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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
A Disappointing "Tempo"
June 1 & 2, 2001
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By Jerry Kuderna
"Tempo," a weeklong festival of contemporary performance presented at Hertz Hall under the aegis of UC Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), began with two evenings of ensemble improvisations on Friday and Saturday. Despite many instances of individual inventiveness and virtuosity, even of a transcendental order, the musical results overall were minimal and the experience disappointing.
Friday evening promised an interesting mix of musical and extramusical elements for jazz ensemble and interactive computer. Steve Coleman and the Five Elements certainly seemed like no jazz combo I've ever heard. Coleman is into a lot more than what is generally thought of as jazz. He has programmed software to "listen to chords played by a musician and then to create improvised melodies inside of the chords as they were being played." Indeed, all manner of extramusical disciplines — from the Fibonacci number series to Egyptian astrology and other varieties of oriental esoterica — were involved in forming the work, entitled Rameses, that was scheduled to fill the entire evening.
But the computer was down, so there was no Rameses. Since this was not announced, I at first concluded that the computer must have been very hip because I could detect nothing that sounded contrived or machinelike. Only later did I learn that we were listening not to Rameses but to jazz, if not exactly "straight-ahead," then at least what used to be called progressive.
As the lights on the array of electronic gear that took up most of the front row twinkled and jumped, I kept listening for electronic sounds I could distinguish from the sounds of the two trumpeters, Jonathan Finlayson and Ambrose Campbell-Akinmusire (both Berkeley High School students) and the often lovely, otherworldly music of Coleman's alto sax. It was all very well balanced, benefiting from state-of-the-art amplification and the acoustics of Hertz Hall. There was much to admire from the pianist, Andy Milne, who posed musical conundrums that either trailed off into silence or blasted off into virtuoso flights. Drummer Sean Rickman and bassist Anthony Tidd were solid sidemen capable of generating real excitement. The Saturday performance brought together five luminaries from the avant-garde improvisation scene. Although it was the first time all five had played together, they were obviously comfortable with one another, appearing to breathe together and producing music that, chantlike at times and evocative of strange winds, transported me as if to some high-tech Himalayan monastery. The cantus firmus of the quintet was provided by CNMAT director David Wessel on Buchla Thunder, an instrument that enables the performer to shape computer-generated sounds into musical gestures by means of a pressure-sensitive keyboard.
In addition to having mastered a range of nontraditional techniques for their instruments, each ensemble member listened and responded, often in extremely delicate ways, to whatever the others were up to. This was no mean accomplishment, since much of what they were doing was pretty strange, at least by everyday conservatory standards. George Lewis approached the trombone as a two-piece affair, with neither the slide nor the bell more worthy than the other for producing sound. He also created overtones literally off the chart. This was followed by an unbelievable range of sounds and phonemes from baritone Thomas Buckner, who produced multiphonics an octave above the normal range. I couldn't help but marvel at how fresh his voice remained after producing sounds that would leave lesser mortals hoarse for a week. Although the two halves of the second program concluded with a climax of sorts, the absence of logical musical discourse leading up to it made it more frenzied than cathartic. Despite the steady stream of arresting sounds and interactions between these highly capable musicians, the ultimate effect was like watching a sine wave: excitement, rest, excitement, rest — ad infinitum. After traversing so many of such cycles, fatigue set in, if not for the players, then certainly for me. In dismay I watched the collapse of a sonic edifice that had taken over an hour to construct. (Jerry Kuderna is a pianist who teaches at Diablo Valley College and is a host (with Sarah Cahill) of the Berkeley TV program, Stop, Look, and Listen.) ©2001 Jerry Kuderna, all rights reserved |