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NOTES
FROM THE FIELD: JANUARY 2005
The year is over and it's been good to finish up the work
for 2004 here at home. December started with a short
tour organized by the bassist Torsten Muller - a quartet
with Paul Rutherford, Dylan van der Schyff, Torsten and
myself, with concerts in Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle,
and Portland. The music came together unbelievably
fast, the first set in Victoria was almost like an accelerated
conference call of possible ideas. After that, each
concert just built from the one before it, but nothing
felt stylistically set - the music remained open and extremely
free at every performance. I was hoping that the
quartet would be strong, based on the skills and histories
of the players involved it seemed reasonable to expect
this, but having never played with either Paul or Dylan
before (and it had been 3 years since the last time I
had worked with Torsten) I wasn't exactly sure how the
group would work out. Maybe we all felt this way,
I know that it seemed we were equally surprised at how
quickly the ensemble came together and how strong the
results were. It certainly helped that Torsten and
Dylan have been playing together in a number of bands
in Vancouver, they have developed a great rapport. And
Paul Rutherford was playing like a madman. Each
night I was taken aback by his creative and technical
range, I don't think that I have ever heard such an array
of sounds dance so quickly.
The improvisations moved from aggressive quartet onslaughts
to solo introspection to linear group fragments with incredible
speed and total clarity. Nothing was pre-organized
or discussed, our method was to walk on stage and see
what there was to find. Paul likened the group's
musical approach to that used by Webern on his later chamber
orchestra compositions - consider all the sonic possibilities
and select the best materials for each moment, rejecting
the need to constantly display all resources at all times.
Thankfully, Dylan recorded every show and it sounds like
there's a very good chance that one or two of the best
sets will be released. In addition, the group felt
so strongly about the success of the music that we've
planned on adding to a scheduled concert at the Vancouver
Jazz Festival in June by booking some work in the Chicago
area, with possibly some Canadian dates if they can be
organized.
After the tour with Muller, Rutherford, and van der Schyff,
I returned to Chicago for what will be the longest duration
since summer. The first task at home was to mix
the VANDERMARK 5 session recorded in July. My initial
impression of the quality of the takes proved correct,
the band really sounded prepared and relaxed after the
tour in North America with Atomic when reviewing the material.
The fact we got half the cuts in one take, and the
other half in two, showed how ready we were to put the
performances on tape. Bob Weston keeps finding new
ways to get the music to sound better with each session
we do together, and there is no question that this is
the best engineered V5 album yet. With too much
solid material to fit on one cd I've decided to release
the music as a double cd on Atavistic, probably during
the summer. Also slated for release in 2005 by the
VANDERMARK 5 are volumes 4 & 5 of the "Free Jazz
Classics" ("Six For Rollins" [compositions
of Sonny Rollins] and "Free Kings" [compositions
of Roland Kirk]), and the live performances recorded in
Krakow, Poland during our residency there in March of
2004.
Other than that mixing session, the primary work in Chicago
during December has been composing for, rehearsing, and
performing with the new quartet, BRIDGE 61. After
many hours of discussion with Nate McBride and Tim Daisy
over who should be asked to join as the fourth member,
we decided on the bass clarinetist, Jason Stein. Tim
and I met Jason while he was studying music in Ann Arbor.
He spent the fall in Austin, Texas, and showed
up in Chicago the day before the first rehearsal with
the group. BRIDGE 61 is essentially a cooperative,
everyone composes for the band and we work on group details
equally. This is the first band like this that I've
been involved with since the demise of AALY and SCHOOL
DAYS a couple of years ago. Each member brought
in 3 compositions, giving us a solid base to start with
(Tim Daisy and I added one more piece each in order to
bring some more aggressive work to the book and balance
it out). The first two concerts were very successful,
about 100 people listening each night, and we have been
able to pull the diverse music together quickly through
lots of rehearsals (there is a nice routine of rehearsing
Mondays, gigging Tuesdays, and reviewing/rehearsing Wednesdays).
The sound of the band is wide and extreme, from
"chamber pieces" for clarinets, bass and percussion,
to explosive funk distortion driven by Nate's electric
bass. One of the main goals is to find rhythmic
identities outside standard stylistic concerns.
BRIDGE 61 has two more concerts coming up in January (Tuesdays,
the 4th and 11th at the Bottle), and it looks like some
European work in March - a damn good start for a young
band.
My last concert of 2004 was with SPACEWAYS INC. - Wednesday,
December 29th at the Empty Bottle. Trying an extreme
long shot, I got in touch with Hamid Drake to see if he'd
be in town and available to play. Needless to say,
I was VERY surprised and happy when he said yes! This
was the trio's first concert together since a performance
with ZU in Rome during May, 2003. Hamid, Nate and
I got together to rehearse the day before the show and
the music came together right away, really great to be
playing with this lineup again. The show was packed,
more than 200 people in attendance. Unlike with
most jazz shows at the Bottle, SPACEWAYS set up on the
stage in order to use the sound system. A good decision
- the music came across like a freight train... nice to
be able to hear myself over the electric bass and drums.
Don't know when or if this group will get a chance
to work together again, last time I played with Hamid
was in February of 2004 in Milwaukee with DKV. Strange
to believe we both live in Chicago and can't meet on stage
but twice a year. Luckily, we'll have a chance soon:
Peter Brotzmann is back in town in January to mix the
latest TENTET material ("Be Music, Night," recorded
in November), and he'll be playing with Hamid and Kent
Kessler for a set on Wednesday, January 12th at the Bottle.
They've asked me to sit in for the second set, should
be quite fantastic!
The other important work coming up in January is with
two free improvisation ensembles: a quartet with Nate
McBride, Fred Lonberg-Holm, and Frank Rosaly, and a trio
with Joe Morris and Luther Gray. The idea for the
quartet was instigated by Fred, we hardly ever get a chance
to work with each other in a small group context (we're
usually playing together in the Brotzmann Chicago Tentet
or the Territory Band), and the I was offered a couple
of Sundays at the Hungary Brain in Chicago and decided
on this lineup as a chance to rectify the situation.
The trio with Joe came out of our discussions during the
last couple of years about organizing a specific project
together, a place to develop an ongoing way to work, and
this group is the result of those talks. When I
go out East to visit family in mid January, I'll also
be getting together with Joe and Luther to rehearse, and
to perform at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Boston on Friday
the 21st. With this band Joe and I are interested
in investigating new methods of working with free improvisation,
approaches based more on "American" improvisation
models than the ones that have been developed primarily
in Europe. The idea itself is going to take some
real effort to clarify (Joe's suggestion that I look at
the photography of Walker Evans sounds like a brilliant
place to start). However, by asking questions about
what the idea of being an "American improviser"
means in this period, it should be possible to find some
new ways of expressing ourselves - and that idea alone
makes the trio worth pursuing.
In closing this last document for 2004, I'd like to acknowledge
and thank the people I've worked with in both North America
and Europe for the last 12 months, particularly the musicians;
but also the booking agents, David Viecelli and Erhard
Hessling; the presenters who took the risks on the concerts;
the players I heard that inspired me to continue; and
of course the listeners who heard what we had to say with
sound in 2004.
- Ken Vandermark Chicago, January 2, 2005.
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