FTW, 3.1.2024

Winding up a great week of live music at my favorite hometown spot, just up the street from mi casa. Jonathan Horne and Joshua Thomson were performing music from their new cassette release Clandestine Flower -- recorded in an industrial tank in Lockhart -- in public for the first time. They couldn't have picked a better venue than the Grackle Art Gallery, a 1920s house with a pier and beam foundation and hardwood floors that make it very acoustically live.

While the previous night at Oak Cliff's The Wild Detectives with Stefan Gonzalez on drums had been a free jazz exorcism, this was a more contemplative occasion, although still relying on improvisation and achieving peaks of intensity. On alto, Detroit native Thomson brought a broad expressive palate and eclectic influences to the city of Ornette and Julius Hemphill. The themes underlying the music on Clandestine Flower have to do with connections between people, compassion, and the ongoing alienation many feel as a result of the pandemic. In his introduction to "Bombarded," Thomson said the piece had been composed on the day Israel invaded Gaza -- in 2021, a reminder that today's catastrophes have recent precursors.

Horne demonstrated that an electric guitarist can project powerfully without relying on excessive loudness; the volume of his Fender Princeton was well modulated to the needs of the room, and provided great clarity and definition, even when using multiple effects and extended techniques. Horne was able to dig in more on his new Fender Bass VI than he had the previous night, and the concluding piece had him playing a mutant bluegrass breakdown on his signature Mosrite. He'll be back in the area on March 27, augmenting Stefan Gonzalez's new band Trio Glossia at Rubber Gloves.

Opening set featured Grackle favorite Darrin Kobetich along with his RageOut Arkestra bandmate Eddie Dunlap and his Yucca Men co-conspirator Mark Hyde, digging deep into their Near Eastern bag. After starting the set on cumbus, Kobetich had to step out briefly to address some tuning issues with his oud, leaving Hyde to carry the melodic load on his homemade electric baglama. The volume differential between the baglama and oud (the latter played through a cardiod mic) made it hard to hear Kobetich for much of the set. Dunlap is the most subtle and tasteful of percussionists on hand drums, and he applied some of those techniques to his trap set. I would love to hear this ensemble completely unplugged, with Eddie on hand drums. The musicians involved are all smart, sharp players who aren't reliant on electronics for their impact, and the Grackle's room acoustics would support it.