Improvised music in the Twin Cities: Always changing, also growing?

After a dense and intense performance by Charcoal + 1 at Homewood Studios on Sunday night, I spoke briefly with John O’Brien. I thanked him for playing and mentioned I’d also seen him at Studio Z in March. He said he’d be back there at the end of this month and added (in words to this effect), “The improvised music scene seems to be growing.”

I’ve been so focused on the sudden death of the long-running Jazz Implosion series at the Clown, the petering out of the iQuit series at the Rogue Buddha, and the changes at Maude that I haven’t stepped back to see the bigger picture. But I think O'Brien is right. Improvised music in the Twin Cities is alive and kicking hard.

The scene looks different than it did in January 2010, when I first compiled a list of venues that feature improvised music (now revised and updated). The Clown Lounge is defunct, but the Black Dog in St. Paul has become an epicenter for improvised music, thanks to Nathan Hanson and Brian Roessler's weekly Community Pool: Deep End series. Also in St. Paul, Zeitgeist’s terrific performance space, Studio Z, has opened its doors to improvised music (and I hear it’s an affordable rental). During this year’s Twin Cities Jazz Festival, Studio Z will present a series of free improv/free jazz concerts, a first for the Jazz Fest.

Where to find improvised music in the Twin Cities

Improvised music, free jazz, experimental music, avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, spontaneous composition: Whatever you call it, the Twin Cities has more of it than you might expect. 

Here's where to find it. Many of these venues have Facebook and Myspace pages and Twitter accounts you can link to from their websites. 

What am I missing? Please let me know. By definition, this is a work in progress.

Acadia Café

329 Cedar Ave. S.

Minneapolis, MN 55454

612-874-8702

The fourth Sunday of each month belongs to the Minneapolis Free Music Society, an improvisational music collective of area musicians. Like them on Facebook for regular updates. 

Artists’ Quarter

408 St. Peter St.

St. Paul, MN 55102

651-292-1359

email sign-up

At their regular AQ gigs, the Phil Hey Quartet, Eric Kamau Gravatt's Source Code, and How Birds Work all play improvised music along with straight-ahead jazz and standards. Happy Apple makes frequent appearances. Check the online calendar to see who’s coming through town. From the home page, you can like the AQ on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, visit their Myspace page, and go to Don Berryman's growing collection of live performance videos.

Improvised Music in the Twin Cities

UPDATED June 14, 2011. Click here for the latest version.


Formerly "Free Jazz in the Twin Cities," this is a work in progress. Your feedback is welcome.

Improvised music is/has been known by many names—free jazz, experimental music, free music, free-form jazz, avant-garde jazz, avant jazz, postmodern jazz, outside music, energy music, free improvisation, instant composing, “The New Thing.” In an article for mnartists.org, musician Edward Schneider calls it "nameless music."

The people who make the music don't all call it the same thing, and some don't call it anything. Labels are too limiting. Language is too limiting. Those of us who use words as instruments do the best we can. Examples:

Paul Berliner, Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation: “From the performance’s first beat, improvisers enter a rich, constantly changing musical stream of their own creation, a vibrant mix of shimmering cymbal patterns, fragmentary bass lines, luxuriant chords, and surging melodies, all winding in time through the channels of a composition’s general form. Over its course, players are perpetually occupied: they must take in the immediate inventions around them while leading their own performances toward emerging musical images, retaining, for the sake of continuity, the features of a quickly receding trail of sound. They constantly interpret one another’s ideas, anticipating them on the basis of the music’s predetermined harmonic events. Without warning, however, anyone in the group can suddenly take the music in a direction that defies expectation, requiring others to make decisions as to the development of their own parts. When pausing to consider an option or take a rest, the musician’s impression is of a 'great rush of sounds' passing by, and the player must have the presence of mind to track its precise course before adding his or her powers of musical invention to the group’s performance. Every manoeuvre or response leaves its momentary trace in the music. By journey’s end, the group has fashioned a composition anew, an original product of their interaction.”

Tom Piazza, Understanding Jazz: "In jazz, [improvisation] means to make intelligent choices spontaneously, based on knowledge and experience."

Steve Lacy: "The difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds."

I've just begun a series of Conversations on Improvisation with artists who live in Minnesota. The series is being published on mnartists.org, a joint project of the McKnight Foundation and the Walker Art Center.
Conversations on Improvisation: Adam Linz

Venues

Here's where to find improvised music in the Twin Cities. Many of these venues have Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace pages you can link to from their websites.

Acadia Café
329 Cedar Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55454
612-974-8702
email sign-up
The last Sunday of each month belongs to the Minneapolis Free Music Society, an improvisational music collective of about 35 area musicians. Their Myspace page is more up-to-date (at this writing) than their web page.

Art of This Gallery
3506 Nicollet Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55408
612-721-4105
gallery@artofthis.net
This nonprofit, artist-run art space in south Minneapolis hosts the long-running Tuesday Series for performers of (and listeners to) experimental and improvised music. Read Edward Schneider's article about the series here.

Artists’ Quarter
408 St. Peter St.
St. Paul, MN 55102
651-292-1359
email sign-up
At their regular AQ gigs, the Phil Hey Quartet, Eric Kamau Gravatt's Source Code, and How Birds Work all wander into free jazz territory from time to time. Happy Apple makes frequent appearances. Check the online calendar often to see who’s coming through town. Past performers have included Astral Project, Lee Konitz, and Dewey Redman.

Black Dog Coffee and Wine Bar
Corner of 4th and Broadway
Lowertown, St. Paul
651-228-9274
blackdogcafe2@comcast.net
Every Friday is Fantastic Friday, often featuring the Fantastic Merlins.

Blue Nile Restaurant & Lounge
2027 Franklin Ave. E.
Minneapolis, MN 55404
612-338-3000
Drummer Kevin Washington and hip-hop artist Desdemona host a Tuesday-night open mic jam session for musicians and poets. Sign-up starts at 10 p.m. 18+.

Café Maude
5411 Penn Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55419
612-822-5411
info@cafemaude.com
Live music every Friday and Saturday night from 9 p.m. to midnight, no cover, no reservations needed after 10 p.m. Lots of free/improvisational music. Click "Music" for the calendar.

Cedar Cultural Center
416 Cedar Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN
612-338-2674
email signup on home page
Mostly folk/world music with occasional surprises like Happy Apple and GloryLand PonyCat.

Clown Lounge
1601 University Ave. W.
St. Paul, MN 55104
651-647-0486
In the basement of the Turf Club. The place to be every Monday night starting around 10:30 p.m. and going late. The house band is Fat Kid Wednesdays which is all anyone really needs to say. A Tuesday series launched in December 2009. The music starts a bit earlier—tennish.

Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant
1010 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55403
612-332-1010
email signup on home page
Some of the national acts the Dakota brings in venture into experimental/improvised music territory. Most such music happens during its late-night series (11:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays). The Bad Plus comes for 2–3 days each year around Christmas. Check the online calendar.

Homewood Studios
2400 Plymouth Ave. N.
Minneapolis, MN 55411
612-587-0230
email signup
Milo Fine hosts and curates the long-running Improvised Music at Homewood Studios series. Second Monday, every other month, 7:00 p.m. Check the online calendar. For me, this series has been Free Music School.

MacPhail Center for Music
501 South 2nd St.
Minneapolis, MN 55401
612-321-0100
email signup on home page
The Jazz Thursdays series begun by Kelly Rossum continues under the direction of new jazz coordinator Adam Linz of Fat Kid Wednesdays. Should be interesting.

Northrop Jazz/Music Season
612-624-2345
Launched in 1993 by Dale Schatzlein, continued today by Ben Johnson, the Northrop Jazz Season has always presented a broad spectrum of jazz. Past performers have included Cecil Taylor, Julius Hemphill, Tim Berne’s Bloodcount, the Sun Ra Arkestra, John Zorn’s Masada, Ornette Coleman, and the Bad Plus; the 2009–10 season opened with the Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core. The season begins in the fall and runs through the spring. Various venues.

Rogue Buddha Gallery
357 13th Ave. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413
612-331-3889
info@roguebuddha.com
This small, intimate Nordeast gallery hosts the iQuit Experimental Music Happenings series. Third Thursday, every month, 9:00 p.m. Description from website: “Music that draws on the diverse styles and influences of the makers of electronic, electro-acoustic, jazz, free, avant garde, and experimental music.” I’ve seen some very cool music at the Buddha.

Southern Theater
1420 Washington Ave. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55454-1038
612-340-1725
email signup
One of my favorite venues (love the old stone archway at the back of the stage), the Southern programs interesting, edgy music. “Free jazz” might not be the best description (if it ever is), but much of it is improvisational. The Southern is the Minneapolis home of the Wordless Music Series.

Studio Z
275 E. Fourth Street (Northwestern Building)
Lowertown, St.Paul, MN
(look for the big red neon Z in the window)
Studio Z, the home of the new music ensemble Zeitgeist (free classical?), hosts visiting artists like the Ellen Lease/Pat Moriarty Group, George Cartwright’s GloryLand PonyCat, and Trio Raro (Milo Fine, Andrew Raffo Dewar, Davu Seru). Click on Calendar up top.

Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55403
info@walker.org
email signup
The Walker’s annual Performing Arts Program always features up-to-date music (as well as dance and theater). Some of the music is copresented with the Northrop Jazz Season. The 2009-10 calendar includes Bill Frisell/Rahim AlHaj/Eyvind Kang (a Walker commission), Erik Friedlander, and a two-day celebration of Bad Plus/Happy Apple drummer Dave King.

West Bank School of Music
1813 South 6th St.
Minneapolis, MN 55454
612-333-6651
info@westbankmusic.org
The Milo Fine Free Jazz Ensemble performs on the first Friday of every other month, 8:00 p.m. Click Events & Calendar, then Jazz Thursdays.

Resources

The European Free Improvisation website includes links to artists' sites, labels, video clips, organizations, concert venues, and much more. The home page is often updated with news about CD releases.

The Free Improvisation & Experimental Music Resource is "dedicated to finding all the sites and networks for free improvisational music." So far it includes links to artists, labels, online magazines, radio stations, and informational sites.

"Devoted to the music of the moment," The Improvisor is a resource for musicians and composers of free improvisation and the web presence for The Improvisor: The International Journal of Free Improvisation. Founded in 1980, The Improviser went from photocopied newsletter to printed journal to web. Articles, reviews, links.

ISIM: International Society for Improvised Music “promotes performance, education, and research in improvised music, and illuminates connections between musical improvisation and creativity across fields.” ISIM hosts an annual festival/conference.

Signal to Noise: The Quarterly Journal of Improvised, Experimental & Unusual Music. Still on paper, though they do have a blog.

Double Bill at the Buddha

When: Thursday, August 7, 2008 • Where: Rogue Buddha Gallery • Who: First set: J.T. Bates, drums; Adam Linz, bass; Paul Metzger, banjo. Second set: Volcano Insurance: Luke Polipnick, guitar; Joey Van Phillips, drums; Chris Bates, bass.

I’m trying to remember the first time I heard and really listened, or tried to listen, to free jazz (a.k.a. avant-garde, outside, vanguard, experimental, unstructured…or none of the above). It might have been in February 2000, when the Cecil Taylor Quartet came here as part of the Northrop Jazz Season. That concert was memorable for two reasons: the music, which was crazy, and the speed with which much of the audience exited during intermission, never to return.

But I liked it. At the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2001, we sought it out and found pianist Lee Pui Ming performing with saxophonist and vocalist Joane Hétu and clarinetist Lori Freedman. I wasn’t packing Moleskines back then so I don’t have notes. I remember hair flying, someone wearing a kilt, silences, maybe shrieking. The specifics of the music escape me. The emotional memory remains: I was happy. Perplexed, challenged, out of my depth, and happy.

Because I like being happy, I go to see and hear musicians and groups like George Cartwright and Happy Apple and Anthony Cox and Fat Kid Wednesdays and Douglas Ewart. When Chris Bates sends out an email saying “This will be interesting, trust me,” I do. They all live here, thank goodness.

I also keep watch for people like Craig Taborn and Tim Berne, who come through here occasionally but not often enough for me. Hank Roberts, hurry back. And the annual Minnesota Sur Seine music festival is a mother lode of squeaks, squawks, wails, caresses, indistinguishable melodies, indeterminate rhythms, and sheer transporting joy.

Chris sent out an email earlier this week, which brought us to the Rogue Buddha shortly before 9 p.m. last night. He and Adam Linz were standing outside talking and let us interrupt them. Inside, the crowd was small, maybe 18 people to start and five were with the bands and many of the others were musicians; we saw Scott Fultz, Pete Hennig, Park Evans, Joe-who-plays-guitar-and-things, and others I recognized but can’t name. Former City Pages and Strib music writer Jim Meyer had driven up from Farmington, where he now lives. For a while, I was the only girl in the room.

During the first set, my focus was often on Paul Metzger, who played a modified banjo: seven (?) extra strings, electronics, and who knows what else. For much of the time, he bowed it. Sometimes he used a plectrum or strummed with his fingers, and sometimes he played it like a tabla. I had never heard a banjo make such sounds before. I thought the banjo was boring except when played by Béla Fleck (and mostly I like him with Edgar Meyer). I don’t think it’s boring anymore.



The J.T. Bates/Linz/Metzger combination played one long piece with slow parts and fast parts, solos and duos and trios, crescendos and decrescendos. The music came in waves. No melody, no regular rhythm, just flow. Banjo, drums, bass, banjo-drums, bass-drums, banjo-drums-bass. I thought of riding rapids, hanging on and hoping you’ll make it safely to the end and getting bounced around on the way. HH said it was like tasting wasabi for the first time. Linz plucked and bowed and patted his bass. J.T. fell into his drums and brought forth rhythms wild and strange. At the end, I asked, “Did that have a name?” J.T. said “No.” Of course it didn’t and I knew it didn’t but I wondered if he would make one up.

After a break and more $2 wine: Volcano Insurance. Their music was more mellow than I expected from the name. Polipnick’s guitar was dreamy and delicious. I thought I had seen him before and made a mental note to look him up when I returned home. Yes: in April at the Clown Lounge with Tatsuya Nakatani and Chris Bates.



Their final two pieces were fiercer, more fiery. For one, which Polipnick introduced as “a new ditty called ‘Calisthenics,’” they actually had a chart. They sometimes play from a setlist, so they’re not entirely about improvisation.

What did they play? I can’t tell you. But I was there for the energy, the creativity, the inventiveness, the fun…the ride, the wasabi, the surprise.

Whenever I try to write about free jazz, I wonder why I bother. It’s hard enough to write about music that has a form and structure. Or to write about a singer who uses words I can understand. This improvised, in-the-moment stuff, with altered banjos and pedals on the floor and wires and instruments that don’t even sound like themselves—who even cares if anybody writes about it? It will never be heard again. It won’t be replicated, and it can’t be bought and played on your stereo or iPod. It’s not only far out, it’s gone.

But I realized last night, while scribbling notes in an effort to capture a fleeting sonic moment, that one reason I write is to entice. Maybe someone who reads this will wander into the Rogue Buddha for live music sometime, or check out the Clown Lounge on a Monday night, or set aside time for an Improvised Music at Homewood Studios event. When that happens, I’ll be even happier.

For more on writing about free jazz, see Lyn Horton’s excellent article, “Shifting the paradigm and using ‘free-jazz’ to do it.”

Photos by John Whiting. Top to bottom: Paul Metzger; Adam Linz and J.T. Bates; Volcano Insurance (Polipnick, Chris Bates, Joey Van Phillips).

Rossum Electric Company

When: Saturday, July 27, 2008 • Where: Dakota • Who: Kelly Rossum, trumpet and electronics; Bryan Nichols, keyboards; Ryan Olcott, electronics and circuit-bending; Tim Glenn, drums and percussion

When I talk with Kelly the week before this late-night show (for a MinnPost preview), he's not yet sure what it will be. "The trumpet won't sound like a trumpet, and the piano won't sound like a piano," he says. And the music will be...? "Not outside, just over there."

He explains that "circuit-bending is a technique where you physically alter an instrument. For example, you might take an old Casio keyboard, pop the top and rewire the circuitry." Craig Taborn does this, too, but until now I had no clue what it meant.

Turns out the Rossum Electric Company isn't a new band but a revival. "Back in 1998," he says, "I played a gig with a band called the Rossum Electric Company at the Clown Night, subbing one night when JT [Bates] was out of town." He also plays his "electrumpet" for Electropolis.



Tonight's first set is an hour long, without interruption. I strap in and hold on. The second set is shorter and also satisfying. As with any set involving a lot of electronics, there's a lot of pedal-pushing and dial-turning and button-adjusting, with wires snaking everywhere onstage. I can't always tell which sounds are coming from which instrument but I don't much care. The sound is good, the vibe is good, we're all having a good time. A quote from "Caravan" floats by, and other bits and pieces of tunes I think I recognize but can't name. Something reminds me of Miles Davis's "Tutu."

Not outside, just over there.

Photos by John Whiting. Aieeeee, the neon sign! A dimmer, we're told, is imminent.

Carei Thomas Gift Shop After Party

When: Thursday, July 24, 2008 • Where: Dakota • Who: Carei Thomas, composer/pianist, and many friends

We miss Carei Thomas’s 70th birthday tribute at the Walker but stick around the Dakota for the after party.

The Walker performance was called “Gift Shop,” a concept Thomas developed during his recovery from Guillain-Barre syndrome, when he began to reflect on the gifts of professionals and ordinary people. He told the Walker: “I see Gift Shops serving as energizing entities in the community whenever there is a need to reinforce the human spirit.”

Not everyone from the Walker comes to the Dakota, but we hear several performers in a series of configurations: Thomas, Brock Thorson, Steve Goldstein, Jimmy Thorson, John Devine, J. Otis Powell!, Tim DuRoche, George Cartwright, and many more.



First up, three saxes, just three saxes, and their strong, steady blowing clears the air for what is to come. J. Otis Powell! reads a poem about music accompanied by Carei Thomas on piano, Cartwright on sax, and drums. (Saxophonist Cartwright opens by saying “I would just like to say a couple things—there was a concern I might say too much,” then backing away from the mike. You can always count on Cartwright for a bit of dada.) J. Otis’s poem; in part:

music music music all is music
music music music all is life
music music music all is love

Thomas reminds us collectively that “We are not as bad as we think we are, nor as good as we sometimes boast.”

Then DuRoche on drums, Brock Thorson on bass, Steve Goldstein on laptop computer. Members of the poetry/jazz ensemble Ancestor Energy. (There's a group that needs a Web site or at least a MySpace page.) Someone plays the bassoon as if it were a bazooka. Sister Mary Harris plays and sings a song she wrote, “Where I Am Today.” Someone plays a midi saxophone (EWI?). The music is outside, free, improvised, sometimes melodic, sometimes in your face, not ever dull.

Toward the end of the night, oddly, a heckler arrives. “Back in my day, we played real instruments!” he shouts at Goldstein. And “Xbox! Whatever! I’ll get up there and show you some music! Whoa! Whee! Get the hook out!” Everyone ignores him.

Read Thomas’s description of his own career on Minnewiki.
Photos by John Whiting. (It’s still the first night of the Dakota’s new neon sign. My eyes! My eyes!) Top: Three saxes and more. Next: George Cartwright.

Tatsuya Nakatani

When: 4/14/08
Where: Clown Lounge/Lodge/Luge/whatever
Who: Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion), Luke Polipnick (guitar), Chris Bates (bass)

The email invite comes from Chris Bates:

> Please come and check out Tatsuya. He is on a solo performance tour around the US.
> www.hhproduction.org is his website if you want more info.
> but really have I ever led you astray? trust me
> chris

Bates has never once led me astray so off we go to the Luge. It's my first time there, I'm ashamed to admit, and while I'm expecting a tiny, grungy basement jazz room, it's actually more spacious than that, and more comfortable.

Nakatani, who's currently on a six-month solo tour of the US, crossing the country in a van and playing wherever, begins at 11 p.m. with a solo improvisation, bowing a giant gong (one bow, then two), then bringing in the big bass drum like distant thunder.

This is the kind of free jazz that many people would not want to hear. There's no melody, no tune, no discernible rhythm (maybe no rhythm at all). It's pure sound or, if you will, pure noise, cacophony, pandemonium.

I can't begin to describe it in any kind of literal way. But I can try to describe some of the sounds I hear: A chant, a drone, the crying of beasts and the chirping of birds. Banshees and angels. A giant door opening into a vast corridor; footsteps, echoes. (Occasionally Nakatani blows on a cymbal that rests on one of his drum; the cymbal wails.) Windchimes in a heavy rain. Glass breaking, and laughter. A needle stuck on a record. Seals barking. Things falling down and being lifted up again. The sounds a giant ship might make when hitting an iceberg.



For the second set, Polipnick and Bates join Nakatani and they all just start playing. Chris gives us loops and buzzy feedback; Polipnick looks like a stop-motion animation, making a series of jerky moves that generate strange sounds. I don't have the vaguest idea how this happens but at various points they become an ensemble, traveling to similar places and from there to other places. They're not looking at each other, gesturing, or negotiating in any way I can see, but somehow they are together, rising to a fierce crescendo and suddenly pulling back at the same time, and how did that happen? Tornadic winds and traffic jams and it's over.

I wouldn't want a daily diet of free jazz, but sometimes, as tonight, it makes me glad to be alive.

Photos by John Whiting.

Jim Ryan's Forward Energy Band

When: 2/24/08
Where: Center for Independent Artists
Who: Jim Ryan (alto and tenor saxophone, flute, spoken word), Dan Godston (trumpet and percussion), Alicia Mangan (tenor saxophone), Joel Wanek (double bass), Steve Hirsh (drums)

My first time at this venue, a nonprofit membership organization for artists from diverse physical, cultural, and aesthetic perspectives. A small audience, but it is free jazz, which doesn't draw crowds. Some people don’t like it and some won’t even try it. I like it a lot if I experience it live, less so on recordings, because part of the art (and part of the fun) is observing the interaction between the artists.

Behind a curtain before the show, Mangan does t’ai chi. She doesn’t like the spotlight and avoids it for most of the evening. J. Otis Powell! is in the house, one of the few, one of the proud; he sits right in front of me with his head full of dreads. That’s all right; if I want to take pictures, I can move.

Ryan titled this show “Sounds U Have Not Yet Heard,” and quite a few come out of his saxophones. The music ebbs and flows, stops and starts; sometimes they all stop, stand motionless, and you’re not sure if they’re done or not until someone plays a note or a series of notes and they’re off again. Then, like a school of fish or a flock of birds, they turn and head in a new direction. I find the whole thing fascinating.

They’re all fun to watch—Ryan in his red socks, Mangan forgetting the spotlight when she plays, Wanek serious on his bass (which, unfortunately, is undermiked for most of the evening), Hirsh rhythmic on his drums—but my favorite is Godston, who’s everywhere playing everything. His trumpet grunts and mumbles and blows hot air. He sits cross-legged on the ground and plays a Dave King array of what look like toy instruments. He disappears behind a curtain and plunks on an out-of-tune piano. He plays harmonica and mbira (African thumb piano). He whistles. Later, I learn he’s also a poet. A well-rounded, highly creative guy.

Every so often, Ryan lays down his horn or flute and approaches the mike to say a poem—about dying elves and enchanted boys, or a bad wizard (“The wizard rides on yellow wheels/The wizard lies, the wizard steals!”). Again, they pause. They’re perfectly still. We hold our collective breath. We wait.

Photos, top to bottom: Ryan. The whole group. Godston, up to no good.

View a video. Click it. I dare you. (Thanks to Andrea Canter for finding this.)

Jazz 101: Avant Garde

Jazz fans seem to feel most strongly about two styles of jazz: smooth and free. Smooth is scorned as wallpaper music. Free divides listeners into two camps: those who like it and those who don't. Free jazz, a.k.a. avant garde jazz, is the topic of this week's Jazz 101 class at MacPhail with Kelly Rossum. There's a lot of animated discussion, and Kelly plays several examples that are interesting to some of us, noise to others.

We talk about how most music has a purpose or function: relaxation, celebration, mourning (funeral music), dance, love. The function of avant garde jazz is music. Sometimes the point is internal dialogue. There usually is an intent. Kelly notes that "the presentation has more validity if the intent is true." And: "If art has no fringes, there is no center." People who like most other styles of jazz dislike avant garde because it lacks the historical elements they're accustomed to hear (form, rhythm, references...evolutionary fingerprints?), it lacks familiarity, and it lacks melody.

We hear part of the title track from Free Jazz by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet: one quartet for each stereo channel. Ornette (sax), Don Cherry (trumpet), Scott LaFaro (bass), and Billy Higgins (drums) on the left; Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Eric Dolphy (bass clarinet), Charlie Haden (bass), and Ed Blackwell (drums) on the right. (I can't wait to hear it that way, provided the CD still separates the tracks.) From there we move to one of Kelly's favorite recordings: the Naked Lunch soundtrack composed by Howard Shore. Ornette's saxophone wails over the London Philharmonic Orchestra. "The palette of sounds, the definition of vocabulary, has changed," Kelly says. "The center has moved." Then it's off to Miles Davis's Sorcerer, and finally Fat Kid Wednesday's new Singles. This is music Kelly clearly loves. "It's what jazz is supposed to be—people hanging around playing music."

Fat Kid is a so-called local group, meaning they live here. But they play all over and recently returned from a stay in France. All three members—Michael Lewis on saxophone, Adam Linz on bass, J.T. Bates on drums—play with other people. We'll hear Linz with George Cartwright on Thursday, and Lewis with Bryan Nichols at Cafe Maude on Friday.

See Fat Kid Wednesdays on MySpace.

Exploring the outer limits of jazz: George Cartwright and GloryLand PonyCat

Originally published on MinnPost.com on Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Say the words "free jazz" and many people tune out. Play free jazz and they head for the exits during intermission, if they wait that long. When Cecil Taylor brought his trio to the Ted Mann in February 2000 as part of the Northrop Jazz Season, people packed the aisles as if someone had yelled "FIRE!"

Taylor was my first journey to the outer limits of jazz. He played the piano with his fists and elbows, and his bass player laid his instrument down on the stage and kicked it.

All jazz has an element of improvisation. Free jazz, a.k.a. avant-garde jazz, goes further. It can be all improvisation. You won't hear a melody you can hum along with or a beat you can tap your feet to. Much of the music may be invented on the spot and not composed ahead of time or even rehearsed. Each player may seem to be doing his or her own thing, resulting in a lot of noise with no clear structure or purpose.

So why go to hear free jazz? Because it's the musical equivalent of Disney's Space Mountain, the roller coaster you ride in the dark.

Rare performance
Revered free jazz saxophonist and McKnight Composer's Fellow George Cartwright brings his trio GloryLand PonyCat to the Cedar on Thursday, Nov. 29. Cartwright lives in the Twin Cities after several years in New York, where he played with Ornette Coleman and other cutting-edge musicians and held court at the Knitting Factory with his group Curlew, but we don't often get a chance to see him perform. GloryLand PonyCat sightings are even rarer. (Go here to listen to an audio clip.)

Other members of the trio are bassist Adam Linz and drummer Alden Ikeda. Linz's main band is Fat Kid Wednesdays (with J.T. Bates and Mike Lewis; Lewis is one-third of Happy Apple). Ikeda has performed with Don Cherry, Julius Hemphill, Billy Bang, and the Jesus and Mary Chain, among many others. The Cedar show will also feature Andrew Broder, former hip-hop DJ turned avant-rocker with the Twin Cities band Fog. Broder might play guitar, but there are no guarantees.

Because free jazz is maligned and misunderstood, I asked Linz and Cartwright to give MinnPost some hints on what to expect and how to approach the Cedar show.

Linz suggests you just be yourself. "A lot of people who attend [free jazz] shows come with baggage. Especially in Minnesota. They are worried about the show before they even walk through the door. If they could just come with a clear mind and an open heart I think they will be able to receive what we are giving them. It's a concert. It's OK if it doesn't change your life. That's what Pink Floyd shows are for!"

"It gives you an experience you can't get anywhere else," Cartwright says. There is a plan for the show, with "ideas about how to structure the general flow of the sets. Who, what, when, where. Melodies, rhythms, harmonies. The usual stuff. It will be mostly original compositions but we may do a cover or two. Not sure yet." What can people listen for? "All of it at once," Cartwright says, and "something they never imagined." He suggests "waiting in a still manner for the quiet moments" and "waiting in a still manner for the loud moments." And "notice when it's over."

Jazz aficionado and Jazz Police publisher Don Berryman will be there. "George is an amazing player," he says, "and GloryLand PonyCat is an exciting band." Don's listening tips: "Keep your ears open and don't resist it. This music will take you to strange and wonderful places if you let it."

What: George Cartwright's GloryLand PonyCat with Andrew Broder, Adam Linz and Alden Ikeda
Where: The Cedar, 416 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 29 [2007]
How much: $12 advance; $15 day of show

Upcoming picks

Pat Mallinger: In Chicago, the place to hear jazz every Saturday night is the Green Mill, where the group Sabertooth hosts an after-hours jazz party. Co-leader Pat Mallinger plays alto and tenor sax. Born and reared in St. Paul, he's home for Thanksgiving. He'll be joined on the Artists' Quarter stage in St. Paul by pianist Peter Schimke, bassist Tom Lewis, and drummer Kenny Horst. The Artists' Quarter, Friday, Nov. 23 and Saturday, Nov. 24, 9 p.m. ($12).

Pan-Metropolitan Trio CD Release Party: The Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant, Saturday, Nov. 24, 11:30 p.m. ($5). (I wrote about this unusual group last week: "Who knew what a tuba could do?")

Roy Hargrove Quintet: Born in Waco, Texas, discovered by Wynton Marsalis while still in high school, Hargrove is one of the great young trumpet and flugelhorn players. He has recorded several CDs in a variety of genres (mainstream jazz, Latin jazz, M-base, bebop, hard bop, hip-hop/jazz) and won two Grammys. His current quintet includes Ronnie Matthews on piano, Justin Robinson on alto sax, D'Wayne Bruno on bass, and the wonderful Willie Jones III on drums. The Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant, Monday, Nov. 26 and Tuesday, Nov. 27, 7 p.m. ($40) and 9:30 p.m. ($25).

Photo courtesy of George Cartwright.

Interview outtakes: George Cartwright and GloryLand PonyCat

This week's MinnPost piece is on free jazz saxophonist George Cartwright and his trio GloryLand PonyCat. Cartwright, bassist Adam Linz, and Jazz Police publisher Don Berryman all responded to emails I sent while writing the piece. Here are some interesting bits that didn't make it into the article.

Question for Adam: "What is it like for you to play with George Cartwright?"

Adam: “I have wanted to play with George since I was 16. I heard of him through my ear training teacher Kevin Norton. I was looking for someone to study composition with while I was in New York. Unfortunately George had moved to Memphis. After I moved back to the Twin Cities I heard that George moved here. I got his number and called him and asked him if I could study composition from him. After he heard that I was a bass player he said, 'Just bring your axe and let's just play' We haven't stopped since then. So I get my lessons for free as we play. Playing with George is like playing with one of those jazz greats that you build up in your mind as a kid. You think that maybe one day you'll be good enough to play with them. George is such a nice guy also. Sometimes you meet your heroes and they turn out to be the exact opposite as you hoped for. George is like that funny uncle that says the wrong thing at the right time and makes all the kids laugh."

Question for George: "Imagine you're talking with people who haven't heard much free jazz (or any). They have agreed to come to the Cedar show, maybe on a dare. What can you tell them to help prepare? What can they do to really enjoy it?"

George: "Everybody has a different reaction to all music. Since we are all individuals we process what we hear on our own personal level(s) and that is what I would stress, that it gives you an experience that you can't get anywhere else and and it is your own to process past the 'how'd you like it?,' 'pretty good' kind of conversation. We've all spent much time and effort to manifest our own single selves through music (hopefully in a positive way) and being able to do that even better in a group (strength of the individual/power of the group kind of thing) and we hope to give that to the listeners also in some form or other. (( ...trying not to get 'mystical' here))."

Don summed up the experience of hearing Cartwright by quoting another jazz pioneer: "The late Steve Lacy said: 'The difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds.' Well, this is a band that nails it in that 15 seconds."