Things we like: Moon Ha, Amorsima Trio

I'm an old school listener, which means I'm still geeked on The Romance of the Artifact. That said, in our post-Covid techno-world, I've learned to write record reviews from digital downloads and view concerts via livestreams. While I miss the immediacy of analog warmth and the intimacy of being in the room, I'll take my musical kicks where I find 'em. So I'm writing this piece based on listening to a download and viewing a livestream.

By his own admission (in the liner notes to the new album String Works), the New York-based composer-musical technologist Moon Ha is a frustrated violinist who remains fascinated by the sounds of strings. String Works, released last November on Stradivarius, contains pieces he composed between 2011 and 2023 for string octet, quartet, trio, duo, and solo (with electronics). Opener Illusive, the earliest work here, combines the forces of the JACK Quartet and Mivos Quartet. To these feedback scorched ears, it conjures images of raindrops falling, icicles forming, and descending shafts of light. It's followed by "Until That Time May Come...," played by the Momenta Quartet, which uses arcing and collapsing harmonics against an ascending pizzicato figure to evoke an awakening Earth. 

Now to the real reason I'm here: The last three tracks on String Works are performed by Amorsima Trio, in whole or in part. Violinist Mia Detwiler, cellist Kourtney Newton, and violist Mike Capone got together during graduate studies at the University of North Texas, performing in the new music-focused Nova Ensemble under Elizabeth McNutt's direction. They formed Amorsima in 2016 with an eye towards performing music by living composers, and expanding the string trio repertoire by commissioning new works. All three of them have performed at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth as part of the Sounds Modern series that McNutt directs, and Newton is a regular on the improvised music scene in Denton, including the feminist improv trio Bitches Set Traps (with McNutt and Sarah Ruth Alexander). 

On Moon Ha's Artless Beauty in Pursuit of Theory, Op. 2, they explore texture and timbre, then play a section of almost Romantic lyricism, albeit with some very modern sounding chromaticism and false harmonics. A repeating figure that burbles like a flowing stream is interrupted by some patches of dissonance. The piece ends with gentle harmonies. On Resonance is played solo by Detwiler, who uses samples and loops, echo and delay to overlay parts, making herself sound like a complete string section. I've seen her do this live with another piece and the effect is quite stunning. Finally, Moon Ha's elegiac Artless Beauty in Pursuit of Theory, Op. 3, is played by a duo of Detwiler and Capone. 

The Moon Ha album is, thus far, the only studio recording of Amorsima I've been able to find besides a single track on composer Adam Mirza's Bandcamp-available album Partial Knowledge. The trio does have a YouTube channel documenting many more performances. They recently performed a program of six challenging pieces composed by faculty members from the University of Miami's Frost School of Music. Sadly, a planned concert of the same program in Austin had to be cancelled due to weather, but the livestream of the Miami event is archived and viewable on the Frost School's YouTube.

Shawn Crouch's Krasner Canvases consists of three vignettes, each inspired by a painting of Abstract Expressionist icon and Jackson Pollock familiar Lee Krasner. The first two, White Squares, 1948 and Milkweed, 1955, are taut, tense constructions, replete with glisses, tremeloes, and aggressive snaps of the strings. The third, Self Portrait, 1924, trembles with poignant melody. Scott Stinson's Raised By Wolves III (Music in Time of Chaos) starts tentatively, with tension building via the juxtaposition of turbulent bowing with percussive pizzicatos, emblematic of a creeping sense of dread. 

Composer Lansing McCloskey introduced his No Sugar, which includes scordatura (retuning of the instruments) and audience participation in the form of playing back sound samples on their cellphones during the second movement when cued by Detwiler. First movement No artificial sweeteners added opens with harmonized long tones which allow the listener to luxuriate in the richness of the instruments' timbres, giving way to more rhythmically complex lines and rapidly ascending scales. My favorite piece of the evening. 

The second movement, It's fine, I'm fine, everything's fine (a title reminiscent of Fred Frith's "It's Fine" with Skeleton Crew) begins in similar fashion, with Detwiler playing false harmonics as a cacophony of voices from audients' phones begins to encroach. The strings play lush harmonies as the sampled sounds of bells and chimes create a kind of music of the spheres. The piece ends with Newton breaking sheets of glass with a hammer into an aluminum tub (wearing eye protection, with a mesh screen) -- a bit of business that recalls the theatrical aspects of her work with Bitches Set Traps. Because of her onstage position, seated between her trio mates, Newton becomes the visual fulcrum of Amorsima, seeming to direct the group at times with the tilt of her head or the raising of an eyebrow.

After a brief intermission, the program resumed with Dorothy Hindman's Untitled VIII. Capone introduced the piece as a kind of Extreme Close Up view of the sonorities in an oboe solo from Beethoven. (I've often thought of the entire doom metal genre as an ECU view of a fragment from a Black Sabbath song.) If the pieces in the first part of the concert were cinematic in scope, Hindman's piece was more microscopic in its examination of sound in fine detail, with the musicians exploring all the sonic possibilities of their instruments.

For Juraj Kojs' On 386 Bows J, the musicians moved their chairs so they were seated far apart on the stage, then commenced with a furious torrent of notes, lifting their bows theatrically above their instruments, and playing spectrally minimalist long tones that recalled the serene passages from Anthony Braxton's Composition 96. Newton's solo near the end of the piece, which alternated busy passages with "floating" bow, was particularly compelling, leading into a delicately placid finish.

The concert concluded with Charles Norman Mason's Aphelocoma (named after a genus of scrub jays, as every bird watcher knows). The piece opened with a pulsing bass note over which Detwiler and Capone played chromatically gliding dissonances that gradually morphed into vibrato-laden harmonies. An episode of darkly spirited bowing and a brief recapitulation brought the piece and the concert to a close. Would that there were more opportunities to hear music like this in DFW beyond Sounds Modern's now-semiannual performances. Amorsima Trio is my new favorite group that I have yet to hear in person.

Denton, 1.21.2026

As North Texas prepares for what's predicted to be the worst winter storm since 2021's "Snowpocalypse" (when people froze to death in their homes after power failed), I toddled up to li'l d to play improv with randomly selected collaborators at Joan of Bark Presents' Improv Lotto at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios. All to benefit the worthy healthcare charity Denton Music and Arts Collaborative. Because musicians and artists need healthcare, too.

I honestly haven't been feeling the music much of late, what with the non-stop torrent of traumatic news since the first of the year. The Trump regime's wars on Venezuela, Minnesota (including the ICE assassination of Renee Good), and next, perhaps, Greenland (although the demented dodderer in the White House appears to have backed off, for now, he still insists that the US needs to buy it from Denmark -- while the rest of the world shakes its collective head, and our erstwhile allies rapidly recalibrate for a global reality without the US as a reliable partner) have got my head focused on things other than music. But I determined to somehow make a go of it, since receiving event curator Sarah Ruth Alexander's invitation to participate, and figured something would suggest itself, as it almost always does.

Improv Lotto master of ceremonies Aaron Gonzalez drew names from a hat for a quintet, a quartet, a trio, and a duo, and I found myself teamed with the great terpsichorean Sarah Gamblin (with whom I last performed as a member of HIO at the Houston Fringe Festival in 2011), multimedia artist Kristina Smith (Spiderweb Salon), and steel guitarist Joe Snow (who'd just played a songwriters contest with 19 performers). 

We had brief conversations before the first set. Joe would take stage left, I'd take stage right, and Kristina would be positioned in the middle, leaving as much stage as possible for Sarah. Kristina and I both had ICE on our minds; I'd recently replaced the "Hands Off!" button on my guitar strap with a "No ICE" one, and had my purple whistle I'd gotten from my Bridge Brigade comrade Deb Guerrero on Tuesday in my pocket. Kristina had brought some ICE-related text. Perhaps more premeditated than is usual for improv, but I figured we'd be creating in the moment, even given that intention.

The first set was by a quintet comprising guitarists Will Kapinos (Dim Locator) and Julio A. Sanchez (Heavy Baby Sea Slugs), bassoonist Victoria Donaldson, violinist Holly Manning (Chris Welch), and Sarah Ruth on voice and small instruments. They wove a web of intertwining melodies, each player coming to the fore at different times. I particularly enjoyed the sonorities of bassoon and violin, and the contrasting approaches of Sanchez (moving big slabs of sound) and Kapinos (filling in the details).

Photo by Kavin Allenson.

When it came time for our set, I plugged in my shit, set my amp volume at what I deemed a reasonable level (gain on 1, master just above 1), checked my pedals (same three I've used since I was a teenager: fuzz, wah, and phase), and waited to see what developed. Kristina used her tabletop bass and software to create an enveloping wave of sound while reading ICE stories into a heavily treated mic, while Joe ran his steel through a couple of tables' worth of F/X. I discovered early in the set that in the environment where I was, with the amp mic'ed and other ambient sounds, activating fuzz and wah together immediately produced feedback, which I attempted to use the wah to control. At intervals, I blew blasts from the whistle into the vocal mic, and made a vocal interjection during a break in Kristina's reading.

Later, Sarah Gamblin told me that the unremitting barrage of sound made it difficult for her to find a way into the piece. The brief snippet of video I've seen so far belies that; as always, she was adept at finding the flow of the music, even when it caused her distress. She did most of her moving on the floor, where I couldn't see her, but late in the piece, when she ascended to the stage to interact with the sheets of paper Kristina had discarded after reading them -- lining them up and stepping from one to the next like a child playing sidewalk games, reclining on the floor and covering herself with them as if seeking protection from the unremitting drone -- she provided a striking visual analog to ICE's assault on innocents. 

At a certain point, Sarah left the performance area, and after a moment, Joe started packing his gear. I turned my guitar volume off and stood silent and immobile for another moment, then started tearing down. Still, the drone persisted -- like the creeping sense of dread we've all been living under. Finally, Kristina shut it down, and we were done.

Third set was by a trio of Suzanne Terry on wooden xylophone and two double bassists (Double! Double! Bass! Bass!) -- the seemingly ubiquitous Ryan Williams and free jazz-improv stalwart Aaron Gonzalez. The bass tandem (with Williams running his instrument through a battery of effects, including a sampler) was unmatched in its heaviosity, and the contrast between their monolithic sound and the light, agile sound of Terry's tuned percussion was highly engaging.

The task of batting cleanup was left to the duo of vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Melanie Little Smith (Wenepa) and hand drummer Aswad Bryant. Smith began the set by announcing "I'm ready to rock," and the performance that ensued proved that it was no idle boast. Bryant attacked his drum pads like an aggressive rock drummer with a big kit, bringing arena rock dynamics to an "experimental" stage. Over the top, Smith vocalized and provided accents and counterpoint on a variety of percussion instruments and tabletop guitar. Bryant occasionally switched to a staticky, electronic sound, which only made the "natural" drum timbres more impactful when they returned. The two made eye contact as they reached agreement it was time to end, and we all heaved a collective sigh of satiety and release.

February will bring not one, but two Joan of Bark shows at Gloves. On February 2, the North Carolina-based duo Okapi will headline a card that also includes a trio of Michael Meadows, Kourtney Newton, and Luke Robinson, and solo sets by Aaron Gonzalez and Sarah Ruth. On February 11, your humble chronicler o' events will be returning with a trio featuring Darrin Kobetch and Kavin Allenson, which I have unimaginatively dubbed SDK. The rest of the bill remains TBD, but y'all save the date anyway. 

Kris Davis and the Lutoslawski Quartet's "The Solastalgia Suite"

It's long been my belief that our poor stewardship of the planet is the defining issue of our time, and we keep creating other emergencies that take our eye off the ball as Earth's habitability by us continues to diminish. Canadian-American pianist-composer Kris Davis makes such ecological dread the focus on her new album, an eight-part suite for piano and string quartet, performed with Poland's renowned Lutoslawski Quartet. The title The Solastalgia Suite comes from a term coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht to refer to "a form of homesickness while we are still at home" -- a form of "[grief] for the landscapes and ecologies we knew."

"I see the changes when I go back home to Canada," says Vancouver native Davis, and I can remember back in the '80s when the Canadian parliament was debating whether to sell glacial ice to the parched American Southwest. The glaciers are gone now, and states like mine are taxing their already overstressed water infrastructure by building AI data farms that consume millions of gallons of water. So the theme of Davis's new piece is timely and hits close to home.

While her compositional ambition hasn't been as expansive as her contemporaries Ingrid Laubrock and Mary Halvorson's, she has alternated relatively straight jazz work with her own trio and Dave Holland's quartet with more experimental ventures (the bass clarinet heavy octet Infrasound, her hip-hop adjacent work with Diatom Ribbons). Her influences include composers Luciano Berio, Olivier Messiaen, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and a commission from Poland's Jazztopad Festival provided the opportunity for this collaboration.

A jarring and turbulent "Interlude" raises the curtain with a mood of edgy unease. "An Invitation to Disappear" offers a gentler and more ruminative response, skirting despair with the barest vestiges of hope, transitioning seamlessly into "Towards No Earthly Pole," where the composer's prepared piano dialogues with spectral strings. "The Known End" opens with Stravinsky-esque slashing strings, to which Davis responds with her most fervent playing here. 

The elegiac "Ghost Reefs," inspired by Davis's compositional studies with AACM eminence Henry Threadgill, laments the passing of coral reefs destroyed by warming ocean temperatures, while the echolalic "Pressure and Yield" depicts a planet in seismic disturbance. "Life on Venus" evokes a chilly alien landscape -- but there is no Planet B. "Degrees of Separation" concluded the suite on an unsettling note, reminding us of the interconnection of all life on Earth and the importance of environmental justice to the survival of us all.

Kris Davis continues to surprise us with the scope of her art and her willingness to take on new challenges. This stunning new work speaks clearly to our historical moment, and makes a strong case for her place among the most creative musicians of her generation.

Things we like: ST 37, THC Trio, Thomson/Flaten/Cameron

It seems frivolous to be writing record reviews at this moment, but I'm phone banking for a candidate tonight or I'd be going to the demonstration in Dallas. Justice for Renee Good.

Who knew that the best preparation for living in the 21st century would have been reading lots of dystopian sci-fi in the 20th? The British sci-fi scribe J.G. Ballard, who saw the limits and perils of technology as clearly as its possibilities, is the inspiration for Ballardesque, the latest release from the long-lived (formed 1987) and prolific Austin-based psych rock combo ST 37. With a sound that combines the echo-laden mysterioso of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd and Roky Erickson's 13th Floor Elevators with layers of lysergic guitars (three, count 'em!) to rival Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company's in their prime, driven by the relentless forward motion of SL Telles' bass and ex-Roky side muso Lisa Cameron's drums, ST 37 creates a dense wall of sound over which Telles declaims Ballard's prescient visions of our own dystopian moment. The gestalt of the band's sound proposes a model of community that may be our own best hope of surviving this age of daily negative surprises.

Cameron had an extremely productive year in 2025. She also kicks the traps in THC Trio, a sterling outfit that also includes ace Austin improvisers Joshua Thomson (Atlas Maior) on alto sax and Jonathan Horne (The Young Mothers, Water Damage) on guitar and 6-string bass. Saw these three shred the night sky at The Wild Detectives in Oak Cliff last March, opening for Mike Watt's MSSV, and this eponymous cassette release on Personal Archives captures a broader spectrum of the unit's sound, from explosive opener "Dropping the Hammer" through the more ruminative explorations of "Health and Sufficiency," the cathartic crash 'n' thump of "Hollandaise for Strings," and the cavernous soundscape "Saint Helena." Horne's metallic dissonance and Sharrockian skronk collide agreeably with Thomson's piquantly poignant Ornettitiude (heard to best advantage on closing tour de force "A Barbaric Yawp"), and Cameron keeps the forward motion flowing, leaving space for her collaborators to organize their thoughts. It's a cleansing sonic bath that'll shake the cobwebs out of your synapses. THC Trio will be at Full City Rooster in Dallas on January 15. You owe it to yourself.

On the summer solstice of 2024, Thomson and Cameron teamed up with the estimable and prolific Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten (The Thing, The Young Mothers, (Exit) Knarr) to spontaneously compose a piece in front of an audience at an Austin record store. The owner dug it so much that they released it on vinyl under the rubric Live at Love Wheel Records. The piece opens with an example of the cymbal-driven feedback Cameron's been playing with for years. Flaten joins the conversation with arco harmonics while Thomson blows a few tentative tones. The bassist responds with pizzicato flurries as Thomson plays short bursts of notes. Cameron careens into polyrhythmic space as her collaborators up the intensity. Flaten and Cameron spar while Thomson comments, then the bassist cues a change of direction with a tortuously walking line. At any given time, any player can lead; the three listen and respond in the moment the way the best improvisers do. When they finish after just over half an hour, when they've said all they need to say, you can almost hear the audience exhale before erupting into applause. Creative music exists in moments like this. Get you some.

Fort Worth, 12.20.2025

My musical year ended playing on an eclectic bill at the Grackle Art Gallery with STC. In this busy season, we wound up canceling all our scheduled practices up until a do-or-die 11th hour one the night before, where I had some noisy pedals but didn't think anything of it after I checked all my batteries and found them to still have juice. I would pay for this later.

We'd decided to all "fly the flannel" for Mike Watt's birthday but wound up not wearing them while we played because of the unseasonably warm temperature. Halfway through "City Slang" I punched the fuzz and got nada. We tried a do-over with similar non-success and then, rather than wasting time trying to troubleshoot my shit, I elected to go straight through the amp, calling an "audible" that we would skip all my solos except the unavoidable one on "1983." Kavin Allenson's video of "A Quick One" shows that Cam was as "too loud" for the room as El Mantis' bass player had been a couple of weeks earlier. I scarcely noticed as I was busy digging his fills and Tony's melodic bass lines. My amp volume stayed on one and my wife said vocals were basically inaudible. Wha wha. We finished with "People Have the Power" in place of "Apostrophe." The audience of fellow musos and their family members was very kind. 

Photo by Linda Little.

Hijazz Ensemble was down a player as drummer Eddie Dunlap had double booked himself. Darrin Kobetich started out trying to use a microphone on his cumbus but wound up going to the pickup due to feedback problems, and left his oud in the corner due to tuning issues. He and Mark Hyde (on a microtonally tuned instrument of his own construction) spun webs of Near Eastern sounding scales over which Dave Williams extemporized freely on soprano and tenor saxes. Dave's a player in the Wayne Shorter/Joe Henderson free bop mode, and I have good memories of hearing him play Wayne's "Witch Hunt" and Mingus "Nostalgia in Times Square" at old Black Dog jams. (He also apparently shared the Stashdauber origin story with his bandmates.) Hijazz Ensemble is a groove machine like old Fort Worth faves Confusatron and Sleeplab. I'd dig to hear them on a bill with like minded Austinites Atlas Maior.

Speaking of revered Fort Worth ancestors, Stem Afternoon purvey a brand of dubwise trip-hop that harks back to the mighty Sub Oslo ("a dub band with a rock aesthetic," in dubfather Miguel Veliz's words) and Marcus Lawyer's Top Secret...Shh recording project. Bassist Cyrus Haskell and drummer Mykl Garcia lay down the foundation over which DJ FTdub lays a blanket of samples and scratches and Clint Niosi deploys various bits of melodic business. Starting out with snaky wah-wah guitar lines, Clint shifted to F/X laden lap steel, raising the volume and intensity to stratospheric levels. An occasion where Linda's Liquid Lights might have enhanced the experience.

In between sets, I talked with DJ Phil Ford about how the most exciting music on the set is happening where genres intersect and players of vision are willing to test and stretch the boundaries of the familiar. The Grackle continues to be the best place in my town to catch such action, and I look forward to hearing what Kavin, Linda, and Leland have to offer in 2026.

And this morning I ops checked my rig and found the offending patch cord, which now hangs in the Patch Cord Hall of Shame, and played through all the nice fuzzy solos I didn't get to last night. It's always something simple; I just never know what it is. Happy holidays to them what celebrate.

Photo by April Smith-Long

Denton, 12.13.2025

The first annual Joan of Bark Fest at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios was a beautifully paced, eclectic evening of adventurous music. A mix of touring acts and locals, with some first time collaborations.

Opening set, in the Rubber Room with sound tech Miguel Espinel at the controls, was by the ad hoc improv Joan of Bark Ensemble, comprising Sarah Jay and Rachel Weaver on electronics, Will Frenkel on cello, curator Sarah Ruth Alexander on voice, Wen Lit on violin, Elizabeth McNutt on flute and theremin, Paul Slavens on keyboard and synthesizer, and Gabe Lit on clarinets. After a tentative beginning, Sarah announced that they would be playing a conduction, and executed a series of dance moves that the musicians interpreted. Then a couple of audience members had a try before Paul and Gabe took their turns. (You could tell who had previous conducting experience.) An easy and fun ice breaker.

After timely pause, the action shifted to the main room, where sound tech Aubrey Seaton was holding down the desk, for a trio of cellist Henna Chou and bassists Aaron Gonzalez and Kory Reeder. The performance began with arco drones until first Chou, then Gonzalez, introduced melodic elements, shifting between pizzicato and arco while Reeder provided ringing overtones. A brief but satisfying conversation.

I regret that I wasn't able to get any good pictures of the duo Evil Horns in the Rubber Room, as I dallied too long in the lobby and wound up standing in back out of crappy phone camera range. But clarinetist Gabe Lit and tenor saxophonist Nikki D'Agostino conducted another spirited dialogue, intertwining their sounds in a stream of unisons, harmonies, and occasional dissonance, exploring the full range of their horns. Lit's bass clarinet, here and with the Ensemble, was particularly welcome as I hadn't heard one live since Emily Rach Beisel visited Denton around this time last year.

Then it was back to the main room for the first time collaboration between noise artists Wenepa (on this occasion, Melanie Little Smith and Suzanne Terry) and Tulsa-based Spirit Plate (Warren Realrider, Mateo Galindo, and Nathan Young). The music started with a pulsing drone and the tintinnabulous sounds of small instruments, amplified and treated electronically, with Smith vocalizing. Gradually the electronic drone rose to a crescendo, filling the senses. Smith's drumming on a tom gave the piece a ritual, ceremonial feel. Gradually, the tempo accelerated and with it the drone's intensity until gradually it diminished and abruptly stopped. A cleansing exorcism.

After that unremitting intensity, a listener might have craved some relief, and that came in the form of the next Rubber Room set, by Austin-based Little Mazern. On this occasion, singer-songwriter Lindsey Verrill performed solo, accompanying herself on banjo (with some electronic effects) and cello. The sweetness of her songcraft -- like rustic Americana with clever, wry, contemporary lyrics -- and the vulnerability of her voice drew the audience in. At one point, she commented that she'd just finished reading a biography of Arthur Russell, who said he was "the songwriter that experimental people liked." This drew laughs and a hoot of recognition. "This room is so quiet and tender," Verrill remarked. It was us responding to her and the mood she created.

Soothed by that healing balm, the audience trooped back into the main room for the evening's most cathartic set: the first-time collaboration of Dallas based electronic pop artist Mattie with two thirds of Trio Glossoa: Joshua Canate on drums and tenor sax, and Stefan Gonzalez on vibraphone and drums. I dug the fact that Mattie kept her electronics at a comparable volume to the vibraphone (the quietest instrument should always be the pacing item, IMO), and the way her collaborators responded to every rhythmic nuance she was laying down. Her costuming and vocalization gave the set an Afrofuturist vibe (think Octavia Butler observing the Heaven's Gate cult) and the two percussionists -- who share a house as well as Trio Glossia's stage -- played like one thunderously high energy polyrhythmic hydra. Gonzalez performed with his trademark physicality, and Canate's testimony on tenor was the icing on the cake. A trio I'd dig to see perform again.

A hard act to follow, but White Boy Scream -- the performing rubric of Filipino-American composer/opera singer/sound artist Micaela Tobin -- was equal to the task. A faculty member at CalArts, she's currently based in Tulsa on an artist fellowship, and will certainly turn anyone's idea of opera on its head. Tobin augments her classically pure voice and extended vocal techniques with electronic gadgetry that makes her voice sound like an electric guitar on the verge of feedback meltdown, using loops to create choral effects, shrieking and roaring over beds of harsh noise and juddering rhythm. Her music is informed by ancestral mythology, particularly her operas Bakunama: Opera of the Seven Moons and Apolaki: Opera of the Scorched Earth. Tobin takes vocal performance to the edge and beyond, and her stunning set was the perfect way to end this night of music to fill the heart and head. Can't wait to see what Joan of Bark Presents has on tap in the new year.

About Keith Wingate

Keith Wingate executes faster than I can think. I went to a school that valued expression (amp tone, bends, vibrato) over note production, which you can probably still hear. But Keith is a total musician. He understands extended harmony, classic song forms, the rhythmic basis of jazz, and all of that comes out in his solo playing. 

He really is a one man jazz trio: can (and does) gig on guitar, bass, or drums. His right hand is a great drummer by itself, and the rhythm parts he lays down on his looper jump and swing like a band with a good drummer would. His technique and imagination are nonpareil, whether he's playing single note lines, lightning fast arpeggios, bluesy smears, deft octaves, or full on chord melody. 

I never realized that "Autumn Leaves" has the same changes as the "Theme from M*A*S*H" until I heard him interpolate them at the Nobleman Hotel the other night during happy hour. He couldn't play a couple of my requests, but he did play some lush ballads, streamlined blues, smooth bossa (no "Aguas de Marco," but I did get "Wave" to quell my Jobim hunger), "Mo' Betta Blues" (which is by Spike's daddy Bill Lee, not a Marsalis brother like I thought), and Toots Thielmans' "Bluesette," another fave of mine. 

I can understand a _little_ more of what he does now than I used to, but it's always a pleasure to hear him and be amazed at pure six-string artistry.