kenVandermark
NOTES FROM THE FIELD: DECEMBER 2004

Pt. 1

London. Days off - reading, walking, writing, checking out the Tate. Trying to remember all that's happened since the end of October FME sessions... The fall has been an amazing recording period. In September SONORE live on tour, and the newest version of the TERRITORY BAND documented in Chicago. In October the last three concerts by Paul Lytton, Philipp Waschmann, and myself during our European tour were recorded - hoping the tapes sound good enough for a release, the music was incredible. Then Oslo for the FME "cave sessions," new material for a new album.

I left Oslo early in the morning of the 30th and flew back home. On the 1st of November the CHICAGO TENTET began work on a project called, "Be Music, Night," involving the poems of Kenneth Patchen. Peter Brötzmann developed a beautiful system for organizing the music around Mike Pearson's reading of the texts by integrating an adapted version of Fred Lonberg-Holm's "Lightbox," three featured instrumentalists (Jeb Bishop, Mats Gustafsson, Joe McPhee) and four composed themes ranging from a blues, a jumping mid tempo melody, a kinetic riff piece, and a hymn-like ballad. We finished the Chicago session (with Bob Weston at Wall To Wall again) and concerts (Chicago and Milwaukee), and a few days later I flew back to Oslo to begin work on the new FREE FALL material for a short tour (Oslo, Strasbourg, Weikersheim, Amsterdam [see November Notes pt. 2]) before recording in Osnabruck with the engineer Hrolfour Vagnsson at Fattoria Musica.

All of the sessions scheduled for specific release TERRITORY BAND-4 (Okka Disk, fall 2005), FME (Okka Disk, summer 2005), BROTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET (spring, 2005), FREE FALL (smalltownsuperjazz, summer 2005)], and for possible production [SONORE and Lytton/Vandermark/Waschmann], are documents that I am particularly proud of. Working with all of these musicians and developing the material, whether completely improvised (SONORE, LVW) or based on compositional frameworks, performing the music, recording with these superior engineers (Weston, Stryppe, Vagnsson), has made this fall one of the most productive and gratifying in my life. So where do I go from here?

November ends with a "third stream" concert put together by composer Andrew Morgan in London. Then I head back to the States for a Northwest tour organized by Torsten Muller involving Paul Rutherford, Dylan van der Schyff, and myself. After that is finished full work begins with a new quartet: Tim Daisy, Nate McBride, Jason Stein, me. Weekly concerts with the group at the Bottle in Chicago until mid January to find out if the cooperative approach will work (all members composing, all members developing the group aesthetics with an equal hand). A couple of one-off performances with SPACEWAYS INC. and a quartet with Brötzmann, Kessler, Drake (also at the Empty Bottle). Mixing the VANDERMARK 5 and TENTET studio sessions. And then a month break from performing- time to practice, compose, consider, and do some sessions with Joe Morris and Luther Gray out East...

Pt. 2/The EX Anniversary

The EX Anniversary (25 years of music and counting) at the Paradiso in Amsterdam was a celebration of what's right with music now, a 21st century festival the way it should be- no limits or boundaries on style/volume/sound - everything from John Butcher solo to the Ethiopean trio with Mohammed Jimmy Mohammed to ZU. I arrived with Ingebrigt Haker Flaten and Haavard Wiik on Friday the 19th after five days of travel and performances with FREE FALL in preparation for our next album. I think we averaged about 4 1/2 hours of sleep a night during the trip and were quite exhausted when Roze and Kat of the EX picked us up at the train station that afternoon.

From that moment on, and for the next 36 hours, we were thrown head first into (if not chaos) a slice of the EX's world. Our first stop was to pick up the chef and food for the musicians - enough for 100 people. After that we were dropped off at the Paradiso, me for a soundcheck with a sextet - Terrie and Andy from the EX on guitars, Paul Lovens and Tony Buck on drums, Mats Gustafsson and myself on reeds; Ingebrigt and Haavard to find their rooms for the weekend. The plan was for me to borrow the baritone sax of Luca from ZU, but the band got stranded in Rome due to a massive car accident in the city. No one from the group was hurt, but no baritone. Since I was on tour with FREE FALL I only had my clarinets with me. The only possible option at this point was to play the bass clarinet. Facing two drummers, two guitarists, and Mats' baritone on the main stage of the Paradiso with a bass clarinet felt a bit hopeless, however. That is until the soundtech put the instrument through the P.A., then the damn thing sounded about fourty feet tall. Tony Buck couldn't make the check so the whole thing ended up being a near guess. I grabbed some coffee with Mats and Lotta Melin, then back to the club where more and more musicians and friends of the EX were piling in for dinner - a who's who of the indie rock and improvised music scenes, plus some of the greatest presenters of this music in Europe.

After listening to the ICP Orchestra perform with 80 year old Ethiopean tenor sax legend, Getatchew Mekurya, I collapsed in one of the dressing rooms to try and catch some sleep- not easy with Han Bennink, Cor Fuhler, Paul Lovens, Toby Delius, etc. in there with me, but I was completely wiped out. Woke up after a half hour, drank 3 cups of espresso, and set up for the sextet, excited to play with these musicians again and with Tony Buck for the first time. Mats and I sat on the side of the stage while the strings and drums started.

- "Give me a look when you want us to come out Terrie."

- "Yeah Ken, sure. Ha, ha, aha ha!"

The last time I was in a situation like this was when I sat in with Terrie, Andy, Han Bennink and Hamid Drake at the Wels festival a couple of years ago. Terrie gave me "the look" while he and Andy were kicking a metal milk crate around the stage like a football...

The starting four hit the stage in an explosion- not noise, but sound and music. The volume was huge. I sat on the side of the stage looking at my bass clarinet, laughing. After some time, music moving, Terrie looked over and I shook my head - "No way." He laughed as Mats and I walked out, Terrie bucking and weaving, drums grooving hard as we made our way towards Andy and the mics. Surprisingly, I could hear myself as Mats and I layered heavy reed lines on top of the rhythmic barrage laid down by the drums and guitars. But the music moved, not as just a wall of sound- a wall of details, to details in islolation, turning sideways and forwards. The music was charged and the audience put the energy back to us.

After leaving the stage I went to catch the EX (Andy and Terrie running to make the start in time) playing highlights from their back catalog, Roze on electric bass and kicking ass. No nostalgia trip, a quick look back before turning forward again. More coffee and John Butcher solo and ELECTRELANE - both striking and fitting side by side - before spinning funk cuts until 3:30am; cut off for an early stop (supposed to go to 5am with help from Andy) by the club manager and the dancers were pissed. Can't blame them, who wants James Brown, et al shut down? Got to bed around 6am, first a beer with Tony Buck and the Subterranean folks (Mara and Mark) who were graciously putting us up for the weekend.

Slept until 2pm, the most direct rest in more than a week. Some great homemade pasta for lunch and back to the club for the FREE FALL soundcheck - so much for visiting Amsterdam. This trio always tires to play acoustic, not even a bass amp on stage, but there was no way the upright piano would carry in the upstairs space at the Paradiso. So we went with as little P.A. as we could. I grabbed dinner with friends and got back too late to see the quartet set by Roze, Tony Buck, John Butcher, and dancer Hisako Horikawa. FREE FALL set up and the volume from the main stage pounded through the doors and floor. This was going to be tough - low volume and introspective at times, the group's music and the crowd were now faced with a John Cage experience. Somehow, it worked. The band went forward with the set as planned and by midway the audience was cheering, a packed room yelling for a "chamber improvisation" group - incredible and true. Afterwards I bumped into Ab Baars, who said he really enjoyed the pieces - one of the highest compliments I could hope for.

After packing up I heard Mohammed Jimmy Mohammed, Asnake Gebreyes, and Messele Asmamaw from Ethiopia, beautiful music and dancing. Three musicians sounding like an orchestra. Then ZU with Mats sitting in. They arrived minutes before FREE FALL hit the stage ("I have the baritone!"), a 40 hour journey that should have taken four. Couldn't believe that it had been a year and a half since I'd seen these guys last. How can one week on the road feel like a month and a year apart from a friend seem like a day? ZU played on the same stage as FREE FALL, and as I watched the soundtech put mics up for Jacapo's drums I knew this was going to make yesterday's sextet gig sound acoustic by comparison. When the bomb went off it was a sonic machine, the tightness of the band has moved to the point where everything breathes- at 800 decibels. Somehow Mats stepped in to further up the ante. After the gig there is immediate talk of THREE baritones with massimo and Jacapo as rhythm - I will be bringing my own.

Some quick Ethiopean food at the cafe and then the EX. I just saw these guys in September when they played at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, and somehow they sounded even greater. As I watched and listened I kept thinking, "25 years." All that passion for music, undiminished. The sound of something to do next, undiminished. All the people in that room, from all over the world, people pulled together by the EX and their music - listening.

When the night was over I tried to thank all of the members of the band, telling them how much it meant to me to be invited and to be there to perform, how great they sounded and how amazing their achievement was - all of them just laughed and shrugged. Except Terrie. He laughed and shrugged and said, "What Ken, you want to fight? You're so serious - I'd rather fight." Instead, I helped him and a bunch of the other musicians load the EX van with equipment. Somehow they were going to get it and all the people staying at Terrie's house (the musicians from Ethiopia, France, etc., about 18 all told) back home.

After trying all night, Roze was eventually able to organize a cab to pick up the members of FREE FALL at 6am, in time for our train to the studio in Osnabruck, Germany - glorious. It was now 3:30am, Tony Buck was finally able to collect his scattered drum set (the Paradiso shifted quickly to a dance club as soon as the EX's set was done- elevators off, backstage doors locked). Now the problem was getting a taxi for his equipment. Having hailed cabs around North America and Europe for many years, I was quite impressed by the difficulty in getting a taxi on a Saturday night in Amsterdam. Fed up with the random "system" used between passengers and drivers at the cab stand near the venue, Mark and I walked to his apartment, getting there at exactly the same moment as Tony and Roze pulled up in a vehicle she was able to organize from the club. Roze waved and set off. We lugged the drums down the small street and up the stairs, Mara still awake spinning albums - 4:30am. I packed my things and tried to sleep for an hour. When I got up to leave, Tony and Mark were still in the living room listening to records. I said goodbye and the sounds of an electric guitar freakout from the first CHICAGO album (?!) followed me down the stairs. On the corner the cab miraculously arrived, I got in and went off to pick up Ingebrigt and Haavard. The three of us were subjected to classic rock Dutch style at full volume all the way to the train station. The final minutes of the trip featured a brutally over the top performance of "Summertime," vocals bordering on yodels. We tried to guess what band was responsible ("Suuuuummmmertiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmme...") and decided that it was the Gershwin brothers original demo. Out of the cab, off to the train, in three hours we'd be in Osnabruck ready to record.

-Ken Vandermark   London, November 27, 2004

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