25 April 2014

4/20/14: The group traveled to Montreal next, and arrived late afternoon, grabbed some espresso at the Casa del Popolo and then set up equipment and so Made To Break could rehearse two more pieces from the D series, a funk/dub piece and a piece with a delta blues methodology. We also made some adjustments to the other new pieces played in Toronto to clarify them. I put all of the D series into a suite and MTB performed them at the Sala Rosa as a test run for the composition made for the Barnes Foundation “commission” that would be performed the next day. Nate Wooley played another outstanding solo set, this one based around a spontaneous hymn melody that he explored through different strategies: vocalizing through the horn, adding percussive layers through amplifying small sounds, etc. Made To Break then played best show of the tour so far, really exciting and adventurous music despite the missteps that naturally happen when dealing with so much brand new material. Jasper continues to do an outstanding job and remains a pleasure to work with, as are Christof and Tim. Despite it being Easter and a Habs playoff hockey game there was a full room of listeners who were really excited by the show. A beautiful night- I love playing in Montreal! Afterward I hung out at the Casa and met Marielyne Tarabulsy and was able to personally give her a copy of Cherchez La Femme, which was the best way to indicate to her the thanks I wanted to express by including her on the credits for the record.

4/21/14: Christof, Jasper, Tim, and I took a flight from Montreal to Philadelphia while Nate Wooley and Steve Marquette drove the van, filled with equipment, to Jersey City. Luckily things went smoothly at U.S. immigration for Christof and Jasper at the Montreal airport (Jasper checked his bass again which I’m sure helped, he then really looks just like a tourist, as does Christof who only has the computer; in addition, we pulled down all online info about upcoming gigs to help prevent possible google searches from indicating anything at the border). The band got to Philadelphia with all luggage in tow with barely time to grab a sandwich and head to the Barnes Foundation at 4pm. The concert hall had very good acoustics for a museum performance space, and could probably hold about 100+ people. Set up and soundcheck went really well; the group ran the D series again, going over details. Rather than put together a new set as I had done at all the gigs so far, I made the decision to use the same plan as in Montreal- the flow of the D material in the first half of that show was an excellent sequence of pieces, and the second “suite” provided another good composition to present. Doing this meant the band could concentrate less on shifting structural issues and could put more energy toward focusing on playing. This was an extremely important show. Not only did the concert open the Ars Nova New Pats Festival, the Barnes Foundation fee provided the economic backbone for the tour, basically subsidizing it, and I wanted the music to be as strong as possible- it was a lot to ask the ensemble to learn 5 new pieces in two days, forcing them to contend with another set of forms on top of this seemed to be a bit much.

Before the performance I had a discussion/question & answer session with Blake Bradford, the director of education at Barnes, for the public (before this I did a short interview for Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate). The focus of the talk was on connecting my music, particularly that of Made To Break, to my impression of the Barnes collection. For me, there is an actual relationship- Barnes’ combination of aesthetics, materials, time periods, various cultures, putting them side by side while still letting the individual pieces be true to themselves, is very similar to my goals in music, which I feel are built and extended from developments made during the 1960s and 1970s in the U.S., Europe, and Japan, when the trajectory and history of jazz was called into question and in some cases politicized. The audience seemed curious and engaged during the discussion. I talked about my compositional process, and my interests in writing music for improvisers, my attempts to develop new structures for composing beyond the basic “head-solos-head” format used in most conventional jazz; which led to the narrative-form developments of the Vandermark 5 and experiments with the Frame Quartet, and modular forms in Resonance. The attendees also asked questions which were very good. An excellent talk in my view.

The concert was well attended, a full room of probably 75 people, a diverse crowd. Made To Break played very well, maybe without the electric edge of Montreal’s show, but with greater precision and clarity, and with sections of really new playing- I couldn’t ask for more than this. I felt that I did a decent job of transitioning from dealing with verbal ideas about music to playing the actual music itself; not always the easiest thing to do. The audience response was extremely enthusiastic, especially considering the formalized nature of the environment, and I received many comments from listeners and musicians after the show, including Bobby Zankel and Jeff Arnal who had really nice things to say about the performance. Afterward there was a nice diner with the band and presenters, and then a night cap at an old school Philadelphia bar; I really felt back on the East Coast, a small place with a couple of TVs playing baseball. Christof, Jasper, and I talked about the scenes in Berlin, Vienna, and Amsterdam, which was sparked by my thoughts about where I might want to live if I moved to Europe. We discussed some of the apathy that can set in with arts subsidy programs, and Jasper illustrated the point about the dividing line that exists between musicians who would use the Barnes fee as one big paying gig, and those who would use it to make a dozen smaller shows possible, which is what we had done on this tour.