Ken Vandermark

Addis, Ethiopia by KV, part 2.

Artist statement

“Varése's declaration that 'the links in the chain of tradition are formed by men who have all been revolutionists!' should serve as a reminder that Varése was talking about forging continuity, not breaking it. When he spoke of freedom for music, he did not mean irresponsible or unlimited freedom, freedom to do absolutely anything. He meant deliverance from outmoded practices statically and thoughtlessly perpetuated, from 'bad habits' ('erroneously called tradition'), and from restrictions on the use of sound materials that modern technology had made accessible.”

- Jonathan Bernard
from “Varése: Astronomer in Sound,” (Kahn & Averill: 2003), by Malcolm MacDonald, pg. xvii-xviii.

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Notes from the Field Jul 03, 2006

The North American tour with CINC (Paul Lytton, Philipp Wachsmann, myself) started in Chicago on Wednesday, June 8th, at the Hideout. We had not performed together since our quartet concert with John Tilbury at the Nickeldorf Festival in July of last year. Because I had spent a fair amount of time reviewing the material for our new limited edition release on Okka Disk- going over performances from the October 2004 European tour, discussing selections with Paul and Phil, sequencing the material, then mastering the album with Bob Weston- I was perhaps overly familiar with the way the trio sounded a year and a half ago. As soon as we started playing onstage in Chicago, I felt as though I had been dropped into the center of a maze where Paul and Phil had directions and I did not. The music moved simultaneously in multiple directions at different speeds, and was extremely detailed. By the end of the first set I felt that I had run through all my vocabulary options while the other guys had barely scratched the surface of their sonic range. It was clear in that hour that I was going to have my ass kicked for the next ten days.

On Thursday night, the visiting Englishmen played at Elastic in combination with other musicians from town. Philipp performed first, in a solo and trio context. This set was fantastic, hearing Phil’s use of acoustic and electronic sound in both ensemble formats was mesmerizing, and my excitement for his improvising and ideas did nothing but grow throughout our next days together. Fred Lonberg-Holm and Jeb Bishop worked with him in the trio and proved to be excellent, like-minded collaborators; the sonic possibilities of violin, cello, trombone, and electronics were bashed around with grace. In order to reduce the set up time between Phil and Paul’s halves of the program, the piano at Elastic was moved to a better location for Paul’s quartet with Jim Baker (who also played Arp), Nate McBride, and Dave Rempis
before the audience arrived. As we moved it along the side of the stage (one wheel already missing, so rolling it was difficult) the leg on my side of the instrument fell off which resulted in a few minutes of near panic as we tried to figure out how to keep the piano in the air while someone looked for enough plastic milk crates to hold it up for the rest of the night. After it was stabilized, magazines were added to the pile in order to try and balance the level of the keyboard so that Jim wouldn’t feel like he was sinking on the Titanic while playing during his set. In the end things worked out, but the instrument looked pretty ridiculous perched on top of a stack of milk crates, PA monitors, and periodicals. My favorite music of this quartet took place on a middle ground between the Chicago musicians' "American-ness" and Lytton’s English free improvisation aesthetics:a surging energy music with a rhythmic sensibility more in line with Sunny Murray or Andrew Cyrille’s work with Cecil Taylor than most of what I’ve heard Paul play in his years with Evan Parker.

CINC got into the van with driver Amos Scattergood and started our roadwork on Saturday the 10th, performing in Cleveland (my first gig there in nearly two years). We played one longer set as the trio needed to be offstage early so that a rock show could start by 9 o’clock. Phil had been able to coordinate a better amp/mic setup for the violin and his effects since our first gig in Chicago and this, coupled with a chance to get a feel for the new sensibility of the trio, made the Cleveland gig feel like a large step forward for the band. From Cleveland we headed about eight hours further south and east, to Arlington, VA. This turned out to be the worst attended
concert I’ve performed on the road since I started touring in the United States- five people were there. To do all the work necessary to get Paul Lytton and Phil Wachsmann to the United States, and then coordinate a first time tour for this trio in North America, only to have such a lack of interest in one of our concerts was a major disappointment. People have repeatedly asked me in the last few years if I feel that there’s a difference between playing in Europe and the United States and I have always said that the audiences were very similar. However, now it seems that there is more of an interest on just my work with the Vandermark 5 when in the U.S. as compared to abroad. In Europe I’ve found an open mindedness over the last few years, which keeps expanding, which allows room for all of the different kinds of music I want to play. My hope is that it will be possible to build an awareness for the range of aesthetics I’m working with in North America as well, but it’s difficult to present these ideas in a live forum when presenters and fans sometimes believe that touring twice year with different groups is once too often. For a variety of reasons it’s been possible to work overseas with a half dozen different ensembles each year. Rather than burn out the audiences, this has helped build them, and listeners are hearing the differences in the music on a regular basis and associating my ideas with more than one ensemble.

Thankfully, after Arlington, things picked up considerably. Two excellent sets at Tonic in New York on the 12th, a great double bill the following night with the Braam/DeJoode/Vatcher Trio in Philadelphia, then a day off in Philly to check out its museum again and wander the streets. It was supposed to be a chance to recharge, and we all felt pretty great after viewing the art (interesting to watch people walk in and out of the room that holds Duchamp’s, “Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas,” without them realizing that there is more there than a large wooden gate), but there was more in store for us. After the time at the museum, the four of us visited the old town, splitting up so I could look for records while the other guys explored the city a bit. At 6:30pm I strolled back to the scheduled meeting point and saw Paul and Amos waiting for me. I figured Phil was running a bit late until Paul ran up to me:

-“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

-(I realized immediately something bad had happened to Philipp.) “Let’s try the good news.”

-“Well Phil’s in the emergency room, but it could be a lot worse.”

-“What do you mean, ‘worse’?”

-“He’s okay, he’s okay. But he took a nasty fall when the two of us were walking around, and split open the side of his head right above his left eye.”

-“Jesus.”

-“People were very helpful and got us an ambulance right away, you Americans can be very generous. I keep trying to tell friends in Europe this, that you’re not all like what gets shown on the news.“

“Thanks Paul.”

For the rest of the tour Phil’s left eye was swollen shut and completely black and blue. For the first couple of gigs after the accident (in Buffalo and then Toronto) he wore sunglasses and a beret on stage because he was concerned that his appearance would alarm the audience. This was extremely thoughtful of him, but it completely freaked me out. He could hardly see as it was, and with the sunglasses on while indoors he was essentially blind- I kept waiting for him to tumble offstage and crack the other side of his head open. Luckily this never happened.

CINC’s music kept becoming more and more intricate as the tour continued, moving between and endless series of extremes, from intense rhythmic studies to static overtones to silence cut by repetition. At one point early in the tour I suggested breaking the trio into smaller configurations as the music tended towards trio exposition or duos between Paul and Phil. Paul’s initial response was, “Well, we haven’t run the course of what’s possible in the trio yet, have we?” I was thinking about utilizing more variety in the instrumental combinations during the improvising, Paul was trying to see how far the trio could be pushed before letting it go. A bit later in the trip Phil suggested that we try using shorter pieces and I said, “Well I keep stopping, so I’m all for the idea.” Of course, after debating these possibilities and deciding that using them during the performances could be a good option, Paul would usually choose to drive past whatever was discussed in an attempt to find out what would happen once we were onstage.

Our final concert was in Montreal on the 18th of June for the Suoni Per Il Popolo festival. It was great to be back in this city to play again; of all the places where I perform in North America, Montreal has become one of the most consistently supportive and open minded for the different music I’m involved with. A case in point: when the Free Music Ensemble performed a few days later, on the 20th, the attendance for our concert had about 50 more listeners than our previous concert in September of 2005. You can build things here. CINC played in the club, Casa del Popolo, which is one of my favorite venues in the world. I’m curious to hear the tape that was made of this show, as it was probably the most extreme performance on the tour. Working with Paul in this format every night, watching him and listening to the way he will interrupt and disrupt his playing if he feels that something has become to rote or expected, finally pushed me over the edge of past worrying about “control.” I began to deconstruct my lines to the point where they were falling apart, beyond intention. In order to figure out what to do onstage after eight concerts with these musicians, I was forced to build a whole new range of expressive vocabulary. If I hadn’t, it would have become necessary for me to leave the stage and let Phil and Paul to work as a duo. In retrospect, maybe this was part of Paul’s reasoning for not wanting to “abandon the trio sensibility.”

My huge thanks to Tim Daisy for the drum loan, Fred Lonberg-Holm for the amp loan, Nate McBride for the mixer loan, and Amos Scattergood for single handedly driving 3000 miles. To everyone who risked presenting the music and to all those who came to the shows, my complete gratitude- without you this music might disappear below the underground.

Ken Vandermark, Chicago, 6/29/06.