But in the Bowery hangs the memories of dreams that still come true

Gig Postmortem
Thursday, 30 November 2006 - Bowery Poetry Club

SETLIST (click to listen/download)

1) Ritual
Solos: Ryan Keberle, trombone; Sebastian Noelle, guitar

2) Phobos
Solo: Mark Small, tenor sax

3) Flux in a Box
Solos: Rob Wilkerson, alto sax; Mike Holober, piano

4) Induction Effect
Solo: André Canniere, fluegelhorn

5) Drift
Solo: Mark Small, tenor sax

6) Transit
Solo: Jacob Wick, trumpet

7) Habeas Corpus
Solo: James Hirschfeld, trombone

8) Desolation Sound
Solo: Sam Sadigursky, soprano sax

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NYT Review (Ben Ratliff)

While I'm extremely flattered by the praise Ratliff has for my writing, I can't agree with his characterization of Rob's solo on "Flux in a Box." But hey, the great thing about the interweb is that you can listen and make up your own mind.

I am, as always, deeply grateful to all of my co-conspirators for their dedication, hard work, and consummate musicianship. But kindly indulge me in a supersized shout-out to Kendrick Scott. This music lives or dies by the drummer. He's the guy you depend on to keep everything from flying off the rails, to unite 18 different time feels, to give shape to the music, to keep it aloft.

This is not the kind of thing you can just read cold. Regular Secret Society drummer, Jon Wikan (who's currently out with Maria Schneider's band) knows by now what the music needs, having anchored most of our gigs so far. As does Richie Barshay, who played with us in August -- Richie got to know my music by playing it every week for a year back when we were both students at NEC. But Kendrick had zero previous exposure to my writing. Nonetheless, over just a couple of rehearsals, he was able to internalize the shape and the spirit of it, figure out where the music crests and where it breaks, all while bringing his own distinctive personality to bear. I knew from that first slam into the beat on "Ritual" that this was going to be a fun gig.

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Incriminating Evidence

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CO-CONSPIRATORS

REEDS
Aaron Irwin
Rob Wilkerson
Sam Sadigursky
Mark Small
Josh Sinton

TRUMPETS
Jacob Wick
André Canniere
James De La Garza
Tom Goehring
Dave Rezek

TROMBONES
Mark Patterson
Ryan Keberle
James Hirschfeld
Mike Christianson

RHYTHM
Sebastian Noelle, guitar
Mike Holober, keyboards
Matt Clohesy, bass
Kendrick Scott, drums

COMPOSER, CONDUCTOR, RINGLEADER
Darcy James Argue

Comments

[mwanji]

1.

Darcy, the link to the zip is sending me to a TypePad login page.

[DJA]

2.

Oops -- should be fixed now.

[tuna]

3.

I agree with you about the solo. It fits just fine. I suspect Ratliff was just trying to strengthen the compliment. But fortunately, music isn't a zero sum game where you have to insult one thing in order to compliment another.

I'm glad Amanda linked you. I've been listening all afternoon.

[Andrew Durkin]

4.

Another thing to consider (re: BR's comments on RW's solo) is the fact that he was going with his first impression: his impression of the solo as he heard it live. Nothing inherently wrong with that: that's what he was there for. But surely one of the lessons of recording technology is that when you can go back and re-listen to a given performance, you sometimes hear things that "weren't there" the first time. As you get to know a piece better, the context for listening can change, and suddenly a certain solo (or some other component) can make total sense.

This seems to me to be one of the central challenges of criticism, actually: how do you maintain critical authority while allowing that the human ear can, at times, be a very unreliable device (even among those of us who listen for a living)?

Anyway, it's a great review. Looking forward to checking out the tracks.

[james]

5.

Thanks for the zip file to download.

Looking forward to hearing it.

Got here from pandagon to Majikthese to you.

Peace.

[David Higgs]

6.

Good stuff. Thanks for posting it.