[one final note] - issue #9 | winter 2002 |
RAUHA (PEACE) :
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The Tampere Jazz Happening celebrated its 20th anniversary with a beautifully
coordinated manifestation of how people can listen to each other and create
awareness of new harmonics in human social possibilities. If ever there
was a time for a brilliant gathering of live music from different countries,
it was in these days and nights of world war and threats of retribution.
Apprehension, grief, and rage were like incense fogging the airports,
while ignorance, violence, and letters of disease were spread through
the usual channels of public communication.
Then Sam Rivers' Trio with Doug Mathews and Anthony Cole opened out musical patterns from the leader's highly developed angles on soprano, tenor, flute and piano. Flowing on through his 70's, Rivers is just as slim, erect, focused, and fiery as he was through those intense nights on Bond Street in Studio Rivbea back in 1976 when the music Witness® Project was just getting underway. Concerts, workshops, and festivals put on there independently by the Rivers family eventually led many of the participating musicians (for instance David Murray, Wadada Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, Andrew Cyrille, Fred Hopkins, Arthur Blythe, . . .) to perform all over the world including here in Tampere. The situation Sam Rivers creates with this music and vision remains an open, moving, and lasting inspiration.
Saturday afternoon, Annie Gosfield kicked off her ball-heeled
wedgies, toed the electronic pedals of her sampling synthesizer, and eased
into the strange tones defining the vast industrial sonic space of EWA7,
the creation she premiered in a factory in Nürnberg two years ago.
Guitarist Roger Kleier, having warmed up his steel on some Mississippi
delta glissandos, slid far out as percussion colormaster Jim Pugliese
moved exuberantly from mallets on gongs, cymbals, and an old, bent hot-water
tank to hammers on iron wheels and gears both on stage and halfway back
into the space, changing its shape.
The Necks from Australia looks like a conventional piano trio
(Chris Abrahams-piano, Lloyd Swanton-bass, and Tony Buck-drums).
Actually it is a three-man organism practicing unlicensed mass hypnosis.
Exquisite control of the dynamics of extended cyclic motifs produces an
unwinding ear-trance that transforms listeners into spinning vessels stowed
in the hold of some open boat sailing vast southern seas.
Fusion welding of two world cultures was achieved live by Nada, an octet featuring Finnish and South Indian musicians. Composer Eero Hämeenniemi, founding member of the Korvat Auki! (Ears Open!) Society, and Karaikudi R. Mani, master of the mridangam two-headed drum, lead an ensemble in which listening together becomes truly communicable. Markus Ketola on trap drums is well tuned to beat cycles of the Karnatic tradition of India. Balasai on wooden flute and Durgabrasad on gottuvadyam played with a slide are just as responsive to the beautiful saxophonics of Pentti Lahti. Brilliant colors of the Indian fabric covering the platform onstage merged with a kaleidoscope of colors in the interwoven musical sounds of Finland and India, manifesting joyful demonstration that listening together in peace is a transcendent social experience.
Rova Saxophone Quartet (Bruce Ackley-soprano, Jon Raskin-baritone,
Steve Adams-alto, Larry Ochs-tenor) came together by the
San Francisco Bay in 1977. Fastidious interplay, adventurous programming,
extensive touring and recording have forged a unique force for saxophone
possibilities in contemporary music.
Nostalgia (accent on the first syllable in Finland) shows the interacting ensemble composed by bassist John Lindberg featuring four distinct musical voices: the always alert and authoritative Andrew Cyrille on drums, Larry Ochs on tenor saxophone with room to stretch his personal sound, and the unique attack of Wadada Leo Smith's trumpet. Each is capable of stepping out and seizing the time. A stunning set was slashed open on this night by brilliant, visionary bursts of spirit-sound from Wadada's horn. Serious damage was done to any preconceptions about limitations on musical expression.
Sunday afternoon saw a vast array of percussion instruments spread across
the broad stage. Trap drums, congas, djembes, bongos, timbales, gongs,
and racks of industrial gears, springs, and pierced castings were ready
as the first vocal callings and talking drum tones of Milford Graves
danced into view out of the darkness.
The Barry Guy New Orchestra played his recently composed, hour-long structure "Inscape-Tableaux." With the composer conducting from his magnificent bass, all-star colleagues from the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, and the USA were coordinated, exhorted, challenged, and listened to. The picture of what this Witness heard shows Marilyn Crispell on grand piano on the left, Herb Robertson's trumpet attacking from above, Barry Guy bowing into the extended trombone of Johannes Bauer, and the frightening dexterity of Evan Parker's saxophones. Across the back throb the doubled drums of Paul Lytton and Raymond Strid, together with the tuba of Per Åke Holmlander, the bass clarinets of Hans Koch and, of course, at the lower right, Mats Gustafsson's everting baritone saxophone. Intense. Probing. Tight. Together.
Korvat Auki ! Ears Open!
Each original ink and acrylic picture, created during live performances, measures 70 x 100cm (27 1/2 X 39 1/2") |
copyright for all works retained by their creators 2002 |