Oak Cliff, 8.25.2024

It's not every year you get to experience a total wish fulfillment gig, and this year, I've had two -- second Dennis Gonzalez Legacy Band show at Texas Theater, and last night's meeting of Max Kutner's Partial Custody and Trio Glossia with Jonathan F. Horne at The Wild Detectives. Two bands of master improvisers, playing well crafted compositions to a big (for the venue) and enthusiastic audience. My buddy Darrin Kobetich (whose banjo Max borrowed for one tune) and Austin muso Lacey Lewis posted some video on Facebook, but other than that, it wasn't documented that I am aware, so if you weren't in the room, you missed it. 

Trio Glossia -- Stefan Gonzalez on vibraphone and drums, Matthew Frerck on bass, and Joshua Miller on drums and tenor sax -- is my favorite band o' the moment, and their record, which you'll be able to buy in 2025, will undoubtedly be a top spin of mine next year. (I wrote liner notes, so I got to hear the mixes as soon as Aubrey Seaton finished them. How fortunate am I.) Now they're going from strength to strength as they get more comfortable with the pieces and have started reimagining them in live performance. 

The addition of Stefan's longtime collaborator Jonathan F. Horne on guitar -- fresh from dueting with Gregg Prickett at Full City Rooster the night before -- gave them an even higher level of energy and intensity as he tore into the tunes and soloed like a whole nest of angry hornets. Opening with Stefan's "Shedding Tongues," with its memorable theme and multiple tempo shifts, they continued with "Ode to Swamp Thing," with Horne joining in its gorgeous unisons, and Frerck's "Zoomorphology," inspired by a Henry Threadgill seminar at Oberlin, with Miller speaking in tongues through his tenor. Frerck was as virtuosic and expressive as he always is, after TWD's Ernesto Monteil had to intervene to quiet a barfly who seemed determined to tell the entire city his life story. Some people. But no matter, Trio Glossia and Mr. Horne still burned and soared.

The unenviable task of following them fell to Partial Custody, who proved themselves more than equal to the challenge. Max Kutner (Grandmothers of Invention, Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, Oingo Boingo Original Members) is a brilliant composer as well as a fiery, inventive guitarist, who combines stellar chops with a penchant for the sound of surprise. Ben Stapp is an improvising tubist in the grand tradition of Howard Johnson, Bob Stewart, and Joe Daley, playing fleetly fluid lines and holding down the bottom end on the big horn. James Paul Nadien is a mainstay of the Brooklyn free improv scene and currently mans the drum chair in Weasel Walter's Flying Luttenbachers. Not only can he play inside and outside time, but he occasionally seems to bend it to his will, and propels the music into unknown territories. Their self-titled album on Orenda is one of my favorites of this year. 

Their set opened with the loose-limbed second line funk of "Exaggeration Holmes," which grew heavier and morphed into something resembling the Meters jamming with Gentle Giant (with Nadien on glockenspiel, borrowed from Stefan Gonzalez's niece Issy) and thence into an arcing, achingly mixolydian ride from Kutner that sounded like every good note Frank Zappa played in the '80s, then back into more tortuously tight ensemble play. Max played the pointillistic study "Going" on my buddy Darrin's banjo, which gave it a more rustic sound than the recorded version as it followed a veritable Appalachian Trail of melody. Another set highlight was a crushing version of Brian Eno's obscure late period work "Bone Jump" (from 2010's Small Craft On A Milk Sea), with Stapp using some extended techniques on tuba. 

In sum, the New York boys brought it, and Stefan Gonzalez later expressed a desire to tour Trio Glossia with them -- it should happen. Today, Partial Custody heads for Houston, where they'll be at 1810 Ojeman tonight and Khon's tomorrow night. The last time I was this high from witnessing a show, I got shitcanned from my straight and didn't even care (for a couple of weeks, at least). Mileage varies, but if you're in H-Town, you owe it to yourself. Or you can use the Bandcamp link below to experience it in the privacy of your own home. 

Dallas, 8.24.2024

Gregg Prickett and Jonathan F. Horne are two of my favorite guitar slingers on Earth, so the opportunity to see them duet for only the second time at Full City Rooster in The Cedars was too good to pass up. Jonathan had started the day in San Antonio and been up for 32 hours when they hit (aided by Full City's good coffee). He's in the area for a couple of shows -- he joins Trio Glossia at The Wild Detectives tonight, opening for Max Kutner's Partial Custody from NYC. Then he heads back to Norway (where he left his main Mosrite axe) for jazz gigs with groups led by Ingebrigt Haker Flaten and Paal Nilssen Love, rock gigs with a new band he's formed there, and touring with Haker Flaten's Exit (Knarr) and droney Austin rockers Water Damage. Busy guy.

Prickett, of Decoding Society/Unconscious Collective/Monks of Saturnalia fame, and Horne have known each other for 15 years, but only performed together for the first time last December. They are very different players, but like minded enough to blend their sounds without discussion or pre-planning, listening and responding to each other in the moment with near-telepathic automaticity. Gregg's classical facility and fretboard mastery allow him to produce the maximum number of notes possible from any position on the neck, and he uses a minimal setup, with delay and volume pedals, along with the echo unit that's affixed to his Strat-style instrument (with classical-width neck), to create an expressive sonic signature. Jonathan takes more chances than any guitarist I know and his approach is reminiscent of prepared guitar specialist Sandy Ewen, with whom he first played free improv a couple of decades ago. His stage trip is marked by a nervous energy that translates into enthusiasm and restless activity, which might just mean, as he says, that "I care a lot."

Prickett opened the evening with a reading from a Japanese anime in memory of a recently departed musician friend. (Paul Quigg, who plays in Sawtooth Dolls with Gregg, was on hand to record and photograph the proceedings.) The two shifted between electric and acoustic steel-string axes, with Jonathan playing a vintage 1939 Martin and a Fender Bass VI along with the Mosrite he played as a teenager. The sounds they produced included shimmering cascades of arpeggios, staccato percussive bursts, Ivesian indeterminacy, mutant blues and bluegrass, and snatches of slide (from Prickett) and bowed guitar (from Horne). The audience of about 20 folks -- a good crowd for a small room -- listened attentively and responded enthusiastically. (And kudos to Michael and Full City for having voter registration forms available at the counter; Michael says folks have been using them, too.) Gregg will be back in Fort Worth at the Grackle Art Gallery on September 7, in a duo with bass master Drew Phelps. I plan to be there; you too?

Patricia Brennan's "Breaking Stretch"

It's been two years now since producer David Breskin first dropped Mexican-born vibraphonist-marimbist-composer Patricia Brennan's name in my ear. Since then, she's released an album of solo vibraphone and marimba performances (Maquishti) and another (More Touch) for Pyroclastic that featured Brennan at the helm of a percussion ensemble -- with Kim Cass on bass, Marcus Gilmore on drums, and Mauricio Herrera on hand percussion -- that drew upon jazz, contemporary classical, Afro-Caribbean, and Mexican influences. On September 6, Pyroclastic will release Brennan's latest, Breaking Stretch, and it's a boldly extroverted piece of work. 

On Breaking Stretch, Brennan expands her sonic palette with the addition of a three-horn front line -- Jon Irabagon on alto and sopranino, Mark Shim on tenor, and Adam O'Farrill on trumpet and electronics -- to her quartet. The album's release also marks 20 years since Brennan left her native Veracruz for the United States, and the writing here is marked by a concern with roots, identity, and testing limits -- which is  highlighted by echoes of early salsa, funk, and rock inspirations like the Fania All-Stars, Earth, Wind & Fire, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Chicago. Brennan uses the extremes of the instruments' ranges to give the impression of a larger group.

Opener "Los Otros Yo (The Other Selves)" works off the tension between parallel melodies that unfold at different rates. The title track begins in a dreamlike space where drifting horn lines first clash, then coalesce into waves of rhythm, setting up solos by the horns, and a final melodic convergence. "Palo de Oros (Suit of Coins)" opens with an extended bass solo, giving way to a swirling array of asynchronous rhythms, the horns' regularity contrasting with Herrera's wildly careening hand drums. In "Suenos de Coral Azul (Blue Coral Dreams)," Brennan depicts her immigrant's journey, fraught with conflicting emotions, the wistful horns and percolating percussion setting the stage for an episode that finds Brennan back in her "early electric Chick and Herbie" bag. 

The turbulent "Five Suns," inspired by an Aztec vision of cyclical creation and destruction, puts me in mind of Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Almanac of the Dead, with its army of Native people marching to reclaim their stolen land. The quietly reflective "Mudanza (States of Change)," inspired by Salvador Diaz Miron's poem of the same name, begins with a pensive marimba solo before the ensemble enters with severe, resonant harmonies. "Manufacturers Trust Company Building" is a delirious slab of salsa, inspired by a multifaceted Harry Bertoia sculpture that resides in front of the eponymous Manhattan structure. (Breaking Stretch producer Breskin's a huge Bertoia fan, who curated a series of concerts in conjunction with the Nasher Sculpture Center's Bertoia retrospective back in 2022.) 

The album closes with "Earendel," a darkly atmospheric piece named for the oldest and most distant star yet discovered, reflecting Brennan's penchant for astronomy. Patricia Brennan's musical universe continues to expand. Breaking Stretch is an intriguing way station on the voyage.

Denton, 8.21.2024

For the latest edition of Molten Plains at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, we welcomed back co-curator Ernesto Montiel (from visiting family in his native Venezuela on the eve of the contested election, the ultimate outcome of which still hangs in suspense), while we enjoyed the diminished levels of free floating anxiety in our domestic political scene, buoyed by the energy from the Democratic convention the last couple of nights (I only read the highlights, unlike some friends that have been glued to the screen since Monday, but I'm glad it's happening).

Last month I got to play participant-observer as part of the Improv Lotto, and this month I got to witness a performance by a comrade from days gone by, dancer-choreographer-educator Sarah Gamblin, Professor of Dance at Texas Women's University. Sarah's appeared at a couple of Molten Plains in the past. Back around 2010, I was in an experimental improv outfit, HIO, that accompanied contact improv dance jams with some of her MFA students who made up Big Rig Dance Collective (whose former members are now on the faculties of UTA, UNT, and TCU), and we also performed with Sarah at the 2011 Houston Fringe Festival. But this was my first opportunity to see her dance solo without being encumbered by having to play.

On this occasion, she was accompanied by Andrew Dunlap on upright bass, a frequent Molten Plains performer who's also a member of jazz-funk outfit Captain Moon and the Silver Spoons with Rubber Gloves sound tech extraordinaire Aubrey Seaton. While I've heard Andrew before in a number of contexts, this was my first time hearing him playing without other musicians, and I was able to fully enjoy the deep sound of his instrument and the thoughtful, lyrical counterpoint he provided to Sarah's body movement.

As an improviser, Sarah is intelligent, body positive, and fearless, and she excels at engaging with her accompanists. I asked her what her concept was for this evening's performance and she said while they had no prepared score, they'd talked about being inscrutable, allowing patterns to happen, and maintaining visual contact. Each movement, she said, creates a problem to be solved, and it was fascinating to observe her thought process in motion, in real time. In this instance, I think video can do a much better job of conveying what went down than my meager description. 

Heavy Stars is the performing rubric for Austin-based vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Lacey Lewis, whose vibraphone anchored one of the trios at last month's Improv Lotto. For her set this evening, she used simple elements -- synthesizer, samples from field recordings, loops of skeletal beats or melodic fragments -- to create hypnotic sound beds, over which she added the sound of her voice, echoed, sampled and looped. The result was a kind of spacey folk music -- a worthy soundtrack for metaphysical ruminations. 

Last set was by the first-time duo of guitarist Michael Meadows and sound artist Chad Mossholder. Meadows plays a lefthanded Jazzmaster through a small Fender amp with an array of effects, using a bright, biting tone, laden with reverb, that recalls Syd Barrett's lysergic explorations as well as the MC5 blasting off with Sun Ra's "Starship," and enables him to manipulate feedback at relatively low volume. Mossholder, who's performed worldwide under the rubric Twine and worked as a composer and sound designer for video games, created an acoustical environment that ranged from what sounded like Extreme Close Up insects eating to jarring seismic shifts under Meadows' guitar skree. The collision of their contrasting sound worlds produced some connections, and was a bold and bracing finish to the evening.

Next Molten Plains will be September 18. The October edition will be late (the 30th, rather than mid-month), and the Fest in December is planned for the 14th and possibly the 15th. Tonight I'll be taking my wife to dinner at Nova in Oak Cliff with the proceeds from selling our VHS collection to Rubber Gloves, after which we'll take in Requiem for the Troposphere featuring pianist Thiago Nascimento with visuals by Lightware Labs at the Kessler Theater. I'll be back in Dallas Saturday to hear guitarists Gregg Prickett and Jonathan F. Horne duet at Full City Rooster, then again Sunday to hear Jonathan and Trio Glossia open for Max Kutner's Partial Custody at The Wild Detectives. It's a great life if you don't weaken.

Wendy Eisenberg's "Viewfinder"

Writing record reviews can be excruciating, but once in awhile, a piece of work comes along that's so engaging that I know I'm going to be spending a lot of time with it, and so I want to get out of the way as quickly as I can the part of my relationship with it where I have to listen analytically. Wendy Eisenberg's Viewfinder -- which arrived unexpectedly yesterday, although I wasn't expecting it until mid-September -- is one such recording.

The Brooklyn-based guitarist-singer-composer has been working on this "song cycle for improvisers" (originally titled Eye Music) for a couple of years, inspired by the Lasik surgery she underwent in 2021, facilitated by a 2022 commission and 2023 residency at Roulette Intermedium. Her concern here is "[that] strange, faintly colonial relationship between seeing something and thinking you understand it, believing that you own it, in a way, because you can see it."

To these feedback-scorched ears, after the first couple of spins, Viewfinder seems to be a step forward for Eisenberg on all fronts. It's the largest ensemble she's recorded with to date: a septet including another chordal instrument (Andrew Links' piano) and a two-horn front line; all the musicians except Eisenberg and the bassist (Carmen Q. Rothwell on the live-recorded "After Image," Tyrone Allen II everywhere else) play electronics as well as their primary instruments. I'll admit to having a particular affinity for trombones (hat tip to TSgt Shabazz from the bomb dump, Big Marcus Brunt, Patrick Crossland, and James Hall), but Zekereyya el-Magharbel is a particularly strong asset here, as is trumpeter Chris Williams. The wider sonic palette adds new depth and dimension to Eisenberg's songs.

Two of Eisenberg's musical signatures have been the vulnerability of her voice and the elegance of her guitar technique, even when playing noisy free improv at volume. On Viewfinder, Michael Coleman's recording (mixed by longtime Eisenberg collaborator Nick Zanca, mastered by Denton's own Andrew Weathers) captures the tactile immediacy of Eisenberg's sound in higher resolution than any of her other recordings to date. What one hears is a new strength and confidence in her voice -- as in the acapella openings to "Set A Course" and "If An Artist," or the album closing "In the Pines" (no, not the Leadbelly tune Cobain covered, but a candidate to replace Auto's "Give It A Year" as my favorite Eisenberg song), where she dares to explore the low end of her vocal range.

As a guitarist, Eisenberg has always exemplified the antithesis of jazz-school music as athletic event. She's technically adept, but always in service of expression. On the aforementioned "Set A Course," her solo, spiked with edgy dissonance, builds slowly to an intensity, then overlaps with Williams' trumpet ride over Booker Stardrum's thunderous percussive power. The result is a complexity that doesn't feel overly busy. 

On "If An Artist," a dissonant bossa nova gives way to electronic hyperspace, while the title track boasts a hypnotic distorted guitar riff (following a pensive intro that features wordless vocals with trumpet and electronics). "In the Pines" opens with a gorgeous, Charlie Haden-esque bass solo from Allen before Eisenberg ventures as close to a blues as she's ever come (still skirting Leadbelly). When she deadpans "I'm charred to the core by the vastness of my anger," you get the feeling she means it. Like a good European film, the song ends without resolving, which incites the attentive listener to start over again from Side A. You all go ahead on; I'll be here for awhile.

Things we like: Ivo Perelman

It would be difficult to imagine an artist more prolific than Brazilian saxophonist Ivo Perelman -- perhaps Matthew Shipp, Damon Smith, or David Murray in his heyday, but that's the league. By his own count, Perelman has 13 discs out on various labels this year alone. I've been digging Truth Seeker on upstart Polish indie Fundacja Sluchaj! (trio with Mark Helias and Tom Rainey) and Magical Incantation on Soul City Sounds (duo with the aforementioned Matthew Shipp). Three that just dropped in August present quite an embarrassment of riches.

Joy, with violinist Gabby Fluke-Mogul, is the second volume in Perelman's Duologues series for his own Ibeji label (sadly not Bandcamp available, only on Spotify). Fluke-Mogul is an adventurous improviser who uses percussive bowing, staccato double-stops, and sweeping glisses to achieve some of the effects free jazz saxophones are known for; at times, on Joy, it's hard to tell where they stop and where Perelman begins as the two blend their musical languages.

On Vox Popoli, Vox Dei, released on Mahakala, Czech violinist-vocalist Iva Bittova's vocalese mirrors Perelman's scalar gymnastics and multiphonics in uncanny ways, then stakes out melodic territory of its own, demonstrating her remarkable range and control. (Bittova appeared in the Fred Frith documentary Step Across the Border.) Perelman's a master of dynamics as well as pure power, which makes these intimate encounters endlessly interesting. Longtime Matthew Shipp Trio bassist Michael Bisio provides the solid support for which he's known, and a third melodic voice with his deft arco work. The third track pulls out all the stops, with the gypsy tinge in Bittova's violin clearly audible and her vocalisms at their most irrepressible.

Lastly, Messa di voce, also on Mahakala, features another vocalist, Fay Victor (recently heard on Miles Okazaki's Miniature America), New England improv eminence Joe Morris on bass, and Ramon Lopez on drums, also for Mahakala. In this context, Victor's mellifluous voice is like another instrument, weaving a contrasting melodic line around Perelman's glossolalia and over the bustling rhythm section. At other times, Perelman and Morris (using his bow) emulate Victor's vocalese. Everyone involved is a master of their craft, including recording engineer extraordinaire Jim Clouse, who recorded, mixed, and mastered the session, as he's done for much of Perelman's catalog. Clouse has been crucial to the documentation of creative music in NYC.

Perelman still has two more albums due out in October: Polarity 3 with Nate Wooley on Burning Ambulance, and Duologues 3: Crystal Clear with Ingrid Laubrock on Ibeji. Stay tuned...

Dallas, 8.8.2024

Our first time at Full City Rooster, a congenial coffee roaster and intimate music venue located in Dallas' oldest neighborhood, The Cedars, just down the street from the Longhorn Ballroom. It's a good sounding room, well suited to the requirements of acoustic or lightly amplified instruments. 

I was stoked to hear Trio Glossia after writing liner notes for the album they recorded at the end of June. Their set consisted of four selections from the album -- "Shedding Tongues," "Arcane's Dance," "Ode to Swamp Thing," and "Zoomorphology" -- and highlighted the band's signature strengths: an ability to write catchy, memorable tunes, which they reinvent with each performance; a joyously exuberant energy; and the flexibility that comes from having two distinctive lead voices in Stefan Gonzalez's vibraphone and Joshua Miller's tenor, as well as two aggressively swinging drummers (the same two musicians). Bassist Matthew Frerck is a dazzling virtuoso who pushed the band to compose material rather than sticking to the free improvisation they started out with. I will take any opportunity to see this band. If you haven't, and dig excitingly visceral creative music, you owe it to yourself.

This was our second night in a row seeing the duo of Houston multi-reedist Danny Kamins on sopranino and Polish bassist Marcin Bozek. They took advantage of the room sound to play a set of varied dynamics. The music they make together is a blend of virtuosity, quick thinking, deep listening, and an extreme close-up view of the physicality of instrumental play -- the raw sounds of breath and friction. Kamins is a master of multiphonics, circular breathing, and extended techniques, but even when he removes the mouthpiece from his horn and mutes it with his thigh, the sounds he produces are eminently musical. Bozek's five-string bass guitar has an unusually bright tone, and he uses every imaginable attack (no pedals!) to generate sounds that can be rhythmic and propulsive or spectral and haunting. These spontaneous composers were so in tune with each other that at times, they even phrased together. They'll record in Arkansas this weekend; looking forward to hearing the results. After that, they'll continue their tour with dates in Fayetteville, AR; St Louis; Bloomington, IN; and three shows in Chicago. Hoping they come through DFW again sooner than later.

Meanwhile, guitarists Gregg Prickett and Jonathan F. Horne will be playing Full City Rooster as a duo on August 24. All I ever need is something to look forward to.

Fort Worth, 8.7.2024

Our first time at the Grackle Art Gallery in a minute to hear three sets of improvised wonderment featuring folks from near and far. Despite the brutal heat, it was a well attended evening, and I was pleasantly surprised to see some Oak Cliff folks in the house.

Vocalist extraordinaire Lily Taylor made her Grackle debut, performing songs from her excellent Amphora LP and workshopping some new material that she'll record soon. Using an array of electronic devices along with her stunning vocal control and expert microphone technique, she layered sound beds that she extemporized over to hypnotic effect. An entrancing sonic experience.

Stefan Gonzalez admitted beforehand that he hadn't played vibraphone since Trio Glossia recorded their forthcoming album at the end of June, and since then, he'd been playing noisy rock with Heavy Baby Sea Slugs. You'd never have known from his solo vibraphone set, which showcased his growing virtuosity on mallet percussion, as well as his increasingly compositional focus. Stefan's always been a viscerally exciting performer, whether on mallets or behind a trap set, but what stuck with me about this evening's performance was the way his improvisation sounded like a finished piece.

Last set was by the touring duo of Polish bassist Marcin Bozek and Houston multi-reedist Danny Kamins -- on sopranino for this occasion -- who recently completed a five-city tour of Poland and are now embarked on a two-week tour of the US, which started the previous night at Khon's in Houston, where they were joined by Austin percussionist Lisa Cameron, and will finish with three dates in Chicago, with other stops including a recording session in Arkansas. 

Bozek plays a five-string semihollow bass guitar, playing fast lines like Joe Morris on guitar and using every sound he can generate -- plucked harmonics, tapping on the instrument's body, the scraping sounds of fingers and palms on roundwound strings, a French horn mouthpiece, and even his voice -- to create an active, organic soundscape. I'd previously only heard Kamins live in a large ensemble (Dennis Gonzalez Legacy Band) or an electric band (El Mantis), so it was refreshing to hear his sound pristine in a small space. He uses circular breathing to move a big column of air and propel a seemingly endless stream of melodic ideas, at times using extended techniques to produce earthier sounds. A captivating dialogue that suspended time.

Tonight, Bozek and Kamins will be at Full City Rooster in Dallas, with Trio Glossia opening. If you're in Big D, get you some of this.