New York Eye And Ear Control/Michael Snow
An excellent time Sunday evening with John Corbett getting to talk about the work of one of my heroes- visual artist, filmmaker, musician, Michael Snow- at a presentation of his films “New York Eye and Ear Control” (1964) and “Sshtoorrty” (2005) by Doc Films, a student-led, volunteer-run movie theater and film society at the University of Chicago. I had not seen “New York Eye and Ear Control” projected on a screen since I was at university at McGill in Montreal, when I was studying film and taking a series of courses in experimental cinema in the mid 1980’s. Snow was one of the key figures of those courses.
At that time, my interests in jazz and improvisation were moving away from the mainstream- I had discovered the music of Joe McPhee just before leaving for college and heard Alber Ayler’s recordings (whose music and visual presence are essential components of NYE&E) soon after arriving in Montreal. Concurrent to all of this, some friends who I was in a band with took a road trip to Toronto to see the CCMC, a freely improvising music group (I had always thought CCMC was an acronym for Canadian Creative Music Company, but found out from John last night that the letters actually didn’t stand for anything, the group just wanted to see what people would guess!).
This performance was the first concert of freely improvised music I had heard aside from the regular shows by The Fringe I’d witness as a teenager with my father when they performed at The Willow in Somerville, Mass. The CCMC’s approach to improvisation was a radical departure from what The Fringe accomplished, which was more focused on jazz-based construction. The CCMC gig was a revelation for me, and I went up to talk to the pianist and trumpet player after the concert, whose playing I was most enthralled with. He was extremely gracious and asked if I was a musician as well. When he found out that I was, and also working with improvised music, he wanted to know which musicians I was interested in, sharing his thoughts on the subject with me. I walked away from talking to him completely inspired. It wasn’t until the car ride back to Montreal when I looked at the flyer for the show again that I realized that the Michael Snow I had been studying in film class was the same person I had heard perform and who I had been talking to the night before. Snow never mentioned anything about his film work during our conversation.
Fast forward thirty years later. An essential music organizer in Toronto, Ron Gaskin, helped coordinate a concert for me to play duo with Michael Snow, then in a trio adding John Oswald, on June 20th, 2015, at Array Space in Toronto. The honor to get to play with Snow was immense for me, and was one of those rare points in life when you know your younger self would never believe it possible to be where you were standing now, to do what you were about to do. Snow was 86 at the time and arrived just before the performance, so there wasn’t an opportunity to have a soundcheck with him. We talked briefly before the set and I shared the fact that, though I had studied his films in school, when I met him at that CCMC concert in the mid 80’s I didn’t realize who he was. He got a real kick out of that.
When Snow went to the piano to begin the concert with me, he moved slowly and, out of respect and awe, I was not sure how hard I should push things when playing with him. I should never have been worried about it. Snow dove into the music with such ferocity it was I, 35 years his junior, who needed to be concerned. That opportunity to go head-to-head with Michael Snow on the bandstand was one of the highlights of my career. It was also my only chance to do so. Though Alan Licht was working to create an occasion for us to go to Toronto to perform with Snow in 2022, the chance never came to fruition due to his health and, on January 5th, 2023, Michael Snow passed at the age of 94. Sadly, Ron Gaskin, passed away in August of 2020. I’m deeply thankful for the opportunity Ron gave me, and that this concert with Michael was recorded and then released by Corbett vs. Dempsey in 2018, named after an early painting of Snow’s that graces the cover, “Duol”.
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