November 9th, 2009: Steve Coleman & Five Elements
@new morning
I enjoyed this shew, but I had higher expectations.It’s a fine line, and I put that squarely on the drummer Don’t get me wrong, Marcus Guilmore is a good one, but I like Tyshawn Sorey so much that going back to the regular drummer alone made the show less than what I hoped. On the one hand, there was Jen Shyu’s voice — when will I get the chance to hear her doing her own thing? — and Steve Coleman’s great leadership, on the other hand this was a regular jazz show and having experienced their ability to get way beyond that, that was a bit of a disappointment. Just a bit, because these regular shows are also a way to look as what the baseline is, even though I think my favorite thing about Coleman is his ability to integrate other elements — pun intended — into his music, Opus Akoben going even further in that I think their common performances brought both bands beyond what they could do on their own. Here it was Coleman and Five Elements only, so I didn’t expect that much. But still, I expected more, which was bad news for me, another trip into the hell of high expectations.
It’s all about expectations, because they played for close to to three hours, and most of it was very good. But this one poorly compared to previous performances. It went closer to regular jazz, first, and I’m probably not that sensitive to this part of their music. Then there’s the Gilmore/Sorey thing, that’s really a matter of taste, I don’t think it can be debated — again, Guilmore is good, but his style is different from Sorey’s, especially when it comes to the relative use of cymbals, and I happen to like Sorey better.
Coleman played a lot in my opinion, but still left a lot of place for the others, a trait which makes him my favorite jazz leader. He’s so good at this I wish he would do workshops on that part alone; how to be in charge through getting everyone to be highlighted in turn; how to be confident enough to make a statement then walk aside, or not, depending on what the music calls for. I do think he was more assertive than in previous shows, but that’s just another way of saying I think the band didn’t come together as well. I don’t know why, but I felt unity was lacking, in that there was Shyu and Coleman, Finlayson and Albright, then Morgan and Guilmore. Those sub-units worked very well, but I felt communication wasn’t that smooth between them. That’s my number one gripe, because I’d been so totally impressed to far with Coleman’s performance as a leader — second to Bill Belichick, but he has had his share of misses as well.
On a totally personal take, I’d say I wish there had been less Guilmore soloing and more Jen Shyu. Then again, that was another not exactly subtle plea for a Jen Shyu performance around here. I really want to hear her on her own, with her own call on where she wants to take her voice.
November 5th, 2009: Hair Police / Haine
@instants chavirés
<rant>Hair Police was supposed to play in another venue, but they called it off a few days before because of what they called insufficient booking. It’s not the first time La Maroquinerie does this, and it just makes me less likely to go there: I don’t like the late call one bit because of how it’s putting the musicians in a tough spot on short notice, and this also means they’re plain unreliable and I’ll actually be reluctant to book early because of that. The latter probably means the people I most want to hear will be even less likely to play, which is not a welcome development. The whole situation sucks, and I might just be enough of a coward to avoid the place from now on just to avoid dealing with it. I would have liked to see to Anti Pop Consortium, but I didn’t because of the venue’s attitude.</rant>
Just as I expected, Haine turned out to be familiar faces — Hendrick Hegray and Lionel Fernandez. I’ve been pretty impressed by both these guys over the past months, their solo performances have easily beaten my expectations. In a sense that led me to conflicting thoughts about this set. On the one hand, it was quite below those newly inflated expectations, closer to what I thought they were doing before. On the other hand, it was clearly better than what I would have expected one year ago. Neither matter, what does to is that I enjoyed the set. Maybe in a low brow way, but it wasn’t just screaming through effects and banging a guitar around. It wasn’t written down, but not random either, there was enough common ground to have the whole thing teeter without crashing down. It wouldn’t have mattered because their energy would have been enough, but still, the thing kinda held together. As loud noise goes, I don’t think it did much more, but it did. I’m sure they could get a better mix of keyboard, quote-unquote voice and guitar, but there was a spontaneous immediacy about this set that I just liked.
Hair Police went on to show why I consider myself lucky that they could find this backup plan. At first I thought it sounded very close to Haine, and maybe that was intentional from either, but with effects and voice/screams. As the set went on, adding guitar and drums just took the thing to another level. Still noise, but with just enough contrasting elements to make it more interesting without unsettling the whole. In that respect the more simple drumming was the most efficient in my opinion. Having a guy holding pedal-like electronics in a band like a guitar seemed gimmicky at first but ended up making sense because I think it reinforce the physical engagement side of the performance, which a was a big part of what I liked about it. Having he bent over his gear on the side just wouldn’t have cut it that well. The more they played, the more they sounded like a band, there was some unity taking shape beyond the raw discharge that first took precedence due to the harsh sounds and general loudness. That’s the real silver lining to their being forced to reschedule here, because they probably would have played for half that time in the original place at best, probably less.
So it turned out well enough for me, with a longer set, cheaper entrance and drinks. But I guess Hair Police were paid less, and on principle alone, it still isn’t right, and I still hold that grudge.
November 4th, 2009: Steve Hauschildt / Ju Suk Reet Meate & Oblivia / Stellar Om Source / Mark McGuire
@la suite
I happen to like Emeralds, so I was curious about hearing two of their member’s solo projects. Despite my love of loops, I wasn’t all that sold on Mark McGuire’s performance. He played guitar and used looped phrases to build up his music, but I felt it stopped a little short. That was always very consistent and the loops came together nicely, but that’s exactly what the issue was for me. It was fitting together too well and none of those loops went for very long, and the result felt a bit too polished for me, as it never crossed into interference or trance. Well done, but that put it in the same class as those finger-picking guitar aces for me. I can appreciate it, but not exactly like it, I feel something is missing. But that’s probably just me.
A bit of the same kind of issue with Stellar Om Source, again, in that I guess it’s really a matter of personal taste. I think she’s good at what she does, but that’s not my kind of stuff. Her sound is just not my kind of thing, and her music does remind me of some of the heavyweight references I’ve her thrown around about her, but I don’t like them either. For me, it’s just too nice and rounded to overcome my dislike for the sound itself.
Ju Suk Reet Meat and Oblivia being members of SMEGMA, I had some high hopes. Turned out to be a pretty good set in my opinion, especially the first half or so, where I felt both where playing in a compatible but not identical pace. I liked the changing textures brought about by either instrument changes or record collage. The second half sounded steadier to me, and less interesting because of that. But maybe that’s a combination of the records/sounds used by Oblivia and a weird idea that popped in my mind and overstayed its welcome: I was wondering what she would do with some Elizabeth Clare Prophet material. I guess her recent death had me thinking about never hearing something I really liked done with that — the mix with auctioneers was nice but just too obvious, though it reminded me of a Doug Aitken video/installation I liked — and what she was doing had me thinking she could pull it off. Though it’s probably too mainstream for her.
I really liked the last set, by the Emerald member, Steve Hauschildt. Keyboards too, but this time the sound was more to my liking and what he did with it was a nice mix between consistency and change. Someway through the set I had a pretty good idea of what he was doing, but not of what he was going to do. Things that were not exactly repeated but that made sense in the context of the set, and other elements taking it further at the same time. Another good one.
November 2nd, 2009: Miles from India
@cité de la musique
At first I didn’t want to go to this concert because the concept — mixing Miles Davis and Indian music — didn’t look promising; too likely to end up being some world music crap that either blurs both or ends up with both sides ignoring each other. What made me change my mind is that Rudresh Mahanthappa was part of the project, and I like this musician for some reason; he’s of the fast school, but I end up liking his music anyway. And his wit was again on display when he remarked he was introducing the others because he was the only one who was able to pronounce all their names.
And that was some work because there were twelve of them on stage. Besides Mahanthappa, a few stood out for me. Nicholas Payton was really impressive despite the not-so-ideal situation of standing in for Miles Davis. He didn’t play too much, always on point, and even got into a short sequence of dialogue with an Indian musician which was one of my favorite moments. Not much maybe, but this type of exchange where one puts out a phrase then the other plays it again on an unrelated instrument is one of the things in Indian music that I thought could me interesting in that setting, and even though it was short and its only instance crossing cultures, it was nice. But on his own Payton did very well and managed to be faithful to the music while putting his own personal stamp on it. I’d really like to hear him again on his own terms.
I’m definitely partial to having two drummers on stage — see Dirtbombs, the — and I really liked the different yet complementary styles of Ndugu Chancler and Vince Wilburn. Especially the former, who pulled off a drums solo I actually liked, using bits from what had just been played on mridangam then morphing into more western jazz stuff. For me, it wasn’t as much about the technique as the understanding of what had just taken place. He managed to do a solo where his listening ability was prominent, and that kind of feat instantly puts him of my list of interesting performers. The bad side of this is that for some reason drummers are rarely if ever advertised so it’s not that easy to know when one I like is playing in the area.
V K Raman was quite impressive on flute, in part for his listening ability and for being the Indian musician best able to fit in with the music. He had a few solo bits but he consistently brought something whenever he got involved. Maybe his instrument helped because it wasn’t as drowned out as the tabla and mridangam, but still, what he was doing made sense and I think he proved to be listening when he went switching flute and playing just a short phrase with each in sequence, and each time the tone change did bring something.
U. Shrinivas had a beautiful solo sequence, but unfortunately he was often drowned out during the show. Not always though, and the little I could grab was quite good, and that made it all the more frustrating that there were times when I could see he was playing but couldn’t hear what he was doing. Another one I’d like to hear as a leader.
That’s been a lot of talk about individual performances, and in a sense that’s the limitation of the show. There were times when it all came together, especially during the longest tunes from the In a silent way / Bitches brew years, and those were really good ones. But there were also not so convincing solo performances, and some “Indians only” sequences that were a bit telling in my opinion about the project itself. I’d say the Indian musicians didn’t bring much as Indians, they did so as musicians, which is the way it should be. But then they had to put in sequences of “real” Indian music, where the Americans would just walk off and that felt like a somewhat sad excuse. It didn’t work at all for me at least. As far as I’m concerned, V K Raman alone was more than enough to make the project worth it, and I felt those short bits made justice to neither American nor Indian music. Just mix them a little bit louder when everyone’s playing together, because those excerpts are not compensating for having to strain to hear the tabla, mridangam and mandolin throughout the show.
Trust your stuff a little more, if the Indian musicians really need to have some designated time set aside for them to contribute, that means the whole concept is a failure. I don’t think it is.
October 29th, 2009: Projet Piscine / Ntwin / Jubilé / Zaraz Wam Zagram / Berthold
@gambetta
I was there early so I went for a spiral in a neighborhood I had not seen in years. Some places looked familiar, but there’s been some serious gentrification going on there, and this is a change for the worse to me. It was my first time in this bar, and I pretty much hate the place. Way too much light for me, and there’s even a mirror. But despite all this I knew early on I would enjoy the show because a darkest cloud had been lifted.
Still, I had some trouble getting into Berthold’s set. I guess I can blame Benjamin’s contributions here for setting a high bar, but at first it was a little too mundane rock for me. That got better as the set went on, and they added a few wrinkles to a steady basis. It remained too predictable for my taste, but I really enjoyed their last couple songs for some reason.
I’m grateful for all he’s doing setting up gigs all around, but I wish he was playing more often. Again, Zaraz Wam Zagram used sounds I love with sounds I hate, usually at the same time. He started with something almost catchy, close to a beat, before shooting that down. I still don’t know if I hated or loved the high feedbackish tone he pulled out at the end of his set, and that’s a big part of what’s interesting in his music. I didn’t like the middle of the set, but I suspect part of that was intentional after the catchy start. I just wish he had used the tapes more, because I just love this medium, but that was a good set.
Jubilé had a good guitar sound, but it took me a while to like what they were doing with it. At first it sounded a bit confused, but I guess it was their getting used to the place. Much better as the set progressed, and I really liked their last song. It reminded me of a fave Oneida live tune, without that reference spoiling the moment. I think they would have been better off building that one up and stopping on a peak though. Or maybe playing the exhaustion card all the way.
Ntwin’s set was the one I liked the least. Way too much control there. That alone spoiled it for me, because they had the right involvement and energy, but they seemed too much in control and that made the set a little cold. They seemed to have some mic issues at the very end and that little glitch probably helped me because I did like their last couple of songs best.
Projet Piscine did play even though I thought it would be too late, but that set was again a short one — at least what I heard, maybe I left too quickly. The first song was very different from what I had heard before, close to krautrock in its relentlessness. I totally love this new direction, so maybe they should record their second album before the first indeed. The second song was closer to what I expected, pop and new wave with something both earnest and aware of the history. The third and last song — at least for me — was a personal favorite, because I think it’s not as much a song as a template, a synth backbone supporting vocal and guitar forays. I think it’s a great live song, because it leaves so much room to whatever might be happening, while retaining a definite identity. Maybe it’s better not to attempt recording it.
October 27th, 2009: Jimmy Cobb’s So What Band
@cité de la musique
I have to state upfront that I don’t like Kind of blue, but I hoped that the live setting would offset some of the things that bother me about this record. Unfortunately, the performance was faithful enough that my take on it is less than enthusiastic. No dis on the performers, each did his part and did it well, with special appreciation for Buster Williams, Larry Willis and Jimmy Cobb himself. The others were good too, but their taking turns in the front was so aggravating to me that I couldn’t really appreciate their play.
That part — the taking turns — is the single most prominent reason why I don’t like that record, so it’s no surprise their faithfulness was a drawback. Each was good enough on his own, but that only made me more eager to hear them interact, and that must just not part of the plan.
Another side of my dislike is that it’s so smooth as to get into sugary territory, and again this side was still there even live. Of course the bass and to a lesser extent piano and drums gained from more direct contact, but they are not exactly in front in that music.
From what I heard from people in attendance, those who liked that record in the first place were pleased enough, but being the kind of weirdo who didn’t like it but hope to get a change of mind from hearing a live take on it, those high hopes were squashed.
