Shelton / Healy 2-13-2009

Friday the 13th! Scary!

Not really. Freddy vs Jason? Alien vs Predator? Terrible movies definitely, but before this show started I had a pretty long talk with these flicks with Jordan Glenn, Chuck Johnson and Ben Bracken, all of whom also played this night at the Totally Intense Fractal MindGaze Hut in Oakland.

The first set was a piece by Chuck Johnson called Polystate. It's an audiovisual piece that he developed as an installation but is also able to perform with. The basics are the use of scales to control audio and visual processes. Ben Bracken performed it with him. The sound was very measured and steady - a full blanket of sound.

Trevor Healy and I played the second set. it was one of the most focused sets that I remember us playing and we made great transitions from place to place with only one thing agreed on before we played - the note to start on. I liked this. We created some very full sounding sections and really moved our dynamics throughout the set. I think Chuck recorded the set - so I'm looking forward to hearing that.

The third set was the duo of Jordan Glenn and Kanoko Nishi. Drums and Koto. They covered alot of ground, at first I thought the drums would be too dominant as the room has some reverberation which can lend itself to too much drum - but Jordan knows what he's doing and the balance worked well. They ended the set in a super solid way, completing the night. All three sets had similarities in terms of timing and patience, though the way that each duo achieved these qualities was very different.

Weasel Walter Quintet 2-9-09

Last monday night played at the Ivy Room up in Albany with Weasel's quintet. Our last date was at the Uptown in Oakland. the big difference between that night and this one is that we've been rehearsing almost regularly, so we know the music better, and are able to take some more liberties with it. Easier for the horns to get away from the material and then back into it with smaller cues - which makes it flow better from composition to improvisation. Darren had a really great solo about midway through. We all played with alot of energy - you can see in this video:

Weasel Walter Quintet > Performance 2-9-2009 from weasel walter on Vimeo.

The first set of the night was the duo of Jacob Felix Heule and Tony Dryer - they did a very quiet set and had setup in a spot surrounded by the audience - a good way to counteract the muffled acoustics in the space while playing very quietly.
The last set was Bad Paradise, a group made up of Steve Dood, Cansafis of No Doctors and Andrew - electronic / experimental / weird / dance - a good set to cap off the night - the three sets were VERY different - which I like.