Eight 25-minute duos and trios by some of L.A.'s most inspired abstractionists. Go!
Dan Clucas (cornet) & Miller Wrenn (standup bass). Clucas dances with authoritative melody and warm tone around the gravity of Wrenn's plucked and arco bass, and layers of rhythm are suggested. Because we're not in chaos.
Joe Berardi (percussion, electronics) & Niloufar Shiri (kamancheh). Shiri spins her little 4-stringed lute, taps it, shakes it, even pulls, plucks and tangles the actual strings with great sensitivity and melodic flair. Berardi similarly uses his drums less for rhythm than for accent, meanwhile coaxing fizzbombs from his electronic devices, lastly a clock-shop tick & sproing -- whimsy or time bomb depending on your mood. The two leave room for each other.
Brian Walsh (woodwinds), Wayne Peet (keyboards), Breana Gilcher (oboe). The sympathetic wind pairing of Gilcher and Walsh makes for overblowing harmonies, exciting conversations and sobbing unisons; Walsh ends one encounter like a broken wheel spinning. Peet moves from darkness to a Stravinskyan dawn to an ending that suspends us right here, in the uncertain present. An emotional set.
Motoko Honda (prepared piano with electronics) & Lauren E. Baba (viola). Part 1: Honda searches inside the piano for tinkles and sprinkles of muted hope as Baba scrapes her strings. The urgency and drama build. They leap and scurry together; a bell resting on the piano wires calls for patience against the inevitable. Restless activity subsides into drops of rain. Part 2: The piano wanders quietly; the viola creaks like an old door in the wind. Honda strums anger against the wires. Baba bows twisted agony as something explodes within the grand. Suddenly it stops.
Kris Tiner (trumpet), Kozue Matsumoto (koto), Ted Taforo (tenor sax). Kris Tiner's perennial themes are openness and breathing; here he demonstrates these along with Taforo via long, untroubled sustains and methods of talking through a horn that include strangulations. Matsumoto flavors the air with koto, a 13-stringed surfboard from which she produces not just firmly vibrated notes and perfectly whisked chords, but fingernail taps and resonant plectrum scrapes along its underside. The trio concludes with what sounds like an improvised samba. Heroic!
Vicki Ray (prepared piano) & Steuart Liebig (electric bass). Liebig burbles off with that distinctive fast pluck while Ray locates Chinese twangs and zither strums inside the lid. He closes eyes, popping and grooving along as she sprays light harmonic complexities up and down, locked in accord. He quiets for a nervy effect where she bows a piano wire with a string. They close with something short and sweet.
Carey Fosse (guitar), Nicole McCabe (alto sax), Clint Dodson (drums). Fosse constantly interrupts himself, as if establishing a train of thought is bad for art. So now he's whang/echoing, now detuning/retuning, now funking, riffing, scrambling, etc., with effects boxes adding to the kaleidoscope. Dodson defines his role as picture frame, laying down a loose general beat on sticks or mallets and accenting when he feels it. McCabe enlists as colorist, listening hard and whipping out fast background lines that smooth everything out. Hey, it works!
Vinny Golia (woodwinds), William Roper (tuba, commentary, bird call, percussion, etc.), Joshua Gerowitz (guitar). As one of this community's true capos, Golia is indispensable, coming on strong tonight alongside longtime associate and new-music composer Roper's punchy, thoughtful tuba. Golia fortifies the low end via his rich bass clarinet, whose considerable range (and overblowing possibilities) he exploits as few can; he also stakes out the highs via his piccolo and especially via his sopranino sax, whose scintillating runs cut through any mud. The younger guitarist Gerowitz is charged largely with holding down the middle ground, though he shows shred chops at the ready. We hear some finch flight, some postbop, plenty of burn. Aside from a brief ensemble storm, much of the set's second half is devoted to Roper's social-commentary comedy: "My father lied to my mother. My mother lied to me. I don't have any kids." Au contraire.
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Accolades to Darryl Tewes of Vernacular for the programming and Wayne Peet for technical management.
PHOTO BY FUZZY BAROQUE.