FTW, 8.28.2023

Hot on the heels of Friday's Joe McPhee extravaganza at The Wild Detectives comes a world-beater of a triple-header right up the street from mi casa at the Grackle Art Gallery. Leading off were Sawtooth Dolls, the electric guitar duo of Oak Cliff denizens Paul Quigg (ex-Vibrolux, Nervebreakers, Superman's Girlfriend) and Gregg Prickett (Monks of Saturnalia, Unconscious Collective, Decoding Society). 

The agreeable collision of their styles -- Quigg's fingerstyle country/blues plus atonality and electronic shapeshifting, juxtaposed with Prickett's combination of classical chops with metallic proclivities -- created a head-spinning aural action painting that transfixed the early-evening audience. Prickett will be back at the Grackle on September 15 with Denton bass stalwart Drew Phelps. Can't wait. [ADDENDUM: September 15 show is a non-starter. Have to wait longer.]

Next up was the duo of Houston-based trombonist Dave Dove and French cellist Nour, performing a meditative set that reminded me of focusing on one's own breath; stillness and attention are required for such deep listening, and the house helpfully turned off the air conditioner and opened the door to facilitate such. (It helped that the temperature had dropped a few degrees from the previous couple of months' swelter.) 

Dave's the director of Nameless Sound, Houston's locus of creative music performance and education, and he previously visited our city (with bassist Sonia Flores and saxophonist Jason Jackson) back in 2009 for the opening of the late, lamented Firehouse Gallery. I still carry the memory of Dave pointing the bell of his horn at the Firehouse's pier-and-beam floor and making the whole house a resonating chamber. At the Grackle, the dynamic level was more subtle, highlighted by his use of various mutes and vocalization.

Last but not least was a trio that brought together L.A.-based cornetist-violinist Dan Clucas with Oak Cliff siblings Aaron Gonzalez (bass) and Stefan Gonzalez (drums). Clucas is in the middle of a whirlwind tour, encompassing nine shows, three recording sessions, and a radio appearance (tonight from 8-10pm on KUZU 92.9FM's Tiger D show). Stefan just spent the weekend performing with Joe McPhee in Dallas and Austin, while this evening's performance marked Aaron's return to performing after a two-month hiatus to undergo surgery to repair a ruptured disc.

The Gonzalezes have been playing together for so long, in different contexts (the thrash metal duo Akkolyte, free jazz trio Yells At Eels with their late father Dennis -- whose image on a sticker adorns Stefan's rack tom -- and metallic jazz trio Unconscious Collective with Prickett), that they communicate onstage like two hemispheres of a single brain. Clucas -- who's worked with heavyweights like Joe Baiza's Universal Congress Of, Vinny Golia, and Jeb Bishop -- is an agile improviser on both of his axes, a masterful manipulator of mutes, and a versatile voyager who can blend his sound with anyone. He'll be at The Wild Detectives in Oak Cliff Wednesday night, mixing it up with electro-acoustic improvisers Monte Espina and Sarah Ruth Alexander. Grackle music director Kavin Allenson opens in his solo-guitar-with-loops incarnation as Breaking Light.