FTW, 8.30.2019

Besides receiving some recent attention from Texas Monthly for curator Linda Little's art protesting the separation of migrant families at our southern border, the plucky Grackle Art Gallery has been the locus of some interesting musical activity.

Guitarist Kavin Allenson has been hosting an invitational "Straw Drawing Improv Jam," usually the third Thursday of the month, featuring a cast of characters that includes, but is not limited to, trombonist James Hall, bassist Mark Hyde, Warr guitarist Mark Cook (99 Names of God, Liquid Sound Company), laptop wizard Darryl Wood (Bubble Force, Confusatron), and guitarists Joe Blair, Darrin Kobetich (Agita, Blackland River Devils), and your humble chronicler o' events. Not everything works, but at its best, the music burbles like a psychedelic stew, occasionally attaining heights of Crimsonoid grandeur.



This weekend, local prog guitar cult hero Bill Pohl (The Underground Railraod) is back from his new home in Colorado, where he plays solo and trio gigs when he isn't holding down the second guitar chair in Thinking Plague. On his last couple of visits, Bill played Allan Holdsworth tribute sets with a couple of fiery youngsters, but this time, he has something quieter and more subtle up his sleeve. In the more intimate setting of the Grackle, it's easier to hear the rich chords and varied pick attacks he uses to create orchestral textures with looper and delay pedals. His rhythmic rapport with bassist Sam Damask (Grand Commander) and hand percussionist Craig Shropshire (whose radio show on KERA-FM was a formative influence on scads of DFW underground musos) is also noteworthy. Bill remains a preternaturally fleet-fingered soloist, but Saturday's set emphasized atmosphere and groove to create a modal music of the spheres. When he launched into Miles' "It's About That Time" and followed it with Trane's "Naima," my month was made. He'll be back at the Grackle tonight with Shropshire and percussion eminence Eddie Dunlap. You owe it to yourself not to miss this.

Oak Cliff, 8.15.2019

It was a pretty good night in Oak Cliff.

Dennis Gonzalez was celebrating his 65th birthday, as is his wont, by performing with two of his ensembles -- the brass quintet Euphonious and the jazz/world music trio Ataraxia. As a bonus, the Monks of Saturnalia -- guitar shaman Gregg Prickett's jazz compositional outlet -- were making their first appearance in a decade, on the same bill. The venue was Revelers Hall, a relatively new spot in the Bishop Arts district (so many districts, here in post-gentrification America!), where Kevin Butler (who plays tuba in Euphonious) has been booking an intriguing array of jazz and related musics. On a sultry night like Thursday, when the punishing heat of the day had finally begun to dissipate, they had the doors open, so the music could invite listeners from down the block.

The thing that I miss, hearing Dennis with Ataraxia or Yells At Eels, is the multi-horn polyphony of records like Namesake, Debenge-Debenge, or (a particular fave) Catechism, so I was thrilled to hear that he was gigging with a group that would emphasize that aspect of his work. While it's not an all-brass unit -- Aaron Gonzalez's standup bass serves as the group's anchor -- the confluence of three trumpets (on this night, Dennis, Chris Curiel, and Thaddeus Ford), trombone (the estimable Gaika James, whose own quartet I've wanted to catch ever since I saw a vid of them playing Fela's "Expensive Shit" a couple of months ago), and Butler's tuba has a sound that can range from celestial and spiritual to vigorous and funky. When Stefan Gonzalez joined them on drums for the closing riff tune, the net effect was like a NOLA marching band, but out. Can't wait for these guys to record.

Ataraxia followed with a brief set that demonstrated how their expression has deepened with more time playing together. It was a treat for me to witness their performance from behind tabla player Jagath Lakpriya, so I could see how he strikes his drums to get all those sounds. In a way, the night belonged to bassist Drew Phelps, who played his ass off through two sets, fairly dancing on the big fiddle and conducting a spirited dialogue with Lakpriya during Ataraxia's performance, then switching off between acoustic and electric axes with the Monks of Saturnalia, whose set included a pizzicato solo that hit you in the solar plexus the way Mingus or Haden's playing once did, and a crazy arco excursion that I'd swear included the "Happy Birthday" song in overtones...but maybe I'm overthinking things.

Gregg Prickett is probably the most advanced guitarist currently working in the Metroplex, combining classical chops with distortion, noise, and extended techniques, and his current lineup of Monks is a veritable all-star unit. Besides Phelps and Stefan Gonzalez, the band at Revelers Hall included former Brave Combo multi-reedist Jeffrey Barnes on soprano, clarinet, and wood flute, and Steven Brown (whose own trio plays Revelers Hall this Saturday) on tenor. The horns were able to put their own stamp on the band's charts -- Barnes soloing with abandon, Brown applying his burnished tone -- in spite of only having had two rehearsals. The makings of a great band are here.

Opening with Prickett's Albert Ayler dedication "He Walked Into the River" (which I first heard at Ronald Shannon Jackson's very last performance, when Prickett was a member of his Decoding Society), they played pieces evocative of soundtracks to noir films or Westerns (the latter a Phelps composition), as well as a memorial to one of the three wolves Prickett used to live with. When the guitarist pulls out the stops during a solo, the sound of something powerful and precisely controlled going deliberately off the rails functions as a pretty good metaphor for the times we live in. I'll be looking forward to hearing more from these Monks, as well as Prickett's other band, the contemporary classical/improv Trio du Sang.

Creative music is thriving in Dallas. Who'd a thunk it?

Things we like: "Sounds Exposed," Simon Nabatov, Mario Pavone

You can't eat the same food every day, and perhaps the knowledge that what Wayne Shorter calls "the door" is getting closer put me in mind to hear some new stuff, rather than continually plowing the same furrow, as is my usual wont (not that I delude myself that listening to new music can forestall my ultimate extinction).

1) One of my favorite guitarist-composers, Brooklyn-based Marco Oppedisano, has a track on a new compilation of experimental music gleaned from online sources by Brazilian composer-producer George Christian. The 29 selections on Sounds Exposed: Music Without Frontiers are a varied lot. So as not to slight any of the artists, I revive my practice of writing three word reviews of every track.

Mahata Sentimental Legend -- Sinister tribal thump.
Joaquin Mendoza Sebastian -- Densely textured echolalia.
Molloy and His Bike -- Guitar as percussion.
Anastasia Vronsky -- Is anyone receiving?
Paulo Chagas -- Melancholy woodwind duet.
Feeding Goats -- Information dense soundscape.
Jeff Gburek -- Indian flavored drone.
Marco Lucchi -- Sitar overtone bath.
James Ross -- Dissonant long tones.
Herve Perez -- Haunting site specificity.
Wilhelm Matthies -- Invented instrument friction.
Vanessa Rossetto -- Train whistle viola.
Marco Oppeddisano -- Metallic artifact collage.
Doug Seidel -- Head spinning electronica.
Bruce Hamilton -- Abstractions that breathe.
Stefan Schmidt -- Ebbing, flowing guitar.
Mat Ward Nomatesensemble -- Zappaesque; mastered LOUD!
Shape2 -- VU style minimalism.
Lezet -- Tick tock tension.
Peter Thoegersen -- So many microtones!
Joseph Benzola -- Musique concrete march.
Mike Tamburo -- Fahey ascends Heavenward.
Peter Stenberg -- Slow deliberate space.
Mystified -- Slithering dream soundtrack.
Summons of Shining Ruins -- Distorted choral symphony.
Owl Dreams -- Dimly recalled echoes.
Jurica Elic -- Balkan baritone balladeer.
Vincent Bergeron -- Composite atonal songcraft.
George Christian -- Syd's Floyd redux.

But don't take my word for it. Hear for yourself.



2) A recent deep dive through the last decade of jazz -- initially inspahrd by ex-NYT scribe Nate Chinen's slim but useful tome Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century (which actually covers the last two decades, in a Noo Yawk-centric way) -- indirectly reminded me how much worthy stuff the Portuguese Clean Feed label has released over the years. Besides some of my most beloved Dennis Gonzalez sides, they've also released favorite records of mine by the likes of Joe Morris (whose four CD box of duets with Anthony Braxton displays a lyrical bent I was unaware either man possessed), Kris Davis, Mark Dresser, Chris Lightcap (whose 2015 Epicenter is a love letter to NYC to rival Spike Lee's 25th Hour, and whose brand new, eclectic, David Breskin-produced Superette for Royal Potato Family ain't no slouch, either), and Lawnmower (whose 2010 debut West teams half of Morris' regular quartet with a couple of rock guitarists), among many others.

Latest batch of Clean Feeds includes two that moved right to the top of my stack. Simon Nabatov Quintet's Last Minute Theory features an all-star cast (Tony Malaby, Brandon Seabrook, Michael Formanek, Gerald Cleaver) supporting a Russian emigre pianist who spent most of the '80s in NYC before decamping to Germany at the end of the decade. While Nabatov's known as a free player, it's his compositions, which vary in mood and tempo as they move between "straight ahead" and "outside" -- sometimes within the same piece -- that are the focus here. Malaby, whose work as a sideman I've always preferred to any of his own dates (perhaps I just haven't heard the right ones?) performs sensitively on tenor and soprano, while Seabrook's subtly eccentric guitarisms provide the chaos factor, but all the players are stellar and work well together, whether on the appropriately-titled "Slow Move," the Latin-tinged "Rickety," the "out" parade music of "Marching Right Along," or the ruminative ballad "Translated." Highly recommended.

Mario Pavone is a name I only dimly recalled from my late-'70s New Music Distribution Service catalogs. My loss. After early associations with Paul Bley, Bill Dixon, and Anthony Braxton, Pavone spent 18 years playing in a trio with the late saxophonist Thomas Chapin. His Dialect Trio's Philosophy is the third document of his collaboration with pianist Matt Mitchell (whom I first heard on Dan Weiss's metal-jazz hybrid Starebaby -- another David Breskin production! -- but who's also worked with Tim Berne and Dave Douglas, among others) and the redoubtable Tyshawn Sorey (here back in his "young Tony Williams" mode, as when I first encountered him on Fieldwork's Door a decade ago). Like all the best piano trios, it's a conversation, rather than a leader-with-sidemen situation, and reflective in the manner of Bley or Bill Evans. The tunes are all by Pavone, save two by Annette Peacock (whose book was explored at great length by Marilyn Crispell, Gary Peacock, and Paul Motian for ECM a few years back) and one collective improvisation. A rewarding spin.