Sounds Like Now
A blog by saxophonist Brian Sacawa
Archive for Improv
May 5, 2008 at 11:02 pm · Filed under Blog: Spring 08, Experimental, Improv
Sometimes I feel like experimental improvisers are a lot like alcoholics—they don’t know when to stop. I go to a lot of improv shows and in general I leave vowing to never speak of what I’d just witnessed and wishing for that 2 hours of my life back. Now that’s not to say that there couldn’t have been some supremely beautiful or bona fide compelling moments within that two hours, but I think that the old adage “you should leave your audience wanting more” should start being heeded. Maybe I’m being a little unfair, but if I’d heard a coherent, cohesive one-hour, or 45-min, or hell, even a 30-min improvisation recently I’d be less inclined to raise my voice.
In most of the long form improvisations I’ve heard in the not so distant past there seemed to have been several moments when the session could have ended to make a cohesive statement. Instead, these cadence points arrive and inevitably someone on stage gets a little too self-indulgent and mistakes the natural end of a piece for a big solo opportunity. What follows is generally a very similar process to what had just unfolded: 1) the players start mimicking the sounds that are already happening, 2) then they gradually begin introducing something contrasting, 3) and commence a really long build-up that may peak up to 10 times, 4) followed by a very slow decrease in activity and volume, and finally 5) the audience sits rigidly during an uncomfortably long silence praying that no one on stage is inspired any more. I love it when the musicians finish one of these long pieces and then look around at each other on stage and then invariably say, “Should we do another one?” That’s the best. Though I believe that nearly every audience member wants to scream, “NO!!!!!!” nobody ever says anything. Then the players decide to do a “short one.” And the band plays on. And on. And on.
But rather than just complain here, I’d like to make a sugggestion: what about a time limit? Rather than basking in the comfort that you can ramble on for over 30 minutes hoping that inspiration may strike if it’s failed to up to that point, why not try and aim to create a solid, focused, complete, and meaningful statement in, let’s say, 10 minutes? Hardcore folks probably won’t like this idea since it imposes an unwelcome parameter in a musical genre that tends to shun any kind of constraint. But I think that would be more challenging for the players. And likely more engaging for the listeners. Parameters like duration (of the shorter variety) might be worthy considerations for free improvisers who haven’t matured enough yet to sustain a long form session.
N.B. Lest I come off fractiously here, I call your attention to this post, which sort of outlines my take on improvisation based on my experience studying with Yusef Lateef and doing my own playing both in a jazz and free/experimental style.
May 20, 2007 at 11:43 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Spring 07, Experimental, Improv, Music
Every pursuit has its innovators, people who are synonomous with their field and without whom we couldn’t imagine that field existing the way it does today. This thought came to mind twice yesterday. The first time was while I was watching Dogtown and Z Boys, Stacey Peralta’s documentary about the birth of modern skateboarding. Would there have been a Tony Hawk without Tony Alva or Jay Adams? Similarly in jazz, would there have been a Michael Brecker—an innovator himself—without John Coltrane? Michael Jordan changed basketball. Jackson Pollock. Zeami Motokiyo. Andy Warhol. The Beatles. And so on.
The second time the innovation thought came to mind was during Dilettante’s set at the Red Room last night, where they were the second act on a triple bill that included local laptopper Myo as well as the crack duo of super duper original instrument producer Neil Feather and violinist and microtonal mistress Katt Hernandez. Dilettante was tight, excelling at focused short form improvisations, which were unpredictably busy and anxious. Percussionist Andrew Eisenberg played tastefully eradically. There seemed to be nothing that bassist Ryan McGuire didn’t hear. And alto saxophonist/bass clarinetist Josh Jefferson had a firm grasp on extended instrumental vocabulary. It was actually Jefferson’s playing that got me thinking about innovation again, namely one of the biggest innovators in free improvisation on the saxophone: John Zorn. You couldn’t not think of Zorn when Jefferson played because he was so into his bag. I’ve always had a bit of admiration for players that can mimic so well—I’m secretly jealous (well, it’s not all that secret anymore) of all the Kenny Garrett and Michael Brecker clones out there now—but at the same time I wonder how much fulfillment one feels playing a vocabulary that is so singularly associated with another player. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I didn’t really have any problem at all with the Zorn tribute. In the pursuit of a distinctive individual voice it’s imperative that we investigate and learn the vocabulary and style of those who have blazed the trail for us. Yet I believe there comes a point when one needs to shed that skin and synthesize all those influences into a unique voice that one can call one’s own.
February 5, 2007 at 8:33 am · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, Improv, Music, Reviews
The Red Room played host to two of Boston’s finest last Friday as Tim Feeney and Vic Rawlings schooled the faithful on the sound of silence. Although Tim confessed that Friday’s set was one of their louder efforts, both musicians operated in a dynamic space that ranged from niente to about mezzo piano. Yet within those seemingly narrow confines there is much that transpires and holds your interest. Both musicians play with such poise and conviction that they compel you to engage, drawing you into a world of sonic subtlety. Texture appeared to be the overarching theme to their set, which oscillated between the white-noisey and moments of pure beguiling consonance, with both textural flavors being equally elaborate and complex. Perhaps the most refreshing and virtuosic aspect of Tim and Vic’s set was the patience and restraint they displayed. Less levelheaded musicians might get bored or anxious working in the confines that they choose to. So it says something about their musical maturity that they are able to not only maintain their self-control but also that they can expand that space into a universe of infinite possibilties.
January 30, 2007 at 6:49 am · Filed under Art, Baltimore, Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, Film, Improv, Music
All dressed up and no place to go? Allow me to suggest the following activities taking place this week in and around Baltimore:
+ Meet the Artist: Matthew Barney: The acclaimed artist and filmmaker best known for The Cremaster Cycle, and more recently for his collaboration with Björk in Drawing Restraint 9, will be at the Hirshhorn this Wednesday at 7pm with Guggenheim Museum curator Nancy Spector discussing the influence of Joseph Beuys‘ art on the evolution of his work. If you really can’t make it, dont worry: due to the anticipated overwhelming response, the musuem is offering a live webcast of the event.
+ Tim Feeney & Vic Rawlings: The better half of Non-Zero leads a double-life as an improviser and this Friday he comes tramping through Baltimore with fellow Boston-based musician Vic Rawlings (cello/electronics) for a 9pm set at the Red Room to make some sounds you’ve never heard before and will probably never hear again.
+ Cell Phone: Art and the Mobile Phone: Just-opened exhibit at the Contemporary Museum, featuring art created by/for small handheld devices.
January 28, 2007 at 11:51 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, Improv, Music, Rock
Last night was rock night at the Red Room with two extremely divergent but complimentary takes on the music. Up first was Kioku, a sax-percussion-laptop trio from NYC, performing “traditional Asian folk music within a new context of collaborative experimentation and improvisation” and more than a touch of funk and free jazz. Central to the group’s gimmick is the use of asian percussion instruments, including a taiko drum and several varieties of gongs, which were not exploited for their inherent sonic uniqueness, but rather co-opted to form a sort of colonialist drum kit. I suppose since it was a Red Room show I expected the music to be a bit more free-form and stream-of-consciousness. Instead, you got the sense that each compositional decision was carefully orchestrated and structurally predetermined. The group’s polish and refined sound was the giveaway. Yet built into that structure were opportunities for each member to elaborate and saxophonist Ali Sakkal delivered an inspired Evan Parker-esque solo interlude between sections.
If Kioku was the sound of refinement, then Needle Gun, a pubescent noise quartet from Baltimore, was the antithesis. Their sound hit you like a ton of bricks and was a beautifully rich, complex cacophony of raw energy. Needle Gun played with absolute unfettered ferocity and abandon, providing a perfect counterpoint to the evening and allowing the superlatives flow freely from my pen. It’s nice to see the kids doing something productive.
April 19, 2006 at 3:21 pm · Filed under Blog: Spring 06, Copyright, Experimental, Improv
Fans of outsider arts rejoice. Influential avant garde musician, instrument builder, journalist, activist, and kayak instructor, Bob Ostertag has made all his recordings to which he owns the rights available for download from his website (via Sequenza21 via Seth Gordon). In total, about 8 hours from 11 different CDs are now available, including collaborations with the DJ Otomo Yoshihide, Mike Patton, Fred Firth, and many others. He’s also licensed the work through a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which will please the remix-inclined among us.
May 24, 2005 at 2:34 am · Filed under Blog: Spring 05, Improv
As an undergraduate I had the great honor of studying with the legendary saxophonist Yusef Lateef for a time. Yusef’s on another level in terms of the thought process and execution of improvised music. Notice that I said “improvised music” rather than jazz or bebop. (His own term for the kind of music he plays is autophysiopsychic music, meaning music which comes from one’s physical, mental, and spiritual self. Read all about it here.) Yusef’s got an incredible wealth of knowledge, but is highly picky about terminology. Jazz, he contends, is a deragatory term derived from a colloquialism for the male ejaculate. And he professes to not know what bebop or any other stylistic label is or sounds like. If you go to Yusef and want to learn to play bebop, you should tell him that you’d like to learn to play in the style of Charlie Parker or Cannonball Adderley, and so on. Once you get on the same page w/r/t terminology you’ll be fine.
For Yusef, improvisation is complete and utter spontaneity. If you begin playing with preconceived ideas or parameters of any sort, you are not truly improvising. As I got deeper into my studies with Yusef, I said to him that it seems as though the more you learn–the more licks you play in twelve keys, the more vocabulary you internalize, the more tunes you know, the more scales and patterns and patterns and patterns you drill, the more great artists you transcribe and learn to perfect their every nuance–the harder it becomes to truly improvise. His response was simply, “You understand.”
I’ve always wrestled with that issue as an improviser and to know that it was something that concerned even a great master made me feel better. When I play an improvised solo in a jazz style, I often feel as though I am putting everyone on. Like it’s not really “improvised” because I’ve practiced so hard to be able to make all the changes in a stylistically correct and hopefully somewhat hip way. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel this way when I hear other jazz players improvise. To the contrary, I even find it exciting to listen to the best Brecker clone even if I know every single lick that he/she is ripping off. I just could never find my voice as a jazz artist the way I feel as though I’ve found it as an interpreter of composed music.
Yet recently I’ve had to improvise in music that’s not in a jazz style. See I formed this band with this drummer guy from Boston, who is not only a world class percussionist but also an extremely accomplished improviser. Part of what we do, well what our biography says we do, is “play music that treads the boundary between composition and improvisation.” So when we work with composers, we like them to leave us some room if they’re willing. Not only that but sometimes we just get up on stage and play. Me, Tim, and his laptop. This type of playing suits me. It allows me to draw on a sonic vocabulary that is not constrained by the parameters of style. We play what we hear. It’s exhilarating, refreshing, and utterly freeing. And it’s more along the lines of what I was searching for when I studied with Yusef.
N.B. Heather’s recent post about experiencing Sun Ra in her car reminded me of a funny story Yusef once told me in a lesson. One day he was walking down a street in New York City when who should happen to be approaching him but Sun Ra. They were friends and so Yusef said, “Hey man, what’s going on?” Sun Ra replied, “I just got back from Venus, man.” The look in Yusef’s eye was priceless as he told me this. He thought clearly that Sun Ra must be nuts but he decided to humor him. “Oh yeah, man. Well, what was going on there,” he replied, laughing as he recalled the encounter. Now some people might think Yusef is on a different planet but his reaction to Sun Ra’s statement that he’d just returned from some interplanetary travel proves that he’s firmly on the planet Earth.
March 5, 2005 at 11:49 am · Filed under Blog: Winter 04, Improv, Jazz, Recordings
Alex Ross has been making up lists recently. So here’s a list of mine: Ten of my favorite recorded jazz saxophone solos that come immediately to mind.
1. Michael Brecker, “Every Day (I Thank You)” — Pat Metheny, 80/81
2. Michael Brecker, “Sumo” — Steps Ahead, Live in Tokyo 1986
3. Michael Brecker, “Quartet No. 1″ — Chick Corea, Three Quartets
4. Ornette Coleman, “Peace” — The Shape of Jazz to Come
5. Steve Coleman, “Multiplicity Of Approaches (The African Way of Knowing)” — Steve Coleman and the Five Elements, curves of life
6. John Coltrane, “Afro Blue” — Coltrane Live at Birdland
7. John Coltrane, “I Want To Talk About You” — Coltrane Live at Birdland
8. Eric Dolphy, “Out To Lunch” — Out To Lunch
9. Kenny Garrett, “Human Nature” — Miles Davis, Live Around the World
10. Dick Oatts, “Make Me Smile” — Mel Lewis & The Jazz Orchestra, Featuring the Music of Bob Brookmeyer
