Gordon Beeferman: Tunnel Visions, for Viola & Piano

Stumbled upon: A world premiere performance of a Gordon Beeferman composition for viola and piano:

“Raucous, rhythmic, spicy and microtonal” is how violist Stephanie Griffin, in her YouTube “liner notes,” describes Beeferman’s jazz-related music, and you get a taste of all that in the opening moments of Tunnel Visions, the pressure-packed first movement. It slows immensely for the middle movement then surges back with sweeping drama. Really good stuff.

The jazz band she’s referring to is Other Life Forms, a quartet with Pascal Niggenkemper on bass and Andrew Drury on drums. They’re pretty interesting.

NYC Part 2: Strings & Halvorson

Ha-Yang Kim, at the Irvine Music Festival, 2015.

In February 2018, The Stone will end its run at the corner of 2nd Street and Avenue C. Programs will apparently continue elsewhere, but the cozy little black box (a friend of mind considers it stifling, actually) will be given up. I assume it’s the usual gentrification story, with the landlord having found a more profitable use for the lot.

I don’t get to pick and choose my visits to The Stone. Usually, it’s a matter of dropping in during the one evening I have free, and seeing what’s going on. This time, during my July visit, it was an improv session with three strings players.

They included Miya Masaoka, which was a treat. I’d seen her perform many times when she lived in the Bay Area, and I’ve appreciated the daring approach she takes to creating new music and to advancing the range of the koto, the Japanese floor harp. Her jazz album, Monk’s Japanese Folk Song (Dizim, 1997) is a lost masterpiece, and I’ve been meaning to write something about her latest classical release, Triangle of Resistance (Innova, 2016). She’ll be back in the Bay Area for an Aug. 20 reunion of the trio Maybe Monday, with Fred Frith and Larry Ochs.

The session was led by cellist Ha-Yang Kim, who was finishing a week-long residency at The Stone, and was fleshed out by Stefan Poetzch on violin.

Miya Masaoka, from a 2016 Vimeo video of a piece called “Stemming,” using a setup similar to what she had at The Stone.

They played two improvisations. The first, longer one — probably about 40 minutes — was less focused and took longer to really coalesce. I did enjoy the melding of sounds, as the use of amplification sometimes made it hard to tell which instrument was creating which part, especially when it came to the koto and violin and the use of electronics. Masaoka also brought an array of percussive toys, sometimes nicely augmenting the group structure, sometimes creating a distraction.

But it was all in earnest. One thing about live improvisation is that you can gauge the performers’ reactions and feel almost like a participant (really more an eavesdropper) in the creative process. It makes for a more sympathetic listening experience.

The second piece, maybe 15 minutes long, was actually more successful and easier for me, as a listener, to lock into. This might have been because the performers no longer felt the pressure to get particular instruments, techniques, or sounds into the mix. Sometimes, a long improvisation feels like it carries that pressure — you sense the players trying to find a spot for every horn or every percussive device, much like a baseball manager trying to get every player into the game.

Any feelings like that were used up in the first piece — and maybe, just maybe, the players were a little bit spent as well. Either way, they chose to stick with ideas for longer stretches. While I enjoyed the opening piece, I got more entwined with the second.

I had Tuesday evening free, and while another trip to The Stone wouldn’t have been bad (it was the start of Kevin Norton’s residency, I think), Mary Halvorson was bringing her octet to the Village Vanguard. The Vanguard is always a pricey trek but with good reason, when the music is this good.

While I can’t name them off the top of my head, several recognizable numbers from Halvorson’s albums appeared, especially from Away With You (Firehouse 12, 2016, reviewed here.) The band was positioned in pretty much the arrangement you see in the video below, with Halvorson and steel guitarist Susan Alcorn both sitting and virtually invisible to a lot of the audience.

I was OK with that. The four horn players, each bandleaders in their own right, stood tall front-and-center.

I remember enjoying the contrast between the saxophonists — Jon Irabagon (alto) with his fluid style informed by the jazz tradition but peppered with skronks and squeals, and Ingrid Laubrock (tenor) spinning tight patterns built from sharp turns and rapid-fire pronouncements.

I’d never seen bassist Chris Lightcap live, and I found myself paying a lot of attention to him, not just during bass solos but also during ensemble passages. I liked his choices for enhancing the melodies and solos.

The set, filled with mid-length pieces (modest song lengths have been a hallmark of Halvorson’s groups) got a warm reception from a full house, as you’d expect. This being a midweek show, we got the opportunity to stay for the second set, free of cover charge. It was a blast, and I was even able to move forward to a seat with an occasional view of Halvorson and her guitar.

A really nice New York trip, all told.

NYC Part 1: Clarinets

Had it really been five years since I last visited New York City? Feels about right.

I’ve had family members living in Brooklyn for at least the past decade, but sadly, the thing that really gets me out to the city is work. So this trip, like its predecessors, was a whirlwind. The subway is convenient and cheap but not particularly fast, so it takes effort to make it to events on time. It’s worth the sweat and the energy drain.

I arrived in Manhattan late on a Sunday afternoon, with barely enough time to catch the end of a free show at Downtown Music Gallery, the store that’s been a mandatory stop on every visit. DMG hosts a free set every Sunday, but I’d never seen one, since I tend to start my east-coast trips on Mondays.

DMG is also well off the subway routes, down in Chinatown between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. After checking into my hotel, I grabbed a cab, willing to pay the extra cash for the sake of taking the FDR expressway directly downtown.

I arrived for the tail end of a clarinet trio of Guillermo Gregorio, Aaron Novik, and Stan Zenkoff. The lights were down, with the audience of about 10 people seated in tiny chairs filling the browsing aisles.

One of the clarinet sounds I enjoy the most is the low burble, a quiet, mid-register fluttering of fast notes. Novik got a number of moments like that, backed by stark landscapes drawn by Gregorio and Zenkoff. But really, each of the three players cycled through moments of screeching abandon and moments of more conventional musicality, alternating roles among themselves to create that ever-shifting landscape that free improv can create.

An added bonus: Novik, formerly from the Bay Area and now living in Queens, actually recognized me. We never knew each other that well, but it was nice that he remembered me — and I certainly remember him.

We had a good chat. Then I purchased a couple of items (because I can’t visit DMG and not buy anything) then caught the F-train back to the Lower East Side for what was probably my last visit to The Stone.

The Brain-Frying World of Brandon Seabrook

Brandon Seabrook — Die Trommel Fatale (New Atlantis, 2017)

I’ve previously written about Brandon Seabrook’s aggressive approach to guitar. I’d observed that he adds a keen edge to Mostly Other People Do the Killing and a choppy energy to Eivind Opsvik’s albums.

That was before I heard his solo stuff. Good gawd.

That’s from the 2014 album Sylphid Vitalizers, and it consists of Seabrook on many overdubbed banjos — each played in real time — with the help of a drum machine. Two of the album’s five tracks also include the menacing shred of Seabrook’s guitar.

If Seabrook slows down a little on his new album, Die Trommel Fatale, it’s only because he’s now painting with a wider range of colors, making use of a full band that includes three string players.

But the craziness is not dialed down. His guitar still throws ninja stars at your face, complex and intentionally ugly melodies that are going to hurt if you don’t brace yourself. The rough edge gets even rougher with the contributions of vocalist Chuck Bettis — grunting and shrieking in Yamataka Eye mode — and the doomsday drumming of Sam Ospovat and Dave Treut.

The strings sweeten the mix here and there (Marika Hughes on cello and Opsvik on bass), but they, too, can be applied to aggressive effect, as you can hear deep in the mix on “Clangorous Vistas.”

 
I wrote the other day about Burning Ghosts, the band adeptly mixing jazz and metal. Seabrook is doing the same, you might say, but drawing from different pools of “jazz” and “metal.”

Burning Ghosts is about metal, with its stonewall guitars and rumbling demonic aesthetic. Seabrook taps a cousin music that’s closer to punk and noise. It’s just as hardcore but more trebly, with high-strung guitars articulating melodies that dig up as much darkness and discomfort as possible.

Some guys, when they play this kind of stuff — you think “Whoa. Where’d that come from?” Bill Frisell in Naked City comes to mind. Not Seabrook. I’d seen only a few pictures of him before, but once I dropped the needle on Die Trommel Fatale, it was like: “Oh yeah. I shoulda guessed.”

Moments not to miss include the digitized voice “solo” on “Quickstep Grotesquerie,” the lingering prog/metal of “The Greatest Bile, Part 2,” and the channel-flipping blend of jazzy strings, gloopy electronics, and shredding guitar on “Abscessed Pettifogger.”

I’ll leave you with a promo video for “Emotional Cleavage.” Be warned: It’s a little bit gruesome, although the ending is priceless.

 
Seabrook also has a trio album coming out in October. Catch a preview on Bandcamp.

9 Artists and a Treasure Trove on Bandcamp

Not sure how long this has been on Bandcamp, but it’s a cool idea: Nine artists have joined forces to offer a ton of releases under the collective name of Catalytic Sound.

Ab Baars, Mats Gustafsson, Ig Henneman, Terrie Hessels, Joe McPhee, Andy Moor, Paal Nilssen-Love, Ken Vandermark and Nate Wooley make up the Catalytic collective.

Catalytic Sound was founded in 2011, according to their Facebook page. That’s probably referring to the group’s web site,  which appears to be a vehicle for selling CDs. In fact, much of what’s on the Bandcamp site is available in physical form only — CD or vinyl.

Bandcamp, though, makes it easy for the artists to sell music digitally — which means Catalytic Sound dips deep into into the artists’ back catalogues. That’s the part I’m really excited about. Vandermark, in particular, has stacks of out-of-print 1990s CDs represented — such as Drink Don’t Drown, a live recording from the famed Empty Bottle jazz series in Chicago.

One oldie worth checking out is Caffeine, an obscure trio with Jim Baker on piano and Steve Hunt on drums. It’s one of so many “lost” CDs I remember sampling in the KZSU-FM library.

 
Combined with the Destination: Out store, which is re-releasing the old FMP catalogue of European improv classics, Catalytic Sound is turning Bandcamp into a dangerous vacuum for discretionary dollars. Not that I’m complaining.

Masada String Trio

No, I haven’t sampled all of the Book of Angels CDs in John Zorn’s Masada series. Haven’t even come close.

So, despite the players’ pedigrees, I hadn’t yet heard the Masada String Trio.

Then this popped up. Posted to YouTube just last month, it appears to be a French TV broadcast of a live String Trio performance. Greg Cohen on bass, Erik Friedlander on cello, Mark Feldman on violin, and Zorn doing the conducting and grinning ear to ear. There’s some brilliant playing here.

This combination seems dear to Zorn’s heart, because Masada String Trio was granted two entries in the Book of Angels series (wherein each band in succession got to pick from Zorn’s “Masada Book Two” compositions). They also recorded the inaugural CD in Tzadik’s series celebrating Zorn’s 50th birthday in 2003. All of those discs are concerts recorded at the late, lamented Tonic.

Well, why not? Three downtown NYC veterans playing good music at a beyond-expert level — who wouldn’t be game for that? Glad I finally took the time to listen.

Metal-Jazz Done Right

Burning Ghosts play at the Hemlock Tavern (1131 Polk St., San Francisco) on Thursday, May 13. Openers include The Lake Millions, veterans of KZSU’s Day of Noise.

Burning Ghosts — Reclamation (Tzadik, 2017)

Not every moment of Reclamation as in-your-face as the promo video suggests, but Burning Ghosts‘ new album, released last Friday on Tzadik, does deliver on its claims of mixing metal with jazz.

Descriptions like that always leave me skeptical, since the mixing of any two genres tends to select the weakest tonics from either side, particularly the jazz. (That was especially true of jazz/hip-hop mashups, as I often discussed with KZSU DJ M-Smooth in the mid-2000s.)

But this mix works. Daniel Rosenboom‘s trumpet is at the center of the music, played in bright, crisp tones that very much signal “jazz.” On the metal side, it’s Jake Vossler and Richard Giddens swimming in the throttling smoke of guitar and bass, driven by Aaron McLendon on the drum kit.

Rosenboom has explored similar territory with the Los Angeles band DR. MiNT, mixing jazz horns and outer-limits guitar. He’s at home here, as you can hear on “FTOF,” a track that gets Reclamation off to a zooming start.

The opening of “Harbinger,” meanwhile, is a slow drag through thick brambles, leading to a shredding attack:

Rosenboom describes Burning Ghosts as an activist band, and you can hear traces of that in the dire urgency of “The War Machine” and the scorching grandeur of “Revolution.” There’s anger in here, but it’s packed with brainy and adept musicianship.

I get a jazzier vibe from the band’s 2016 Curve Line Space performances, with Tina Raymond on drums and Tim Lefebvre (of Donny McCaslin’s band) on bass. On Reclamation, Rosenboom and Vossler are more intent on going for the jugular, airing the band’s metal side. But don’t discount the jazzy moments like the bass-drums shuffle of “Gaslight” and even the light-touch rhythm section backing the guitar shredding on “Catalyst.”