Live Music

Apr 30 2019

Your Tuesday night plans suck if they don’t include catching The Chicago Plan at the Niles Gallery

 

There’s no letup with the great music coming through Lexington, KY in 2019.  Tomorrow night, it’s an excellent double bill with The Chicago Plan and Keefe Jackson‘s quartet both performing at The Niles Gallery on the UK campus.

The Chicago Plan is a quartet of trombonist Steve Swell, saxophonist Gebhard Ullmann, percussionist Michael Zerang and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm (who also adds a dose of electronics).  This’ll be the kind of music that turns jazz on its head, but even flipped upside down, there’s a clear view of a familiar sound.  It might not swing like your classic jazz albums, and the bounce of its bop will take some sharp, unexpected angles and spins, but the quartet plays with the energy and enthusiasm and a nod to the blues that makes all the different sounding music not so different after all.

Here’s a track from their 2016 self-titled release (on Clean Feed Records).

You can purchase the album at the Clean Feed Records store.  Amazon, too.

And last year, this site gave a warm reception to another album from the trombonist Steve Swell, but with a slightly different kind of sound.  His 2018 release Music for Six Musicians: Hommage à Olivier Messiaen is ten shades of fascinating.

Also performing this night is the quartet of multi-reedists Keefe Jackson and Christoph Erb, bassist Jason Roebke and percussionist Tim Barnes.  Jackson has contributed to a bunch of excellent recordings receiving praise on this site (and elsewhere).  While many of the albums representing Keefe’s body of work fall under the general category of post-bop, what he and his compatriots represent is the boundless creativity emblematic of the modern scene.  This show could pretty much sound like anything.

This is the 15-year anniversary, and Event #212, of Ross Compton’s Outside the Spotlight series.  Ross is one of those local music scene heroes who devotes a ton of sweat work bringing great music to his community.  There have been a ridiculous wealth of talent from the experimental and jazz pool that has performed in Lexington because of Ross’s efforts.  And most of those shows, like this one, is free to the public.

The show details:

When:  Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 at 7:00pm

Where:  Niles Gallery (inside the UK Fine Arts Library), 160 Patterson Dr, Lexington, KY 40506

It’s a free show.

The Facebook Event page-> LINK

The Chicago Plan’s site-> LINK

Keefe Jackson’s site-> LINK

And a shout-out of thanks to the local student-run radio station 88.1 FM WRFL for their part in helping bring this music to town.

By • Jazz in Kentucky, Live Jazz • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

Apr 25 2019

Thumbscrew at Big Ears Festival 2019: This is really happening

 

I adore Thumbscrew‘s 2018 double release Ours and Theirs.  It earned this site’s Best of 2018 #4 slot, and garnered a mention in my Best Bandcamp Jazz in 2018 column.  The trio of guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Tomas Fujiwara possess a cryptic sound, something that incorporates each musician’s distinct individual form of expression that, also, somehow, almost unexpectedly, meshes perfectly into a single, crisp perspective.  And it’s an equation whose success proves out whether they’re composing their own odd sonic machinations or covering works from jazz legends of a wayback era.  It’s quite magical.

And seeing it happen live…?  It was surreal.

Thumbscrew’s Saturday afternoon show at The Standard was pretty straight-forward.  The trio nested themselves on the stage behind their music stands and just played along to whatever was written down in front of them.  Held up to the electricity flowing between musicians and audience from the Fire! trio on that same stage the night before, this performance was tame by comparison.  But just seeing the trio recreate the music of Ours and Theirs in the moment was like peeking behind the face of the universe at the clockwork mechanisms within.  It was riveting.  There is something almost alien about Thumbscrew’s sound, even when it radiates an unmissable familiarity, that to witness the human beings responsible for it… and to see proof that, yes, it’s three beating hearts and three calculating minds that set that strange and alluring music in motion, it hit me with the sensation of The Big Reveal.

Some or all of that might not make any sense.  Obviously I never doubted the music of Ours and Theirs was created by human beings.  But so much of our interface with the music we connect with on a daily basis is through the impersonal mediums of digital files and CDs and vinyl, and it’s not difficult to lose sight of the humanity behind it all.  This sort of detachment is further compounded by the personalization triggered by and in each of us, as we attach meaning and imagery and consequence to everything we hear as part of the process of making the music a part of who we are.  It’s why seeing this music live is so invaluable.  Because on top of the wonderful surprises and fascinating deviations that inevitably result from a live performance, and the sensory mainline of experiencing the music live and feeling it as much as hearing it… there’s also the communal nature of the concert, of reconnecting the music to the artists creating it while simultaneously tethering that connection to all of the people in the audience doing the exact same thing at the exact same time.

And we take that back home with us.  That sense of community and connection are revived when next listen to that music again on our stereos, alone and in the privacy of our homes, but not quite the solitary act it once was.

The music of Thumbscrew is no less strange and enchanting than when first I heard it, but having seen and heard it in Knoxville at the Big Ears Festival 2019, that magic resonates on a much more human level than it once did.

Be sure to check out Thumbscrew’s excellent 2018 double release Ours and Theirs, released on Cuneiform Records.

I wrote about this album for The Bandcamp Daily.

Available at: (Ours) Bandcamp | Amazon and (Theirs) Bandcamp | Amazon

By • Live Jazz, Other Writing • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Apr 22 2019

Fire! at Big Ears Festival 2019: Way down in your bones

 

I’ve enjoyed some Brötzmann recordings in my time.  Hell, the discovery continues into the present day.  But I never truly appreciated the man’s artistry or the absolutely power of his sonic delivery until I saw him live.  It occurred in a small church in Lexington, KY, out on North Limestone and years before that neighborhood became the darling of the real estate industry.  Peter Brötzmann teamed up with vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, and the way the icy tones of that percussion clashed and melted into the searing heat of Brötzmann’s saxophone was like nothing I’d experienced before.  There was an immediacy to his sound that the recorded medium never could accurately relay in its totality.  But it was revelatory of more than just pure power.  Hearing this music live also illuminated how nimble Brötzmann could be, even on an instrument like bass clarinet, whose sound typically shines as displays of heavy soul, not delicate turns of phrase.  That being said, all of that still came secondary to Brötzmann’s ability to brutalize the laws of physics with his saxophone, like he was ripping apart reality at the seams or threatening to obliterate the walls and bring the whole building crashing down.

These thoughts were bouncing around in my head as I watched Fire! perform at The Standard on Friday night.  This was my first opportunity to see them live.  The raw strength and driving intensity displayed by the trio didn’t come as a surprise.  I have a far greater familiarity with the music of Mats Gustaffson and his various Fire! ensembles than I do Brötzmann.  Fire! Orchestra is a fixture of my listening routine.  I knew what I was getting into when the trio of saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werliin took the stage at midnight.  But the live setting meant I would feel the music, that it would pound away at my heart at the same time it was bleeding into my ears.  It’s an entirely different experience.  And it’s about more than the trio’s devastating power.  At times, they enter fugue-like states when the music grows more moody than manic.  Their sonic barrage can take on a trance-like quality, a high-intensity hypnosis where volatility becomes the catalyst of expectation and resolution.  But, yeah, the best part is feeling when the music shakes the earth beneath the feet.  And a packed house at The Standard on Friday night got shook that way, very late into the night.

Fire! released a new album last year.  The Hands was a return to the core sound that eventually expanded into their Fire! Orchestra recordings, and it was what they brought to the stage at the stroke of midnight.  The Standard is actually a very bright and airy type of venue, one where the sunlight can lead to some pretty opportune ambiance depending on what kind of event is going on.  But the festival had no difficulty retrofitting the sonic intensity of Fire! into the space.  They partitioned off one section and gave the stage a deliciously claustrophobic feel, making it so that no matter where you stood, the trio’s sonic blows could reach out and smack you.  The lights sliced through the air, leading to some strategizing on the best place to stand so they didn’t fry your pupils.  Gustafsson, Berthling and Werliin began with a display of patience, slowly building up to the moment when they’d explode into flight.  And, eventually, after some electronic effects from Gustafsson ended and his saxophone began, they unleashed everything they had inside.  It was as thrilling as their trio recording promised, but, damn, you could feel it in your bones.

This trio’s music gets slotted in the Jazz category for any number of reasons, but, seriously, for any reason you go see a rock concert, those same reasons apply to the Fire! trio.  Their show in Knoxville was Exhibit A.

If you’re not familiar with the Fire! Orchestra recordings, get started now.  2013’s Exit and 2014’s Enter are birds-of-a-feather recordings, with the former being a live performance recording and the latter a studio session.

Enter was also this site’s 2014 Album of the Year.

By • Live Jazz • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Apr 18 2019

Ralph Towner at Big Ears Festival 2019: Hearts go still

 

From the palpable shock and astonishment that swept through the church, it was obvious that most of us hadn’t known:  Not long ago, Ralph Towner had been through heart surgery.  The guitarist relayed this information on the wings of a joke, as he introduced the next piece of that evening… a rendition of the standard “My Foolish Heart.”  That’s the kind of evening it was.  Towner had the audience wrapped around his finger.  His guitar was simply a tool for enchantment, and all of us were locked in.  But he also kept a smile on our faces.  Sometimes because of a whimsical phrase on guitar.  Sometimes because a familiar tune elicited pleasant associations.  And, sometimes, the smile was the cause-effect pairing with a joke.  But he had us all, for any and every reason.

Towner performed on a Friday evening at St. Johns Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Knoxville, TN.  His show was one of the highlights of Big Ears Festival 2019, and one I’ll never forget.

All it takes are a couple phrases of a familiar song to send me adrift in memories, and back to a time when the music became imprinted my timeline.  And since all of these songs are familiar, it means I’m perpetually fighting the gravitational pull of the past, trying hopelessly to stay rooted in the moment.  Because, damn, Ralph Towner is thirty feet away, playing guitar in an environment of superb acoustics, stained glass all around, and nothing between me and the notes.  A minute into a new piece, and I’d suddenly hear it through stereo speakers in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains or an autumn day with a ceiling of cloudy Chicago gloom contrasting with the brilliant explosion of autumn colors and the crunch of leaves beneath my feet.  And then, suddenly, I’m transported back into the present moment of the church as the song reaches the homestretch.

[Ralph Towner’s 2017 ECM Records release My Foolish Heart is available at Amazon]

This was my second show of Big Ears Festival 2019, and both had taken place in a church.  And no different than the Harold Budd, Mary Lattimore & Nief-Norf show earlier that afternoon at Church Street United Methodist, the St. Johns Episcopal Cathedral was a gorgeous venue matched perfectly with this gorgeous music.

It’s impossible not draw comparisons between the masterful craftsmanship of the stained glass and church architecture and the musicianship of Towner with his guitar, and, by extension, the lofty plateaus of creativity aspired to, and achieved, by the artists on both building and music.

There’s a majesty to the music of Ralph Towner. If the totality of one’s interface is, like mine, through the vehicle of studio recordings, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that all of this electricity is simply the product of this man and his guitar, hunched over in concentration, and channeling everything inside that yearns to manifest into the world as sound. It’s weeks later, and I still find myself astonished at having ended up in place I’d never imagined life would take me and it just so happens, Ralph Towner is thirty feet away and playing his guitar.  The memory freezes me in time, observing it all over again.

By • Live Jazz, Other Writing • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Apr 17 2019

Harold Budd, Mary Lattimore and Nief-Norf at Big Ears Festival 2019: Off the road and straight to church

 

I’ve been obsessively searching the internet for news of an upcoming release by Harold Budd and Mary Lattimore.  I haven’t found anything yet, but I’m not giving up.  Nor would you, had you been lucky to witness the collaboration of Budd, Lattimore of the Nief-Norf ensemble at Knoxville’s Church Street United Methodist Church.

I had only just hit the exit, parked my car and began hustling across downtown Knoxville to get my ass in a pew.  I was on a mission.  Interstate 75 was crap for construction traffic slowed down to a crawl, already causing me to miss one of the Friday shows at Big Ears Festival 2019, but I’d be damned if I’d be late for Budd & Lattimore.  There was so much great music on the festival line-up, and I wanted to see it all, but if there were three acts I had to choose above all others, one of those would be the collaboration of keyboards and harp and percussion set amongst the stained glass and cathedral ceilings and wood rafters and archways.

[Harold Budd & Brian Eno The Plateaux of Mirror:  Available at:  Amazon]

For me, the music of Harold Budd has often had a reverential quality to it, and one album in particular has been there for me in troubled times like a proxy for god.  The quality of music that it can be the source of love and light and comfort when life grows dark and despairing, causing a temporary amnesia that everything will be okay cannot be overvalued.  For me, and many times, the Harold Budd & Brian Eno recording The Plateaux of Mirror has been that beacon to return to a state of well being and calm, a remembrance of all that’s good in the world and the beauty each of us is capable of producing.

But that music is not just a rescue mission.  It is also the perfect note on which to end a sublime evening, an enchanting kiss goodnight and into sweet dreams.  Many have been the night I’ve been done with the day job, then done with night writing, but my mind too active to go yet to sleep.  And so I wind down with a good book, some tea or whiskey, cats curled up beside me, and peaceful music on the stereo.  The music of Harold Budd has always been a wise choice in these conditions.  It has been something special that makes what might otherwise seem mundane become transformed, even if just a little bit, into the sphere of life where a sense of the momentous creeps in and reminds us that many of the moments we should be celebrating in our lives can slip by unnoticed if we don’t open ourselves up to them.  Creativity, whether it be our own or that of others, is one of the very best tools to make ourselves more receptive.

And Mary Lattimore, she’s a more recent development in my life, but has stood out lately as yet another example of why I never tire of racing down rabbit holes in search of new music.  I’ve become enamored with the harpist’s music and looking for an excuse to make the formal introductions with this site’s listeners.  Hello, please meet Mary Lattimore.  The Los Angeles-based harpist has most thoroughly captured my attention with her 2016 Ghostly International release At the Dam.

[Mary Lattimore At the Dam: Listen at: Bandcamp | Purchase at: Bandcamp – Amazon]

The sound of her harp is like predawn mist swirling above the undisturbed surface of a forest pond, strands of melody chasing one another to where it achieves a synchronicity with every breath, every heartbeat, every action.  And yet there abides an undeniable chasm between the melodic filaments, as if the elements might always hover nearby one another but never be united as one.  There’s a tension that comes from that kind of relationship, and it makes for the most alluring division of attention between the separate and distinct elements, and also on those moments that verge upon a state of unison.

So, yeah, I parked my car in a lot by the railroad tracks alongside the press check-in area, and then ran as fast my feet would take me and my dignity would allow (I look ridiculous when I run), and got myself over to church.

Knoxville’s Church Street United Methodist Church sits at the edge of downtown, and an easy hike from the opposite end where I had parked.  (A later installment of the Big Ears Fest will talk about the layout of downtown, the easy ways to traverse it, and how admirably simple the city and event organizers make it for people to get around… festival or otherwise).

After driving at a rate of 80mph for the hours just preceding, it was an odd sensation to sit perfectly still and listen to music that existed in a state of hushed anticipation, as if even the musicians weren’t sure what sounds would come next and were as likely to be as surprised as the audience.  But I was enraptured by this performance, and as I type this column up, it’s really sinking in just how strongly the show resonated with me… it’s like the electricity of the experience is firing right back up again, as if I just a minute ago stepped out of the church and back into the cool air of downtown Knoxville, TN.

The interior was gorgeous and couldn’t have been a more perfect fit for this specific performance.  This is music of an ambient nature, where sounds are meant to linger and breathe and drift through time and space with the patience of starlight stretching out to the naked eye here on Earth.  And it resonates with that same enduring strength, and so the space this room afforded was a perfect fit for the sonic intentions.

How long did they play for?  An hour, two?  I forget exactly, but I do remember that when it was over, it felt like it ended all too soon.  I could’ve sat there for hours and not stirred.

The isolated chirp of crickets.  A forest stream gurgling cheerfully to itself.  The rattle of leaves as a soft breeze glides on past.  The soft pulse of starlight, so far away yet so close.  Sound and motion that never rises above a whisper, yet so powerful as to cause an enduring tranquility to descend.  That’s what Budd, Lattimore and Nief-Norf did amongst the stained glass, raised archways and wooden beams that afternoon.  The flutter of harp, the purring of keyboards, and the murmur of percussion were a profoundly beautiful moment in time, over and over again.  This wasn’t music heard and seen so much as it was breathed in and out.  It was an intimate experience.  This was why I drove all morning to be in Knoxville.

The music was in my head after I left the church and began wandering Knoxville’s downtown streets.  The music is still in my head today, and it’s why I keep searching the internet for news of this music, or something like it, making its way to a recorded medium, and, soon after, into my music library.  I am so ready for it.

After the show, it was nice chatting with a few of my fellow listeners.  We talked about what we’d just heard, what we’d heard from these musicians previously, and what other shows we were looking forward to.  It was a kind of camaraderie that I experienced a handful of times during the festival weekend.  So enjoyable, even, that as I think back upon it, I’m a bit regretful that there wasn’t even more of it.  That kind of event, it’s a pleasant feeling to share with others what’s going through our hearts and minds.  And Big Ears Festival was exactly the kind of environment where those types of interactions would thrive.

I did go wandering the streets of Knoxville for a short time, and scoped out a place to eat a meal (covered in a later chapter of this story).  Also, as was the case for much of my festival experience… not much time to spend before the next show began.

Up next:  Back in church, and why not, because Ralph Towner is a god.

By • Live Jazz • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

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