[NewMusic] Booking / 'Usual Suspects'

[weasel walter]

> the last weasel walter quartet gig (a regular working group) that 
> i played at 21 grand a few days ago was far inferior musically than 
> either the quartet gig i played shortly before it with damon, james fei

> and john ingle
> 
> they both had merit.  i think i liked the one the other night better 
> actually.  but the one with fei and ingle was definitely a more 
> unusual group dynamic -- i really admired fei's commitment to a limited
(and 
>inflexible) palette!

we agree on this. both situations do have their merits, again an argument
for doing them all!

with my usual quartet, you're going to get some real chaos and struggle -
that has become that group's modus operandi. you will get some inertia,
some headbutting, some violence, some disagreement. sometimes it isn't
very good music, but something else is happening that hopefully goes
beyond "being good". (oddly, way more people came up and said it blew
them away than with the other two gigs i cited.) 

with something like the group with ingle and fei, it's more of a surprise
situation where one hopes that using really great players will reveal
highly complex outcome. in a lot of cases this assumption has proven
true, which is why i keep striving to create more ad hoc situations. the
hits have outnumbered the misses greatly in my opinion. 

ww