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| L-R: Matthew Heyner, Rich Gross, David Nuss, Ed Chang: Rutgers University performance, Dec 1993 |
Structured Improv Days in The Early '90s (NYC)
With:
Ed Chang: Electric Guitar
David Nuss: Drums
David Nuss: Drums
Matthew Heyner: Acoustic Bass
Samara Lubelski: Violin
Blaise Siwula: Alto Sax
Rich Gross: Alto Sax
Blindfold Workshop
In the early 1990s I started getting heavily into the dissonant "noise rock" of Sonic Youth, as well as the turn-on-a-dime jazz blast-beats of John Zorn's Naked City. These two musical forces had a pivotal influence on my musical direction during this time, and in 1993 - shortly after moving into Manhattan's East Village where all these crazy people lived - I began playing with fellow musicians similarly interested in exploring the possibilities of "out" music. Starting from shared fringe-rock backgrounds, we eventually expanded our stylistic horizons to include free jazz, avant-garde/contemporary classical and, to some extent, "outsider" art music. Most of these formative sessions took place at the weekly "Blindfold" free improvisation workshops held at Sound OWT, an entire floor-sized rehearsal space in Chinatown, run by Downtown electro-acoustic composer/drummer David Linton.
The initial core group of the weekly Blindfold workshop group was myself on electric guitar, Dave Nuss (Angkor Wat, No Neck Blues Band) on drums, and Matt Heyner (No Neck Blues Band, Test) on bass. Alto saxophonist Rich Gross (later in All Time Present and Fist of Kindness) also soon became a regular member of the Blindfold group. These weekly workshops initially began as loose, rock-tinged, modal power trio jams, but with the addition of reeds our sound increasingly began to embrace free-jazz/funk. As relatively new transplants to NYC, we were all learning as we went along, and each player also brought influences from outside projects and bands (it also didn't hurt that NYC had the best record shops in the world for free jazz and avant-garde music). The core Blindfold members were also sometimes joined by guest players such as alto saxophonist Blaise Siwula (later curator of the legendary, weekly "COMA" improvised music series) and violinist Samara Lubelski (Pacer, Thurston Moore band, solo projects, etc). The sessions at the Chinatown rehearsal space were based on open improvisational forms, allowing for organic additions to the sound.
NYU Session:
Picture Shows
Fascinated by Downtown music maverick John Zorn's cue-card-prompted "game pieces" (ex. COBRA) and their tendency towards jump-cut ensemble transitions, the pieces I came up with during this period typically involved a couple basic ideas:
- Placing strictures on the length of a section and the instrumental arrangement (solo/duo/trio/etc).
- Proposing a general texture or dynamic to explore (for example, "dense", "fast", "rhythmic", etc.).
The initial batch of Picture Shows were multi-sectional compositions in which one or more textural ideas were assigned to each instrument for each section. In each of these relatively brief "scenes", the players could play free, but guided by the indicated notation (unless "free" was the indicated notation). Each Picture Show would typically have 8 to 12 of these discrete ensemble sections, with some sections being reprised (employed as a kind of textural refrain). These sections followed one after by way of jump-cut transitions, hand-cued by a conductor (usually myself).
In a sense, these Picture Show pieces were my take on Zorn's improv game pieces and Butch Morris' "conduction" works, with an important difference being that my constructs were not being spontaneously formulated during a performance (for better or worse). More importantly on a personal level however, these things helped me to explore arranging for and playing in different kinds of focused improv textures. For the NYU recording session, the Blindfold group ended up recording two Picture Shows, #2 and #5 (both in single takes).
- Ed Chang: Electric Guitar
- Blaise Siwula: Alto Sax
- Matthew Heyner: Acoustic Bass
- David Nuss: Drums
- Ed Chang: Electric Guitar
- Blaise Siwula: Alto Sax
- Samara Lubelski: Violin
- Matthew Heyner: Acoustic Bass
- David Nuss: Drums
Twenty
One piece we recorded which did not utilize Picture Show notation was "Twenty". This piece was essentially a way to feature very short, rotating solos, duos, trios and quartets in a continuous sequence, with each "round" becoming shorter and shorter in duration. The title "Twenty" came from the number of seconds allowed for each round in the initial cycle of solo-duo-trio-quartets. The second cycle of improvisations would be made up of 19-second rounds, then 18-second rounds, etc...leading to a free section at the end, once the rounds became too short to be manageable. Below is a studio version of "Twenty", but in this case starting with 12-second rounds (in order to keep the length of the piece "radio friendly", I guess). In this recording, some rounds may not be technically "full-length", since the shrinking durational value for a round was only used as a maximum limit. This recording and the next feature also Samara as a guest player.
- Ed Chang: Electric Guitar
- Samara Lubelski: Violin
- Matthew Heyner: Acoustic Bass
- David Nuss: Drums
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| Blindfold at Collective Unconscious, NYC |
Matt and Dave each contributed tunes exploring melody and rhythm. David's "Triplets" is based on a free-melodic triplet motif, beginning in rhythmic unison and then sustained as a shared rhythmic sequence between three instruments. A rotating fourth soloist navigates the changing groove and instrumental landscape. The sequence of soloists in this rendition is bass, drums, guitar, violin.
- Matthew Heyner: Acoustic Bass
- David Nuss: Drums
- Ed Chang: Electric Guitar
- Samara Lubelski: Violin
Matt's tune, "Let It Be", is based on a more funky melodic idea, interrupted by rhythmic, accented cadences in non-metrical intervals, and leading to a looser, free atomization at the end. Alto saxophonist Rich Gross was only featured on "Let It Be" at this particular session, but his bluesier approach is a nice contrast to Blaise's more "biting" attack on the previous tracks. Rich would be featured more in later recordings.
- Rich Gross: Alto Sax
- Ed Chang: Electric Guitar
- Matthew Heyner: Acoustic Bass
- David Nuss: Drums
Vantage Point From A Quarter Century Removed
Although this period probably contained some of my most "cringey" guitar tones (it was the '90s...) I think the tunes still have some legs on them. Considering the compressed time period in which these tracks were rehearsed and recorded, some really pleasing things resulted. With structured/prompted free improvisation, it seems to me (still) an open question as to whether pieces like these would benefit from more rehearsed shaping, or if that kind of "ossification" would deprive a performance of its spontaneity. In any case, for whatever reason, I never really used Picture Show notation to this degree again after 1995, instead generally going for much looser scenarios. Thus, this was a pretty unique period in my creative timeline.
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