7:00 pm: KEN VANDERMARK/NATE WOOLEY DUO (Chicago/NY)
Ken Vandermark reeds Nate Wooley trumpet
Chicago saxophonist/composer Ken Vandermark and New York trumpet player Nate Wooley had been operating in each other’s orbits for several years- having worked together with Paul Lytton, Joe Morris, Agusti Fernandez, and Terrie Ex- before putting together their duo project in October 2013, when they toured the United States for the first time. With this unique ensemble, they deal directly with each other’s iconoclastic compositional and improvisational vocabularies, and have created a book of original material that takes inspirational cues from the under-appreciated work of John Carter and Bobby Bradford (two of their compositions are part of the group’s repertoire). Vandermark and Wooley have worked together to create an organic combination of the jazz tradition, free improvisation, and modern composition, and have then placed it into the raw and intimate context of this duo.
8:00 pm: GRÜNEN (Berlin/Cologne)
Achim Kaufmann piano, composition Robert Landfermann double bass Christian Lillinger drums, percussion
An exciting free German trio of brilliant, fierce piano, bass and drums, Grünen (“the greening”) was formed in April 2009 when Landfermann invited Kaufmann and Lillinger to participate in his ongoing concert series of improvised music at the Loft in Cologne. Their first – completely improvised – encounter was recorded and subsequently released by Clean Feed Records. For their second disc, the trio mixed spontaneous improv with some predetermined structures – taking new turns with written material, some of it rhythmically quite intricate and/or evoking images of surrealistic jazz and song: a strategy the three have adopted for their highly unpredictable concert performances as well. On the occasion of Achim Kaufmann’s receiving the Albert Mangelsdorff award, grünen performed at the Berlin Jazz Fest in November 2015 where they were joined by poet gdr guenther.
with kind travel support from Goathe Institute:
also supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe
9:30 pm: ELOPING WITH THE SUN (CT/NY/Chicago)
Joe Morris banjo, banjouke William Parker sintir, reeds, wind Hamid Drake frame drum
Album review by Mark Corroto, March 2, 2003:
The surprise in the pairing of these three creative music superstars is not that they have finally recorded together. The astonishing thing about Eloping With The Sun is the music they decided to make.
Choosing African instruments, percussionist Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker create trance-inducing rhythms for guitarist Joe Morris to play the banjo (yes, a banjo) and banjouke behind, over, and around. Morris, who is known to whip guitars into spaghetti-like chords of sound, eschews the noodles for a distinctive high-end sound of the banjo and the ukelele-like banjouke.
William Parker choses a sintir, the four-stringed Morrocan bass lute, to propel energy lines throughout. Its sound, a whirling drone buzz associated with Gnawa music, may be a bit foreign to jazz ears. Together with the frame drumming of Hamid Drake, the pair creates a meditative statement not unlike an Indian raga.
Their almost Luddite music preference causes listeners to be off balance at first. But given a chance, this music gels. Their repeated patterns reveal minute changes and intricacies. The dreamlike state created allows for the distinct taut sounds of Morris’ choice of instrumentation.
