out loud and I’m sure he knew the score. But he played it straight when he easily could’ve let me walk by knowing that I was safely “of age.” This simple act of being carded put me immediately at ease, had me laughing out loud, and made me feel like I was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. And for that, Bar DeVille is currently my favorite bar of all-time. But maybe I should just get out more.    

More importantly, seeing and hearing Justin Walter’s performance was like watching worlds collide; a thoughtful and combustible synergy of old school and new school; analog boy in a digital world; Graham Bell meets the iPhone. Walter is a kind of composite DJ/trumpeter where there’s a seemingly organic mix between 1) being an actual instrumentalist in the traditional sense: playing an instrument yourself and generating melodies and sounds live through that instrument; and 2) using computers/machines to trigger and mix pre-recorded sounds, tunes, beats, loops, etc… (which is, of course, now an art unto itself…). There’s a balance in his music where these two elements have become equal partners; a marriage of Machine and Man.

Walter’s main axe is the Electronic Valve Instrument. It’s a handheld synthesizer developed in the 1970s that has three valve triggers like a trumpet and some sort of round pitch controller at its “bell.” If it’s to be compared to the sound of a brass instrument, it was closer to the richer, more suffusive sound of the French horn. In Walter’s hands, it mostly emitted warm, round tones bringing to my mind some of the purer tones from, say, the classic Moog synthesizer or some Weather Report period Joe Zawinul. Treated occasionally with a light distortion or gain, it also had a slight crunchy edge when the vibe was needed.

Set up as a backdrop to play improvisations against, Walter’s 1^st loop of the evening was an extended, repeating I-IV landscape. A meditative, monastic never-ending plagal cadence, this space was set up for Walter to explore and ruminate over. Like virtually all the pieces, it was simple and in the pocket harmonically, but conceptually rich and soulfully performed. Awash in deep electronic bass tones and synthy, punchy electronic sounds, Walter’s deliberate, creative and mindful delivery made for some of the most inviting music in this writer’s recent memory. That room on that night was the place to be. Often (always?) rather cinematic or theatrical, Walter consistently conjured moody, languorous landscapes in the listener’s mind, all tending toward a subdued and darker low-range end of the spectrum: music to accompany an underwater, nighttime planetarium show.

From electro afro-pop grooves, to static ambient soundscapes, there’s no shortage of hybrid terms one could come up with to describe Walter’s music: Ambient EDM; Minimalist chill out improv; Creative New Age. Aphex Twin as an improvising, instrumentalist loop artist. Occasionally, there were so many sounds/loops happening that it was difficult to decipher what Walter was doing in real time, and the music would subtly blur into some type of gorgeous, post-ambient, improvised noisescape.  

Performing on a slightly risen floor from behind a table where most of his electronics and assorted devices (multiple stompbox-like devices, tablet/iPad looking thingies, multiple flashing lights and screens w/ cryptic programs, etc…) were shielded from view, Walter, often wearing headphones to mix himself in media res, appeared as some sort of half-exposed, musician Wizard of Oz. It reminded me of how the great Steve Morse once described why people enjoy watching guitar players. He explained that people innately want to know how things work; how things are done. When people watch a guitarist, they can see the fingers pressing down on the strings. They can physically see when a string is bent or when a finger creates vibrato and it’s easy to associate what you’re seeing with the sound you’re hearing. It just makes sense. And I agree with Morse. But Walter is fascinating to watch for just the opposite reason. At Bar DeVille, he was like The Wizard partially behind the scrim. Half the time you had no idea how he was making everything work. And if you’re willing to let go, the mystery of his production only adds to the beauty.

Some excerpts from the performance: 

"Dream Weaving" from Walter's Lullabies & Nightmares, out on kranky.