Playing with Marshall Allen (Happy Birthday!)

I haven't really written about this experience much, but I will take the opportunity of Marshall Allen's 100th birthday today (here's to many more!) to say a little about the experience of playing with him, back in 2007 in Richmond. New Ting bandmate Tim Harding set it up, and Marshall Allen, Thomas Stanley, and Elliott Levin came down to RVA for two sets of improvisation. This was definitely one of the highlights of my musical life. We had some time to hang out a little beforehand, went out to eat, talked some, but didn't talk at all about the music we were going to play. I did get the chance to ask him about "The Shadow World" and how tricky that piece was, and he said, "well, it's in 7/4." All you need to know, I guess! And we sang the head to each other (the beginning of it, anyway). 

When the time came, we just started playing. And I have to say: it was a spiritual experience for me. When Marshall started soloing, and those rippling waves of energy and sonic exuberance hit my ears, I was electrified and transformed and almost damn near forgot -I- was actually playing drums with him! He split his time about half and half between alto sax and EVI, plus a smattering of flute. I was transported to other realms, seriously: that other, better world. We started off as a quartet, and here's a little rough video snippet of that (unfortunately, not much Marshall):

For the second set, we were joined by Thomas Stanley, another bass player, and a female vocalist. Not as transcendent as the first set, to me, but still pretty mind-blowing. And then it was over.

I did have the opportunity to play with Marshall one more time, this time up in DC in 2010, in a band called Marshall Allen and the Vertical Dogs, along with Danny Ray Thompson, Jimmy Ghaphery, Tim, and a DC bassist and second drummer. It was big fun, of course, but nothing will replace that first time.

I talked to Marshall a few years later when the Sun Ra Arkestra played the Richmond Folk Festival. I think he remembered me, but hey, I'll give him a pass if he didn't --- hell, he was 83 when we first played!

So again, happy birthday, Marshall, and know that the years and hours of music you've given us all, with and without Sun Ra, can never be surpassed. Peace.

Improvisation and Meditation

Great writing about improvisation, from Taylor Ho Bynum's excellent essay on the new Cecil Taylor release from 1973. The context is Cecil, but the notion is universal:

There is an element of improvisation, especially when so expertly realized, that is akin to meditation. You are aware of all the thoughts floating through your head but continually letting them go to connect to the present moment, as a performer and a listener. Thoughts, fears, anxieties all inevitably arise—the brain does work at a furious pace—and by welcoming them, accepting them, articulating them, we can let them go. We can work out the puzzles of our own minds, embrace the unknowable together until it’s transformed into a creativity that needs no definition. (Taylor Ho Bynum, "Forty-Four Thoughts for Cecil Taylor," The Baffler (2022-02-22)

New RAIC album "Gestalt"

I am proud to appear on two tracks on Gestalt, the newest CD from RAIC... one of the tracks, "The Intergalactic Church of Kirk," is a repurposed outtake from the Ask the Trees sessions... it was also chosen as a track for the latest Wire Tapper... the other track I am on, the title cut, is a 15-minute improvisational epic with three drummers: Samuel Goff, Scott Clark, and myself... the rest of the CD is pretty nifty as well... standout tracks include "Baroche" with Laura Morina on vocals, and the lovely country tune "Three Sides to the Story"... all told, four of the members of New Ting appear on several tracks... 

Gig This Saturday

I'll be joining Jimmy Ghaphery (of New Ting) and Robert Andrew Scott (of RAIC) to supply some of the live music for this art auction at Studio Two Three in RVA this Saturday.  Should be..... quiet! 

Video of New Ting at Shockoe Denim

New Ting at Shockoe Denim, 2019-10-17. Full audio here. Thanks, Katie, for the video!

Ask the Trees: New Release on Bandcamp: The Heart's Message Cannot Be Delivered in Words

photo by Randy Reus

I am pleased to be a part of this new release: The Heart's Message Cannot Be Delivered in Words. This was a project put together by RAIC saxophonist Erik Schroeder, under the group name Ask the Trees. It was wonderful to play this free nature-inspired post-Coltrane jazz with Erik and two other members of New Ting, Jimmy Ghaphery and Fred McGann.

Photos from the Latest New Ting Gig

Well, from before the gig. It was great playing at Shockoe Denim; it's a wonderful space.

Fred prepares:

Tommy prepares:

Jimmy and Sam are prepared:

Barbiero-Byrd-Ghaphery Live Set Recording

The recording of the Barbiero-Byrd-Ghaphery trio set at Rhizome last weekend is now up for free streaming and download at Rhizome's page on archive.org. Please check it out! 25 minutes of acoustic free improvisation.

Upcoming Gig in DC

A great space for quiet explorations... also loud ones... at any rate, always a pleasure to play with Jimmy and Dan!

Notes on "Making Music"

http://www.dennisdesantis.com/

Here are some random and scattered thoughts on Dennis DeSantis' book Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers. As I said when I finished it, even though the book is aimed at, well, electronic music producers, there's much in it that can apply to all musicians, even improvisers working in areas where overall planning and detailed construction of orchestrated melodies and motifs don't really come into play. Although when I write it that way, it occurs to me that even in improv there's a fair amount of sound construction going on. I do try to aspire to what I think the best improvisers do, which is to improvise compositionally, to build a sense of structure of some sort from the flimsiest of platforms: thin air.

So DeSantis' book is organized around a series of possible problems and practical solutions to those problems, which is  a nice way to get at many of the snags and hitches that can arise during the creative process. For example, in "Drums to Pitches and Vice Versa" (p. 194), he writes about the problem of coming up with appropriate melodic or harmonic ideas for already-existing drum patterns (or vice versa). One idea he offers is to use a melodic line for one instrument (say, bass) to trigger patterns from entirely different instruments (say, drums). How does that apply to my playing drums in an improvised context? Simply this: I listen closely to what the other players are doing, and sometimes emulate their lines (or sounds) on the drums. It doesn't match exactly, of course, but the inspiration is there and ready to expound on. I didn't need DeSantis to make me think of this; it's something I've developed on my own--but DeSantis does make me consider that process and how it fits into my improvisational toolkit.

A related idea he has is increasing your supply of rhythmic ideas by creating random loops from different sources and emulating the patterns that emerge  ("Implied Rhythms in Short Loops," p. 146). Now this is something I have toyed with in the past but not pursued with focus. Reading about it will help me to be more aware of the rhythms and sounds around me, and while I won't be capturing any sounds out in the wild to make loops with, I will be listening for patterns and beats I can incorporate into my playing.

Two interesting concepts he deals with directly apply to some of the directions I've taken with my playing over the last few years: "Avoidance List" (p. 26) and "Arbitrary Constraints" (p. 42). If  you find your music getting in a rut, repeating the same ideas, he suggests breaking the music down into its various components ("attributes") and experimenting with creating music while avoiding some of them. Similarly, you can try applying certain constraints on your music before you even begin (he suggests things like making every sound from one sample). I have pursued solutions like these by reducing my kit in various ways, sometimes limiting myself to just a floor tom and a cymbal, or just snare and hi-hat. Granted, sometimes this has been for practical reasons (it's hard to justify lugging the entire kit for a 15-minute gig!), but for a while there I was doing it purposefully. It definitely broadened my horizons, forcing me to explore different sonic possibilities with a limited set of sound sources. I was influenced  in this direction by the example of Ian Davis, who I saw one time sit behind his whole kit and only play chains on top of his snare for an entire 45-minute set, all the while making it interesting and musical. I have often found myself limiting my playing to certain pieces of the kit even when I have all of it in front of me. Of course, it doesn't always work: once I decided to only play what I could find in an old suitcase of second-tier discarded toys and percussion instruments I'd recently rediscovered that'd been in the attic for years. Turned out they'd been in the attic for a reason--but that's experimentation for you.

Of course, not all of DeSantis' suggestions work for me, which is only natural. For example, "Write drunk; edit sober" (p. 46), while wonderful advice for a producer, doesn't really work for me with improv: there, I've got to do my editing on the spot, and the challenge is to do that while, if not drunk, then pleasantly buzzed...on the music. Overall, though, Making Music is a great way to jump start different thought processes on the whole wonderful activity.