The April 15th show at Motorco Music Hall was vibrant, interesting and witnessed by a small and attentive audience. I am so appreciative of Xopher Thurston for his playing and the sweet fidelity he brought to the space with his sound engineering. This fledgling outing for -the idiosyncratic beats of dejacusse celebrates “In C”- was just as I had hoped it would be. Xopher Thurston, Susanne Romey and Chris Eubank did the heavy lifting of playing the piece in the moment. They were fantastic! Susanne made the decision to play the recorder on the first set of patterns and the toy piano on the second set, which was brilliant as a new voice in the second set of patterns added interest. Chris really drove the first set by staying with the two sixteenth notes in Pattern 10. Then we all settled into a rather mournful staggering of the long tones in Pattern 14. The second slice was Pattern 48 to the end (53). This got going with such driving polyrythmns that I felt the underpinning of an African dance. A djembe solo would have been really nice there! Here is a short audio clip of a moment from each section we played:
I was very happy with this first big acoustic space outing of slices of “In C”. Plus we were sandwiched in between The Empty Sound (Xopher Thurston – Bass, Percussion and TJ Goode – Drums, Percussion) and about a dozen musicians free improvising as Triangle Improvisational Music Exchange or T.I.M.E. The Empty Sound were phenomenal as they embodied groove and free form with whimsy and solid musicianship. I loved their set. Listening to the recording of T.I.M.E. results in more kudos for Xopher as he really shaped the improv through his mixing. Mixing as an improvisational art form is where he is at!!
In addition to all of this – we have a great video of the whole thing filmed by Bill Romey who was all over the place getting interesting angles. He got the vibe of the evening!
I did walk around Motorco before the show and do some spectrum analysis. I was not able to make much of it and evidently the analyzer needs web access. Who knew? So not much to report on that front. I am studying the recordings made with the Zoom H2n which was placed on a mic stand on the lowest side step of the bleachers on the right by the hall to the bathrooms. The low cut filter was enabled and auto gain on concert. A spectrum analysis of the recordings may yield interesting information.
As Xopher said, “A good time was had by all!”
And a special thanks to Terri Murphy, Eleanor Mills, Jody Cassell and Jim Kellough for listening and giving feedback. Appreciations!
My Year "In C" 