Denton, 3.27.2024

Another edition of Molten Plains at Rubber Gloves. Rolled up after a stop at Recycled Books to find a bar full of bass players with UNT connections: Denton stalwart Drew Phelps; Matthew Frerck from the evening's bill-toppers Trio Glossia; North Texas legend Lynn Seaton (whose son Aubrey runs sound for Molten Plains); and Tom Blancarte, UNT alum now living in Copenhagen and touring with the quartet Tactical Maybe (also on the evening's bill).

I'd been wanting to see Bitches Set Traps for awhile; I'd seen Elizabeth McNutt and Kourtney Newton duet at a house show, but this was my first opportunity to see them doing their feminist improv/performance art thing with Sarah Ruth Alexander (who'd told me beforehand, "It's different every time"). Their set was built around an original piece, "Meditation on Genius," which Alexander introduced as "a guided meditation. Think of five geniuses...and if none of them are women, why not?" The rest of the program included works by several exemplars. 

Following the ceremonial downing of tequila shots, they opened with "We Are Together Because" by Pauline Oliveros (a touchstone of creative music in Texas), in which they enumerated reasons for their collaboration -- including the fact that prior to playing together, none of them had played in an all-woman improv ensemble. They followed with an adaptation of a piece by Hildegard von Bingen, the German nun and polymath from the Middle Ages. 

Alison Knowles' "Piece for Any Number of Vocalists" featured three contrasting/competing melodies: Alexander sang a mellifluous melody that I couldn't recognize, Newton essayed a sidelong "Jesus Loves Me" (the unwanted earworm of the night), and McNutt gave a reading of Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun." Next up was Yoko Ono's "Fly Piece," including some Ono-esque vocalizing from Alexander, and Mieko Shiomi's "Air Event," which involved blowing up balloons. The closer, Bongwater's "What If?," was suitably lyrical and elegiac. 

I dug the "Timeless Bitches"' multi-instrumentalism -- Newton played musical saw as well as cello, McNutt theremin and small instruments as well as flute -- and the balance they struck between Alexander's electronics and the acoustic instruments. Sound tech Aubrey Seaton gets a great sound from nuanced music in a room that would seem more suited to loud rockaroll.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get a good photo of Chicago-based guitarist Daniel Wyche, who performed the title track from his 2021 LP Earthwork. using a Fender Strat, bi-amp system, array of pedals, a wooden box (with contact mic attached) and a set of tuning forks, Wyche created a hypnotically spacious looped soundscape based on an Emaj7 chord. The occasional glitch (a tuning fork that wouldn't ring properly when struck, an odd discordant note) gave his set a more organic feel than a lot of looped guitar presentations one hears that could almost be machine-generated. 

I first heard Tactical Maybe bassist Tom Blancarte in 2009 on a disc by Seabrook Power Plant, a wild and wooly banjo-fronted power trio with Brandon Seabrook. His current group includes his wife, Louise Dam Eckhart Jensen, on alto and flute; Nana Pi Aabo-Kim on tenor; and Halym Aabo-Kim on drums. (At the beginning of their set, Blancarte noted the presence of his and Eckhart Jensen's children, asleep on a pew; at one point, she put down her horn and left the stage when one of them looked like she might awaken.) 

If Denmark seems an unlikely place for a free jazz outfit to originate, it's worth remembering that Copenhagen is where Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor found their voices, and Eric Dolphy famously concertized. Evidently, that spirit remains in the city's DNA. Nana Pi is known for her conductions (using her music sign language "Extemporize"), and leads the excellent band Nezelhorns (a couple of whose CDs I picked up from her post-show, along with Tactical Maybe's self-titled debut from 2022).

Their set was like a series of conversations that ebbed and flowed, sharing timbral space and blending their sounds seamlessly. Both reed players made expert use of multiphonics and extended techniques. For much of the set, Nana Pi played her tenor with a mute in the bell, and toward the end, she replaced the neck of her horn with a length of plastic tubing with a mouthpiece on the end. Blancarte played a small, amplified instrument that had the richness of a full-sized bass. Halym played with admirable restraint. When Blancarte started tapping on the face of his instrument, it was hard to tell who was playing what. All in all, the best kind of musical telepathy.

Last up was Trio Glossia, the current project of vibraphonist-drummer extraordinaire Stefan Gonzalez (Yells At Eels, Dennis Gonzalez Legacy Band), just returned from a run of shows in Texas and Louisiana and blazing with explosive energy, augmented by Stefan's long-time collaborator, guitarist Jonathan Horne (The Young Mothers, last seen here with Axis Maior Palindrome). Gonzalez, the aforementioned bassist Matthew Frerck, and drummer-tenor saxophonist Joshua Miller are noticeably more comfortable inhabiting their material and playing off each other than they were when I last saw them, wa-a-ay back in December. 

This night's performance was a thrilling exorcism, from alpha to omega. Stefan's a player of unmatched physicality, whether playing tuned percussion or the trap set. Over the past 20-plus years, his punk-rock ferocity has seamlessly merged with his free jazz aesthetic. Watching the nonverbals between him and Horne -- a collaborator for 15 years -- you could see them stoking each other's fire. Horne plays freeblow guitar like Sonny Sharrock was the only other guitarist who ever existed, restlessly riding his pedals and sending his fingers flying up and down the neck, but always moderating his volume so he's part of the ensemble, not overwhelming it.

The presence of so many other great bassists in the house must have spurred Frerck, a schooled and thoughtful musician, to play with wild abandon. He bowed up a storm (including once on a walking line), tore into his strings on his pizzicato solos, and agilely responded to the action around him. Joshua Miller was the real spark plug behind tonight's set. On drums, he got into Roy Haynes territory with his tasteful but propulsive brushwork, beaming with joy as the maelstrom kicked off around him. On tenor, he provided the trio's strongest link with tradition (notably, Pharaoh Sanders' Tauhid was playing on the house music while Trio Glossia set up). Near the end of the set, transported by the moment, he tried to wave his bandmates off, then tapped Frerck to stop him before yelling "GO!" to Gonzalez, to end the piece in a fiery crescendo. (Later, Gonzalez teasingly asked him, "Why you angry, man?")

Drew Phelps, who'd been in Austin the previous night catching Myra Melford's Fire and Water Quintet, compared Trio Glossia's compositions with Melford's exemplary small group orchestration. As I was walking out, I heard the bass eminence remark, "These guys could hang with the New York cats." No argument here. Stefan says they want to write new material and record an album by June. All I ever need is something to look forward to.