Experiments 2026: #3 & #4/work with Ben Hall

Experiments 2026: #3 & #4/work with Ben Hall.  2026 has included a number of shifts in creative strategy for me.  Starting in reverse from this spring to the beginning of the year, I began to work in new ways with the help of musician/artist/polymath, Ben Hall: first with the duo Ellington Skeletons (our initial work began in November of 2025 but has developed more thoroughly during this year), and with the group he formed with Sharon Udoh (organ)/Indira Edwards & Mike Khoury (violas)/Garrett Frees (reeds)/Cyrus Pireh (guitar): Field Kitchen, which Ben asked me to compose for.

Ellington Skeletons is a unique ensemble for me because it combines my interest in open improvisation aesthetics created in Europe and the States under one roof.  Ben’s history of study/performance with Bill Dixon and Milford Graves comes to the fore in this group, and I would say my experiences playing with improvisers like Peter Brötzmann, Paul Lytton, and John Tilbury definitely add to the mix.  Ellington Skeletons first performed at Moondog Cafe in Detroit on November 4th, 2025 then at Corbett vs. Dempsey as part of the Chicago edition of the Catalytic Sound Festival on December 7th.  It was on that occasion that second occasion which the duo’s music truly launched.  Now, in 2026, it was time to dig deeper.  On April 5th, Ben and I performed as part of the new LUNCH-TIME series in Chicago to prepare to go into Experimental Sound Studio to record with Kate Ihn the next day.

The development of this music moved in steps and leaps; a leap at CvD and a leap at ESS.  For the LUNCH-TIME concert Ben and I incorporated solo improvisation stretches as part of a set-long performance.  In the studio everything from note one to the final vibration of a take was paired.  Duo material with a single combinative voice, synergy, more than a sum of its parts.  In Ellington Skeletons I play Bb and bass clarinet (a nod to Barney Bigard, Jimmy Hamilton and Harry Carney), and on that afternoon at ESS I found things on those instruments I’ve never played before.  Perhaps it was the overtones of Ben’s low percussion (bass drum, Timpani, Surdo) and cymbals that led to the different extended sounds I discovered, I’m not sure.  What I am sure of is that on that day I felt some kind of parallel experience that led to Peter Brötzmann and Han Bennink’s extraordinary album on FMP which documented music made together in the Black Forest of Germany, “Schwarzwaldfahrt”.  I know it would be hubris to suggest that Ben and I matched their achievement.  But, for me, I felt a glimpse into their realm of exploration, those isolated dada discoveries by a lake.

Ben gave me another unique opportunity this spring, something no one has ever asked me to do before: write added material to a band’s compositions, for a group who has created their own melodic and rhythmic concepts without my involvement.  The music I composed for the Detroit-based Field Kitchen needed to be theirs and mine at the same time.  The vamps and rhythmic patterns they develop through weekly rehearsals are elliptical in nature, without a primary “one” that needs to align in order to generate forward motion.  By coincidence I was listening to traditional music from Burkina Faso during the period when I was composing for the ensemble (I greatly recommend the albums: “Burkina Faso: Rhythms of the Grasslands” and “Burkina Faso: Savanna Rhythms” [both on Nonesuch], and “Mossi du Burkina Faso: Musiques de cour et de village” [on Prophet]).  Having those systems of melodies and patterns running through my head alongside the Field Kitchen material definitely helped me with the composing.

The primary material for Field Kitchen was developed through their rehearsal process with each player generating their own, independent parts.  With the compositional elements I wrote, I wanted it to be possible for musicians to become a section by spontaneously cueing components to be played together (something I learned by watching the ICP Orchestra in performance).  These new elements could also be used independently as melodic parts or backgrounds.  All of this material needed to connect with Field Kitchen’s elliptical approach so placement could be anywhere in a piece as long as it had musical meaning for the player(s).  I brought this music to Detroit for my first rehearsal with the group on April 20th.  When Ben, Cyrus, Indira, and Sharon ran everything down with me I was deeply gratified to find that Ben’s trust and the experiment itself worked out.  New music for a different year.  Much appreciation to Ben Hall for helping lead me to it.