May 5th, 2011: Steve Coleman & Five Elements

@cité de la musique

No drummer this time, the piano (David Virelles) and guitar (Miles Okazaki) were in charge of the rhythm section. I like percussive piano, so that was fine by me. I really like what Steve Coleman does, and I’m most fond of Jen Shyu and Jonathan Finlayson in this lineup, so I was well within my comfort zone despite the changes — I’m not sure that’s a good thing though.

Overall that was definitely not one of my favorite performances of theirs, but there were unexpected rhythmic twists in the second part that made it well worth it. I suspect I could come to reevaluate this positively in the future, it had the feel of something new being tried.

What felt weird was that I didn’t like Jen Shyu as much as usual. I suspect that my finally seeing her solo made me chafe at her secondary role. That would not be a good development, as she’s probably not likely to play solo often around here. But Coleman was good and I took that opportunity to focus more on Finlayson, and that was very rewarding. And they played for a long time, adding an encore without Coleman that was more playful than the main event. I was surprised at how long they had played, always a sure sign that I enjoyed the show more than I thought.

I’m not sure what I think of it, and that’s a good thing.

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