FTW, 11.14.2019

Nebraska native James Hall is a trombonist-composer-arranger who came to Fort Worth via Brooklyn a year and a half ago. Since then, he's been a stay-at-home dad, flying out of town to play occasional salsa and jazz gigs, his local musical activity limited to jamming at the Scat Jazz Lounge or Grackle Art Gallery (with the exception of a performance of the material from his freebopish 2018 album Lattice for an event at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center).

He's been thinking about and writing music the whole time, though, and meeting collaborators  like electronic musician Jean-Luc Vila (another stay-at-home dad) and fellow trombonist Amanda Kana (whom he met doing an Easter gig -- "the only day when every trombonist has a gig"). "Counterpoint -- Music for Trombone and Electronics" at the Grackle last night was an opportunity to hear some of the ideas Hall has been working on, with a program ranging from baroque to modern and experimental, presented in reverse historical order.

The evening opened with a spontaneous composition that featured the backward-echoed sounds of Hall's trombone over a field recording of wind chimes (electronically manipulated by Vila). Hall played Augusta Read Thomas' Spring Song, originally composed for the cello, using a harmonizer to create the effect of double-stops with the trombone's "single column of air." Seth Shafer's Pulsar was written for trombone and computer, and featured vignettes for four different types of delay. Kana joined Hall to duet on selections from Bartok's collection of modernist piano pieces, Mikrokosmos, and Bach's two part inventions, with each trombonist playing one hand's part.

The different examples of two interacting melodies were thoughtful and engaging, with Hall's personable comments serving as introduction and transition. At different points, I was reminded of  Stravinsky's Firebird, George Lewis' pioneering trombone-computer experiments, and Dave Dove placing the bell of his 'bone near the floor of the Firehouse Gallery to make the house's foundation a resonating chamber. I left with a copy of Hall's 2013 CD Soon We Shall Not Be Here, a collection of art-song settings of poems by New York City poets. In February, Hall's Lattice collaborator, flutist Jamie Baum, will visit the DFW area for a series of performances of that material. We can't wait to hear.