Archive for the ‘Dave Douglas (Artist Thoughts)’ Category

Mary Halvorson improvising with super-participants Angela Morris and John Lake.

Mary gave a great class on practicing improvising with intervals — limiting yourself to one interval or set of intervals, and working on coming up with ideas you like using them. Then practicing using only those ideas, with or without the metronome. Also, using those ideas in a group setting in which each player is given a set of musical parameters. These parameters eventually came to include interactive instructions (for example, shadowing, or ignoring, other players) and rhythmic ideas. The crux of her workshop was, for me, the value in working with small bits of information you come up with yourself. That is a unique perspective and not often talked about. Those of you who know Mary’s playing know how well she applies the lessons.

Drew Gress and E.J. Strickland gave a subtle and powerful workshop on rhythm section playing. It’s a hard area to talk about, and it was inspiring to see the honesty they each bring to the interactions within a group. Lots of played examples, including exercises they made up on the spot (seemed like a theme for yesterday), like inserting random subdivisions and odd metered bars into forms in order to practice awareness and interaction.

Set List from Saturday Night:

In the first half:
Banff Big Band 2010 directed by Darcy James Argue
Segment from COIN COIN directed by Matana Roberts

In the second half:
Bow River Falls (Douglas)
22 Minutes (Cleaver)
Lighthousekeeping (Bates)
Wichita Lineman (Webb, arr. Monder)
Be Melting Snow (Melford)
Awake Nu (Don Cherry)

Dave Douglas, tpt; Matana Roberts, alto sax and clarinet; Myra Melford, piano; Ben Monder, guitar; Michael Bates, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums.

Darcy with the big band at The Club on Friday night. A heroic effort by all to quickly learn his music, their own music, and just for kicks one of my pieces.

[It's tough to get good quality photos of these events, first off because things move so fast up here. But I've been taking them with a Flip Video recorder, which is super handy and makes great videos with sound. BUT because the videos are in HD, the files are HUGE. So I've been clipping snapshots out of the videos of classes and rehearsals. Anyone have any tips for a fairly, but not totally, tech-savvy musician / documentarian?]

On the documentary side of things, I’ve been recording some conversations with visiting artists that will appear soon on the Subscriber page here. The Centre is also assisting me in making a podcast about the genesis of the music on Spark of Being. Those will also begin appearing soon.

Yesterday Mary Halvorson and Giorgio Magnanensi arrived in the program. The three of us played an improvised set–none of us had ever played together before. Sometimes that makes for the best discoveries, and this one was really a blast. Mary has a really old guitar. Giorgio plays Max MSP and sounds he generated from rewired 1970s toys. Nice blend.

Also this week, Ravi Coltrane is here with his Quartet. They played a powerful set, and talked about instant arranging, cues, beginnings and endings. Here are a couple shots from the master class:

David Gilmore, Drew Gress, Ravi Coltrane. (Note the 2009 photo of Don Byron in the background.)

E.J. Strickland. Just amazing.

In other news, this guy has been nosing around outside my hut:

Pine Martin.

It’s actually snowing hard up here this morning. And this guy wandered into town a few days ago.

h/t Rocky Mountain Outlook.

Darcy has given a few wonderful classes on composition: one in which he dissected one of his pieces, as he has done at his site, and another which discussed pre-compositional work: how to lay out the palate for your ideas and massage the basic elements to generate the full range of possibilities. He is also rehearsing a big band which will perform tonight and tomorrow. He and the band have graciously agreed to play my piece The Presidents.

Michael Bates talked about his own work with composition which, while coinciding with Darcy as far as motivation and practice, resulted in some very different music. Two small groups had rehearsed pieces of his and they performed them in the workshop. Michael demonstrated some remarkably simple and clear ideas for how the groups could improve the impact of their performance. The changes were immediate and visceral.

Composers Workshops have met every Tuesday and Thursday at not very jazzy hour of 8:00 am. Darcy and Michael both committed to being there and brought so much to the exploration of new work. Matana Roberts also began giving remarkable additional workshops in graphic score notation. Perhaps the gold star goes to Myra Melford, who has been leading Cobra sessions going well past midnight.

Matana Roberts describes COIN COIN and talks about origins and practices. Behind her is a long list of mentors and inspirations.

Earlier in the day, Myra Melford gave a workshop on large ensemble improvising and conducting strategies, describing the work of Butch Morris and Fred Frith. She also led the group through the cueing system of John Zorn’s Cobra, and performed several versions of that piece.

We also had a “faculty” rehearsal with Myra, Matana, Michael Bates, Ben Monder and Gerald Cleaver which was a real joy.

Sorry to steal your title, Donny.

C’est arrive´ — Banffblogging begins chez Darcy James Argue.

The only thing I would add to Darcy’s post is that Ben Monder returned to a perennial theme here: practicing extremely slow tempos. He recommends Ron Fleckner’s metronome app, (link is to developer’s site, contribute if you can) which I immediately downloaded and it is fantastic. It goes as low as 0.1 beats per minute. That’s one click every ten minutes, perhaps not so practical… and you have to turn off the “traditional tempos only” button. But at tempos below 40, like 20, 10, even 5, there’s a lot of fecund subdivision going on. And it seems infinitely flexible for other uses.

Ben was also talking about working on ear training in groups, playing notes back and forth, trying to reproduce and identify. I was reminded of a tool found at Rick’s Atlanta-basediwasdoingallright. It’s an iPhone app called Play by Ear that, among other things, produces random sets of pitches which you must play back for Guitar Hero style feedback on accuracy.

Other than that, lots of composing going on, composition workshopping, mountain air, birds.

This Morning.

There’s almost no way of getting caught up on the blog about the workshop going on in Banff. I have had so much joy playing with my fellow co-conspirators here.

This week it seemed that the topic on everyone’s mind was motivic development, generating material, how to work on it, how to make it musical. How to make the most impact with the material you’ve got.

With one brief excursion by Hank Roberts into the intricacies of Bebop Laundry.

Hank talking about grooves and the personalities of intervals.

With apologies for the blurriness of my photos…

Donny McCaslin talking about generating ideas for intervalic practice and how to apply it in a musical context. He also went into how he worked on changing up his rhythm by teaching himself to phrase in unusual groupings of eighth notes. Among many, many other things. It was mind-blowing.

Jeff Parker gave a phenomenal class in which he, among other things, demonstrated how the advent of hard disc recording changed his approach to improvising. He also talked about the importance of Chicago to his own musical identity, describing the music and practice of many of the legendary forces coming out of the AACM. Jeff says that Sun Ra’s “My Brother The Wind 2″ is the reason he bought his ring modulator.

Matt Brewer talked about listening to what your fellow musicians are playing, and grabbing onto that as a basis for new melodic permutations. Robert Rodriguez gave a great class on how to broaden vocabulary by taking small motives and rhythmically transforming them.

Between that, and the rehearsals, the studio sessions, and four sets a night in the club, there is quite a bit of music going on. I didn’t mention that the composers workshop decided to meet at 8am because there was no other time. Where else in the world?

The Banff Springs Hotel. Rumor has it that The Shining was filmed here. Sadly, it’s not true.

We played my new large ensemble piece yesterday morning. It was fun — it needs some work, but everyone (roughly 60 musicians) got to play, and I told them honestly what changes I would make and got input from them. So I’ll make some edits and we’ll play it again next week.

I gave a short talk on writing, with some assignments, and Clarence talked about professionalism, time management and practicing. He says ever since he had Solato (Little Penn 2.0) he’s been thinking a lot about Time Management.

Did a short set with Hank Roberts, Jeff Parker, Robert Rodriguez, Matt Brewer, Donny and Clarence. These guys did an incredible job on music that was new to them and I feel really lucky that they are here to share their wisdom this week.

Informally showed Spark of Being in the theater. Wow, first time I’ve seen it, very intense. Looking forward to seeing this come out and playing it in shows this fall.

There are two or three elk that have decided that the lawn outside the music building is the place to be. They make a remarkable site, large and scruffy. The main room for music sessions here has a full wall of paneled windows, which makes for an astounding view, but causes occasional distractions when these friends come around. Haven’t been able to capture on camera… yet.

On Tunnel Mountain Road.

Today begins three weeks of jazz and creative music at the Banff Centre.

Last night as I wandered around the park-like campus (a little warily as there is a cougar on the prowl), I saw three elk hanging outside the music building. Lots of people were already inside playing. The amount of music that comes out of here is just astounding, and I’ve got a bunch of new things that I can’t wait to dig into. Clarence Penn, Donny McCaslin, Robert Rodriguez, Matt Brewer, Hank Roberts, and Jeff Parker are all here, too.

I really like this. Greg Sinbaldi sent the link to the sessions he mentioned in the comments below. Each week the playing is organized by a different musician or set of musicians. The music is as thematic as they want to be. Take a look.

Also around the web, guitarist Anthony Wilson wrote this on his blog under the heading Spring Renewal. It resonated for me as I prepare for the deluge of new music at Banff.

Musicians in “jazz” have deliberate choices to make from a wide-open (not polarized) field as they develop an identity: elements such as sound, touch, and the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic content of their improvisations or compositions: these are all, to a greater or lesser extent, chosen, and they are not chosen for forever and all time. The options stay wide-open, and the responses to those options constantly change. It’s as simple, difficult, and existentially charged for each musician as that. These concerns aren’t really related to whether or not somebody’s music fits some agenda that I have (or that he/she has) about “jazz” or “innovation.” And it seems to me that an appreciation for this progression of complex, individual choices–beyond the limits one’s own taste*—-is central to the act of trying to understand an artist (present or past) in any meaningful way, or to begin to get a grasp on what exactly “moving forward” or “innovation” is within the context of an art form as it develops, morphs, and grows.

Thanks, Anthony.

Next week begins the wonderful Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. The illustrious faculty for this season:

Week One:
Matt Brewer, Donny McCaslin, Jeff Parker, Clarence Penn, Hank Roberts, Robert Rodriguez, Dave Douglas, director.

Week Two:
Darcy James Argue, Michael Bates, Gerald Cleaver, Myra Melford, Ben Monder, Matana Roberts, Dave Douglas.

Week Three:
Ravi Coltrane, David Gilmore, Drew Gress, Mary Halvorson, Giorgio Magnanensi, E.J. Strickland, Dave Douglas.