27 October 2010

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Morning rehearsal with
Griener/Gumpert/Roder; music feels good. We discuss the need to
challenge the standard “Free Jazz conventions”(soloist/rhythm
section, head-solo-solo-head, etc.) in order to push the music into
fresh directions (spontaneous unaccompanied…improvising
spaces, duos between horn and bass/piano and drums,etc.). Check out
the Color Field exhibition at the Guggenheim Berlin;disappointed-
small selection of lesser works, a nice Frankenthalerand Hofmann,
but an indifferent Rothko and boring examples of “theconcept.”
Picked up Reggae albums at Dussman. The concert in theevening goes
well, some gaffs with the heads (the band wanted me tocue in
material despite the fact I was the one least familiar with the
compositions- always a bad idea), but otherwise the music really took
off, many times electric. The audience was excellent, a packed hall
for what was the last concert at the Kulturhaus Mitte in Berlin,wanting
an encore after two intense sets. The last few weeks have been an
incredible whirlwind of aesthetic shifts: drummers (MichaelWertmuller,
Chad Taylor, Michael Griener), composers (Wertmuller,Taylor, Wiik,
Gumpert, Griener, Roder), plus travel (Netherlands,Germany,
Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, back to Germany…). Andthings will
continue with the intensity when I arrive in Oslo tostart with the
Chicago Tentet: more drummers (Paal Nilssen-Love,Michael Zerang),
more composers (perhaps more to the point- “instantcomposers”- but
many of the members of the Tentet continue to work with pre-composed
material in other contexts, and everyone in the band has specific and
different ideas about musical structure and spontaneous
organization). The 2010 journey continues…Trio with me,
Griener and Roder in Greece this March, tough sound but a sense of the
intensity of the Berlin concert: