Visiting the First Four Unlocked Festival Sets

Late yesterday afternoon my wife and I settled down at our television to watch the live stream of the first four sets of the Unlocked Festival produced by Karl Evangelista. The event was a follow-up to the six Lockdown Festivals that had been streamed under pandemic conditions. The basic idea was to provide a platform for many of the more adventurous members of the Bay Area music community by streaming the performances as an alternative to concert-going.

Yesterday’s event signified that the doors to performance venues were gradually “unlocking;” and yesterday’s live stream provided “real time capture” of performances taking place before an audience at the Temescal Art Center in Oakland. The offering was further distinguished by more diversity than I had encountered when streaming content from the Lockdown Festivals. Nevertheless, the traditionalist in me welcomed the straight-ahead jazz offering of the duo B. performance given by Jason Levis on percussion and Lisa Mezzacappa on bass.

I must confess that I have a nostalgic interest in this coupling of instruments. One of my fondest memories of the wild and free-blowing jazz of John Coltrane’s Ascension album came towards the end with a quieter dialog between Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. In the context of all of the preceding thunder, there was an eloquence to the interplay of those two instruments; and the exchanges between Levis and Mezzacappa were just as eloquent.

Indeed, the duo B. set almost seemed to serve as an overture to the eloquent recitation delivered by Tongo Eisen-Martin, currently poet laureate of San Francisco. I must confess that I was not particularly familiar with Eisen-Martin’s work prior to experiencing his performance. It would not surprise me to learn that he had been improvising, but his ability to shape his words around disquieting situations left me riveted to every phrase. His performance provided a vivid reminder that there is music in poetry, even when no instruments are involved.

One could appreciate similar eloquence in the opening set, in which the poet Ijeoma Thomas performed recitations accompanied by her husband Oluyemi on bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, and percussion. Sadly, the poet had to contend with poor microphone placement, meaning that her words did not register with the clarity of Eisen-Martin’s delivery. Since this was the opening set, one can assume that the audio technology was still being fine-tuned.

Dancer Lenora Lee improvising to the improvisations of saxophonist Francis Wong (screen shot from yesterday’s live-streamed performance)

The last of the four sets I viewed provided another opportunity to experience the inventive saxophone work of Francis Wong. For this performance he was joined by dancer Lenora Lee. As she explored the performing space, Wong would also move through the space, providing an engaging choreographic synthesis. However, Wong was primarily focused on his instrument and the diversity of phrasings and sonorities that unfolded over the course of his uninterrupted improvisation.