[NewMusic] events this week

[David Slusser]

Certainly not great news about the city getting on 21Grand.

I had the rare opportunity to get out a few times this week, and
the music was better news. Enjoyed listening to Roscoe Mitchell's
Cards opus played by Mills Contemporary Ensemble on Sunday.
Much of it produced branching or blossoming phrases spread by
individuals and small groups across the ensemble.  I came away
very curious about the score, and had to ask myself if knowing
should make any difference (good improvisers or good readers,
notation versus instruction).  Maybe that's one of the points.

Went Tuesday to the Climate Theater for some unadulterated
idiomatic writing.  Smith Dobson led a quartet from the vibes,
certainly the cheekiest writing in that style since Rubber City.
Then Graham Connah came on with an 11 piece band with 3
singers and knocked it out of the park with his Ted Brinkley
Admiral thing...unbelievably great sounding band.  I had seen an
expanded version at Oakland Metropole a while back, and almost
pulled Graham's coat about the woodwind voicing - but this was
obviously the proper configuration (4) and the whole ensemble
seemed in perfect balance.  There were solos (great Cressman)
but the through-composed entirety was much more impressive.
Sheldon Brown was great just playing his part - supple and
buoyant on lead alto.  What the heck do you call it, operetta?

Tonight I squeezed in Mills Improvisation Ensemble, as if to
counter all that fine writing.  I missed the very beginning, but
caught 3 or 4 small groups in the first half, all pretty fresh
sounding, culminating with acoustic bass, traps and trombone
(Andy Strain) improvising (and moving) with 2 dancers.  There's
happily more of this afoot (!) currently, and this was quite nice.
The second half was Cobra, prompted by the evening's director
Zeena Parkins - or more properly 5 or 6 Cobra's, the first and
last probably the strongest.  Ms Parkins was more of an activist
prompter (like Zorn himself).  Where the rules say the musicians
have to come up with all the cues themselves, she contributed
close to half, selecting members of Runner cues, and at least
once blowing off a couple cues till she got one she liked - all
totally acceptable when JZ does it, in the service of a more
coherent performance, and certainly appropriate here.  They
didn't make it to Guerrilla Operations (next semester?) but the
ensemble was really sharp on all the downbeats and Cartoon
Rounds and usually didn't lack for coming up with their own
cues. I could tell they had a good grasp when they eagerly
flagged all the charming bits as Memory Cues, the recurring
pieces that give the audience a hint of what's going on.  They
were less adept at "group-same/music-change" (a tough one)
but gifted at "group-change/music-same", though changing the
group could have gone a lot faster (that's the one where everyone
not playing is waving a raised hand).  Also missing was the
thumbs up "thank-you-very-much-for-playing-but-kill-it-
immediately" cue that the prompter uses to remove a given
player at any point.  Perhaps this was such a good ensemble
that no one needed to be pruned.  A fine job by all, and just part
of a week in locally accessible music