By Nick Catalano
For August, a new incarnation for the Verizon Music Festival (formerly produced by The Knitting Factory) is on tap. This time the producer is jazz legend George Wein. Situated all over town the most compelling shows will occur at Pace University on August 7, 8, and 9.
Dubbed "Forward Motion: 50 Years of 'New' Music" the series showcases the efforts of artists old and new who share a legacy of adventure, controversy and personal sacrifice in their efforts to imbue traditional forms with a new spirit of creativity. Rarely, have so many critically acclaimed artists of the new music been together in a concert setting especially designed for their talents. The Pace series achieves a high water mark in the presentation of serious new music artists at the millennium.
On Tuesday evening, August 7, "Forward Motion" opens with ROSCOE MITCHELL'S NOTE FACTORY. A Chicago bred saxophonist/composer, Mitchell co-founded the legendary Art Ensemble of Chicago in 1968 and has patrolled the realms of avant-garde jazz, contemporary classical music and, recently, early baroque styles in a forty year career of purposeful innovation. The Note Factory allows the leader/composer to explore the full breadth of his wide-ranging compositions while introducing material reflecting his constant search for new expression. Contrabassist MARK DRESSER appears with his trio featuring "hyper" pianist Denman Maroney and multi-flutist Mattias Ziegler. Since 1972 when he developed a cutting edge system of custom electro-acoustic microphones to amplify his unique vocabulary, Mr. Dresser has performed on over eighty
recordings with such luminaries of "new" jazz composition as Dave Douglas, John Zorn, Bob Ostertag and Gerry Hemingway. A Fullbright scholar with a Master of Arts from U.C. San Diego, the bassist/composer fronts several ensembles including "Force Green" which showcases his compositional versatility. Syracuse bred veteran saxophonist TIM BERNE, born in 1954, didn't take up music until he attended Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. After studying with Julius Hemphill in New York he began a recording career which has earned him top honors in the new music arena. His 1989 JMT release "Fractured Fairy Tales" was hailed as a masterpiece by the New York Times and his quartet Bloodcount has received unanimous praise world wide. The present group, Hard Cell, with pianist Craig Taborn and percussionist Tom Rainey reflects the latest thoughts of Berne's much heralded compositional career.
On Wednesday, August 8, saxophonist/pianist ARCHIE SHEPP and trombonist ROSWELL RUDD perform in the latest incarnation of their forty-year association. "Live in New York" is the result of an historic recorded appearance last autumn at the Jazz Standard which included drummer Andrew Cyrille, trombonist Grachan Moncur III, bassist Reggie Workman and poet Amiri Baraka. Both Mr. Shepp and Mr. Rudd are heroes of the free expression movement and have built their legacies on foundations erected by Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Cecil Taylor. "Live in New York" is particularly notable in this present context of new music because all the personnel have roots that extend far back; Grachan Moncur has collaborated with Jackie McLean, Reggie Workman was once a Jazz Messenger and Andrew Cyrille performed with Mary Lou Williams and Coleman Hawkins. These musicians have always peered into the murky waters of esoterica and their present association represents decades of improvisational adventure. Poet Amiri Baraki (formerly known as Leroi Jones) has similarly journeyed through untrodden (literary) ground and his contribution punctuates the contemporaneity of this collaboration.
The Thursday, August 9th performances begin with that familiar symbol of new music, the SUN RA ARKESTRA. Since the death of its remarkable leader in 1993 at age seventy-nine, the Arkestra has moved forward (under the direction of Marshall Allen) releasing a CD last year "A Song for the Sun" which emphasizes the swing side of its repertoire. It was Fletcher Henderson, the great progenitor of swing that first inspired Herman Poole "Sonny" Blount (Sun Ra's original name) who held a piano chair in one of Henderson's last bands in 1946. Following this association, Sun Ra embarked on a lifetime of experimental music. The present reversion to swing roots is one of the many ironies contained in the fifty-year history of this daring musical aggregation.
Guitarist NELS CLINE and drummer GREGG BENDIAN combine in a Coltrane inspired group dubbed "Interstellar Space Revisited" perhaps the most propitious name in this "Forward Motion" series. Mr. Cline's supra-modal improvisations echo the Coltrane "sheets of sound" legacy while Mr. Bendian's percussive peregrinations move the performances into the outer regions of the musical stratosphere. The duo also utilizes the ideas of Rashied Ali as a sonic blueprint for their explorations.
It is certainly fitting that the appearance of DJ SPOOKY (That Subliminal Kid) concludes matters at the Pace series. Mr. Spooky is the foremost proponent of turntablism where the deejay becomes the artist by utilizing mixing techniques as a mode of expression. Born of the hip-hop, house music and techno utterances of the 90's, Mr. Spooky's art has its origin in analog technology and eschews anything reminiscent of a "beat." In a concatenation of spoken word snippets, urban ambient sounds and ersatz broadcast cuts only an occasional instrumental motif offers the listener reference to a melodic narrative. Mr. Spooky is a pivotal figure in the creation of the deejay as a contemporary artist in his own right.
Although the presentation of cutting edge music involves obvious risks, the producers are unwavering in recognizing their responsibility to new artists. "Forward Motion" is a series that squarely addresses that responsibility.
