4/22/14: The morning started with a train from Philadelphia to Newark at 9:45am, then a PATH train to a Jersey City train stop to meet up with Nate and Steve to drive to Watertown, MA to load into the Alternative Space, my brother Rob’s Seven Cycle factory converted into a venue for music, at around 4pm. The first show took place there last October during my duo tour with Nate, where we performed our music and played in a quartet with Laurence Cook and Jacob William. After traveling all day the group enjoyed sitting outside and having an early dinner, loading up on Middle Eastern calories and caffeine before heading back to the venue to set up and soundcheck. Nate played another fantastic opening set, again very different from his other performances on the trip (this one more spare and introspective, with a severe play in dynamic levels). I organized the Made To Break set to integrate the C and D series for the first time, and talked through the plan with a few suggestions on interpretation/execution of the new material before hitting the stage. There was an excellent crowd for a Tuesday night, and they were as appreciate of Nate’s solo music as they were of the quartet. MTB played with a perfect combination of clarity and intensity, moving between the Cherchez La Femme compositions and the Barnes pieces with ease; the group is really achieving something on this trip, and so quickly- it’s incredibly exciting to see and hear it happen. If I could just figure out how to pronounce Jasper’s last name, which I have screwed up every night on the tour so far, everything would be perfect… After the gig and re-packing the van, everyone traveled to my folks’ place, dropping off Tim and Nate at a motel nearby since there wasn’t room for the six of us at my parents house, where we talked shop while listening to Cannonball Adderly. Jasper, Steve and I stayed up until 4am discussing issues of influence and imitation, interpretation of ideas versus blank imitation, and by that point Morton Feldman was the soundtrack to the conversation.
Christof Kurzmann/Ken Vandermark duo
Teatro Sol da Terra, Florianópolis, Brazil, March 27, 2012:
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