Main Drag Improvisers Series: September 27, 2023

 When multiple free-improv ensembles share a concert, it’s particularly effective if each group really stands out from the others. This is what I witnessed at the grandiose Rhythm In The Kitchen festival earlier in September, in which every set covered completely different musical territory despite the occasional player appearing in more than one band. I would also say this about the September 27 entry in tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci’s iconic weekly series at Main Drag. Three trios, a sextet, and a quartet, with some overlap in instrumentation but none in personnel, created five distinct worlds. These places were not unrelated, either - the entire show had an elegant shape to it, with each set providing a logical contrast to the previous one.

The show started with a unique trio consisting of TJ Borden on cello, Kevin Ramsay on guitar, daxophone, and electronics, and Sam Yulsman on keyboard. In the absence of percussive instruments, this group often kept the focus on melody and harmony. The cavernous space of Main Drag made the three instruments’ interlocking lines blend together in an iridescent tangle, with a delicate beauty not always heard in this series. Things did get a bit noisy, especially near the end, but it seemed like someone was playing lines or chords at all times. When Borden was digging in with extended techniques and electronic effects, with Yulsman hitting low clusters of drones, it was actually Ramsay’s daxophone that kept the melodic focus. The daxophone is a bowed wood instrument, not designed to produce definite pitches - but in this particular setting it seemed to sing as clearly as any cello. Ramsay and Borden’s interplay created some fascinating juxtapositions between melody and its approximation. 

Next up was a high-Kenergy trio set by guitarist Jeff Miles, bassist Ken Filiano, and drummer Ken Kobayashi. The contrast with the set before couldn’t have been greater. Where there was a lot of listening going on in the first trio, the members of this one often seemed to be playing against each other. Individually these players are great improvisers, but their collective sound was a bit difficult to get to, especially the way Miles and Kobayashi remained hyperactive even in quieter moments. This group only really came together at climactic points of intensity and rare instances of groove. Filiano seemed to realize the mismatch; his playing got progressively sparser toward the end of the first part of the set while the others kept going. He returned in the second part with some interesting percussive textures, but I think they would have been more exciting in a more responsive context.

Gauci’s own trio came third as usual, but in a very special edition: both Kevin Shea and Colin Hinton were performing elsewhere that night, so it fell to James Paul Nadien to take over on drums. Adam Lane, this trio’s most frequent bassist, completed the lineup. This group had none of the previous set’s connectivity issues. Even at their high level of intensity, Lane and Nadien created a solid substrate for Gauci to sail over. There was a definite form to this set; it started relatively subdued with Gauci almost dipping into bebop vocabulary, and only toward the middle and at the very end did we get extended helpings of his habitual high-harmonic hollering over Lane’s signature stentorian skronks. Nadien gave this trio a different vibe, a bit bouncier than Hinton or Shea; grooves like the one he struck in the last section, with Lane rocking out on blues-scale riffs, are a rare occurrence in these Gauci sets. Lane acted as a double agent here, locking in closely with Nadien when plucking but with Gauci when bowing.

The lineup was also slightly irregular for the ensuing installment of Biggish, the roughly monthly medium-size ensemble series-within-a-series led by Yoni Kretzmer and Juan Pablo Carletti. Jeff Davis was filling in for Carletti on drums, and Kretzmer played alto sax instead of his usual tenor. This smaller-than-usual Biggish also included Kenny Warren on trumpet, Rick Parker on trombone, Andrew Hadro on baritone sax, and Peter Bitenc on bass. Kretzmer contributed some composed and arranged material, but there was plenty of room for high-level, tuned-in improv. For me, Biggish was the high point of the whole show. Kretzmer’s beautiful sound on alto was just as rich as Hadro’s regal baritone; at one point the two saxophonists engaged in an exquisitely interconnected episode of trading phrases. The arrangements included some very satisfying ensemble textures, including lush pseudo-Ellingtonian chords, tight baritone-bass unisons, and Ornette-ish themes from one or two horns with the others buzzing around in harmonious drones - worthy vehicles for improvised sections. The set closed with a quite unexpected version of Alanis Morissette’s ballad “Uninvited”. Festive yet somehow also meditative, this ending reminded me of the classic downtown avant-jazz-pop of Sex Mob or The Jazz Passengers.

The finale of this show featured a quartet of strikingly individual improvisers: Sana Nagano on violin, Matt Hollenberg on guitar, Jeong Lim Yang on bass, and Patrick Golden on drums. This was another high-intensity set, quite loud most of the time - but all the volume was worth it. These players’ varied vocabularies all coalesced in a highly textured sea of sound, with much of the texture provided by Nagano’s and Hollenberg’s distinctive repertoires of effects. There was a vastness about the whole set - even the quiet parts had a sea-deep layer. The concentrated energy of this last set made me visualize the whole show’s overarching form as not too dissimilar, fractally, from Gauci’s trio set - starting with nuance and melody and building through various ups and downs into a spectacularly rousing conclusion.

Watch the whole show on Youtube!