Category Archives: Misc

Dave Liebman’s Expansions at Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown Concert House

Dave Liebman descended upon Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown Concert House Tuesday evening with his new group Expansions, officially kicking off the band’s fall tour in support of 2015’s The Puzzle. The ~85-minute set was a shock-and-awe campaign of sound that covered a wide stylistic range.

This was my first time seeing Expansions in the flesh, and I’ll go out on a limb and say that it was my favorite time seeing the maestro live. Expansions features Lieb (soprano saxophone, wooden flute), Matt Vashlishan (alto saxophone, flute, clarinet), Bobby Avey (piano, electric keyboard), Tony Marino (acoustic and electric basses), and Alex Ritz (drums, frame drum). Save Marino, who’s played with Liebman for the last couple decades in DLG and other ensembles, the rest of the members are of a younger generation. And even though this band is only in its third year, the communication and empathy are top shelf.

With Lieb’s mammoth discography and resume that covers just about every style, configuration, and name, he has maintained a series of primary groups over the years. I mention this because throughout Tuesday’s performance I kept thinking that, at least as a starting point, Expansions is in some ways the eventual synthesis of three of those staple bands: Lookout Farm, Quest, and Dave Liebman Group. There was the electric & fusion explorations of Lookout Farm; the tasteful incorporation of the advanced harmonic — almost classical — vocabulary of Quest; and the eclecticism, adventurism, and telepathy of DLG. But of course Expansions is much more than a synthesis of old projects. The addition of a second horn — sax or otherwise — has been part of some of his other projects (e.g., his work with Ellery Eskelin, Terumasa Hino, Steve Grossman, and of course Miles), but Vashlishan’s deft multi-instrumental aptitude helps to greatly expand the ensemble’s sound and palette. This is nicely complemented by the inclusion, at times, of electric keys and electric bass. The flexible orchestration gives this quintet an expansive sound. (No pun intended.) Finally, the more youthful lineup naturally brings with it a new range of musical perspectives, interests, and influences into the fold.

The fiery set featured six pieces, all but the final two of which were recorded for The Puzzle. Getting right to it, the band started with “Off And Off,” in which the quintet gradually entering in canon via a 12-tone row and eventually uniting at the head’s end and catapulting into stratospheric solos. This nicely set the tone for the rest of the evening: Liebman’s slithering, forceful statements juxtaposed with Vashlishan’s more angular declamations; Avey’s equal parts nimble and dense accompaniment and lead playing; Ritz’s command of both rhythm and melody on percussion; all atop Marino’s foreboding foundation. Unlike other times I’ve seen Liebman, there was only one very fast burnin’ section and it was reserved for the set’s end. Instead this group lumbered mightily along, leaving nothing in its wake except for jaws on the floor. “Off And Off” was followed by “The Puzzle,” allowing the ensemble – collectively and individually – to branch further out, with the listener on edge throughout as to what would happen next. Somewhat of an inverse of “Off And Off,” the full band started the tune, eventually thinning out to solo piano in the middle of the improvisations, and building back towards the end.

For “Sailing,” Vashlishan (the tune’s composer) moved to flute and Avey to electric keys, giving the group a Lookout Farm-esque veneer. The soothing flute and soprano lines coupled with the dreamy harmonies offered a quick respite between more intense explorations. With Marino then switching to electric bass and Vashlishan hopping to clarinet, the band performed an inventive arrangement of “Danse De La Fureur” from Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time). Ritz nearly stole the show with his impressively melodic drum solo introduction. Had Liebman not even announced the piece’s name, I would’ve recognized it by Ritz’s drumming and interpolations alone. It was both that spot on and creative. This gave way to a cacophonous electric romp that continued to anxiously build through the final statement. A furious dance indeed.

Sticking with the electric vibe, Avey’s “Liberian Hummingbird” (from 2014’s Samsara) did what seemed impossible at this point in the program: kicked the band into overdrive. The funk-laden, odd-metered vortex of a vamp swirled with dark intensity throughout, and compounded by both the return to a two-sax frontline and Avey’s use of both acoustic piano and electric keys it provided the set’s densest texture. It was simply enveloping.

Returning to an acoustic instrumentation, whatever stops remained were pulled out and disposed of with a heavy rendition of Coltrane’s “India.” Ritz began with a frame drum solo, eventually giving way to the primal cries of Liebman on wooden flute and Vashlishan on straw. This arrangement featured a slightly off-kilter take on Trane’s famous melody over a plodding wall of sound. After Vashlishan’s final solo and Avey’s largely a capella, almost impressionist solo, Lieb and Ritz poured gas on the fire and offered up a barn-burning sax & drum duet, eventually leading to the group’s final statements to close the show.

I’ve done my fair share of gushing about Dave Liebman on this site, including album reviews, live reviews, and more, and I suppose this entry is no different. However, it’s certainly justified. And, as Tuesday’s performance demonstrated, Lieb of course shares the spotlight with his four collaborators. Yes, collaborators — not just band members. Expansions is clearly a group effort, with the whole being greater than the sum of its considerable parts. I look forward to seeing the group again sometime.

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Expansions is currently on a Midwest tour, so I strongly encourage you to catch them if they’re in your area. I’d catch another performance if I could. To paraphrase Nathan Hale, I regret that I have but one night this week to give to Expansions…

Convergence

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[Disclaimer: Meandering abounds below…]

Many of my posts here are relatively evergreen — just because I write or post about something doesn’t mean that the topic is date-specific. For example, my “New Listen” reviews are, for the most part, only new to me (and sometimes I’ll sneak in an older one) and not new releases, and other topics are often recurring thoughts or experiences of mine that are finally hitting the digital paper. Of course, there are the more time-stamped entries, such as concert reviews (e.g., Liebman, Gustavsen, EOTB, Wagner), those meant to coincide with certain dates, be it birthdays (e.g., Wagner, Carlin, Sax, Verdi), concerts (e.g., Mitchell, James, my own), album releases (e.g., Mitchell & Harris), and more.

This evergreen approach wasn’t necessarily intentional at the start of this blog six years ago, but I eventually became mindful of it. The hope is that the majority of the 200+ posts here could be browsed and still be relevant in some fashion today and in the future.

There are other times, though, in which I feel like many of these paths at least overlap if not converge and compound, at least more than usual. Now – including the last several months’ goings-on and much of the last year’s posts – is one of those times. Some themes are related; others just occur near simultaneously. I’ll try to address many of them, though not in too specific an order.

1. 2015 has thus far been a wild ride. Admittedly, part of the reason it seems as if some of these topics have converged is because many of the last several months have blurred together. I regularly catch myself in conversation referencing “the other day” only to realize it was actually several months ago. Obviously, the biggest change this year has been becoming a parent. As I wrote in that post, H’s arrival not only logistically changed things – e.g., scheduling – but caused a complete realignment of priorities — in a good way, if you ask me. (I’ll stick to just his first initial. He’ll have plenty of opportunities to start his public digital trail elsewhere later. Besides, “H.” is also one of my favorite TOOL songs.)

I intentionally kept my schedule pretty clear the first half+ of this year in anticipation of his arrival. Consequently, 2015 has in many ways been my musically “lightest” year in quite some time. I’ve performed much less, recorded very little, and turned down requests and offers for various gigs. (Oddly enough, the blog has maintained some and even occasionally surged, but it helps that I can do that while at home in the middle of the night.) That said, 2015 also included one of my favorite performances ever: Borghi | Teager at Muskegon’s The Block. And other noteworthy gigs have occurred and will occur this year. So while the quantity is down the quality is up. But regarding my diminished frequency of gigs, there’s only so much time in a day. Between family and work and devoting what little time is left over to my own primary projects, time is at a premium, and leaving the house with my horns requires both a temporal opening and a monetary price. Hence the first big intersection: fatherhood, work, and competing “interests.”

2. As I wrote here, I work. (Gasp!) And given my overall flexible schedule, I watch our son during the day and work in the evening after my wife gets home from working. And while I’m not teaching adjunct this semester – the first in a long while; the measly pay wasn’t worth all that time – I’m just replacing one secondary job with another. It’s cliché, but I can confidently say that parenting is the most difficult “job” I’ve ever undertaken — most everything else is a cakewalk in comparison. Of course, I still have these weird conversations with people, often other arts-related folk, who assume that I’m “just a stay-at-home dad” (i.e., unemployed save for gigs), changing diapers, practicing, and just enjoying a leisurely life with reckless abandon. Having a taste of it, I can confidently say that stay-at-home parenting is as demanding as any taxable full-time employment. Second, I still do the latter.

With not teaching abroad this past summer nor teaching adjunct this semester, I’m somewhat off the academic grid. (Teaching private lessons is a separate matter.) It’s probably part of why I’m so temporally fuzzy, rarely immediately aware of what month it is. Along with that, the weird and often condescending exchanges regarding my “selling out” (“losing out”?) and being somewhat outside of the academy continue, despite my working towards next year’s study abroad already. Inevitably the conversation turns into something like the following:
Them: “Are you teaching this semester (with the baby)? Is your son in daycare?”
Me: “I’m not teaching this semester. I watch H during the day and work in the evening and at night for my FT job.”
Them: “Oh, that’s too bad. [Enter bizarre or pitying comment here.]”
And variations on some of those bracketed statements include:
• “That’s great. You can just hang out with your son all day.”
• “You poor dear. Don’t you miss teaching?” [If I reply that it’s not worth the time/money, they sometimes ask what I’ll do for work, willfully ignoring the fact that I already said I’m working.]
• “That’s great that your wife has a ‘real job.’ When do you practice?” [Though nauseating — and surprisingly not embarrassing for the questioner — this is often the type of response from another musician/artist. The “real job” remark is code for You shouldn’t be worried about a salary as an artist, but marry someone who does and isn’t.]

3. With fatherhood taking a top priority, I can safely say that I’ve felt it placed in the cold crossfire of competitive self-interest. Who knew that phenomenon would start to take non-musical pursuits into account? Although, I guess a zero-sum mentality doesn’t care what “the other” is so long as it exists. So if I am less available or have a conflict with one project because of a child instead of another musical project, it’s a nuisance or obstacle just the same. To be fair, I thankfully have not experienced this across the board, but it’s definitely reared its ugly head. (Though, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I heard tale of a shedding of friends and acquaintances once you have a kid. And while I eschew personal non-musical details on this blog, I can anecdotally attest to that being true.) Granted, I admittedly don’t have the time I once had, but this is noticeably beyond that alone.

4. The more time passes, the more I’m convinced that “community” is little more than a buzzword. It sounds good, but I rarely see it in practice. This goes beyond the (SCENE) debacle, though that proved to be an illuminating real-world case study of balkanized local “scenes” and interests. However, I will say that I attended a wonderful potentially community-building event (and eventual series) a couple months ago: the Contemporary Music Potluck. I have no doubt that that particular series will do wonderful things.

5. On a related note, one’s “community” or scene certainly affects and is affected by money. Just recently we had a highly contentious Arts Commission meeting in which we discussed, debated, and ultimately distributed the City of East Lansing’s annual cultural grants. I was part of that discussion, so I can’t sit here and write only as an analyst. I won’t get into the so-called vexatious minutiae here (thank you, Dr. Campbell, for coining that phrase in my counterpoint classes), but suffice it to say that one of the larger fault lines fell between those who wanted to weight more funding towards newer and/or smaller events and organizations and those who wanted to give a large bulk of the money to the bigger long-running mainstays that continually receive financing. Or, if you’d rather, populist funding vs. establishment funding. Mathematically, the smaller organizations would’ve received a smaller portion of the grant funds than the larger applicants no matter what. The disagreement were about the degree to which these would be funded. As is typically the case, money begets money. So if you’re a startup and don’t have a long track record of raking in the dough or plans to take over the world, why come to the table hat in hand?

6. Another very timely topic is Apple Music. The free trial period ended last Wednesday for those like me who signed up at its launch. Well, Monday morning I logged into my account and set my subscription to not renew, lapsing just a couple days later. Speaking for myself, what a dud that turned out to be. I know I’m not the only one to think so. Just ask Bob Lefsetz. (Or don’t — he might start SCREAMING IN ALL CAPS.)

I suppose that’s as good as place as any to wrap this up. Whew, meandering indeed. While not completely pointless, this post was far from cohesive, which was expected. And, while not particularly evergreen overall, this post demonstrates that many of these topics are ongoing and, as a result, converge.

Talking Points Metro

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I don’t do many short posts here, but there’s a tidbit worth quickly noting. It’s municipal election season here in East Lansing, with three of the five at-large City Council seats up for grabs this November. Six candidates are running, only one of whom is an incumbent.

Over the last 12-14 months, I’ve taken my political junkie tendencies and shifted some of the focus to the local level. (Hence my appointment to the Arts Commission, the (SCENE) drama, my East Lansing Info work, and more.) Consequently, I attended tonight’s candidate forum sponsored by the local League of Women Voters chapter. To my pleasant surprise, the (SCENE) divestiture was explicitly referenced by a candidate in one round of answers. While I can’t recall the specific question offhand — of course the answers sometimes shifted away from the questions a bit — I believe it had something to do with the city’s overall budget and approaches to development and fiscal responsibility. (SCENE) and the closure of a community childcare facility — both ostensibly for fiscal reasons — were highlighted as poor decisions.

[I should mention that the forum was very well run and moderated and featured excellent questions. The major networks should’ve been there taking notes…]

While I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see (SCENE) pop up in City Council meetings and discussions as an occasional talking point, I didn’t expect it to receive mention on the campaign trail. Interesting. (For the record, I didn’t submit the question.)

Since we’re on the topic: separately, earlier this week, the re-opening and new exhibition were discussed in a featured segment on WKAR’s Current State, the local public radio news program.

(SCENE) Unveiling

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(SCENE) Metrospace re-opened to the public last Friday evening with a kick-off reception for its debut show under MSU/AAHD management entitled Place in Proximity. I attended. Given all my yammering on the topic, I felt that it was only right that I go and see it for myself.

I don’t often go to openings unless I’m working them, but I wanted to be there for this one. It was 6:00-8:00 PM and I was there for a little more than an hour (roughly 6:10-7:20). I give the time/duration, because I thought it odd that I saw no one I recognized from City staff, City Council, and/or the press. But I guess that’s understandable. As I reiterated in my remarks before City Council last week, the City wanted to get rid of the space (i.e., “get out of the curating business”) and didn’t much consider the divestiture too important. (In my remarks, I voiced various concerns detailed on this blog before the opening, particularly regarding submission fees and charged “special programming.”) The so-called partnership between COEL and MSU is one in which the City pays and the university plays. After all, not many landlords attend their tenants’ housewarming parties.

[It’s worth emphasizing, again, that my core frustration is with the City. COEL offered this — total control over a rent- and utility-free space — to MSU on a silver platter.]

I would’ve written about the opening sooner but the last week was tiresome. Besides, I was rather curious what else would be written about it first. However, I was surprised to see that no non-MSU entity covered the event. Today a local Fox affiliate ran a story, but it was just a re-post from MSU Today, an online publication. The only other news outlet to cover it was MSU’s State News. (If you look carefully, I believe you can see one of my ears in a photo. Cool.) Nothing else.

Oh well…

Some thoughts on the actual substance at hand, including credit where credit is due:
• The space is much improved. I never thought one would describe (SCENE) as beautiful, but it arguably is now. There’s a nice new floor and the walls are freshly painted. It appeared as if a couple of the standalone walls were movable depending on the show, which could help change things up spatially with each visit. The window graphics are particularly nice. No more paper flyers. As I wrote and stated many times before, I had little doubt that AAHD would run a fine visual art space. (It’s just that the venue was previously more than that.)
• Given the layout for Place in Proximity, if other shows are similar in floor design, I don’t quite see how a performance before an audience of more than ~20 would be feasible. Would such special programming only occur on weeks between shows?
• The AAHD Chair included in his public remarks bits about community engagement and year-round accessibility.
• The show itself was pretty good. Interesting work from a variety of regional artists.
• Simply as an observer with no other context of the politicking up to this point, it was a pleasurable experience.

I consider this post, like last week’s talk before Council, to be the last gasp of my regular “coverage” of this, at least until summer 2016 (when the space should, as I understand it, remain fully operational). I’ll of course be keeping up on new shows, developments, and special programming. It’s sad to see this whole mess go quietly into the night, but so it is. In City politics its spirit lives on through various talking points…

FYI: Branching Out II

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As mentioned here, the blog is branching out some via some cross-publication content. The MT-Headed Blog coup is finally taking shape! Or something like that…

Similar to the East Lansing Info-related content, I’ll be publishing some posts here that can be found in different forms elsewhere. In this case, it’s Matt Borghi‘s The Sound Traveler Podcast. Regular readers or visitors (who may not read all the posts) know Matt as my friend and partner in musical crime. His podcast has been going strong for several months. For lack of a better term, it’s a behind the scenes look at Matt’s musical interests, processes, catalogue, influences, new finds, and more. In that regard, it’s not that much different than the format of this blog, only with Matt at the center and via spoken sound and audio clips. The Sound Traveler Podcast is eclectic and compelling, and it hits the web-waves weekly.

(I myself have kicked around the idea of doing a podcast of sorts since 2010 or so, but never seriously pursued it. On my own, I figured I’d do the blog or a podcast, but I opted to stick with this legacy format.)

All that said, I’ve already joined Matt for a couple of episodes (here and here), the second of which was a complementary episode to the last post. The former episode — featuring a Borghi | Teager triptych (discussion en route to gig, portions of the gig, discussion returning home) — includes my going on a jag about the NEA Jazz Masters and referencing this post.

Looking forward, I’ll write some occasional posts here to coincide with my some of my contributions there when appropriate. The next instance will be the post immediately following this one, a “New Listen” on David Torn’s only sky. Admittedly it’s not the finest vocal work, as it’s the first time I recorded speaking an album review (with skeletal notes while hopped up on caffeine in the middle of the night). But I’ll hopefully get my sea legs before too long.