Last night turned out to be my only opportunity to sample the programming prepared for the 25th Festival to be presented by Other Minds (OM). As was previously announced on this site, the full title of the event was Moment’s Notice: A Festival of Improvised Music. Last night’s program began with a duo improvisation by saxophonist Larry Ochs and drummer Donald Robinson. This was followed by a solo improvisation set by saxophonist Darius Jones. An intermission was then followed by a set performed by Trio Five, a combo led by Roscoe Mitchell on winds joined by Junius Paul on bass, and Vincent Davis on drums.
The program turned out to be a long one, probably clocking in at over two and one-half hours. I wrote “probably” because there is only so much improvised content that mind can maintain in memory. Sadly, the sets themselves were manageable; but the music turned out to be a smaller percentage of the overall duration than should have been expected. My own attendance at this event was through a live stream for which composer Pamela Z and Charles Amirkhanian, Executive and Artistic Director of OM, shared the duties of master of ceremonies. I have no idea whether the audience seated in the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater experienced the insights provided by Z and Amirkhanian; but, for the most part, they distracted from the gaps between the sets admirably.
Saxophonist Darius Jones (from the OM Festival Web page)
The most memorable event from my own experience was Jones’ solo work. It did not take long to realize that his improvisation was based on a single phrase, which was repeated a prodigious number of times. Each repetition, however, brought with it subtle changes, which could involve intonation, phrasing, or sonorities through different blowing techniques. In addition, one eventually realized that the entire performance was structured by a descent of dynamic level from forte to the barely audible, almost as if the playing was gradually distancing itself from the listener until the distance crossed the threshold of perception.
This is the sort of performance than tends to be up-front about challenging the listener. Inevitably, there are listeners that decide, “I get it,” within the duration of about a dozen repetitions. After that, they “tune out.” However, the overall experience involves negotiating an extensive space of variations in sound quality and expressive articulation; and one does not “get” the full impact of those variations by reducing the entire performance to a simple formula. One has to “get beyond getting it” to appreciate the richness of invention behind Jones’ improvised performance.
Sadly, Ochs’ saxophone work in his duo performance with Robinson was far less satisfying. If Jones was the musical realization of Buckminster Fuller’s injunction to make more and more with less and less, then the scope of Ochs’ improvisatory invention came across as making less and less out of more and more. Fortunately, there was much more to experience in Robinson’s inventiveness; but there was little sense of connection between the two players, at least in the material they presented last night.
While I was probably most interested in what Mitchell would bring to last night’s concert, his Trio Five only took the stage after about two and a quarter hours had elapsed (not counting the panel discussion during the hour prior to the beginning of the concert). In the jargon of information theory, there are only so many bits that mind can process over the course of any event. By the time the Trio Five set began, the “bit bucket” was overflowing and my capacity for focused attention had been exhausted.
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