I'm still recovering from Big Ears and I'd probably like to take a nap, despite the fact that I slept late this morning. But if I take a nap, nothing will write itself.
Big Ears started Thursday, but I have an obligation every Thursday night so I did not get started until after 9, and then I pooped out early. I did, however, get to two concerts. I missed the beginning of Brooklyn Rider's performance at St. John Cathedral, but I heard well over half of the concert, and was very happy that I went. I was particularly entranced by a work titled "Sequence" from the group's new album Spontaneous Symbols, which I also purchased later in the weekend. Some of the sounds and combinations of sounds in Sequence were new to me, new but also startlingly beautiful. Although I didn't know it yet, this was already the theme for the weekend: new sounds, startlingly beautiful.
My next venue was the Bijou Theatre, only a block away, and a concert by Jaga Jazzist. This was newer territory for me although the group itself is not particularly new. The music was complex and interesting although at times I found it a little loud. The lighting effects were also interesting, when they weren't blinding. I listened to much of the concert with my eyes closed, which had two effects. First it made me feel old (sitting there with earplugs and my eyes closed) but it also allowed me to release distractions and just listen to the music. In the end I decided that Jaga Jazzist is really creative, although perhaps not revolutionary. I liked the way they formed complex melodies and moods, fusing traditional jazz with various influences from electronic music to space-rock. I heard strong Miles Davis influence but it was Miles as Miles could probably have never imagined, from a group who seem to have cut their teeth on acid jazz. The music was exciting, complex, and also warmly human. Which also reminded me that the audience in this concert skewed considerably younger than at Brooklyn Rider, where I felt the audience skewed older, mostly my age and up. As I contemplated that, and the implications in terms of music and expectations, it seemed like a good place to call it a night.
Saturday was a fabulous day. Tikka and I had a quiet morning of writing and snuggling and a lovely 2 mile walk. The music began at noon. For me that meant another 11 miles of walking between venues, 7 concerts, and 9 hours of music before returning, exhausted to my hotel at 11 PM. My Saturday concert schedule began with Roscoe Mitchell, Junius Paul, and Vincent Davis at the Standard. What followed was an hour of incredible improvisation, spontaneous and yet seemingly balanced between structured and unstructured play. The music was intellectually rigorous and fully emotionally satisfying with felt like a blending of jazz and classical forms. I could not think of a better way to start the day.
Roscoe Mitchell would have been enough to make my day, except that they day simply continued to flow along at a high level of satisfaction. I went from Mitchell to hear Cyro Baptista in a concert that was filled with joy and happy rhythms. Brazilian - Jazz - Dance -Pop: I can't classify music, especially not at something like Big Ears where the best performances seem to form their own rhythm, a rhythm of life in its many forms, a rhythm that transcends categories.
The Rova Saxophone Quartet was fascinating in a more intellectual way, but here too, the music moved and filled the space, filled the pulse of the listeners, occupying the heart as well as the head. This group also performed one piece from their new album; but I am certain that when I sit down and listen it will be completely different. The musicians moved in the space, the music flowed in the space, a conversation never to be repeated, reflecting time, place, participants, and one felt like even the act of listening was an act of participation. From there I moved onto the breathtaking, ethereal beauty of the performance by the International Contemporary Ensemble, a concert filled with new sounds: bowing on a box, scrapings and dragging, and yet entrancing beauty prevailed.
Thinking potential had been exhausted, I went from ICE to Milford Graves where watching him play and make sounds, his body and his drum kit seeming to become almost like one instrument, fascinated by the magic of his playing with an inverted grip that still seems impossible to manage. But it was more than drumming, more than beat, more than sound, with Mitchell, keening and singing, talking and muttering, drum and voice combining as if form and music were being pulled from the air and the breath of the audience itself.
I had a short break, during which time I hoofed it back to my hotel, fed and walked Tikka and neglected to feed myself. Something about unrealistic expectations may have been involved. And then the music, or at least my view of the music, was on again.
I started with Bela Fleck and Brooklyn Rider, my musical happy place, artists playing in my favorite forms: classical and bluegrass, but even then the results were more than the sum of the pieces, and Bela Fleck definitely has the necessary skills to write a sustained piece that is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying. Then the incredible saxophone of Evan Parker, filling the space in St. John's cathedral with warmth and life. I ended the day with Medeski, Martin and Wood, and performance that I intended as a brief stop in passing, but which I ended up staying for. Once upon a time I would have dismissed them, probably unknowingly, as being just another jam-based, waves of sound type band, but I would have been wrong. I stayed because I was fascinated. They are far better than that and the groups skill and musicianship was amazing. Risk-taking, genre bending music carried out with incredible skill and creativity. I was impressed.
I was also exhausted and realized I may have let my enthusiasm get the better of my common sense. But more about that in the future. It was time for rest.
