the Last Time I Played

New Blog Location!

2009-11-06T15:23:00.002-08:00

I've moved this blog - it's now on my website: http://www.aramshelton.com/blog/

Shelton Healy Duff's House 10-6-2009

2009-10-07T11:13:00.003-07:00

Played with Trevor Healy at Tom Duff's house in Berkeley - a nice spot for playing. It was two duos that night, the first being Jacob Zimmerman, an alto player at Mills right now and Mike Carreira, a drummer. Their set was first, Mike played a very stripped down set of small bass drum, snare and small cymbal. Spare sounds - worked well with the composed music that I think was written by Jacob. The music focused on distinct aspects of playing by Jacob - trills, high tones, etc. Mike has definitely explored the smaller sounds of drums -he used tiny scrapes and movements to good effect. A short break and Trevor and I played - the last time was back in early August (on another duo bill with James Fei and Kyle Bruckman) and we fell back into our style - which has developed over time to be a process of building up thick affected drone sounds with interspersed field recordings and ghostly melodies. Meditative. This was a good set and Tom recorded it with a nice pair of overheads. Hopefully that will be unearthed before too long....

Marches Makeout Room 10-5-2009

2009-10-06T10:26:00.002-07:00

There's a monthly series happening at the Makeout Room in SF - first mondays of the month - the bay area is all about mondays - or so it seems sometimes....
So, Marches played our 3rd show - so far Cory, Jordan and I have been at all three - our bass / organ position has been moving around a bit, thankfully there's good players out here that fit well into the music we're playing. This night we had Eric Perney join us on bass, and he did a great job of interpreting the music. He's a strong player, particularly when playing arco. We played a five song set, starting with the through composed ballad "the Walk". On "Turning", a kind of slow moving power waltz that disintegrates in an Aylerian way, my mouth completely dried out. It's very hard to blow alot of air through a horn when you've got no more moisture.....Cory played some great tenor & baritone solos. Jordan took a drum solo that really changed the mood of the set ....KFJC came and documented the night with video and audio.
The first set was played by Nathan Clevengers sextet. In it I played tenor, alto and clarinet; Kasey Knudsen played alto & tenor; Sylvan Carton baritone & tenor; Sam Bevan bass; Eric Garland, drums; and Clevenger on the guitar. Nice tunes - interesting writing with independent parts for the different voices. We didn't have a rehearsal - so I was pretty green on some of the arrangements... I also played mostly free solos, as specified by Nathan's arrangements - these were good sections, Garland said it was the most interactive he's felt while playing free. But, I did ask Nathan for some solos on changes the next time around.
Lords of the Outland played the middle set - alot of energy by that quartet of Rent Romus, CJ "Reaven" Borosque, Ray Scheaffer & Philip Everett. The crowd at Makeout was pretty talkative. The effect of having shows in bars that have happy hour until 10. Though, when you're playing you don't notice it quite as much as when you're trying to listen.

Shelton Nordeson at Blue Six 9-24-2009

2009-09-27T16:12:00.003-07:00

Played duets on Thursday night at Blue Six in the mission with Kjell Nordeson. Part of the Active Music Series, it'll be a monthly concert where I'll be bringing a project and inviting another group to share the bill. This night Darren Johnston brought a new quartet called Farallon where he's joined by Sheldon Brown on alto, Noah Phillips on guitar and Jordan Glenn on drums.

Kjell and I played the first set, all improvised - we played four pieces, the first two were more rooted in tempo based forms with Kjell creating multi-layered rhythms with lots of variations and colors of sounds stemming from his kit that includes many "little instruments" in addition to the standard elements. Really fun to play with him, I like his feel when playing time - driving & intense, with a solid pulse supporting all the variations.We played four pieces - the first two were pretty high energy tempo driven affairs, lots of forward momentum and repetition. I started on tenor and switched to alto halfway through the second. The third piece dealt with more quiet tones and silence at first. Kjell then created a pulsing theme utilizing some complex sounds which developed into an ostinato in a kind of 12/8 feel with cross rhythms on top. I was able to float on top of this with melodic material. A very patient feel to the piece. We were able to record it with 4 tracks, here's the second track, where I play first tenor and then alto:

Farallon played the second set. It was quite good, some originals by both Darren and Sheldon and one Herbie Nichols tune which was quite an interesting interpretation largely due to the instrumentation and the playing style of Noah Phillips. Instead of comping in a jazz way, Noah's concept has a strong rock influence, and he would create backings which reflected this, while maintaining the chordal aspects of the written music. It was a real juxtaposition which I thought worked well. The music written by Darren and Sheldon was strong and you could tell how much those two had played together in the past. Darren's been sounding extra good these days - a benefit of playing alot of shows all over the place (I think he was in Chicago, Toronto and New York in the past month.)

Weasel Walter Quintet 21 Grand 9-23-2009

2009-09-24T08:28:00.002-07:00

Last night played with Weasel Walter's Quintet - first show in a few months - me, Aaron Bennett, Darren Johnston, Damon Smith and Weasel. It was good. We didn't have a rehearsal, we played the first piece Weasel had brought to the group, "On the Verge of Destruction", so we all knew how to approach it. I think because of no rehearsing, the looseness that we played with actually helped the music. Darren, Aaron and I are all good readers, so the notated music was there, and the improvising was really interesting and varied. Probably because we hadn't played in awhile: those situations always tend to freshen the ideas. I think structurally there was a good amount of variation too.
The first set was with Josh Allen, Mike Guarino and Tim Orr. Two drummers, one saxophonist. Alot of energy. I hadn't seen Tim play before - used alot of extra percussion, cymbals and such, with his kit. Sounded good.
The last set was a trio made up of Derek Moneypeny and two fellows from Sacramento, Chad Stockdale and Kevin Corcoran. Drums, guitar and electric saxophone. More energy music! Loud - loving my westone earplugs these days.........

Cylinder Double Quartet at Heaven Gallery 9/12/2009

2009-09-14T08:42:00.001-07:00

The third concert of Cylinder's Chicagoland run was at Heaven Gallery in Wicker Park. We had Jeb Bishop, Dave Rempis, Anton Hatwich and Frank Rosaly join us in this endeavor, we had a quick and focused rehearsal the day before that went well. All four us brought pieces, I wrote a new one that began with a bass melody with stacked chords by the horns, which led to a bass duet. Then some in time playing - had Rempis on baritone take a solo with Kjell and Lisa, I took the second one on alto with Anton and Frank. Up next was an expanded personnel version of Kjell's untitled piece - a light structure with few instructions, but effective. A lot of energy. Darren brought a piece called the Paper Garden, he asked Josh to join us as well, so it was up to nine players. Lisa brought a modified arrangement of her piece the Deep Disciplines - inspired by deep divers, they can go down to 100 meters below the surface. All in all it was a fun set. I felt that getting all of those musicians together was very worthwhile. Hopefully we'll get a chance to do it again sometime.
Paul Giallorenzo and Hans-Peter Pfammatter played the first set of the night. A piano duo. Paul played the upright piano, Hans-Peter played the baby grand. Both used preparations. Very good pacing. Lots of interesting sounds. Paul also added some synthesizer towards the end of the set. If not for the loudness of the Milwaukee Avenue Saturday Night drunkenness alot of the sounds could have been heard better.

Cylinder at the Sugar Maple 9/11/2009

2009-09-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

In January I played up in Milwaukee for the first time - somehow in the 6 years I lived in Chicago I had never made it up there. Bruno Johnson of Okka Disc runs a great bar up there called the Sugar Maple. He has a music room and has been holding concerts for a few years now. After a rehearsal for the large group pieces for a concert at Heaven, we picked up a rental minivan and headed up the 94, through too much traffic, with a stop at a gas station where Kjell and I were approached by a spray-on wipe-off car wax hawker, past the Cheese Castle and finally to Milwaukee. It was our first quartet concert since we played at the Musicians Union Hall in San Francisco back in August - we had some rehearsals before I headed to Chicago a few weeks ago and we had a little time before the show to warm up and run some parts. It was a good concert - a small turnout, but enthusiastic - we played really well. The room is very live, and I think that gave some extra energy to our playing - our maybe it was that Bourbon Barreled Scotch Ale that I had on during dinner..... Afterwards we hung out with Bruno at the bar, tasting some really interesting micro brews from Wisconsin and other parts. Got to bed real late - got up a little too early - felt it on the drive back to Chicago.

Cylinder Mixed Groups at Elastic 9/10/2009

2009-09-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

I arranged some concerts this past weekend in Chicago and Milwaukee for Cylinder, the quartet I've been working on in San Francisco with Darren Johnston, Lisa Mezzacappa, and Kjell Nordeson. Two were for the quartet and two involved musicians in Chicago.

The first night was at Elastic up in Logan Square. We invited Keefe Jackson, Josh Berman, Frank Rosaly and Hans-Peter Pfafmatter to join us in some free improvisations. (Hans-Peter is a Swiss pianist, who has been in Chicago for the past four months - a grant council in Switzerland, maintains an apartment in the Ukrainian Village and they provide artist residences year after year. This is how I met Marc Unternauer and Thomas Mejer.) We played two sets of improvisations: the first grouping was a trio of Keefe, Lisa and Kjell. The second was a quartet of myself, Hans-Peter, Frank and Darren. The third was a duet with Darren and Keefe, the highlight for me being some very strong difference tones produced by the blended high notes. And the final piece of that set was a quintet with myself, Lisa, Josh, Frank and Hans-Peter. A lot of strong playing during the set - you could tell that all the musicians were listening and really improvising with each other.

The second set had only two groupings: a duo between the percussionists, Frank & Kjell; and the final piece of the night involving all eight musicians. There was only one full drumset at the space that night, so during Kjell and Frank's duo, they constructed smaller percussion kits, the use of these highlighted their skill with using smaller sounds and the sense of space that both of them have. They set up facing straight at each other, and it had me imagining some kind of esoteric ceremony. Though the final piece of the night had all eight musicians, we arranged it so that no more than two musicians could play at a time, while allowing for everyone to truly develop material. It worked quite well, and though the entire night had a great sense of timing, patience and musicality, this "passing along the music" piece was very memorable. I was glad to be able to get these people together to play!

Quartet at Hideout 9-9-2009

2009-09-10T14:46:00.006-07:00

Played last night at the Hideout over on Wabansia in Chicago. Played in a quartet with Keefe Jackson, Anton Hatwich and Marc Riordan. I played alto and clarinet, Keefe was on tenor, Anton on bass, Marc on drums. Back in June when I was in Chicago for a weekend, we played a show at Heaven. This time around I brought 4 new pieces, we played a new one of Keefe's and a (very slightly) older piece by Anton (we played it in June).
We had a rehearsal the day before and worked some things out. I always try to keep things clear in the parts, but making the pieces work all together has to happen through playing. This night was a good first step in that direction.
The first set was a duo between Brian Labycz and Jim Baker. Labycz on Doepfer modular synth, Baker on ARP 2600. A wide variety of sounds, Labycz stayed closer to buzzes and sounds, where Baker would rub up against tonality from time to time. Good pacing. would like to hear this in a different space - maybe in one where each sound source is very separate so that there would be more spatial aspects. It was somewhat of a short set, I could've listened to them play longer.
The quartet set went well and we were able to get some video and some audio recording of the set. (I'll be posting some of those as soon as I can.) The group has a cohesive sound already - probably due to all the playing Keefe and Anton and I have done in the past. Anton's playing was solid throughout - particularly during a solo near the end of the set. We'll be recording the music this weekend, with talk going around about a December week long tour - - - ---- -

Here's a video:

Rolldown at Charleston and the Chicago Jazz Fest

2009-09-04T18:57:00.004-07:00

In Chicago for two weeks. I'll be playing a string of shows next week, but the impetus of the trip was today's concert at the Chicago Jazz Festival with Jason Adasiewicz' Quintet Rolldown. So I flew in on Tuesday - and we rehearsed on wednesday during the day and then played a warm up gig at the Charleston in Bucktown last night. It was definitely a good way to get ready for the show today, where we played on the Jackson Stage. I'm not sure the last time we played, I think it was all the way back in January when I was here playing and recording with the Fast Citizens. But, in the meantime, the album we recorded last fall has been picked up by Cuneiform and is being released this month. Great news!
Last night when at the Charleston I thought we did some very good playing - though I felt a little out of it during the first part of the set. Not sure why, I think I was tired or something. Could of also been getting used to playing with musicians' earplugs in. I've been trying to get used to wearing them while playing. It's tricky with a horn because you hear yourself so much more than everyone else (some would say this is regular for saxophonists). Josh played an exceptionally structured and executed solo on the ballad "I Hope She is Awake". Shevitz played some very clear and fast ideas. The great thing about playing with Frank Rosaly and Jason Roebke as a rhythm section is that they're willing to go with you at times and let you go from them at others. There was some really interesting free playing during Creep - I think I ended up playing an unaccompanied clarinet solo during that.
Today at the Jazz Fest things felt good. Getting used to the sound on stage took a bit, which caused a little miscommunication during Varmint. We got around that and played some great stuff - there was another great free section during Creep - playing in that style with those musicians makes alot of sense - all of us have developed alot of extended techniques on our instruments - while also being able to play in time. That's one of the reasons why we're able to push our music in different directions than alot of other jazz musicians playing today. It would be nice to hear the set, I think the Jazz Fest records the shows, not sure when we'll get to hear it though. Hopefully too we'll see some photos popping up pretty soon - there were definitely enough photographers there.
Here's one from the backstage:

Marches Ivy Room 8-24-2009

2009-08-25T12:53:00.004-07:00

Last night I played at the Ivy Room with Marches, it was our first show with the lineup of myself on alto & tenor, Cory Wright on tenor and baritone, Nate Brenner on bass and Jordan Glenn on drums. This was the original lineup I had in mind when getting the gorup together, but I'm glad that the group has a shifting lineup - it makes each show that much different.
This night was part of the Active Music Series, which is new, and is starting with concerts at the Ivy Room and Blue Six in the Mission. Marches was joined by two groups on this night: Telepathy, with Patrick Cress & Aaron Novik; and ACMD, a quartet of Alan Anzalone, Curtis Hollenbeck, Moe Staiano and Damon Smith.

Telepathy's music is written by both Patrick Cress and Aaron Novik. The instrumentation of alto & baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, upright bass and drums. The pieces have alot of composed parts, with grooves and a strong rock influence. Tim Bulkley has been back in town for a few weeks from New York - and sounded great on drums. My favorite part was late in the set when there was a baritone, bass and drum trio with alot of space and good textures.

ACMD's set was a stark contrast - fully improvised, it was a really good quartet. Alan Anzalone brought his soprano sax and bass clarinet, Curtis Hollenbeck played trumpets and typewriter, Damon Smith played bass and Moe Staiano had a drumkit with interesting unusual percussion objects and a large but shallow bass drum. Really strong improvising from everyone in the group, Curtis gravitated towards mainly muted trumpet playing, and interspersed typewriter at the right moments. Alan sounded good on both soprano and bc. The dynamic between Damon and Moe was interesting - Damon was really watching Moe at times and waiting for the right moment to interject ideas.

The Marches set was third, and like I said before, the first show with this lineup. We played some material that wasn't on the last show with Gene. Nate is a strong bassist, and having him and Jordan play together is a great foundation for playing. Most of the material we have right now is in time, with plenty of room for blowing by the horns. We started with the Walk, which is a ballad we play without improvising. It's based on a melody the sound of tenor, baritone, bass and drums created a fullness that was a good start to the set. We played the set with a controlled energy, saving the most freedom for Turning, a piece that is in a very loose three with a strong debt to Ayler in both melody and style. Right now my favorite songs in Marches all use tenor and bari! Such a full sound - I'm very into it. Here's a track:

A good night at the Ivy Room - thanks to ken for hosting! The next show on September 28th will feature Cory Wright's Group and Cylinder.

Shelton Perkis Smith Glenn Uptown 8-18-09

2009-08-19T10:27:00.002-07:00

A really great show last night at the Uptown in Oakland. It's part of their "Avant-Garde" Tuesday series, one show a month with no cover charge, but with donations asked for inside the main room. It's really a good space - super high ceilings, dark and almost cavernous. This month the lineup was three sets, the first being the duo of Tom Rainey and Ingrid Laubrock - yes, Tom is very well known for his work with Tim Berne, and it was great to see him play here with Ingrid, who is a great saxophone player - I really liked her tenor playing which had a very interesting edge and total control of the instrument. They set up on the floor (which is the best place for an acoustic group to set up in that room), and played very well as a duo. The addition of the half filled wine glass as percussion worked too.....
The second set was a trio of music with Philip Greenleaf, Tim Perkis, and GE Stinson up from Los Angeles with video by Brenda Bynum. Very good - the music and film worked quite well together - the sounds had a strong sonic-texture orientation, the images are moving stream of related and changing images that had been reduced to simpler color schemes - it fit perfectly in the space of the Uptown.
The third set I played in with Perkis, Damon Smith and Jordan Glenn. The first time I think that Jordan played with Damon & Tim. A little over a month ago I played at 21 Grand with Tim, Damon and Josh Berman, who was visiting from Chicago. It was a good improvising group with lots of activity and possibilities. Adding Jordan's percussion style into the group worked well and balanced group with almost a traditional "jazz" lineup - saxophone, bass, drums with laptop. Tim is very good with his electronics - very flexible, able to play and change at a moment's notice. I asked him afterward if he has perfect pitch, because the two of us matched many times throughout the set - he told me that he doesn't, but he's definitely on top of it.
So, all in all a good night at the Uptown - until the next time....

Bennett Shelton Flux Theatre 8-14-2009

2009-08-14T23:59:00.002-07:00

Tonight played in east Oakland with Aaron Bennett at the Flux Theater. It's a relatively new space in a tough stretch of Foothill Blvd out in the general Mills area. We got added to the show this week - Aaron asked me to play some duo music, I thought, yes. A few years back I was never into playing with multiple saxophonists, but these days I've been getting more into it. I really like Aaron's playing, so of course I'll play with him. So we played a bunch of his tunes - some of which we played with Gogo Fightmaster earlier this week but with different arrangements. Some other tunes that shared characteristics with the GGFM music. All of it high energy!
I played alto & tenor, Aaron did tenor and baritone. Not alot of space for breaths! We tore through a set, my favorite one was Cops and Robbers, not to be confused with this gem.

After we played a group from Louisville called Vampire Squid took the stage - a young band on a whirlwind US tour, they've got a lot going on and the music is ambitious. Strong players, a really good violinist - I liked what they did. Some kids from the neighborhood wandered in and out, some of them wanted to rhyme over beats, and the vampire squid decided to let them - it made for a good moment when am mc seemed a bit nervous was doing his thing and his friend danced well with a huge grin on his face. Hope the VS have a good trip back to the land of bourbon - - - ----

Marches Blue Six 8-12-2009

2009-08-13T10:58:00.008-07:00

My new group is called Marches. I'm thinking of it as a compartmentalized group where the music can be played as a trio, quartet, quintet or larger. The music has been on my mind for a bit now - I played some of it back in April with Bauder, Ajemian and Eisestadt when I was in New York; played some of it in June with Keefe Jackson, Anton Hatwich and Marc Riordan in Chicago. But now I've brought it back to the West Coast where I wrote it and am starting to get some dates with Jordan Glenn on drums, Cory Wright on tenor & baritone saxes, Gene Baker on organ and Nate Brenner on bass. Like I said, the lineup can change. A few weeks ago I played some of the music with Gene and Jordan - and it was alot of fun.
Tonight was the debut of quartet style: played with Cory, Gene and Jordan at Blue Six in the Mission. Last month, when I was up in Oregon with Jordan and Cory, we played a show with Reed Wallsmith and Sly Pig, the saxophonists in the band Blue Cranes. They're good fellows who play good music, and they were coming down for a California weekend. So, we shared the bill this night. They played the first set, and their music is very well written, with pop sensibilities and a full sound for a band. I had learned the secret code for "you're getting too loud" and got concerned when I heard it used during their set, because in practice Marches has been pretty full. The music is active and energetic with strong melodies that need to be played with some volume. Also, I'm playing tenor in the group and my tenor setup - a Buescher Aristocrat - is not shy.
well, we played and as the set went on, we never got the cue to tone it down - either we weren't that loud or Joe really liked it (I think the latter, after talking to him after the show). Again, playing the music was FUN - lots of energy - this band is a strong combination of players - Cory sounds especially great on tenor. We've got some work to tighten up the music, but from where we're starting, I feel this will go somewhere good. Here's a track called Pacheco. I wrote it with Ton Trio in mind, but it works very well with this group. I'm playing tenor, Cory's on baritone.

In other news: looks like the Fast Citizens album we made in January will be coming out this fall on Delmark Records! It will be released in October - it's very good news.....

Gogo Fightmaster Ivy Room 8-10-2009

2009-08-11T12:29:00.004-07:00

Played at the Ivy Room this past Monday with Aaron Bennett's Gogo Fightmaster. Aaron's a great tenor player and the first time I saw this group a few years ago I really liked what I heard. Aaron and I have done some playing together mainly with Weasel Walter, and our playing styles, though different go well together - lots of energy. Fighmaster has John Finkbeiner on guitar, Lisa Mezzacappa on bass and Vijay Anderson on drums. The music has lots of sixteenth notes and extreme registers. It was a good set.

We'll be playing a saxophone duo set this Friday at the Flux Theater in Oakland.

Shelton Baker Glenn 7-29-2009

2009-07-30T09:40:00.003-07:00

Last night played at the Climate Theater in SF with Jordan Glenn and Gene Baker. Michael Coleman had asked me to bring a group for the night, he was playing in his trio Beep with Nate Brenner on bass and Jordan on drums. Our original plan was to improvise, but last minute I thought of bringing some music along - a few pieces that Ton Trio played when we were over in Europe this spring, and some other things. Real glad I did. Plying with Gene and Jordan was great - we improvised and played the tunes, Gene held it down on the Hohner Organ - his bass concept fitting in perfectly on the pieces I brought. I played alto and tenor - the tenor has been fun to get back to (picked one up of the craigslist about a month ago). There was good energy the whole set, and really strong improvising. Basically I had alot of fun playing with those fellows and can't wait for the next time.

Beep! Trio played next - Michael & Nate are great players - and Jordan, subbing for Sam Ospovat, fit in real well with their style. Lots of influences on the music, definitely not a standard piano trio.
So, a good night of music, my first time at the Climate - it's a good space to play in, with good sound and a proper atmosphere. thanks to David for the show.

It's been a while! Europe in May

2009-07-15T12:39:00.005-07:00

Okay, it's been waaaay too long since I last posted. Seeing as it's July and the last post was in mid-April, that means somehow 3 months have passed without a post. This includes trips to France, Poland, Serbia, Chicago and Los Angeles and about 20 shows. So, I've alot to catch up for....

I'll start with the Ton Trio dates in Europe. This happened at the very end of April and the first week of May. Kurt Kotheimer and I flew over to Paris to meet up with Sam Ospovat, who's been living there since last October. He's been enrolled in school, teaching English, and getting acquainted with some players on the Parisian scene and having a good time of it. It was hard for us to book dates in Paris, and though we were there for 5 days, we were only able to arrange 1 concert. This with many months of lead time. However, this gave us some days to get back into the music from The Way, and to work on some new pieces that I brought for this trip. We had some rehearsals in a space that was somewhat of a catacomb - borrowed a bass from one of Sam's friends that lives up on the 6th floor (with no elevator) - and prepared for our concert at a space called Nouveau Cosmos. A bar and cafe, we had a decent crowd and made a good night of it. We also had Quentin Sirjac join us for a few songs on piano. It was my first time in Paris, and after being there and talking to musicians about the difficulties of doing concerts there, I felt better about only having one date there. Apparently it's pretty tough to get shows there, especially creative music.

So, Ton Trio headed over to Poland for concerts with stops in Krakow, Warsaw and Poznan. The concerts were good, and I felt like we played together better than we ever had. And as in my previous visits, the folks having the concerts for us were very helpful. But, the attendance at the shows was less than I had expected, which was kind of a downer. Our last show was in Poznan, and in talking to the promoter, it seems there is somewhat of an audience crisis happening there - somewhat due to the worldwide economic thing - a tough time to be trying to get your foot in the door of European festival promoters and audiences in general. Not that playing this music is ever easy, in terms of getting the music out there be it through recordings or live shows. But, we were made very welcome by our hosts; after staying in Poznan an extra day and recording the new material, we had a few extra days before Kurt & Sam needed to return to Paris, so we went down to Krakow, and had a good time at Alchemia one night - and got to go to a great spot up on a hill overlooking the southern parts of the city. A good visit.

Sam & Kurt went back to Paris and I went back to Warsaw, where I stayed for a few days before the next part of my trip. I stayed with my friend Wojciech Traczyk, the bassist from the Light, one day we recorded some music, the last night I was in Poland I went with him to a concert he was playing at the Hard Rock Cafe Warsaw - funny place. Ran into Waclaw Zimpel a few times - he was busy at the time playing in several groups. It felt good to see some more of the ongoings of the scene in Warsaw - the musicians I know there are staying real busy, with a big variety of projects. Inspiring.

So my next stop on the trip was a rendezvous with the Fast Citizens in Belgrade. Several Chicago groups were asked to be part of the annual Ring Ring Festival. There programming tends to be slanted towards more improvised and electroacoustic music. So, I'm not sure if they thought that our music would fit in. We got in a day early and had a full rehearsal the day of the concert in the space, which was quite boomy - it took us a long time to decide where to actually play, on the floor or on the stage. For playing it sounded better on the stage, as a listener it was better on the floor. We finally decided on the floor. Pretty much right on time (20:00) the audience showed up, and the concert went very well. The Necks played the first set that night, they really pulled in the audience with their minimalist aesthetic - Tony Buck sounded great on drums. As we took over for the second set, the crowd of a few hundred rearranged, with a chunk of people sitting on the stage behind us - this created a great feeling with people all around, and I think it worked well to tame the acoustics in the room. The response to the music was very positive, which was extra rewarding after the smaller events in Poland and France.

The organizers were completely helpful, arranging for our accommodations for several days and being ready and willing to talk about the festival, and Belgrade itself, a very interesting city that has seen it's share of troubles. The city is a real mix between old and new, with a sprawling ancient citadel close by the club where the festival took place - Rex. Lots of capitalist style commercialism in the fashion stores and sidewalk cafes with stray dogs taking naps at bus stops and homeless children (young) close by. (Why is it that the homeless know better English than store owners? Pure finances) Boyan was a great help to all of us, it was great to talk to him about the history of Serbia including Yugoslavia.

So, my next stop was Berlin. I've never been and have heard so many great things about Berlin that I decided when booking this trip that I had to make a side trip. I arranged a solo concert at the Electronic Church, which I happened to share with Liz Allbee and George Cremaschi, both of whom are now ex-Oaklanders. George moved to the Czech Republic full time a bit over a year ago, and Liz has decided to move to Berlin. Why is it that I know more musicians who move to Europe from the Bay Area than from Chicago? Is it because it is farther away and you may as well just move there if you want to have a presence on the continent? Is it because in Chicago there are more established series and contacts? Perhaps a combination? I was glad to share the bill with Liz & George and talk to them about their plans. It's inspiring to see people taking a chance by moving to new countries - I hope the best for them.

The Electronic Church is a smaller space, the show was on a Sunday and there were something like 5 other creative music shows that night including one with Tony Buck, one with Axl Dorner & Fred Lonberg-Holm, etc... but, we still had a nice little crowd and I was glad to meet a few people - thanks Shintaro for arranging it! I didn't have alot of time in Berlin - 2 nights - so spent one day wandering - mainly in the former East Berlin. Went by the Reichstag, and the Brandenburg Gate - touristy. Good to see though. I was really into the feel of Berlin as a city - the transit is great - goes everywhere, is affordable - I had the best falafel I think I've had in a looong time at Babel, enjoyed the streets and neighborhoods - kind of like Chicago with more trees - kind of like Portland with more city. Lots of cyclists - relaxed though, not speeding around like here in the states. Also, don't think I saw a single bike helmet. Really glad I went, and want to get back there sometime soon!

My trip was almost over and I had to fly out of Paris, and had to get back there. I had been in touch with Audrey Chen and she had a concert happening at Atelier Tampon that she invited me to take part in the night before my flight back to the states. Perfect. So, I flew from Berlin on Monday morning, had a 2 hour layover, got into Paris around 5, met Sam at his apartment on Q'uai d'Orsay around 6, dropped off my things and then took the Metro to the space. Thankfully I'd been in Paris the week before and knew how to get around, otherwise it wouldn't have worked out so well! The space is one of the few places in Paris that has creative music concerts and has hosted all sorts of people including Henry Grimes in it's small confines. There was an opening at the same time with lots of delicious organic wine - the red was almost effervescent! Very good. First Audrey played a duo with Id M Theftable, a fellow from Maine who does electronics and voice improv, then I joined them for some playing. A good concert, with food afterwards in the upstairs apartment. A great last night of music on the continent. We stayed late and eventually took a taxi all together, even though I was staying in a totally different part of town. I didn't get much sleep, but this was for the best, as I caught up for it on the plane headed back to California, getting a leg up on the jet lag.

March & April 2009

2009-04-14T10:25:00.002-07:00

Quite a bite has been going on the last month or so and I just haven't been writing about it. It's spring in California, and though I'm sure to those of you in other parts of the country that can be a struggle, out here it's generally good. For me it's been good as I've been looking for "work", and have had extra time for practicing, writing music, and concerning myself with an upcoming trip to Europe.
March went by pretty well, had a trip down to Los Angeles with the Pink Canoes where we played a good show at the Pharoah's Den down in Riverside (and now I know why Orange County is considered a totally different thing than LA) and a fun if ill-attended show at the Echo Curio in Echo Park. Stayed in Bel Air - went to the Getty Museum, nice trip. We finished that trip in Santa Cruz, a long day of driving up from LA, to the show, then back to the Bay that night. All in all I think Pink Canoes played 5 shows in March, had a good one at the Hemlock where Gerrit Wittmer played a set, and then another one at Travis' house the Golden Trapperkeeper Lodge where it was Earth Hour, so we played a rare acoustic set.
Jordan Glenn's trip Weiner Kids played a couple of shows too - at the Hemlock and then one up at the Ivy Room in Albany. That music is getting more and more fun to play - two saxes and drums - Cory Wright playing baritone in the group, me on alto. We're getting to know the music better and having more fun with it. Going to record next week.
Weasel's Quintet has played a few shows too - last night we played over at Kimo's in SF - a good, short set, plenty of energy, but afterward Darren got the terrible news that his house had been set on fire by the crackhead who lives downstairs from him! I drove him to his place in the Castro, I couldn't see the building, but on the way he talked to his girlfriend and it seemed like the important things (people, cats) were okay. Here's hoping the rest is salvageable.....
Ton Trio played at the Ivy Room last month too. I asked Jordan Glenn to fill in for Sam Ospovat and he did a great job. It was good to play that music again, and now I'm writing more trio music to have when I head over with Kurt to Europe in a few weeks to meet up with Sam and play in Paris and Poland.
And finally, last weekend I took a trip over to New York with Jen. We found cheap flights a while back and decided to head over there. I put together a group with Matt Bauder, Jason Ajemian, and Harris Eisenstadt. I've been wanting a group with Matt for a while, and I think that this may be the start of that. Probably go back sometime in the fall to work more on it, but this was a good start. Played at a space in Long Island City called the Chocolate Factory. We only had one rehearsal and the set was on the short side, but the chemistry is good. We will see.

Out Today: Ton Trio's The Way

2009-03-03T09:23:00.003-08:00

Glad to announce the release of The Way, the debut album by Ton Trio:

The Oakland based Ton Trio is made up of Aram Shelton on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, Kurt Kotheimer on bass, and Sam Ospovat on drums. All three found their way to the San Francisco area after time in the Midwest, and each became active playing creative music shortly after their arrival. Ton Trio formed in the summer of 2007.

The music of Ton Trio is written by Shelton. Some pieces use the melodic and rhythmic material in a more traditional head format while in others the parts are interchangeable and can be explored extensively by each player, with parts being rearranged simultaneously to create new harmonic relationships.

‘The Way’ is the debut album by Ton Trio and the first CD release by Singlespeed Music. Six compositions by Shelton cover a lot of ground from high-energy freedom to compositional rearrangement.

‘The Way’ is available directly from Singlespeed Music, and through CD Baby.
Downloads will be available through iTunes, Rhapsody, Last.fm and others.

Shelton / Healy 2-13-2009

2009-02-15T13:46:00.004-08:00

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

2009-02-15T13:32:00.003-08:00

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.

Fast Citizens January 2009

2009-01-29T13:18:00.001-08:00

I'm back in Oakland now, but I'll post what I wrote when I wrote it:

I'm sitting in Keefe Jackson's apartment in Pilsen, listening to the rough mixes of the Fast Citizens recording session from the last two days. It's tuesday January 27, a week after I arrived on a flight coming from Florida that happened at the same time that Barack Obama took the office of the President. It was a huge relief to know that by the time I would get into Chicago, he'd be in charge of the country.

I came to Chicago in the middle of the winter to put together music for a new Fast Citizens recording. The idea had come about back in the summer. I had talked to Keefe and Josh about the need to continue the Fast Citizens. I suggested that the next album have a new leader from within the group. Maybe because I brought it up I was picked to be the next leader. So, Aram Shelton's Fast Citizens were born. I wrote 5 new pieces during the last week of December and spent the following week developing them and creating the parts with the idea that the clearer the ideas and notation, the easier it would be to actually pull off making a new album in a small amount of time. Over the course of the last five days we had one long rehearsal, one short rehearsal, 3 gigs and two days in the studio. Productive!

We set up three dates: the first was on Friday up in Milwaukee at Bruno Johnson's bar called the Sugar Maple. A beautiful space on East Lincoln with a room specifically made for concerts. Fred wasn't able to make that gig, and we had two sets to fill, so we used a good amount of material from the first album. Not having Fred there changed the dynamic of the group in a big way - he adds a vital texture to the sound of the Citizens. I was glad to have him back for the next two shows. The second was on Saturday at the Heaven Gallery in Wicker Park. We shared the bill with two duos: Ben Boye on piano with Frank Rosaly and Charles Rumback on drums with Dave Rempis. The last was Sunday night at the Hungry Brain. That night we shared with Han Bennink solo (!) and Fred Lonberg-Holm's Valentine Trio.

Though there were many strong moments all three nights, the first two dates felt like live rehearsals, whereas the set at the Brain was a real performance, with the parts being much more internalized by everyone. The crowd that night was great too - even though we played last on the 3 set night, the room was full with plenty of listeners. Not to say that we didn't have good turn-outs the other nights, but Sunday was the best.

In all I'm very happy with what we were able to accomplish in a short amount of time and will do all I can to make sure this album comes out sometime this year.

Weasel Walter Quintet Uptown 12-16-2008

2008-12-17T11:45:00.003-08:00

Last night there was another free show at the Uptown in downtown Oakland. This one was put together by Sarah Lockhart. The first set was John Gruntfest's Ritual Resurrection Band, which is led by John on alto and words. It was pretty theatrical, and the line up of 2 drummers, 2 keyboards, and 4 saxophones made for a full sound and opportunities for small group pairings for improvising.

The second set was SL Morse - the duo of Sarah and Aurora Josephson. Now I think that Sarah was reading a composition the whole way through and it seemed that Aurora was free - had some good moments and the simple pairing of voice and percussion worked well.

Weasel put together a quintet with me on alto, Aaron Bennett on tenor, Darren Johnston on trumpet and Damon Smith on bass. He wrote a long-form piece for the group that we played for the first time at 21 Grand about a month ago. That time we didn't have a chance to actually rehearse it before hand, and this time we did - the piece has Weasel and Damon being free for the majority of the piece and alot of written material that is in time for the horns to play together - compositionally the opposite of the SL Morse set. The music is all high energy, with the piece opening up after about 10 minutes into long solo sections for each horn player to work with the rhythm section. Darren's trumpet solo sounded great and despite the mic set up for this purpose, Aaron went without in a real high energy section with Weasel and Damon. I started mine and didn't feel so strong for awhile - I don't know if it's the extra work I've been doing or that it's actually kind of cold around here, but I just didn't feel like my playing was working - maybe a bad reed. These things happen.

Good to work on that music again - I think we'll be recording it soon.

And here is the video!

Weasel Walter Quintet @ The Uptown 12-16-08 from mxxx palmer on Vimeo.

Quartet at Blue Six 12-11-2008

2008-12-12T11:53:00.004-08:00

Last night played at Blue Six in the Mission. Small space at 24th street and Treat. Played with Darren Johnston, Lisa Mezzacappa, and Kjell Nordeson. We'd gotten together a few months ago at Lisa's place - the different instincts from the players in this group allows for some interesting playing - also, everyone is willing to really go for it so strong music happens.
We played two sets this night, I brought both alto and bass clarinet, Darren played mainly trumpet and some flugelhorn. Both sets were varied - I think in the first we stayed towards higher energy while in the second we took our time to develop ideas. Playing with a talented trumpeter is always great as a reed player, the combination of the sounds enhanced by the range that Darren plays with - we were trading lines that stretched throughout several octaves while I was on bass clarinet - with him matching the range of that instrument easily. Kjell is such a strong player in terms of instant composition - he builds parts that develop over time - the quartet interacted with smaller motifs that he would introduce throughout both sets, and the overall energy that he brings to the kit acted as a guide for much of the music.
In terms of improvised music, what I really like about this group is that while we all have many skills at our disposal, the result is strong music that is not dominated by special techniques. Instead, those techniques are used as parts to create music that is complex on many levels, while being about both the interaction of the individual players and the music created as a group.
Thanks to Joe for having the show at his place -

Paper Leg at Ivy Room 12-08-2008

2008-12-09T09:39:00.003-08:00

Up in Albany at the Ivy Room they've been having shows on Monday nights. Eric Leppo tends bar there on Mondays and keeps this series going - thanks to him!
Played with Trevor Healy for the first time in a bit. I brought my alto and bass clarinet, used Max/MSP for processing, and was able to use his guitar sounds as well. Trevor makes big thick walls of sound with his guitar and electronics noise changing tools (pedals) including of course the electronic system for wind instruments. Our method of playing together has stayed consistent during our hiatus - we tend to take our time getting moving through different spaces in music, which makes a two hour rehearsal move by fast, and a 45 minute set that much faster.
Andrew Conklin's band Quinn played second, a rock band with a good variety of songs - and then Jordan Glenn's & Karl Evangelista's instrumental band Host Family - pretty complex arrangements with multiple meters and pieces finding unexpected ways into others.

Flockterkit 9-16-2008

2008-09-17T10:20:00.002-07:00

It's been a little while since Flockterkit had a show - since last December when I played the music in Chicago. Last November I recorded the music with the west coast lineup - Andy Strain, Jordan Glenn, Kurt Kotheimer, Caroline Penwarden and Anantha Krishnan. The recording turned out very good - but we hadn't had a chance to play the music out here until now. This was a free show at the Uptown in Oakland, I put together a bill with Painted Cakes (Eli Reitz, Shumit DasGupta and Andrew Kitchen), and Ben Bracken playing solo. It was a good night.
Painted Cakes played first - minimalist rock with long forms and interweaving patterns between the guitar, bass, and drums. Ben Bracken's set was one long piece, using feedback from his acoustic guitar to set up a bed for musical thoughts and sounds.
The Flockterkit set felt great - we took our time with improvising and solos - Jordan on drums and Anantha on tabla make a solid percussion section, and Kurt holds it down in between the two. Caroline used pump organ on the entire set, which is a great sound, long sustain, creaky, with dexterity as well.
The crowd that came was mixed, but mainly listeners - each group had a different sound and style which made for a balanced night of music. The good thing about the setup of the Uptown is that the bar is separate from the music room, so the people that don't want to listen can do their talking somewhere else. If only every place was built that way....

Pink Canoes at Knockout 9-4-2008

2008-09-11T10:15:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by Travis Johns

Last week the Pink Canoes played at the Knockout in San Francisco. It'd be a couple of months since we played, and this show was put together pretty quickly. Two sets by noise groups made the meat of this dance party / noise night. It was good - we went with all energy in the beginning, Zach doing more processed vocals these days, in the phot he's the blur - Noah and Travis acted in some ways as the rhythmic backbone.

Arrive at the Whig "On Time"

2008-08-11T16:54:00.001-07:00

Arrive plays "On Time"
Arrive is Aram Shelton, alto sax; Jason Adasiewicz, vibes; Jason Roebke, bass; Tim Daisy, drums.
Recorded July 26, 2008 in Columbia, SC.

Arrive Tour, Ash pt 2, to NYC. July 28-31, 2008

2008-08-06T10:17:00.003-07:00

The second week of our tour was a lot more work than the first. While we were able to spend some quality time in the Carolinas, we had alot of ground to cover on the back half of our trip. From Charlotte we went back to Asheville to play at the Admiral, a new polace run by the same folk that have brought us the Whig in Columbia. They took care of us with great food and we played two sets, possibly our best playing night of the tour. I think a few things contributed to us playing well = one of which was a detour in a river that feeds into Lake Lure about 30 miles east of Asheville. A good time.
After our second stop in Asheville the driving started - we headed up to Richmond, a 6 hour drive, and played a show at the Camel. The band Glows in the Dark played first. The next day we headed to Philly, a 4 1/2 hour jaunt, not so bad, but we left town right after the show to drive into NYC to beat the traffic. Philly was good - got into town with plenty of time to hang out before the show which was downtown at the Gershman Y, a nice building that houses the Jewish Athletic Hall of Fame. Bowerbird put on a nice show for us with Dan Blacksburg's Synthesis Music playing a set. The room was a gallery but with good acoustics. The crowd was small but enthusiastic, and it was a good night.
Driving into NYC at night was a good decision. We got in around 2 AM, and were able to sleep in - though it was a hot one in the city. We spent the day hanging out with Matt Bauder, played basketball in the park where we lost by a pretty big margin to some neighborhood kids, but at least were able to feel good about the fact that they were arguing over some points and with each other form time to time. Pus, Daisy was wearing sandals and Matt's game was off. if we'd brought some water we would've been dangerous & not just dehydrated.
We played at Zebulon that night, lot's of great pictures can be seen here (Look for July 31, 2008 Arrive). The first set was Mary Halvorson, Tatsuya Nakatani, and Reuben Radding - they played a set that got pretty loud, I hadn't seen Tatsuya play loud before, and it sounded great - he was bringing out all his trademark colors and textures, but with an incredible volume.
We played the second set, and there was a good crowd - though there were a fair share of talkers. The night felt like one at the Hungry Brain in Chicago - lots of younger musicians, plenty of people to meet and run into. Bauder's Day in Pictures played last - Tomas Fujiwara on drums, Jason Ajemian on bass, Nate Wooley on trumpet, and Jeremy Wilms on guitar.
We left New York that night after the show - drove a few hours and found a hotel.

Arrive Charlotte Century 7-27-2008

2008-07-31T13:34:00.002-07:00

An easy drive from Columbia back into NC to go to Charlotte, the queen city. Brent Bagwell set up a date for us at Century, a vintage shop that hosts concerts in it's back room. AS the drive was short we didn't leave Columbia until about 4:30, got into twon around 6 and got some BBQ foods around the corner. The heat really started getting intense this day. Thankfully in the south people recognize this as a fact of life and have the AC to deal with it. (Unlike in NYC where I'm writing these posts from.)
Brent brought his Project Bluebird this night. It's a six piece group made up of 4 musicians from Charlotte and two from Raleigh / Durham over in the eastern part of NC. The full lineup is Ben Kennedy on cello and violin; Carrie Shull on oboe and English horn; Crowmeat Bob Pence on alto and baritone saxophones and bass clarinet; Brent Bagwell on tenor and baritone saxophones and clarinet; Ron Brendle on bass; and newcomer Molly J. Brown on tuba. Nice instrumentation with interesting arrangements and a distinct aura of musicality happening. My favorite group we've played with on the tour yet.
Our set went well - though the room is dry, it's not difficult to play in, and as a listener, everything is clear. Afterwards we hung out at the Snug Harbor and got into a nasty game of cornhole - a good time. Stayed at Brent's new place and was able to hang out a little bit with him & his son Charlie the next day. Thanks Brent!

Arrive Columbia 7-25 & 26 2008

2008-07-31T13:21:00.002-07:00

Back on down to the capitol of South Carolina, Columbia. Our man Ross set up two dates for us, the first at the Columbia Museum of Art and the second at the Whig. Both places are on Main Street, separated by a few blocks. The Museum show was first, on Friday night. There was a good amount of press for this show and there was quite a good turnout - a close to full house in the auditorium. We played two sets, the first a bit longer than the second and the audience was quite attentive and appreciative. Someone took a few videos of the concert and have posted them up on youtube - here's one - On Time:
We went back to Ross's for a cookout after the show - Mahi Mahi. (Being at a Museum it was a earlier show than ay of the other ones on the tour and finished by 9pm.) We enjoyed the southern night and I fell asleep watching Sans Soleil by Chris Marker.
The next day was basically a day off as our show at the Whig wasn't to start until after 10pm. We got some great food at the Blue Cactus and wasted time in little 5 points before we went back to Ross's and had a second cookout in as many days, this time with Salmon and Chicken. Delicious. By the time we got to the Whig to load in there was already a good sized crowd and the two sets we played were punctuated by plenty of applause and a fair amount of bizarre comments from random folks. The particularly memorable ones made by a fellow wearing sunglasses and mardi gras beads. A great stay in Columbia, two shows with more than a hundred people seeing the music. Got our tour on the right track.

Arrive Asheville Bobo 7-24-2008

2008-07-26T07:27:00.003-07:00

A short 2 hour drive to Asheville from Knoxville in the late afternoon. Shane Perlowin set up a date for us at the Bobo Gallery - a home away form home for many of us from Chicago. Brad, the owner, is a genuine good fellow and is so supportive of what we do. It's a good thing. As we got into town, barricades were being set up all around the downtown district, and keeping us away from the Gallery. After about a half hour of circling, we finally found a place to park about 4 blocks away and had to hike in all the equipment. We set up and took a walk around downtown Asheville, getting some dinner. This was a our first real show of the tour. A good crowd formed by the time we played - Shane opened with a quartet of Joe & Michael of Mind vs. Target plus a bassist Trevor Stoia, an improvised set with a structure. We played all the new material and it's starting to feel really good - Shevitz really came our of the gates - his first solo was super on, just navigating all over the bars with the four-stick mallets - fun to watch and hear. The added energy from the crowd really pushed us on throughout the set. There Was is now working.

Arrive is the quartet of Aram Shelton, Jason Adasiewicz, Jason Roebke, and Tim Daisy. They are on tour from July 21st to August 6th.

Arrive Knoxville Pilot Light 7-23-2008

2008-07-26T07:26:00.001-07:00

Had to get up early in Bloomington - on the road at 8:00 in order to get to Morehead State College an hour east of Lexington for a workshop. A few hundred high school students in a summer program. Most of them played music, but not all. The workshop was largely an open rehearsal. We worked on a piece called "There Was" that I first wrote several years ago, but have not yet been able to get the kinks out. This was a good opportunity to work on the piece, I explained as we worked through the different sections, describing the way we were playing cells of different lengths to create overlapping parts. We answered questions and played two more pieces. Lots of the kids were enthusiastic afterwards ad came up to the stage to ask us questions. We had lunch at a taqueria in Morehead and then took a break in a city park for an hour before heading down to Knoxville and the Pilot Light. It was a low turnout there - an inauspicious beginning to the tour to have two slow nights in a row. But, we were able to work on music before the show and once again we stayed with very generous people, this time Van and Margaret Walker, so this night was definitely worthwhile.

Arrive is the quartet of Aram Shelton, Jason Adasiewicz, Jason Roebke, and Tim Daisy. They are on tour from July 21st to August 6th.

Arrive Bloomington Cinemat 7-22-2008

2008-07-26T07:19:00.005-07:00

First night of the tour - a four hour drive from Chicago. This date was set up with pretty short notice as our usual connection in Lexington had to cancel the date due to fire marshal regulations. David Miller, a trumpet player, set up a date for us at a space called Cinemat. My first time in Bloomington. We shared the bill with two other groups - a trio of Dan Wicks, Tony Salas and DeRobertis; David Miller's group DMC Improvisers Trio with Marty Belcher, plus guest Vicky Alexandra. Due to the turnout it was more a night to hear each others music. Each of the opening bands had nice moments and were similar in that there was no drummer in either group. We played a set of 4 newer songs and two older. There are a number of new parts, so this date was definitely a bit on the unrefined side but still felt good. Marty put us up at his place slightly on the outside of town - a beautiful home surrounded by trees with lots of windows and space. Thanks to him & David.

Arrive is the quartet of Aram Shelton, Jason Adasiewicz, Jason Roebke, and Tim Daisy. They are on tour from July 21st to August 6th.

Shelton Berman Nordeson 6-27-2008

2008-06-30T10:29:00.003-07:00

Josh Berman came to town last weekend - he was visiting family in California, and so was able to come to the Bay to do some playing. He played in an improvised quartet at 21 Grand on the 26th with Weasel Walter, Damon Smith and Aaron Bennett, and I arranged a trio date at the Meridian gallery in downtown San Francisco on Friday the 27th with the two of us and Kjell Nordeson. I wrote a few pieces for this trio, inspired by a recent trip to southern Utah - a place called Kodachrome Basin. A few "small-scale" pieces that were meant to affect the improvising while allowing for plenty of openness for the players. Josh and I were able to rehearse our parts earlier in the day, and met up with Kjell at Meridian around 6pm. Unfortunately there was an event which we weren't told about that went until 6:30 - this cut into our plans. We talked through the pieces and were able to rehearse certain points while we set up. The concert started early and promptly at 8:30 - there was a good audience and the sound of the space lent itself well to the way the compositions were written and the way we played as a trio. Kjell particularly took advantage of the space with a wide-array of sounds and colors from his kit.
The next day we did a recording session with Weasel - recorded about two hours worth of improvising - a good time. those two used to live together way back in the 90s - they seemed to be glad to be playing together again after so much time.

Shelton Healy Bluesix 5-21-2008

2008-05-27T10:40:00.002-07:00

last Wednesday I played at Bluesix in the Mission with Trevor Healy. We played without our electronics, which is our usual setup as the space is an acoustic only room. It wa a good change of pace for us, I brought along my Eb and Bass clarinets and Trevor brought his guitar, violin and some assorted percussion instruments. We focused on extending our ideas and going at a slow pace. Here's a video:

California Tour - Pt 3 - Sacramento

2008-05-07T12:16:00.002-07:00

The week continues - on Wednesday the 20th worked during the day and then went up to Sacramento with Paper legs for a house show at the Fun Castle - we left Oakland around 7 and had a much better drive to the capitol than the last time we went - waiting for rush hour to die down is a good thing. We still had a little daylight left when we got into downtown Sactown - it was real nice out, the large trees and clean streets making us feel like we were in an old midwest town with better weather. Paper Legs invited me to play with them on this night, I brought my Bb clarinet and laptop. We were going to share the bill with Zac Nelson's Hexlove, but by the time we finished, he decided to not play - he said we put him in too good of a mood to play the loud rock that late - think we didn't finish until 11:30 - which isn't that late, but on a wednesday in someone's house it feels that much later. We played second and some kids from Davis played the set before, one with a variety of instruments and MSP electronics, one doing movement, one doing spoken word type ramblings.
our set felt good - though I hadn't played with brian yet, I have played with trevor and listening to them the few nights previously in LA and Oakland I knew how I wanted to try to get into the fold with them. I sat crosslegged the whole time and my left leg had fallen asleep by the end of the set.....we stayed there for the night and drank some rum mojitoes before going to sleep. The next morning we woke up early and left town by 7 am - passing by the state capitaol building where arnold schwarzenegger may have been working out - who knows? and Trevor and Brian dropped me off at work around 8:45 in emeryville. Some people do that commute everyday - crazy people.
The next day we did a recording session for them at my practice space. Recorded about 3 hours worth of improvisations and I joined them on a few. A busy full week - never felt stressed about things though - the way it should be.

California Tour - Pt 2 - Oakland & SF

2008-05-07T11:25:00.003-07:00

So I got back from LA on a Saturday night, and had a long rehearsal with Tiny Lights on Sunday for our show on tuesday night at the Hotel Utah. But, before that was Monday where I had to work, and then do a two hour practice before a show in Oakland at 21 Grand of three duos - Paper Legs, Sudden Oak from SF, and my new duo with Weasel Walter. I wrote 4 pieces for alto saxophone & drums and bass clarinet and drums and we've had a number of rehearsals for this material which is definitely more complicated than my standard writing. Though harmonically simple - in keeping with the instrumentation - the variations and complications are mainly rhythmic, with changing time signatures and a need for exact counting for the two parts to line up the right way. All of the pieces start and end with written material that is related but non-repeating, and the improvising in most is highly related to what is written. We balanced the set with three improvisations that were succinct but active and varying. We'll definitely be working on this material more in the future. Sudden Oak are based in SF and are a guitar & sax player, both going through delay and overdrive pedals, creating a loud drone of sound that filled up 21 Grand.

The next night Tiny Lights (with Ben Bracken and Jacob Danziger) played at Hotel Utah in San Francisco. Our first show in a while and possibly our last for awhile as Jake will be moving back to Ann Arbor this summer. We were joined by Ben's roommate Max, who, in addition to being able to pitch in on multiple instruments (upright bass, glockenspiel & guitar) is a woodworker, has a good handle on audio recording and is an all around nice fellow. We played six songs all together for a set and shared the bill with Lulacruza and Efft. Hotel Utah is a nice and strange place to play - one of the oldest bars in the city, predating the 1906 earthquake, the sound man is actually pretty talented, but doesn't let it on while you're setting up - not really a talker... Lulacruza's set sounded great - I had to leave before Efft's show - sorry y'all - it looked like they had added a horn section though!
Playing with Tiny Lights is always nice - if only we could manage to play together more than once every 4 months or so it'd be that much better...

California Tour - End of April 2008 Part 1 - LA

2008-05-05T15:43:00.005-07:00

The last week and half has been a busy one - four shows with that many groups in that many cities bookended by recording sessions. It all started last thursday night with a set-up session for Ton Trio - we went into the studio to record seven pieces. We've been playing the music for a bit now so it was time to get it down properly. A recording should be available sometime this summer.
Drove down to LA on Friday the 25th with Trevor Healy. He set up some show down there for his duo Paper Legs and included Settled on the bill at the Echo Curio, a storefront space in Echo Park. It was an afternoon show on a Saturday, and a hot one at that. LA can get hot - I think it was in the low 90s, and the summer isn't quite here. The Echo Curio stayed pretty reasonable though - Settled played first out of three bands. The crowd that came sat on the concrete floors and let me take my time with my set - though I hadn't done a performance of that music since December, I felt comfortable with my set up and made music unhurried. Gang Wizard played the second set, five folks playing drone-based noise music. They chose to play in a small room in the back of the Echo Curio, which was a bit cooler temperature wise due to its location without windows and being lower a foot or so. A good setting for the wizards - almost a cave. Paper Legs played third - Trevor on acoustic guitar and effects is joined by Brian Osborne, who lives in Brooklyn and plays small percussion through effects for this group. Their music is slow changing, with deliberate choices made to keep the music moving forward. An almost sleepy ending to the afternoon show, the sunlight always threatening to take over, but not quite doing so. Afterwards we had a great meal of South Indian food and Trevor and Brian gave me a ride to the Burbank airport where I flew back to Oakland that same night.

Ton Trio Bluesix 4-12-2008

2008-04-13T10:32:00.004-07:00

Bluesix is a performance space in the Mission - it's a storefront space with wood floors and windows in the front - a good place for music. Ton Trio has been playing - we actually played a week and a half ago at the 1510 space. We've been working on music getting ready to record in a few weeks. It was an unusually warm night in San Francisco following a hot day - might've been in the 80's during the day, and one of those rare nights in the bay area when you don't need any kind of jacket at night.
Damon Smith and Kristian Aspelin played a duo set first - they played well together, playing active improvised music, with a wide array of sounds and motives, while allowing distinct moments to happen. When listening to good improvised music like that, you wonder why you need to write anything down.

By the time Ton Trio played our set some people had showed up and the room was comfortably filled. I felt good about our set, we're getting more comfortable with each others playing, so are able to push things a little farther along in terms of making connections between the improvised and written material. I played alto saxophone and bass clarinet. just got some work done on the BC which makes a huge difference with that old horn. Warm enough in the room to make it feel like summer - unusual in these parts........

Shelton Healy Nelson 3-6-2008

2008-03-09T20:11:00.003-07:00

Played at 1510 8th Street in West Oakland this night, with Trevor Healy and Zac Nelson, a drummer from Sacramento who we met just a few months ago - Trevor & I went up there, met him and his friend Carson McWhirter at a studio up there across from a Safeway with a silver horse statue and recorded improvisations for 3 hours. Good stuff came of it. Zac's drumming style is aggresive, rhythmically solid and different from other drummers I play with - good times. Tonight as a trio we played three different roles, Trevor creating complex layers, Zac being the rhythmic base and me playing fast and loud on top - it felt good - I had gotten into a frustrated mood before leaving my place - a result of being cooped up at the job during the week after a nice few weeks without doing the 9-5 - but playing always helps. We had Jeremy of Sophisticuffs join us on our third improvisation - he played baritone saxophone and it was a welcome addition.

George Chen and Steve Santa Maria (Chen Santa Maria) played the 2nd set - drum machines, George on guitar through a few effects - sounded good in the space - thanks to them for playing!

Dragons 1976 Krakow 2-25-2008

2008-03-07T10:02:00.002-08:00

Our last date of the tour was at Alchemia in Krakow. We left Wroclaw pretty early and drove south in Poland towards the foot hill country. On the way to Krakow we stopped in a small town that had a historical park - a 17th century polish farming village was preserved there. We met Marek there, the man who books the jazz at Alchemia and other places in Krakow. We had a great lunch ther e- I had zupa di pomodora and trout with almonds. Trout two times in a week - I'm hooked. We walked around the village and enjoyed the weather - it may have been in the high 50s and it was very sunny and the afternoon sunlight made everything that much better. We drove the last 20 kilometers to Krakow, I fell asleep just as we entered the city and then Ajemian woke me up to point out some of the very old buildings that line the river. Alchemia is a great cafe on the ground floor with the venue down in the basement - it seats alot of people and is definitely designed for listening - the building is very old and its reputed that the owners bought it for $100 when the neighborhood (the old jewish quarter) was not the place to be.
I took a walk around the area and returned around 6 o'clock to do a rehearsal - the two trios combined that night on two songs, India, and my song Atlantic. I wrote a complimentary bassline and created a harmony for the melody and we learned the form. This was the rare night where we didn't have dinner before the gig. One of the best things about the Polish crowd is that they show up when the concert is listed to start - well the only place where it didn't happen was in Warsaw. The concert started at 8:30 i think, Dragons played first - a god set, alot of energy for the crowd which was our largest of the tour. The light also played a set full of energy, and when I joined them on stage for Straight Up and Down it felt very good. We saved the double trio for the third set - the two songs probably ended up being about a half hour long total. This concert was recorded too - it'll probably be the best playing documented. We stayed at Alchemia the rest of the night and stayed at an apartment close by. I talked to the fellows of the Light about the possibility of doing more playing together in the future - maybe this fall.. I've got to work on my Polish!
I woke up pretty early the next morning to give my self some time to walk around this old city. My flight left at 14:00 and after a transfer in Munich we followed the sun all the way back to the west coast. It was cool to see the sun almost set while we were very far north and then rerise as we started heading south. A great trip - hopefully we'll be back soon.

Dragons 1976 Wroclaw 2-24-2008

2008-03-07T10:02:00.001-08:00

We lobbied for some extra sleeping time so left Poznan a little later than expected, probably close to noon. We got in to Wroclaw without very much daylight left, we dropped off our instruments at Firlej, the club we were playing that night and then went to the Old town square of Wroclaw. It was similar to the square in Poznan, but the scale was larger - the building a little taller, the church more massive. I learned alter that night that Wroclaw was in Germany before and during WWII and most of it's buildings were not destroyed during the war. Especially one very large synagogue that we would see later in the night. We ate dinner at a nice restaurant that was modeled on the food and culture of Lwow, a city now in the Ukraine, but at one point in Poland, the borders being changed after wars obviously displacing people families and cities. Not something we think about much in the states. Firlej is a solid venue - a good size room with a large stage, though shorter ceilings. Our set started out a bit rough and it took us a good few songs before I felt comfortable with our playing. We recorded this concert as well - looking forward to hearing these recordings. I played two songs with the Light trio this night - In addition to playing Straight Up and Down we played India by John Coltrane. Every night we played with the Light we could hear them adding more energy to their playing - I would like to think that we influenced them in some ways. Once we were done we went to a bar that looked very old, and had a very catacomb like basement. By the time we made it back to the bed & breakfast we stayed at the caretaker had fallen asleep - we rang the bell many times but nothing. Ajemian had left the door to a balcony connected to his room open and we managed to push him up high enough to climb onto the second floor landing - the next morning the woman thanked us for not calling her boss! We didn't have that number to cal, so big thanks to squirrel.....

Dragons 1976 Poznan 2-23-2008

2008-03-07T10:01:00.001-08:00

From Torun to Poznan, another short trip on two lane roads with lots of passing on the sides...got into Poznan early in the afternoon, had plenty of time to check into our rooms and walk around the old town square which was only a block away from the rooms. A beautiful day, it was probably fifty degrees - sunshine, a light breeze. We played that night at Estrada, a very nice jazz club in the format of a black box theatre. This night we also recorded the concert - they have a good assortment of microphones there and the acoustics of the space are on the dry side, good for live recording. We played the first set and played well - Ajemian played a particularly long solo in which he really got into a bass rubbing thing. But, during his solo the photographers phone rang - why is it always during the most quiet moments?

Audrey Chen was in town the same day as us and she played a concert not a block away at a cafe / club called Dragon. Small world. We tried to go after our set, but were not allowed in by the doorman, though she had told him to let us in during the set. Not sure where the miscommunication was, but it was there. After the concerts we all went to Lawrence's place where he had prepared for us a very delicious dinner featuring baked trout. We stayed there late into the night drinking big Heinekens and listening to his music collection.

Dragons 1976 Torun 2-22-08

2008-03-01T12:55:00.001-08:00

The drive from Warsaw was about 3 or 4 hours. A two lane road most of the way, the style in Poland is to do a lot of passing of other cars - slower ones tend to even hug the shoulder to make it easier for others - especially drivers that still drive the older eastern european stock cars that are very small. When we arrived in Torun, we immediately went to the hotel and had some time to relax. A few hours later we went to where we played in the Old City - very old - and surrounded by the old castle walls as well. It was all very clean and by asking some people I learned that Torun is a university town - the source for its scrubbed appearance. The venue for the night was called - - and was originally served as a home to the duke form that area. A beautiful building - with nice high ceilings and ornate wall paper and chandeliers. ONe pretty amazing painting of a fellow killing a multi-headed creature with heads of snakes and body of a dog - I believe it was cerberus. The special part was the position in which he was holding one head and preparing to cut it off....the room we played in was a nice size, the height of the ceiling and amount of wood on the walls created a long echo, but one with a pleasing effect, as opposed to the sound made in concrete rooms. I think we played our best concert of the tour this night, in terms of music. The sound of the space allowed us to take our time with the music - I played a bit more sparsely to give more room to the echo, and Ajemian had a great shotgun solo - shotgun for the sound he was making by striking his strings and it bouncing off the walls. We played first, a long set with encore. the Light Trio played second, and I sat in with them for one song - Straight Up and Down, by Dolphy. While waiting to return to the stage after my set I laid down on the floor in a large room that acted as our green room - the sound of the building so good that I could clearly hear every note they played.

Dragons 1976 Warsaw 2-21-08

2008-02-28T15:49:00.003-08:00

Last year, the third Dragons 1976 album was put out by a label in Poland, MultiKulti, it took a little while, but they asked us to come to Poland to play, and this week was the trip. Our first stop was Warsaw, the capitol of Poland and an iconic remainder of communisms influence in architecture. We got in on the 20th and had a day to reset our internal clocks - worked out for me, but I think Ajemian had a harder time.
Our first show was at Klub Aurora, a spot that is kind of a complex of clubs - though in a good way, not a bad one. We toured with a trio from Poland made up of Waclaw Zimpel, Wojtek Traczyk and Robert Rasz - Bass clarinet, bass and drums. Younger fellows than us, Multikulti released their first album this month. The concert started around 8:30, the crowd a bit light as the trio began their set. By the end of the set more folks had shown up, and we were able to hear the music - I was glad to hear their aesthetic was honest and in some ways similar to Dragons - strong melodic and harmonic aspects grounded the improvisations.
We played second - and this was our first time playing together in awhile - we did a long set - about an hour and fifteen - it felt good, the crowd was a listening one, we played an encore. A good start to the tour. After the show we stayed at Aurora and there was a dance party - a mix of the last 50 years of american music, but when the polish pop came on the crowd got real into it.

Son of Gunnar Ton of Shel 1/15/2008

2008-01-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

last weekend I went to Big Sur with jen - January is the best time to go I think - the crowds are gone - the campsites are fresh - the waves are big - the trails empty. a good time. got back into oakland and got a reminder message from my friend sarah palmer that we were sharing a bill on tuesday night at El Rio in SF. A bar I hadn't been to ever and was down with it - in the California tradition they've got a shuffleboard table and a great big outside area that's used more on saturday afternoons.

Son of Gunnar, Ton of Shel hadn't played since November, and Steini just got back into town the day before from a trip to New York, so the timing was right. We played a set in between Jenn Harper's band (with Jordan Glenn, Andy Strain and a violinist whose name I missed), and Efft - Sarah, Noah Phillips, Alee Karim and....Jordan Glenn (those good drummers end up playing in alot of bands). So, we hadn't played together in awhile, but as always the way Steini and I play together usually works well - I go high, he goes low, I create a bed of sound, he assembles a full texture to go with. I felt a little exceptionally aggressive on this night, mainly to let things happen with thinking too much - it felt good. I used Alee's bass amp for the electronics, and I was able to get some low feedback to work for us, not against. I brought my trumpet along, as I've been getting back into practicing it - the way that trumpet sounds when processed is so tempting. I need to work on it more.

Detroit December 18, 2007

2007-12-26T18:41:00.000-08:00

A short drive from Oberlin. The authorities of the Ohio turnpike were friendly to me. Got up to the Bohemian National House around 6. Was able to have a good set up and talk a bit to Frode Gjerstad, Paal Nilssen-Love and Oyvind Storesund who were a bit past midway on their on tour that had crossed paths in Lexington with the Engines a few days after I did in Columbia. Not much of a turnout this night - it was quite cold outside. After playing my set for a week, I'd become much more comfortable with it and was able to enjoy its' slow-movement quality. Allowing the music to develop, not forcing any changes. Letting things be. The music felt settled, complete. I'm looking forward to working more on this music and creating a full album. For now, the music can be heard from the flash player on my site.

Thanks to Joel at the Bohemian.

On my way back to Chicago I took some photos of this bridge in Ann Arbor:

Oberlin December 17, 2007

2007-12-26T18:24:00.000-08:00

A cold pretty uneventful day long drive from Philly to Ohio - I changed my route to avoid the tolls and found myself in some nice out of the way places in central pennsylvania. They got alot of snow the day before which made for a gorgeous drive. Glad I didn't have to drive through the storm. Made it to Oberlin Ohio around 6 - it's not a big enough town to make it onto the map I had with me, so I had to get a little creative to find it after I stopped following the google map I'd printed out. No worries though, just got in a little later. Drove to Jeff Christiani's place which is right next to the Oberlin campus. We went towards Cleveland to get Indian food with a crew of his friends and on our way back we got off track - a long day of being off track. He was interested in learning about Mills and when I found out he was St. Louis I was able to almost shock him with my second hand knowledge of that city that I've learned from Jen.

Didn't end up playing until around 9:30 or so - and I played the only set in a small chapel called Fairchild. A reverberant space - stone walls, wooden pews. I did my best with it and tried to bring the sound to a full loud level. I think I did it for awhile. It was good to play there, a cold cold night in rural Ohio. Jeff showed me around the next day as I didn't have far to go for my next date. Oberlin's an interesting little place - students from the coasts, living away from lots of things, forces them to stay active, get creative. I remember having an Oberlin poster in highschool for some reason - didn't really know what it was, it seemed like it was on a higher level....

Philadelphia 12-16-2007

2007-12-26T18:05:00.000-08:00

With the Red Room show being done not so late, I was able to get up early and have a nice full day with my sister and family in Baltimore before heading up the Toll filled 95 to Philadelphia. My original show had been canceled and Audrey Chen (cello, vocals) arranged a date for us to play with Katt Hernandez, a violinist originally from Ann Arbor. It was at Big Jar, a bookstore in Old City. The weather was supposed to be real bad, but was instead only quite cold with strong winds. Audrey was headed to Baltimore from NYC after a string of dates there. We played one set together with Katt and Audrey beginning. Very patient exploration of held tones, slowly shifting with minuscule rapid changes occurring throughout. I joined them best I could. Playing that style of music and making it work is difficult - playing with Audrey and Katt worked well. The second set was a duet between Katt and Erik Ruin, who creates live visuals via paper projections. Erik did quite a bit with paper cutouts and a projector - I imagine getting the same result with a computer would be near impossible.

Baltimore 12-15-2007

2007-12-26T17:54:00.000-08:00

An eight plus hour drive from south carolina to maryland - with a stopover to get some fireworks for my nephew. Played at the the Red Room - it was a three set night starting with the trio of Catherine Pancake, Dan Conrad (brother of Tony), and Kate Porter; followed by my set, and a final set where I joined the trio. Catherine played drums, I hadn't seen her play drums before and I really was glad to hear her. Kate played cello, she's a good player with a strong classical background I believe. Dan played what is called a Veena Bambina - an instrument he built himself out of a large PVC tube with a single string on the outside. Alot of variety from a simple instrument.

Despite the cold snap in Baltimore there was a good turnout, and when I played my set I felt that the audience was there to listen and had no preconceptions - which is a great thing. I felt very comfortable with my set and thought it was one of the best performances of the tour. The quartet set was fun - we played two longer improvisations - I used both saxophone and laptop. The only thing I wanted to take back was at the end of each I and Dan were still playing and I prematurely turned off the output sound of the laptop - should of extended the endings....

Thanks to Samuel Burt for the hospitality, and thanks to Devin Hurd for this posting:

http://hurdaudio.blogspot.com/2007/12/shelton-from-storm.html

Columbia December 14, 2007

2007-12-20T13:03:00.001-08:00

Stayed an extra day in Asheville to visit some family and went down to Columbia on early friday afternoon. Got into town and went looking for sweaters at thrift stores with Ross - even though it was warm enough there that they were unnecessary. on this day my tour was crossing with the Engines tour - Dave Rempis, TIm Daisy, Jeb Bishop and Nate McBride. We shared a bill at the School of Music at the University of South Caroline in this super nice recital room that featured a gigantic pipe organ. The crowd showed up pretty much on time - and I played first. Tim Simmons brought the PA for me to use and as I got into the louder part of my set - which is a drone based on overblown low-tones - i noticed these kids (actual kids) in the first row covering their ears - sorry bout that one kids. I had some technical issues with this set and realized that I needed to change some things in my patch to make certain things easier to access. I want to get to the point that I can change parameters with no more than three movements on the keyboard - a tough task. The Engines set was very good - they all contribute pieces and all the arrangements combine different sections and feels - a good band for sure.

Asheville December 12, 2007

2007-12-20T12:56:00.000-08:00

drove down from lexington - a five hour trip - got into town in the late afternoon, hard to find a parking spot in asheville these days. went to a coffee shop - izzy's - waited there until meeting up with shane perlowin at the bobo gallery around 6. the show was going to be three sets - one by his trio Mind vs. Target, my solo set and then one with all of us as a quartet playing some of their music, and some of mine. I brought two tunes played by the Ton Trio - the Old Way and Internal Frame. We had a short rehearsal at six to check out the music - well, Shane, Joseph and I did - Michael, the drummer, wasn't able to come - but, later on he filled in perfectly, picking up on the pacing of my two things quickly.The show was good - people starting showing up around 9. I felt good about my set, I allowed things to take their time and develop. The quartet set was good times - Shane, Joseph and Michael are all real good listeners as well as players - we didn't let the improvisations go on for too long, they didn't fall too far away from the feel of the tunes they were a part of. After hanging at the Bobo for a while longer we ended up going to Shane friend's house for the ending of a holiday party - lots of sugary snacks were there along with a member of Negativland who lives in Asheville. a good time - special thanks to Shane and Brad from the Bobo Gallery

Lexington December 11, 2007

2007-12-12T07:46:00.000-08:00

Drove down from Chicago to Lexington - six hour drive, the same distance from Oakland to LA. Going through Indianapolis the rain was hardest, but then the temperature rose about 30 degrees, from 35 to 65.....got out of Chicago right before a promised ice storm that I don't think really happened.
So I played down here at the Icehouse, the big space run by Ross Compton. I always like playing in Lexington, people are interested in creative music, the crowds that come are listening crowds, not talkers. There were two other short sets, one guitar player with some electronics - some processing, some playback; and a fellow, Jason _____ who used a canvas as an interface with contact mics to manipulate video and create audio that he then processed further. I played through four speakers, though in mono. I set up the speakers in a half circle stretching out towards the audience in an attempt to fill up the space (a large one with very high ceilings) with sound. I think I got there during one section. I felt like I got off the game plan a little bit this night - a couple things threw me off and my pacing wasn't where it should be. A goal with this music is to let it take it's time and develop, and not rush it through. The show was done early, Ross and I talked for awhile, it was good - sometimes I feel like I get in and out of town without having a chance to talk to him - glad this time was different.

Chicago December 7th and 8th, 2007

2007-12-10T08:44:00.000-08:00

It's called a practice gig - usually the first time a band plays the music all together - that's when things get internalized, mistakes are made but then corrected by the players without having to discuss them. That's pretty much what happened on Saturday night at Heaven - I flew into town on Friday and had a rehearsal with Josh Berman, Jason Roebke, Jeff Parker and Frank Rosaly - I had brought the Flockterkit music to have them play. Seeing as Roebke and Rosaly were in the original lineup of Flockterkit it made sense to have them play in the group again. Now that the music is more robust than it was a few years ago, adding Berman and Parker were good choices.
We had a three hour rehearsal on friday, going over the charts and even working on Peltep, with electronics. During the practice the electronics were interacting well with the group, and I was satisfied with having two speakers, though it would be ideal to have four. It seemed like in the space a quad set-up wouldn't necessarily be effective, as the room is wider than it is long - in about a two to one ratio. The night of the show at Heaven, Saturday, we weren't able to sound check, as there was a show going on at Enemy and we were going to use their PA once that ended. That ended up being important.
Jason Roebke and Ayako Kato performed as Art Union Humanscape along with Josh Berman. The group, which focuses on small gestures by the musicians and free flowing movement by Ayako, has been developing their style as a trio - it was very good, they used the dimensions of the space to their advantage, Ayako using the bodies of Jason and Josh in someways like obstacles to move around, her movement was much more active than I had seen before. Compared to times I've seen them in the past there was more music to be heard - a result of the addition of a second musical instrument.
So the Chicago version of Flockterkit played second, and though there were moments, it was definitely a run-through for Sunday night at the Hungry Brain - the one piece I regret that it didn't go better was Peltep - the lack of the sound check really made the electronics a non-entity in the the piece, the interaction wasn't happening as it should. Our set at the Brain went very well. The timing of the music was right on - the playing was great. Having a different set of musicians play the music was a good experience, hearing the different interpretation was valuable.
I played my first solo set of this tour at the Brain as well. Using the pieces I've created as basics of the set, I felt that I was able to flow from section to section and have multiple layers of sound happening at almost all times - even though I had heard the PA was not so good, I was able to get the sounds out of it that I wanted.

Ton Trio at the 1510 Space

2007-11-26T14:33:00.000-08:00

A Saturday evening - set up a date at the 1510 performance space on 8th Street in West Oakland, Mikaela and Jeremy are living and running the shows there now - I'm liking playing there recently, it's always comfortable, like a house show, plus there's a good chance of getting a good recording of your music.
The Ton Trio played our first official show in Oakland a month after playing in Santa Cruz. The pieces I've written are based on an idea of relative looseness between the voices, parts can be rearranged individually, small snippets can be focused on. We moved along together the written material in a collective way and our improvisations fed off of this interaction, being at times right together and other times more tangential. I enjoyed it.
I brought along my clarinet for the first time in quite awhile for this kind of music, as I've been playing it regularly in the Mills Contemporary Performance Ensemble for a concert in December of Roscoe Mitchell's Cards and Riley's In C.
I played it this night on Internal Frame and Staring Out Windows - two recent compositions. We were able to do a 4track recording of the set, and it turned out well - I've posted some of the tracks on my website here. thanks to Jen for the photo.

We shared the night with a trio made up of Tony Dryer, Jacob Lindsay, and Stefanie Ku. They played quiet improvisations with lots of space and a focus on smaller sounds. Tony's arco bass playing was right on, and Jacob brought his gamut of clarinets, from the Ab to the Bb, Bass to the Contrabass. Very good stuff.

Shelton Healy Duo - Luggage Store

2007-11-19T15:52:00.000-08:00

Played last thursday at the Luggage Store, over in San Francisco at 6th and Market with Trevor. It's been a buy few weeks, but we were able to get together a few times before this show - we've been able to develop what we do together a bit, and this show felt good - lots of overdrive and sample rearranging on my side - we set up so that each of us could sample the other, I felt this was a good arrangement, pretty diplomatic - we played a good 45 minute set, with just one break - we were also able to do a 4 channel recording. the sound is getting thicker, with lots of patient energy. One particularly interesting moment came when I pulled out my electronics and Trevor when into a repetitive syncopated, though slowly changing figure with a steady pulse underlying. I then started processing his sound, splintering it in terms of time and spatialization - we went on from there.

This is part of Trevor's arsenal - originally designed for use with the varitone!

Weasel Walter Large Ensemble

2007-11-05T15:27:00.001-08:00

It's been almost two weeks since this date. Sorry for the delay - I know people are anxiously waiting for this posting to come out....
So Weasel Walter was egged on by Sara Lockhart at 21 Grand to write a piece - some would call it a commission. He decided to resurrect a project started several years back - a long form work for nine musicians with interchangeable parts allowing every member of the ensemble both an opportunity to act as soloist and conductor. A good idea for the type of ensemble - one where everyone is an improviser and good ones at that, so that their personalities can have a chance to come through.
The difficulty with long works for large ensembles lies in the rehearsal situation. With the amount of time people have and the lack of money in the non-marketable niche of the music-industry we find ourselves in, it's hard for people to devote time to large projects, mainly because getting everyone to have available time at the same time is near-impossible. For this group, getting nine people once together meant having 5 people rehearse once and 5 people rehearse the other time, and one run-through of the piece the night of the concert. This is pretty much the status quo in many such situations and someday things will be better, we can hope.
Not to say that the results of this night were bad - in fact the music turned out quite well, though I'm still firmly convinced that the more you play material, the more there is to be discovered in it and the more the music can really be influenced by the players, as opposed to the players making the more obvious choices of interpretation.

We were able to record the whole concert and listening back to it now, I'm impressed with how the personalities of and the decisions made by the players developed the piece, which featured several sections of soloist playing over backgrounds based on a tone row followed by cadenza, into one that has it's fair share of peaks, valleys and surprises. Sections are developed and segue into each other, the overall feel of the ensemble changes gradually over time and the playing of all is both high quality and personal.

Ton Duo & Trio Oakland to Santa Cruz

2007-10-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

My latest working group is Ton Trio with Kurt Kottheimer on bass and Sam Ospovat on drums. I've written some new music for this group with a focus on melodic content which is interchangeable. Some pieces use the material in a more traditional head format while in others the material is explored more by each player, rearranging the parts simultaneously to create new harmonic relationships.
Our first two dates were at the cusp of September and October, 9/30 at 21 Grand in Oakland and October 1 at Cafe Pergolesi in Santa Cruz. The date in Oakland got switched a few times with the result being a Ton Duo show with myself and Sam. I liked playing the music in this context - we were able to explore the parts with alot of freedom rhythmically, as the harmonic thing was obviously less important. The next night in Santa Cruz I drove down with Kurt and we met Sam at Cage Pergolesi. Apparently there's a "heavy-hitter" jazz club down there that was just a half block from Pergolesi - Dave Douglas was playing there the same night. I'm feeling good about this new group although we've not played many dates yet - Sam and Kurt both seem real into playing working on the music.
Here's one of the pieces, entitled "Internal Frame":

I made this music playlist at MyFlashFetish.com.

Flockterkit 9-26-2007

2007-09-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

Played on Wednesday night at 21 Grand again - this time with my group Flockterkit. This group, which started in Chicago with Fred Lonberg-holm, Ernst Karel, Jason Roebke and Frank Rosaly / Steve Hess is based on compositions that blend in electronic manipulation of the instruments. The music I wrote last winter for Peltep has some similarities so I put together a group out here to perform all of that music together. Andy Strain (tombone), Steini Gunnarson (guitar), Anantha Krishnan(percussion), Kurt Kottheimer (bass), and Jordan Glenn (drums). Jordan and Steini played this music as well in NYC when we played at the Stone with Matt Bauder.
I was a little concerned about getting the music together in the week plus a couple days I had after getting back from the Citizens tour, so I planned the music to be played without the electronic parts. I think the music works with or without - though when the electronics are in use it adds quite alot. We added some improvisation sections and I think the group played the music really well. Hopefully some recording will happen soon. Matt Ingalls and Corey Fogel played first that night - a very good duo - played well together and took advantage of 21 Grand's acoustics to pull off some very quiet sections that wouldn't work as well in a dry room.

Weasel Walter Dislocation Unit

2007-09-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

Last night played alto in a quartet with Weasel Walter on drums and Kristian Aspelin & Rob Pumpelly on guitars. The music we played was "an exploration of forms by Masayuki Takayanagi", the Japanese guitarist. We did three pieces, a "gradual projection" and two "mass projections". The first was played at a moderate volume - and we kept it there for 10 minutes, playing phrases that were unconnected save for the intentional spacing so that the density would not build and regress. There were spots of silence, and though they were fleeting, were not reacted to in the way of urgency. The second we started a bit more intense than originally planned, but we kept it there for another 10 minute segment. The third we went all out - I played with the help of my JBL speaker as amplification so as what I played was clear to hear over the volume of two electric guitars and Weasel. Even with the amplification I pushed for the full 10 minutes. The performance was video taped, I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Fast Citizens Charlotte 9-9-2007

2007-09-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

Another long drive - Philly to Charlotte, NC. When traveling with six folks, even a routine rest stop turns into about twenty minutes and when that happens a few times a day, that turns into a few extra hours of time on the road. We left Philly at 9:30 and got into Charlotte just before 8 PM. woah.
Brent Bagwell set up a date at a spot that's run out of the back of a vintage furniture and clothing store called the Century. A last minute turn of events brought us down to Charlotte and it ended up working out for the better. Got dinner at a slightly strange BBQ place nearby - got a really tasty veggie burger. Brent played an improvised set with a guitarist and a cellist - they concentrated on more textural and sonic elements than I had heard Brent do before and it was quite nice. Our set had a different kind of energy than the previous 5 nights we've played and I think it was due to the room. Most of the spaces we've played in so far have been very live. Big spaces with lots of hard surfaces. This space was the opposite - thick carpet on the floor and a room full of thick padded chairs and couches and hangings on the wall. It was dry - real dry. So, it tended to take some energy out of the sounds of our instruments and a natural reaction to it came out in our playing - things were more subdued and we went into spaces that we normally don't go into. Keefe had a particularly nice solo during Signs: he, Frank, Anton and Fred really brought it down before bring it back up - with nothing being forced.
Afterwards I and Anton stayed over at Brent's new place - he no longer lives outside of town on the 400 acre farm, but they still do have a charming house and now Charlie, his and Amy's son is getting more mobile ad talkative. Good times.

Fast Citizens Maine to Philly

2007-09-10T14:11:00.000-07:00

the shortest drive we've had so far was from boston to portland / brunswick. after getting through the maze of boston streets on a tobacco run for the smokers, we headed up to the farthest eastern point of the tour. the portland area is quite nice in the summer - the second time for me being up that way. keefe set up a date in Brunswick - a small town with a organization that brings in a good variety of jazz music. we got in a few hours early and had time to take our time finding something to eat. the concert was at the pleasant street arts center and we played two sets. i was a bit concerned with the crowd that came up - an older demographic, i thought they might bail after the first set - but they really stuck through it - and enjoyed it. we stayed at keefe's old friend john's place who he first met in arkansas at the age of 14. apparently keefe came up to john, a bassist, on the street and asked him if he could play with him. a few years later they both moved to portland, keefe moving back to arkansas before going up to chicago. john lives in a nicely maintained apartment style home with a view of the back bay of portland. too bad we didn't have more time to stay.

the next day was a long drive to philadelphia. in order to avoid traffic we took a route around the whole new york city / i-95 in new jersey corridor. though it took us a good solid 9 hours we weren't stuck in traffic. the date was at a space in south philly on broad street and produced by bowerbird. there were three sets. first set was shot by shot, a local young quartet with tenor and alto, bass and drums. their music was heartfelt and i really liked how they made music together. jack wright played a set with Michael Johnsen from Pittsburgh, who played some analog electronics and free improvised saw. as always, a solid set of extended sonic techniques from Jack. our set moved along quickly - band theme, big news, looking, easy, arbitrary lane change, pax urbanum, and blackout. the space was a nice big gallery space with large windows from which you could see the twin towers of philadelphia. there was a good sized young audience that was a good listening crowd. afterwards we went to jack's place where we were all staying and hung out pretty late with the philly crew. a good time - john and dan made us eggs and potatoes in the morning before we got on the road to charlotte.

Fast Citizens Detroit 9-4-2007

2007-09-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

First stop of the tour - the Bohemian National Home in Detroit Michigan. This large building in a typically thinned out neighborhood in Detroit was once the home of a Bohemian Community Center, complete with a ballroom and classrooms, etc. Detroit is one of those places that is probably alot like what most cities in the US were in the 80s - rundown and dirt cheap. Lots of interesting things we found out from Joel Peterson including that due to the economic depression lots of national chains won't set up shop in town which leaves lots of room for small independent places to go unopposed by those chains - so a coffee shop doesn't need to worry about a starbucks setting up across the street. plus, you can find a two bedroom for $300 a month.
So the first date went well - we played two sets for a small audience - we played well. The room was real boomy and loud - Anton's bass was a bit covered due to that. I recorded both sets and will put up some mp3s from the show soon. Spent the night at the Bohemian National as well - the sound of the summer bugs was steady and loud - and relaxing. I set my alarm for 6:30 the next morning and got a few hours of sleep before the big drive to NYC.

Fast Citizens Chicago 9-1-2007

2007-09-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

Flew into Chicago on an overnight flight from Oakland, got into town at 6 AM - two hours earlier than I thought I would, but not ahead of the actual plane schedule. Took the train in from Midway and walked the few remaining blocks to Keefe Jackson's place in Pilsen. Took a nap for the rest of the morning.
Had a rehearsal that night with the Fast Citizens - Keefe, Josh Berman, Fred Lonberg-holm, Anton Hatwich and Frank Rosaly. Good to see everyone and we got right back in where we left off. So we'll be on the road for the next two weeks and the kick-off was a set at the Jazz Fest on the Jackson St. stage. It was in the middle of the afternoon, about 2 pm, but thankfully not hot outside - actually we were all surprised with how the festival folk weren't rushing people on and off the stage which can happen at other festivals. We played a full set, playing mainly tunes off our Delmark record, and two new ones: a short piece by Anton with a collective improvisation, and a new Jackson head that focuses on a big fanfare titled "Big News". The set started out fast with Signs, I came out a little rough with the first solo, I think I was a little cold, could of took that solo back. The middle of the set was well done and paced for the afternoon, centered on Fred's "Pax Urbanum". The first section is being played a bit more relaxed and open than on the recording, which develops a nice shape to the rest of the piece.
We were done pretty early in the afternoon but were to play later that night at the Hungry Brain. I went over to Anton's place in Bridgeport for the afternoon where e made come good food including a particularly tasty hummus while we listened to records.
At the Brain we played The rest of the songs from the album plus another new one by Keefe called "Easy" which features a line played by Fred that tends to turn the swing feel backwards. We had an open ended time to play and the set felt very good. Afterwards we split up into small groups with some other folk who came by including Jeb Bishop, Tim Daisy, Jaimie Branch, Matt Bauder, Jason Ajemian + the wild card of Harris Eisenstadt and Sara Schoenbeck who were literally stopping in overnight as they drive cross country from LA to their new place in NYC. I played in a quartet with Harris, Jaimie and Anton and then played a rough version of "Hold it High" with Dragons 1976.

Aram Shelton Trevor Healy Rooz 8-27-2007

2007-08-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

Played a long open set with the guitarist Trevor Healy last night at Rooz Cafe, a spot on Park blvd in Oakland. I met Trevor a few months back when the Pink Canoes played at the Luggage Store, he'd recently moved out this way from New York. We finally had a chance to get together to play last month at his practice space in San Francisco. I really liked what I heard - experimentation balanced with patience. We played for about an hour at Rooz this night, which is a newer space in Oakland - we took our time building different sections and allowed things to materialize. The acoustics of the room - a very live room - made us hold back a bit, but overall I was real happy with the music. I think Trevor was even able to record it to his minidisc but I haven't been able to hear it yet.

Pink Canoes KFJC 8-18-2007

2007-08-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

Went down to Los Altos, Ca on a sunny Saturday afternoon. It's only about an hour's drive from Oakland going over the San Mateo bridge. I rode down with Noah and Travis - Noah had just flown back in from New York the night before. We met Zach at the radio station at Foothill Community College. He showed up in his new ride - a pristine 1981 Benz Sedan that he just picked up. Very nice bio-diesel. It was really a gorgeous afternoon with the golden hills that are bountiful this time of year. So, instead of enjoying that, we went inside of a radio station to play some music.
KFJC is out of range to hear up in Oakland, but from the posters I saw on their walls, I wish it was - lots of interesting music dating back a few decades. Bay area radio has a long way to go - KALX needs to pick it up!
We set up all our equipment in a triangular shaped room surrounded by music and played for about an hour on the radio. They're signal kept going out before and after we played, but for some reason the tower kept the power going for our set.

The music turned out real well - with a good range of activity - drones, noisy, active, energy. Turned out that me and my processing are a little dominant in the recording that went out in the airwaves and there's a crazy polarity issue too. check it out:

I made this Flash Music Player at MyFlashFetish.com.

Shelton Allbee Walter Hemlock 7-6-2007

2007-07-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

I've been in and out of town the lat few weekends, it's the summertime wedding time of year I suppose. Weasel got a date for our trio with Liz Allbee a little while back, an opening set for the drummer William Hooker. At the end of May we did a recording session at Mills, and in the time since I've been able to listen to those and modify the compositions, changing the parts and adding others, taking into account the way we improvise together to guide the larger structures. I think this group is taking some shape. Our set at the Hemlock had a good sense of direction, and I feel that we were able to get away from the written parts while using them as real reference points. The first piece began with seven two-note chords played by Liz & I, with Weasel playing open. This leads to Weasel alone, with Liz & I reentering a bit later with all short phrases, limited with the dea of no sustain. Eventually I add electronics ad Liz drops out, so there is a duo between me & Weasel before Liz returns on trumpet for the final chord system. The transitions worked well, and I felt that by allowing the electronics to come in over time they truly worked with the arrangement and added something new halfway through the piece. There were some very good moments including a solo by Liz on trumpet.
William Hooker's Bliss Trio was rounded out by Oluyemi Thomas on soprano saxophone and bass clarinet and Damon Smith on bass. They played very well, I hadn't heard William before and wish I had - his playing was right on, especially a moment late in the set when he layed into it on the snare. Olyuyemi sounded great on both instruments, a passionate player for sure. Damon fit right in and had some moments where his bass cut through in the best way - slicing through the intense wall of noise created by William and Oluyemi. A good night at the Hemlock, they should have more free jazz shows.

the Stone May 29, 2007

2007-05-30T07:46:00.001-07:00

It cooled off a few degrees here in New York today, not a bad thing at all. I had gone to the Stone on Sunday night to see some music and it was quite hot inside, though not nearly approaching the old 3030 on a summer's day. When playing with Dragons last night at Union Hall I realized halfway through the set the pleasant air conditioning that was keeping things comfortable. Though, you never can really measure the effect of a hot room on the players and the audience - sometimes it forces the music into a different space entirely. Steini and I got to the Stone at about 5:30 after having a nice Indian food lunch at Milon on 1st Ave. Jordan got there soon after, having flown into LaGuardia and taking a cab to Manhattan. Once Matt walked in from the park he was hanging out in we got around to doing the final rehearsal for the music for the later set of the night. I could tell from the practice that the four of us were a good fit.

The first set of the night was Son of Gunnar, Ton of Shel. Though it was our first date in a while, we had been practicing together regularly this past spring, developing our methods so that when we play our sound is there. We played a full hour long set with one break in between. Our second piece was a building piece, I felt really good about that one - it felt quite focused. In general I felt that this set was one of the best we've ever played live.

The second set was the quartet of me, Steini, Matt Bauder and Jordan Glenn. I rearranged the music I had written a few years ago for Flockterkit for this group. It made sense to me in a way as the parts I had written for the cello and bass were many times originally conceived for guitar. I also added a new piece and did some additional processing on the sound of the group for the beginning and ending. We played the set well - I really think that this group will have to play more and definitely record the music. The range of dynamics and energy during the set was one of the strong points, Jordan and Steini both played great, and Matt fit in perfectly. The set was somewhat short, but as I think we knew everyone there, and most stayed from the first set, I don't think anyone was demanding we finish our contractual agreement with an additional 10 minutes of music. Unfortunately we didn't have a way to record the show, or rather I forgot to arrange a way to get it recorded. Too bad.

So, a good night at the Stone. The room felt very comfortable and very right. They've done a good job of treating the room so that it is dry enough while not being dead. The size of the room is intimate and it has a clean look. Definitely a proper venue for the music. Thanks to Fred for booking us!

Dragons 1976 Brooklyn May 28, 2007

2007-05-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

In New York for the week here at the end of May. Was invited by Fred Frith to play the Stone on the 29th, so planned a week long visit. Turned out Jason Ajemian had also planned to be out here, so we talked to Tim Daisy and he felt he could come out from Chicago so we could reconvene for a show. Good timing. We played at Union Hall in Brooklyn, a nice sized bar that features indoor bocce ball and a downstairs music room nicely separated from the other ongoings. A solidly nice place all around - the music room reminded me of Cafe du Nord in San Francisco. As we hadn't played together in about four months (back in January when we did a week long southern swing), we met up a few hours before the show to refresh our memories on our music. Things fell back into place perfectly. That's the best thing about playing with good friends - no matter how long it's been since the last time you played, you remember how you play together - just as comfortable as picking up that conversation you left off last time... We played two sets that night - in between which Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone played. Their music was great to hear - almost all written out, but with a loose feeling that isn't typical of notated music, except for when the musicians know each other well. Our first set was mostly older tunes from the Winter Break disc (which we are going to print another hundred copies soon) and our second set was mostly songs from the new album which will be released by the Polish label MultiKulti sometime this summer or early fall. Our faithful crowd brought us back to the stage at the end of our second set and after some banter form me we played Heater, off of On Cortez. On our last night Matt Bauder walked up to the stage with his tenor and played a duo with Tim - a good ending to the night. He is an original Dragons after all. A good night to have with Dragons in Brooklyn.

Pink Canoes California April 2007

2007-04-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks the Pink Canoes have played a string of dates from SF to Davis to LA. Things went well - we played all of the dates with a trio from LA called DSS - Aaron Drake, Phil Stearns and Cassia Streb - no input mixers, radio transmissions, viola. The first night was at G3 on the west side of SF at Geary and 3rd Ave - it's a place that has a weekly noise show on wednesday nights - in a slightly strange club that normally has karaoke. They did have a pretty impressive lighting system - we didn't take advantage of it, but did use a small little enclosure designed for private parties to set up our amps and play like in a music box. Second night was at the Luggage Store in downtown SF and the next we made the hour drive up to Davis to play at Delta of Venus, which had a nice outside seating area for folk. Out two groups were joined by young Solomon on laptop playing his first solo show - it went well. The Canoes all got a little antsy as we notice people trickling out - Friday night in a college town around 10:30 gets people thinking about the closest keg party probably. We played probably are best set I can remember - lots of energy, lots of interaction with each other - and the twenty or so folk that stuck around were into it
We drove back to the Bay that night, watching the Big Lebowski on Noah's video pod. The next night we set up shop at the Revolution Cafe up on 22nd street in the Mission. This place is a popular place - has good Belgian beer and one of the few outdoor patios in SF. We weren't sure how we would fit in the tight performance space but we did and I think the closeness to the crowd was a big benefit - it almost always is. We played that night with Reptet, a jazz group from Seattle who Zack is friends with. Their set began and ended with the horns marching from the street to the stage - good use of the great outdoors....
Last weekend the Canoes drove down to LA as a quartet for the BentFest, a festival going on in NYC and LA this year. The six hour drive down I-5 was actually kind of relaxing - We played at Il Corral on a bill with five groups including DSS, John Richards (UK), Toy Junkies and a duo that blew out the low end of the PA with their Moog ad Doepfer synths - too bad. They did manage to finish out their set pretty well with just the high frequencies.
All in all it was a good time - the music shared qualities every night, I think our interactions with each other improved in each set. We're playing on May 1st as part of a spate of band at a benefit at SF Arts.

Allbee/Shelton/Walter 21 Grand

2007-04-06T11:01:00.000-07:00

Last night played at 21 Grand with Liz Allbee and Weasel Walter - I've been meaning to play in a trio with these two since we've played in quintet version before + Damon Smith and Aurora Josephson. I also asked Liz to bring her electronics and Weasel to bring another instrument - he brought a bass clarinet. I brought my electronics along too - more options. I wrote three pieces for us to play through - lots of improvising within, but some chords to be played together to set up tonalities - little melodic phrases to act as points where we could meet up again. Weasel sounded good on bass clarinet - he studied it for a few years back in the early nineties. That's the blessing of woodwinds - maintaining the ol' embouchure isn't as important as on brasses. It was a good group to play with - looking forward to doing it again - the possibilities with all the sounds we can bring are pretty open.... Ben Bracken played with Jackie from JapJap - a piece with contact mics on cymbals, some feedback through contact mics, some amplification and processing though electronics.
If Volition Then played first - Jason Hoopes, Amanda Schoofs, Michael Dale, Andy Strain and Jordan Glenn. They've been improvising alot together and definitely have a concept bringing their music together. Sounded good.

Trio with Weasel Walter & David Slusser

2007-03-04T21:38:00.000-08:00

Played last night with Weasel Walter and David Slusser at Scott Looney's 8th St Performance Space. Haven't played with David before - he's a saxophonist and electronicist - I liked how he played both - he brought his soprano and some analog gear, I brought bass clarinet and computer - Weasel brought drums and electric guitar. We started and I noticed that I didn't have really any sound coming from the speakers - looked at Scott, he thought I blew the speakers - a shock to me - I've never come close to doing such a thing - didn't know how brutal I've become Weasel said. Was able to play some electronics through a small amp, but after a bit we ditched the other stuff and just played acoustic. It was a good time - Weasel played in the second set too with Scott, Damon Smith and Kristian Appelin - all free, real active. Scott did some nice sample based electronics - has good control of them using an Alesis device, then played piano - which he plays really well - interesting player with notes and inside the piano. It was a good night - hung out, drank wine, ate BBQ potato chips afterwards - Jen was glad she skipped the John Wiese show for it.

Peltep mp3

2007-03-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

I've posted the live recording of Peltep here . We'll be doing a more thorough recording in the next few weeks. .....

If the link doesn't work, you can find it at www.aramshelton.com/audio/Peltep.mp3

Peltep Mills College 2-24-2007

2007-02-25T13:20:00.000-08:00

I've been working on new music lately - full band with electronics - the first piece of which is done and titled Peltep. It's for alto, trombone, piano, guitar, drums & percussion. Joining me on the piece were Steini Gunnarson, Kiyomitsu Odai, Andy Strain, Jordan Glenn and Anantha Krishnan. All of the fellows are here at Mills now, and it's a good thing. We played as part of Signal Flow, which is the spring festival for works by the graduate students here. I started working on the piece when I got back to California after my winter travelling - the goal was to write music that used the sound of the group to boost itself - live sampling of every instrument controlled through amplitude responsive devices in MSP. I feel like the finished piece is the best blending I've done yet of the two sides of music that I play - that which is rooted in creative jazz and the electroacoustic composition. The set up included all the instruments being mic'd and sent to my interface, then processed and sent out via quadraphonic sound into the concert hall. Lots of panning motion, dependent on the part of the piece in terms of velocity. I set up the electronics so as to have as little control once we got going - and I think it worked well - set the volume and certain thresholds for the amplitude triggering during the sound check. Definitely happy with how we played it. It was recorded so as soon as I get that I'll post it to my site.

Son of Gunnar, Ton of Shel Chicago January 2007

2007-01-17T15:21:00.000-08:00

I was in Chicago for a little more than a week after the Dragons tour ended. My friend Toby Sumerfield asked me to stay in town to play in his large group Never Enough Hope. I took the opportunity to have Steini Gunnarson stop in town on his way back to Californa and Mills from his winter vacation in Iceland so that Son of Gunnar, Ton of Shel could play a few dates. Steini and I have been playing together pretty much since I moved out west. Especially during our first year here we would get together to play. It was a good fit from the beginning. We each played our instruments and did electronics - discussion was limited as we seem to have agreeing ideas of how to improvise music. We've recorded a number of times and are now starting to play more publicly with a record on the way from Edgetone.
We played two shows and were invited by Michael Corsa to play on WNUR. The first show was on thursday night at Enemy, the space ran by Jason Soliday above Heaven gallery. Brian Labycz set up the show for us - he played in duo with Vadim Sprikut, the night rounded out by Architeuthis Walks on Land, a duo of Amy Cimini and Katie Young. Brian and Vadim sounded great - they both play electronics of the laptop kind - they've been playing live dates for awhile now and you can tell it with the fluidity they've got with their computers. Son of Gunnar, Ton of Shel played as a trio with Johnathan Crawford on drums. We got together earlier in the day to play - it was great - played very freely, everything went together. I was happy with the show too, but the private time was something else. Johnathan sounded great - maybe we should make an album called Son of Ghost....
The next night we played at the Empty Bottle, just the two of us. It was great to play the Bottle, Shelly took care of us from the board. Playing through a large, loud PA lets you realize just how much low-frequency you can get out of a computer. We played a patient set - I was happy with it. The thing I like most of our duo is the patience we give to each other. I'm not sure if we've been able to achieve the same level of patience in public as in private, but it's getting there.

Dragons 1976 Carolinas 2007

2007-01-10T07:44:00.000-08:00

I'm now back in Chicago after a week long jaunt through Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas with Dragons 1976.

We stopped in Knoxville the day after our Lexington show to play at the Pilot Light. It worked out kind of the way the first time we played there did - the crowd didn't show up until late, were pretty into it and cleared out once we were done. We stayed with Tim's friend Van and Margaret, who are long time friends of Ken Vandermark's. They took care of us with late night enchilada's and morning waffles.

The next day we headed east. This is the fourth time we've done a tour that had a heavy dose of rotation in the Carolina's, thanks to some really good contacts we've made down there in the past few years. This time we entered the states from the west end and hit Greenville after a gorgeous drive through the smokey mountains. Our friend Gene Berger, owner of Horizon Records keeps the flame going down there, next door to his record store is the Cafe Bohemian which is run by a real jovial man named Tripp. This is our third time down there and are always welcomed warmly - this time was no different. Unfortunately it seemed that the crowd 4 days after New Years on a thursday wasn't ready to get back outside it's own doorstep, so we didn't have too much of a crowd. No matter, we played what we play and the few people there appreciated it greatly.

That night we drove to Columbia to spend the night at our man Ross Taylor's ranch. He welcomed us as we got in around 1 am and showed us a rocket pack a friend had just given him - found on some property that his friend and just bought. The next day we hung out in Columbia, getting lunch at the Piggly Wiggly and checking out a state swamp preserve that was used as a place to get mud to make buildings back in the 30s.

We drove down to Charleston in the evening to play at Redux Art Center . Our first trip to Charleston we found out that there a big straight ahead jazz scene there due to alot of tourism in the city. We had a good crowd that night - Redux had a us play two sets for two covers and people came to both. You could definitely feel a shift in the age group in the crowd which was pretty refreshing. It's a good way to do things - starting playing all the time at 10:30 or later is sometimes a drag. No reason not to have show starting at 8 for the people who'll make it. Philip White joined us on the bill - he's out at Mills now, I helped him out last semester as the SuperCollider TA - well, helped him out as much as I could. We played a piece out there here developed which worked with bringing out the harmonics of a bass clarinet with bandpass filters. He made a piece here with just feedback from two microphones, using the filters as a way to bring out different tones. I joined him in the second show on alto - despite having a pretty serious runny nose problem. During the later Dragons set, which I felt was the best one the tour, there was a tremendous rainstorm - tropical style. The sound of the rain mixed in pretty great, especially during some of Tim's drum solos and during Ajemian's phaser-dominated bass solo.

We headed back to Columbia the next evening to play at the Hunter-Gatherer. Ross made us a great dinner of Kim Chi chowder and Mahi-Mahi cooked on a hibachi. The crowd at Hunter-gatherer was a bit loud but uber-appreciative. we had a good time playing and weren't rushed out as quickly as normal for a saturday night in South Carolina (can't sell liquor on Sundays, usually clear people out at midnight).

Our last stop down south was in Asheville. We headed up there early as I wanted to make a visit to my dad and family that I haven't seen in a bit now. We played at the Bobo Gallery, and though they were late to show up, a good sized crowd did make it out - the owner Brad was really into the music and wanted us back soon. It was pretty great to have my dad and uncle in the audience. I haven't seen them in a long time - so them being able to see what I do is pretty important.

We drove out of Asheville that night and stayed with one of Tim's friends way out in the mountains. His friend Steve Alfred recently moved down there from Chicago to start a goat cheese farm. A little random, but interesting. I took the opportunity to sleep out in this big old barn they had there - plenty of straw to use as bedding. Nice and dark. We did the long drive back to Chicago on monday the 8th. It was a good tour - saw old friends & made new ones. The music was consistently satisfying - the new music we have which should be released by 482 Music in the coming months really helped out our sets - the music is definitely getting more energy each time we play together. It was telling when we were in Columbia and we got a request for one of our songs from the crowd - people are into it.

Dragons 1976 Chicago & Lexington

2007-01-03T17:08:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all!

It's the beginning of 2007 and Dragons 1976 are on the road for a short week-long tour. I flew to Chicago from Florida where I was visiting my family and got together with Tim & Jason for our first date since last summer when we were on the road for three weeks. Our first date was at the Heaven Gallery on Milwaukee Ave. Jason has been maintaining his Protest series there for a while now. Back in the old day Heaven was more known for the dance parties, it's matured since then and playing there is a good time - a nice sounding front room, good location for people to get to, and Dave Dobie, who I met in my first days in Chicago, is always friendly. We asked the GK Duo to play the first set - that's Mattthew Golombisky and Quin Kirchner, two fellows who came to Chicago after I moved out west I think. A good duo - bass, drums and pedal electronics.
We played a set of mainly our new music - all recorded last July after the tour - this tour we really get to learn that material. I was happy with the turnout - Josh Abrams and Dave Rempis swung by after playing a benefit at Subterranean. Haven't seen Josh in a long time.
So, New Years Eve came and went - on the 2nd we got into the Daisy family bikeshop van and headed down to Lexington where our good man Ross had a show set up for us at the Icehouse. We first went by Gumbo Ya-Yas for a good bite to eat - Ross always provides. We played two sets at the Icehouse, started pretty soon after 8 as a good crowd turned out and were done with our second set before 10:30. We played all the new music along with older tunes. Walter Tunis, a writer in Lexington really enjoyed the new material - he's been giving us nods in the press there for a few years now. Really a nice situation to go to. The Icehouse lived up to it's name temperature wise - the downside of having a huge performance space is the heating bills - Brian had a turbo-jet style heater going for a bit, but I remember looking over at Tim at one point in the second set and seeing his breath in the cool air.

Video of Aurora Group

2006-12-21T14:32:00.000-08:00

Here's a freaked out video that someone put together of the last time I played with Weasel, Aurora, Liz and Damon. Not good for those who experience discomfort with flashing lights.

Improvising 8th St Performance Space 12-7-2006

2006-12-09T20:06:00.000-08:00

One thing I've done alot out here in the bay is play improvised music. And when I say improvised music, I mean it in the "improvised music" way. Free of charts, free of overly defined & sometimes limited concepts, open to possibilities. Out here there are a good number of improvisors with good possibilities for instrumentation. It's a good thing. One "steady" group I'm in is with Damon Smith (bass), Liz Albee(trumpet), Aurora Josephson (voice) and Weasel Walter (drums). This night I played in two quartets: one with Damon, Charity Chan (piano) who moved out here from Montreal, and her friend Scott Thomson (trombone). Scott is visiting form Montreal - is a great trombone player - able to do many things with the instrument, can play quiet... I played alto and it was well paced throughout - from all sonic textures to more lyrical parts. It felt good & went by fast.
I then used both alto & computer in quartet with Noah Phillips (guitar), Cory Wright (baritone & clarinet), Jordan Glenn (drums). Cory moved up from LA recently - a good player on reeds - friends with Noah from there. Our set also went by quickly - I did live sampling of Jordan & myself along with trying out this new system of triggering short samples based on amplitude response - I've developed this as a way to get away from static comupterland - or rather, add to my options. I'm getting interested in just using a large array of sounds, similar in the way that some percussionists just go to work with all their gadgets and bells - one very good one played the same night - Gino Robair. Great sense of timing, and I'm glad he covered the "massage" device he used in the set with a piece of cloth - kept you guessing.
Noah sounded great on guitar - I won't see him for quite awhile as he's going overseas for abit now that he's finished with Mills. We recorded with Charity and Andy Strain (trombone) last weekend (I've been taking advantage of the studio at Mills to fill up my harddrive with some of this improvised music).

Dragons 1976 in Columbia back in 2005

2006-12-02T10:18:00.000-08:00

This is a video from back in January of 2005 when we played down in Columbia, S.C.

You could read about it here.

Bill Horvitz Expanded Band 11-17-2006

2006-11-22T09:40:00.000-08:00

A busy few weeks here with travelling down to SoCal and back. A few months ago I was asked by Bill Horvitz to play in a large ensemble he was putting together for a few concerts in November - things tend to creep up on you & here we are at the end of November. The group was a twelve piece with Omid Zoufonoun (conductor), Steve Adams (sax/flute), Jon Raskin (sax), Kyle Bruckmann (oboe), Hal Forman (trumpet), Darren Johnston (trumpet), Liam Staskawicz (trombone), Matt Montgomery (violin), Katie Harlow (cello), George Cremaschi (bass), Robin Eschner (piano/vocals), Joseph Sabella (drums), and Bill Horvitz (composer, guitar and vocals). I played clarinet & bass clarinet - since moving out here a good deal of my playing has been on those instruments - even though there's a good deal of clarinetists out here on the scene that are quite good - (Jacob Lindsey, Matt Ingalls for two). Though, I guess folk have an ear towards the orchestration out here & stay away from having too many saxes in a group (a good thing).

This band in a way was a reunion of Harris Eisenstadt Ahimsa Orchestra that played a few date much earlier in the year and the music was much different. The music was written by Bill as a tribute to his younger brother who passed away suddenly about a year ago. He wrote songs that were reminders of what his brother meant to him.
We played twice - once at the Capp St Community Music Center in San Francisco and two nights later in Sebastopol. The Capp St space is becoming a personal favorite, it seems it would be a perfect setting for a festival of improvised music.

Tiny Lights California November 2006

2006-11-14T12:02:00.000-08:00

the Tiny Lights are myself, Ben Bracken and Jacob Danziger. Ben & Jacob hail from Ann Arbor and I met them over the years through Matt Bauder. Once out here on the west coast we three started making music together as we all found ourselves at the Mills College. Last spring we started making some music together and this fall we got the opportunity to play four shows with Anathallo, a band from Ann Arbor. ben's brother Dan plays with Anathallo and was the connection for getting this project form the recording land to the live performance world, which is a good thing.
This last weekend we played shows in San Francisco, Anaheim, Los Angeles and Long Beach and it was a good time. When wer recorded our first few songs we used lots of overdubs to record piano, guitar, violin, clarinets, melodica, glockenspiel, bass clarinet, trumpets etc... for these show we had to pare it down to be played by the three of us with one guest each night for a guitar part and some clapping - this was a tough task, but definitley a good exercise in orchestration. I brought my clrainet, bass clarinet and computer, ben brought guitar and computer, jacob brought violin, glockenspiel andboomerang pedal. In each venue we caught the soundmen off guard - they're just not used to be asked for multiple line inputs and they get spooked when a condenser mic is to be used on stage. For us, a condenser is necessary - bass clarinet and acoustic guitar jsut give too quiet a signal for dynamic mics in a live setting. But, each night as we got more used to our setup the sound improved - I felt that I didn't have any feedback issues with my condenser - the only time anything crazy happened with them was in LA when a bad cable was used - apparantly Monster Cables don't work so hot with phantom power.
Anyway, enough about the tech requirements - our shows were fun and though we were playing to crowds that are more used to straight up rock we had some real positive comments from unexpected people. Check out undressmerobot.com for a possible upcoming interview that happened after we played in Anaheim in front of 100 or so underagers.
Spaceland in LA was the best show for sure - great sound, real friendly folk - the electric piano sounded real only there. Watch out for vegetarian tacos in Long Beach - make sure they realize youre asking for "whole" beans, not "cold" beans.............
Hanging in Los Angeles was a good time - we stayed with Justin Shay in Angelinos Heights each night - had good food at the Brite Spot & Home - Jen came down for the weekend also and we got to hike around Griffith Park and have delicious pie at the House of Pies. LA knows how to cook.
As for Tiny Lights, we'll be recording a 5 song EP in the near future and more shows will come.

Quartet Mama Buzz 10-20-2006

2006-10-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

It was a friday evening and I played a few sets in a quartet with Ben Bracken, Jacob Lindsey and Ava Mendoza. Two electric guitars and two winds. Ben played tabletop prepared guitar with a large array of devices to get lots of sounds. Ava played in a more melodic style, branching into the sound world at times. Jacob brought his Bb, Ab, Bass and Contrabass clarinets - lots of range and he really knows how to play each. I brought my alto, Eb clarinet and Bass clarinet - so we had many options in terms of sound and range. I'm getting pretty used to playing at Mama Buzz - though it's a pretty modest place to play at, usually there are enough listeners that you can concentrate on playing the music and know that the audience will be attentive and appreciative.

Here's two pictures by Jen Dunn:

Weasel Walter Quartet 10/7/2006

2006-10-09T14:02:00.000-07:00

A sunny day in California. A perfect day to drive to a field somewhere near Davis (about an hour away from Oakland) to play a short set of fast & loud at a day long festival. I've been getting to know Weasel Walter better since moving out here last year. He asked me to play in his quartet with Damon Smith and Randy Hunt a little ways back. We've played together before in some other groups, but today was the loud & fast day - after making the drive with Jen & Maria, we found ourselves at a Roadhouse near Davis, in a field with the Numbers playing a set on a small stage. We played on the smaller stage - well on the grass. But that was kind of good cause everyone there circled up around us & it felt more up close & personal. I think our set was about a half hour - and we recorded it. Kind of a strange place to have a little day long fest, but worth the trip.

solo set Mama Buzz 9-15-2006

2006-09-20T00:40:00.000-07:00

got back to the bay area more than a month ago, and i've been doing some playing with some different groups, a Moe Staiano date and a few dates with Damon Smith and others. haven't written about them though, have i? Nope. Sorry. But, this last week I played my first solo instrument show....ever? I think so. It took me to enter my 30s (on the 14th) before I would play a show alone with just a wind instrument (well, 2 in this case) since I was an undergraduate at UF playing a solo recital. Why? Well, I usually don't think much of solo sets - music is good with multiple people involved, so why screw it up? Well, (I'm saying well alot) I tried to make this a duo set, but all the folk I asked to play (scott rosenberg, liz albee, though of some others) were all unavailable for this date. So, I decided that solo was the way to go.
I played alto saxophone & bass clarinet - my favorites. It's taken me awhile to start to feel like I'm actually able to play some shit on bass clarinet, but over the few years I've been working on it, things are starting to feel better. I played a set of about 40 minutes, all improvised, with some guiding thoughts, nothing very specific, but a desire to play different pieces, each focused & without playing everything in each piece - it was a good experience for sure. I do remember that after my first bass clarinet piece I had worked up a pretty good sweat. One funny thing was that as I was starting my second piece, on alto, I heard from outside the windows two guys talking about different saxophone players they'd seen play around town - i'm an eavesdropper for sure....

also - i've got a website now!

audio clips!

(not yet, but soon)

guess what it's called?

Rolldown July 2006

2006-07-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

I've been busy here in Chicago for the past week plus. One group in particular that I've played with is the Jason Adasiewicz led Rolldown with Josh Berman, Jason Roebke & Frank Rosaly. last summer we recorded as a group at Electrical Studios, since then I think they've played a few dates, but it was good to be able to play together this week. The first date was at Elastic on thursday the 13th. The second was at the Hungry Brain three nights later. We only had a chance for one rehearsal and Jason brought some new tunes that were tricky & good. The music takes advantage of the instruments - with complicated parts in the vibes, harmonizations in the horns, and counterlines in the bass & drums. Jason's composition style is definitely in the jazz tradition, and he's open to free sections right alongside chord changes and everything in between. His pieces strongly influence the improvising sections. Both times we played the band felt very fluid playing together - the best thing about having the experience of playing with people for a couple of years is that you don't need a lot of rehearsal to get things together. At sunday at the Brain, the crowd was really a good size and were listening - we played a full hour set, but it didn't feel long at all. After us, a quartet of jamie branch, jason stein, jeb bishop and anton hatwich played - they're called block & tackle. Pieces by Branch, a trumpeter - repetitive lines, one piece in particular had some really subtle phasing going on which sounded real good. A good night in all at the Brain - I stayed late with Jason as the crowd trickled out slowly - we hung out with Dan and and Jeb Bishop right there at the end.

Back in Chicago, July 2006

2006-07-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

Back in Chicago after a long hiatus, got into town on Friday the 7th to play with Dragons at Heaven over in Wicker Park. I had taken the bus down to St Louis to visit Jen & her folks, coming back the bus was a bit late - I got in town at about 10:15, but the show was supposed to start at 10. We were to play two sets, so Jason & Tim played as a duo for the first one. I got in just as they were finishing their last improvisation, after a short break we played our set to some of the Chicago people - as we played more folks showed up - it was a pretty good turnout. It is a different feeling, not living in Chicago and playing here - in a good way.
The next night I played at the Charleston with Josh Berman, Nate McBride and Frank Rosaly. Used to always have a good time when I would play tunes there, so wanted to do it again. A plus is that the Charleston is now a smoke-free bar, so you don't get bombarded by the typical Chicago smoke clouds. We played alot of tunes by Monk, some which I'd never played before. McBride is really on top of those charts, he's good friends with a certain someone who made a lot of transcriptions of Monk's music. That music is tough to pull off - we definitely had a good time playing, but it also re-enforced my respect for the music.
Next up was getting together with the 774th Street Quartet - myself on alto, Guillermo Gregorio on alto & clarinet, Keefe Jackson on tenor and bass clarinet, and Thomas Mejer from Switzerland on contrabass saxophone. Interesting how things work out - we got together as a quartet when Thomas was in town back in 2003 I think, part of the Lucerne / Chicago sister city exchange (which is mainly kept going by Lucerne's government). Last spring we recorded the music we brought to the group (each of us two pieces) as George Hansen resurrected his label Bloody Murder and wanted to put out a recording by us. Now a year later the CD is finished so on this occasion that I'm in town Thomas came from Lucerne and we played at Deadwax records up on Lincoln Ave on Sunday afternoon, Live on Air at WNUR in Evanston and on Tuesday night at Elastic. It was fun to play that music again - each of us our very different in our approach to writing music and improvising, and balancing the different personalities is good times.
The show at Elastic went well, a good turnout including some people that I knew that didn't normally come when I would play concerts back when I lived here. Again, a good thing about visiting. In some ways, it's difficult visiting here because there are so many friends and people I'd like to talk to and catch up with - I'd also like to see other people play, but I'll be pretty busy while I'm here - I'm hoping to catch up with everyone in good time. Good thing I'm not here for just a weekend.
The other thing that I did here in my first 5 days back was play at Myopic with Steve Hess and Toby Summerfield - they on drums & guitar respectively, me with saxophone & computer. It was good to play - I haven't done live electronics in more than a month now - I felt kind of rusty. Got it get it together for a couple of Grey Ghost shows this week and a solo set the next weekend. Playing with Steve & Toby was a good match though - they share a good sense of pace & timing.

A blur of a finish for the Dragons tour

2006-07-08T13:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry, the last week or so of the Dragons tour went by quickly, quickly. After playing in Charlotte we played Greenville, Columbia, Nashville and Lexington before heading back up to Chicago. After the Carolina dates, our final three days had a good amount of driving added up which made us a little claustrophobic, but nothing too terrible. A blow-out in Kentucky on the way to a clinic at Morehead State put us about an hour behind schedule, but all was forgiven and we made it to everywhere we needed to make it to.
Playing in Columbia was a good time - two shows in two nights, one at the Whig and another at the Hunter-Gatherer.
Folks liked us enough to come to both shows, Ross Taylor took care of us in his special way, getting us food at the most opportune time and finding a hat for me after my hair started really fro-ing up in the humid southern regions...not that I have anything against a fro, I just don't know if it fits me that well...The Whig is an underground bar across from the State Capitol of South Carolina (and of course the Confederate flag which was recently re-moved from the Capitol dome, but is still prominently displayed on the Capitol grounds). The hunter-gatherer is on the other side of the Capitol, maybe two blocks away, we saw fireworks outside of the floor to ceiling windows at the front of the bar before we started playing.
A seven hour drive the next day got us to Deanna Varagona's place in Nashville, she took us by a cookout before the show which was at a gallery called the Ruby Green. She played the first set solo, with accompaniment by pre-recorded tapes. A large fan kept us cool that night while we were playing (relatively) but was no match for the Big Ass Fan at the new Mecca Dance space in Lexington where we played the next night. Wish I could give a link to the Big Ass Fan company, the thing was gi-normous, though still the heat of Kentucky in July took over....
We played two sets in Lexington to an appreciative crowd thanks to Ross Compton.
Finally got a relief from the heat on the way back to Chicago after a few rainstorms on the 4th of July. The tour ended up well and we're looking forward to the next one.

Dragons 1976 Charlotte 6-28-2006

2006-07-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Down to the south during June, not the hottest of months but the possibility is there for some true heat. Driving in the Benz with no AC....we had driven through rain for about 4 days and it finally stopped, so we were able to dry out the car that had built up some moisture. Got into Charlotte NC on wednesday the 28th - our friend Brent Bagwell set up a show at the Evening Muse, a nice venue in an up&coming neighborhood in Charlotte. Brent's a good guy - saxophonist playing tenor & baritone, we've done shows with him before down here and we played a bill together up in Chicago once - Dragons & his group Eastern Seaboard. For this night there were three groups - his Project Bluebird, a project witha bassist and a doubler on cello & violin. All improvised in a loose melodic style with each of the three building from what they heard each other do previously. We played the middle set & the crowd that came were good listeners, though the energy level wasn't really that high - maybe we could've done more...maybe not. Afterwards we hit a diner in Charlotte for late night snacks before heading out to Brent's place, which he's actually moving from in just a week. He's been living about 45 minutes outside of Charlotte on alarge piece of land with a turkey farm on it, a river nearby, lots of woods and fields with cows being the primaray population. We finished the night off with a glass of scotch and got a goo dnight sleep in the quiet north carlolina countryside.

Dragons 1976 Baltimore 6-24-2006

2006-06-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

Drove down through the rain from New York to get to Baltimore & Normals Books, home of the Red Room. Audrey Chen helped set up the night which had two groups playing, us and a quartet of Chen, John Berndt, Charles Cohen & Paul Niedhardt. Because of the rain both groups had a little it of noise to contend with, namely a leaky roof, and it really did affect the performance, but in a good way. The crowd that came were listeners, so in the quiet spaces during the quartet's set drips of rain worked itself into the music, which tended to be sparse between the group swells. Their quartet had alot of sounds to work with - Charles plays the Buchal along with assorted other electronics and has a real control of it, Audrey uses Cello and voice, and has lots of option swith each, Paul tends to use the drums & percussion as noise generators more than as a kit, and John played alto and soprano saxophone - lots of extended technique to get out a lot of sounds.
Our set was affected by some food poisoning that Tim & I got the last night we were in New York - pizza....but we made it through playing Drifting, Passage & Sock It. Kind of a shorter set in terms of songs, but longer in terms of improvisation. The Red Room records all their shows and have a duplicate ready to give to the musicians afterwards, which is a really good thing to do. Being able to hear back what you played the day before is a good thing to have access to. After packing up we got some food at a Korean/Japanese restaurant that's open until three AM. Finished my night with Sushi and Miso Soup.

Dragons 1976 New York Two Shows June 2006

2006-06-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

New York City, not a place I've had much luck in playing shows at in the past. The scene there of course is overinundated with musicians trying hard to get gigs, plus there just don't seem to be very many places committed to presenting creative music, especially if your not already famous or playing with someone famous. We played two spots, the Tank in TriBeCa and a record store called Marquise Dance Hall in Williamsburg.
The show at the Tank was set up by our friend Jon Philpot of Bear in Heaven, we met him a few years back when we played a show together at the old 3030 space in Chicago at a show that Brad Loving set up. The first set was none other than Brad under the monkier Lobisomem with Jason Ajemian playing bass with him on laptop. Dragons played second and Bear in Heaven third. Unfortunately the show was a two hour affair for three groups. I guess regularly the Tank tends to have only two bands. So, the sets were short, but a nice amount of folk showed up and Taya and the others at the Tank were real friendly, and gave us some extra time.
The next night at the record store turned out pretty good too. I went down to Williamsburg from where I was staying with my aunt & uncle on the upper east side. When I got there Jason was playing with Brad again as Lobisomem and there were some people listening inside and Tim was talknig to Matt Bauder outside. It was good to see Matt, I don't know the last time I saw him. Even though it was real hot inside the record store, we played a good set and a nice amount of people showed up including Jon Philpot and Matana Roberts. We finished our night by going across the street to Clem's, where Joe from bear in Heaven tends bar.

Dragons 1976 Boston 6-21-2006

2006-06-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

We had a two day stay in Boston, well Tim & I did anyway. We had our last day off of the tour before a stretch of thirteen straight nights with some playing involved. We got down to Boston on tuesday afternoon, Jason headed down to New York to play with Matt Bauder and Alan Licht. Tim & I hung out at Charlie Kohlhase's place - he's got a great jazz record collection. We spent much of the time we were there picking out albums we hadn't heard and watching some videos of jazz music. It was a nice way to spend a day off on the road. The first night we were there we actually rehearsed with Charlie's group "The Explorer's Club", another good way to spend some time off, playing some music you'd not before.
The show on wednesday was at a space called the Lily Pad in Cambridge. The order for the night was Dragons's, Explorer's Club, then a set with both groups - so three drummers, two bassists, three saxophones, a trombone and a guitar. Unfortunately, Jason ran into all sorts of bad traffic on the way back from New York, so his trip took 6 hours instead of the more typical 4. We pushed back the start of the night and within 15 minutes of him getting there we started playing. The set turned out pretty well, we started with Passage, our slowest piece, moved into Drifting and ended with Brand New - did I forget one? Maybe. I remember the set wasn't supposed to be too long because we started kind of late, but I think there was one more tune in there. Sorry.
I've been playing louder on this tour, now a week into the tour I feel like I'm getting more used to playing that loud, which is a good thing. Most of the folks at the show were other musicians and it was good to talk to them.

Dragons 1976 Portland 6-19-2006

2006-06-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

The tour continues through hot highways that are getting more humid as we've come down out of Canada and into the northeastern states. After a 12 hour stopover that included playing at a place for a few friends and "industry" (service) in Syracuse, we drove out to Portland Maine for a monday night show at Space Gallery. It was a triple bill with another trio of saxophone bass & drums called Mystic OutBop Review and Fence Kitchen. I'd never been to Portland, but it seems like a decent place, the gallery defintely has a good thing going on and we had tasty burritos in the Old Port section. By the time we played a good crowd had showed up and we played just one set - our first show with other groups so we could concentrate all our energies into one. We did our most standard set nowadays, starting with Felt and moving gradually into Passage. After taking a breath we got got into a more drone based mindset before settling into Drifting. We ended with Sock It, a song that was included on a compilation put out by Arthur Magazine in conjunction with the Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival in Montreal. On this last song, we had Jason's friend Johnathan Bangs come and play with us. He's a trumpeter & a dragon '76, so it made sense. The folk in Portland treated us well and we were glad to have been there.

Dragons Montreal 6-15-2006

2006-06-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

We got into Montreal right during rush hour - there was a pretty serious accident slowing us down on the way into the city - looked liked about ten cars were involved two of which were in real bad shape - one completely flipped. Other than that the road from Toronto was nice with the slight Candian countryside rolling by.
We played at the Casa del Popolo as part of the Suono per il Popolo festival which is going all all month here in Montreal at the Casa as well as the larger venue La Sala Rosa across the street. We thought we'd have a chance to do a bit of practicing but were shut down by the sound man after just five minutes - one of the toughest things to do on the road is practice. It was alright though - by the time we played later in the night there was a good crowd and we played two sets with lots of energy. Our second set was an hour long and we took no breaks in between any song. Almost exhausting but I think it was more because the room was a bit warm than due to playing. During the first set we played a new piece which is very fast with almost a march-like quality - I had told Tim that I would cue him out with me in order to leave Ajemian alone, who I hadn't told about the cue - I was trying to surprise him, but when I cued out Tim & myself, he stopped as well - it created this pretty great long moment of awkward silence where no one clapped and we said nothing - I broke the silence by playing the rhytmic introduction of Heater.
We had an extra day off in Montreal - I spent most of the day walking around the town - there was a large street fair, mostly filled with shops, but some buskers and stages also. A good place to have a day off - but hot - it's summer after all.

Dragons 1976 Toronto 6-14-2006

2006-06-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

Tonight was the first time Dragons 1976 has played in over a year. I flew to Chicago on tuesday and after meeting up with Tim Daisy at his place got a falafel at Sultan's in Wicker Park before heading over to Johnathan Crawford's place to help print the covers for our album Winter Break. After not getting much interest from any labels, we decided to make a limited release of 150 CD-Rs with handmade silk screened packaging. My first time back in Chicago since last December was spent working quickly to make sure we had the artwork printed, cut & folded before hitting the road.
Daisy played a show with the Rempis Percussion Quartet at the Hideout on wednesday night before we left town at about 1:30 AM. Jason Ajemian got into chicago on wednesday afternoon after flying in from Switzerland - he'd been there playing at an Art Show in Basel with his brother Lucas. So, a lot of driving late night and the next day to get us to Toronto on time to play at a club called the Red Guitar. It's a nice place - has two levels - one where the music is played and the full course menu is available, and above that a lounge and patio. We ate some food and had some good coffee - Ron Gaskin showed up a little later.
We played two sets to a small but attentive audience. As we had no time for any rehearsals before this date the music was loose but also fresh. We played many of our old tunes like Felt, Canopy, Heater, Brand New and tried to work in some of the new material I'd written recently. It felt good to play with Tim & Jason again - I definitely played more open than I had in previous incarnations of this band.

Dragons 1976 Summer Tour 2006

2006-06-04T19:18:00.000-07:00

Starting June 15th I'll be on tour with Dragons 1976, here are the dates, come see us if you can!

Thursday June 15th
Toronto
The Red Guitar
603 Markham street
(414)913-4586
www.theredguitar.com

Friday June 16th
Montreal
La Sala Rosa
4848 St Laurent Blvd
9pm

Sunday June 18th
Syracuse,NY
Ohm Lounge
Armory Square 314S Franklin St
(315)475-1985

Monday June 19th
Portland Me
The Space Gallery
538 Congress St
9pm

Wednesday June 21st
Cambridge,Ma
The Lily Pad
1353 Cambridge st
8pm

Thursday June 22nd
NYC
TBA

Friday June 23rd
NYC
Marquise Dance Hall
251 Grand St
Brooklyn

Saturday June 24th
Baltimore,MD
The Red Room
425E 31st street
8:30

Sunday June 25th
Washington,Dc
House Party TBA

Tuesday June 27th
Richmond,Va
TBA

Wednesday June 28th
Charlotte,NC
The Evening Muse
3207N Davidson St
(704)376-3737

Thursday June 29th
Greenville,Sc
Cafe Bohemia
2W Stone Ave

Friday June 30th
Columbia Sc
The Whig

Saturday July 1st
Columbia Sc
The Hunter Gatherer
900 Main St
(803)748-0540

Sunday July 2nd
Nashville,Tn
Ruby Green

Monday July 3rd
Lexington Ky
Underlying Themes
110S Upper St
8pm

Solo Set 21 Grand 5-26-2006

2006-05-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

Played a solo set at 21 Grand last Friday night. It's the first time that I've played a solo show out here - and one of the few times in general. Instead of bringing saxophone, clarinet, etc I used my computer to make the music. Similar to what I do when playing with saxophone & computer, but more static and with more attention paid to the different layers of sound coming out of the audio output. For the set I used two long drum samples, one of Johnathan Crawford, one of Steve Hess & samples of my saxophone, clarinet and trumpet, one each. I got to 21 Grand a half hour after the show was supposed to start - I got my times all wrong and had my folks in town so had brought them up to the Armstrong Redwoods and Goat Rock State Beach up in Sonoma County. But set up quick and was ready to play my opening spot within about 5 minutes - that's a nice thing about just bring the saxophone or just the computer - no big setup system, no microphones etc... There were two other sets - one with Matt Davignon and the last with the group Mire that features pedal steel gutiar, drums & laptop. Unfortunately I had to leave in the middle of their set as my folks were getting tired & wanted to get back to the hotel. I made the mistake of leaving my jacket with the car keys basically on the stage, so had to slide my way up there while Mire was playing - sorry 'bout that...
- glad to play the solo set though and looking forward to doing more -

Pink Canoes Luggage Store 5-18-2006

2006-05-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

A thursday night in the summer in San Francisco - that was yesterday when the Pink Canoes played at the Luggage Store on Market Street. Across the street was Phil Lesh & Friends doing there thing, so in addition to the regular tenderloin crack headed madness there were gaggles of hippie-kids getting ready for their show. San Francisco street scenes are tough to beat sometimes.... First show in a few weeks for the Canoes - they had actually played a show down in LA on the 5th opening for a Nels Cline group, but I couldn't make that show. It seems everytime I play with the Canoes it's a little different and I bring some different permutation of my set-up. This night I brought my soprano and the computer. I liked using the soprano in the group - the higher range worked well in being able to be heard without having to play overly loud. Using an instrument sans neckstrap also works well when needing to put it down to concentrate on the computer. Afterwards we all went to the Kerry House, a bar in Oakland away from the tourists. We talked about how to get people to come see our music. If anyone has a suggestion, let us know.

Quintet 21 Grand 4-21-2006

2006-04-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I played at 21 Grand in a group with weasel walter on drums, liz albee on trumpet, damon smith on bass and aurora josephson on voice. The group was put together by aurora, who went to Mills and still lives in the bay area. We got together about a month ago to play and what happened last Friday was similar to our first meeting. Everyone in the group are good musicians that have just as good ears and our styles mesh well. At no point did I ever feel that the music was boring, or that something else "needed" to be done, but something else was always about to happen and for the most part all the decisions made affected the rest of the music in the way you'd want it to. Weasel was glad to play in a group where he isn't expected to play loud the whole time, Aurora is about the most tasteful vocalist I've heard in a long time and Liz's trumpet playing is right on, there were parts when each of us backed the other up. We played the longest set of the night, there were three bands, it started at 9:00 and was over by 11:15. We played the second set and we set up in the middle of the room, surrounded by the audience but facing in. This allowed for us to be able to hear each other before the natural echo of the space affected our sounds - a good idea when playing in a bouncy space. We'll be recording in early May, my last recording before the summer break at Mills starts.