Jazz em Agosto 2024 (Part 3/3) ~ The Free Jazz Collective

The Beats came into my life at the exact moment that they were supposed to. What had begun as an obsession with Bob Dylan in high school led me, by early college, circuitously to Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind, and William Burroughs's Naked Lunch. A road trip with friends at the end of junior year of college across the USA found us unintentionally hitting all of the spots that Keraouc had enthused about with his mix of jazz and proto-hipster prose, and the first part of the trip ended in San Francisco and included a giddy visit to City Lights Books.

The Beats, getting together at the West End bar on Broadway, across from Columbia University and setting out to create meaning in post-war America led to watershed moment in arts and culture. Yes, of course while the Beat attitude had its limitations as it was swallowed up by drugs, marketing and time, the way that they liberated words from stodgy sentences, took language in new impressionistic directions, and most of all, loved jazz, is a tree still bearing fruits of inspiration.

This is where Viennese sound-artist Dieb13 comes into the picture. Starting in 2020, The DJ, filmmaker, and composer created the Beatnik Manifesto, which channels its inspiration from the Beats into music and film. The combination of a large improvising ensemble playing against an abstract, narration-free accompanying film, like the best of the Beat art, captures creativity, passion, and existential questions in living motion. Broken into four movements, the Beatnik Manifesto is a modern day manifestation of life, music, and the artistic spirit.

Dieb13 Beatnik Manifesto - By Vera Marmelo / Gulbenkian Música

On Friday evening in the Gulbenkian Foundation's large auditorium, the 14-strong group filled the generous stage against a black backdrop. Over the hum of the deep, reedy hum of Susanna Gartmayer and Hans Koch's bass clarinets and Anna Hogberg's alto sax, the mellifluous baritone of experimental vocalist Phil Minton introduced the manifesto. Previously performed with Minton's part as playback, this time he was in the flesh. "Hey beings, focus your audio and noodle it out, here comes the Beatnik Manifesto. One, beat is life, Beatnik you are," he intoned as a corporeal and sudsy reality played out on the immense film screen behind the musicians.

Crackling electronics emerged from the DJ's set up as the words of the manifesto echoed the lexicon of the Beats - "cats," "squares," and axiomatic phrases delivered in alliterative glory. A second vocalist, Karolina Preuschl, clad in black, contorted herself angularly along with the text and music. The band had begun to wail, and the imagery shifted from dishes being washed to a riverside landscape. The cellos bounced their bows against their strings as the woodwinds played a rising melody, the vibraphone tintinnabulated and a focused drum solo brought everything to head. On to movement two.

Through each of the four movements, the imagery was quite different. Fast jump cuts juxtaposing impressions of technology and consumer culture, clips of (presumably) the musicians at work and hanging out together, and a slow walk around Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty on the Great Salt Lake in Utah followed respectively. Elephant like sounds from Minton, caterwauling tones and percussive rattles accompanied footage of a bleak estuary, and swirling, upbeat woodwinds greeted the audience in movement four. Sandy Ewen and Finn Loxbo's electric guitars could finally be heard and on the screen there was a glimpse of Allen Ginsberg. The music, at times dark and heavy, and the film, often light and quick, came to an end that left it up to the audience to ponder the work's connections and implications.

The second show of the evening was unexpected, from premise to presentation. Simply, never have so many heads nodded along to avant-garde compositions.

The Locals - By Vera Marmelo / Gulbenkian Música

In 2020, the group, The Locals, released "Play the music of Anthony Braxton," a joyous re-thinking of Braxton's music, cast as funk. It was a recording from an appearance in 2006, something from pianist Pat Thomas' archives. The band, in addition to Thomas, is Alex Ward on clarinet, Evan Thomas on electric guitar, Dominic Lash on electric bass and Darren Hasson-Davis on drums, and while it was Pat Thomas who arranged the tunes, the sound of the band on the outdoor amphitheater stage this evening was effectively shaped by Ward's thrilling clarinet work and Evan Thomas' pure 80's funk guitar work.

The meter of the first tune seemed a bit uneven, or at least not straight ahead. Then, the guitar joined. After just a few notes, the sound round and heavily chorused, my mind went to We Want Miles with Mike Stern as a kind of inaccurate reference. Next came the clarinet. Ward's playing was breathtaking - maybe even literally - as the melodies came out in long unraveling threads. Some of his passages seemed like virtuosic finger exercises as he navigated knotty intervals and winding melodies, but his delivery was impeccably musical as he amplified Lash and Hasson-Davis' deep grooves with startling velocity. Finally, after the initial funk barrage cleared, Pat Thomas entered, eschewing specificity in his chords and working a harmonic rhythm with syncopated tonal clusters and joyful enthusiasm.

At some point the thought popped in my mind, is this too much of a good thing? Each tune was infectious and uptempo, rooted in Lash's fantastic electric bass work and Evan Thomas' bursting guitar solos and chunky rhythms. It was surely fun and musically rich, but it was also a sugar rush ... the brainy music of Braxton and the booty shaking-minded arrangements from Thomas was an unusual pairing, possibly best taken with a ballad to give the taste buds a little break. Interestingly, the encore began with a solo passage by Thomas that provided the exact thing that I had been craving.

This was an evening of music - between the sounds and images of the Beatnik Manifesto and the unrelenting funk of The Locals - that would reverberate for quite a while afterwards!

Saturday began with a trip across the Tagus river to Almada, a hillside city that boasts the best views of Lisbon with a port that smells lightly of smoked sardines and offering a bevvy of places to eat them. Easily accessed by ferry from downtown Lisbon, or small regional train, a walk along the abandoned waterfront buildings can yield some interesting surprises, like a antique and crafts store, grungy looking partying, and even an elevator that scales the cliffs.

It was over here at the city museum, "Museu de Almada – Casa da Cidade", that I was able to take in an exhibition of photos by Alfredo Cunha, who captured many key moments of the Carnation Revolution 50 years ago. I was given a wonderful, personal explanation of the photos, the people, and the nuances of the struggle by a friend, which made the neatly organized presentation much more meaningful. The significance of the day, when the fascist regime was toppled, is a fascinating story and here it was shown with a gripping intensity in the black and white photos that began with the broader context of colonial Portugal, and then focused on Fernando José Salgueiro Maia, a captain in the Portuguese Army who led the revolutionary forces on the ground in Lisbon on April 25, 1974. It was an excellent exhibition, and though my experience was enriched by the personal tour, the photos themselves still carried a lot of meaning and symbolism.

And now a quick ferry ride from the port of Cachilas back to Lisbon and a ride on the Metro to the Gulbenkian for Saturday's first concert...

Made of Bones - By Vera Marmelo / Gulbenkian Música

This early evening, in the small auditorium, the group Made of Bones offered up about an hour of some of the finest jazz-rock you can find. Sipping deep from the well of I Sing the Body Electric-era Weather Report and embracing the unique clang of the the Waldorf Zarenbourg - an instrument very close to the legendary Fender Rhodes - truly shaped Made of Bones' charismatic sound.

Hailing from northern Portugal, the quartet, an offshoot from the group Slow is Possible, who have an album on Clean Feed Records, is Duarte Fonseca on drums, Joao Clemente on electric guitar, Nuno Santos Dias on the keyboard, and Ricardo Sousa on double bass. Started in 2020, they have made several recordings together, a recent being Handgun on Phonogram Unit Records.

Regardless of where they come from or where they have been, they certainly played like there was no tomorrow. The rich and metallic keyboards and the punchy guitar work created a sound world within itself, and with the deeply intertwined drums and bass, it became clear that this was a group that very much lived the old Joe Zawinul adage, "everyone solos and no one solos."

After the vibrant intro, the music gave way to a long exploratory tumble. Episodic and always changing, what had begun with the gentle modulations of the keyboard slowly changed into a heavy riff driven passage. The music flowed from piece to piece, a vibrant collage of tone and rhythm that would often turn in a different direction just before reaching a particular peak. A spacey jam echoing old Pink Floyd edged into modern jazz, for example, and the group was able to keep the energy level high without boiling over until they reached the very end.

Peter Evans, Being and Becoming - By Vera Marmelo / Gulbenkian Música

The later set of the evening, back at the amphitheater, was trumpeter Peter Evans' Being and Becoming. Formed by Evans' back in 2017 with three young, virtuosic musicians - vibraphonist Joel Ross, drummer Michael Shekwoaga Ode and bassist Nick Jozwiak - the quartet is essentially a showcase of the future of jazz. The group's music is accessible and melodic, the songs develop in arcs that see the musicians traversing fields of experimental sounds, swimming in rivers of rhythm, and climbing musical peaks.

The set began as the last bits of light faded from the evening sky and the world outside shrank down to the immediate surroundings. A soft thump of the bass and a gentle pulse from the drums set the music in motion. Then the vibraphone rang out and a driving hard-bop energy quickly solidified. Then, the trumpet came in with a simple four note theme answered by a fast and fluid walking bass line. The drums were blazing ahead, leaving little doubt to the direction and ferocity of the group's intent, as the trumpet's melodic lines grew more complex by the measure. Then, Evans stepped back and an astounding group interplay ensued, first with a kinetic bass feature, followed by a shift to the vibraphonist. Eventually, the mood shifted to one of mysteriousness, the tempo slowed, and the tune crumbled away.

A sense of total musical control, as did one of playfulness, permeated each tune. The bassist, without losing a beat, was smiling and laughing as he was kicking off the next piece, singing out loud the line he was about to play. Ross had switched from vibraphone to synthesizer, giving the group a different texture without any loss of momentum. The music, at points, took on different shapes too, sometimes experimental with each musician taking their instruments in unusual directions as well as delving into jazz, hip-hop and funk rhythms.

Towards the end of the set, all four were firing quite hot, their individual voices strongly identifiable but blending seamlessly together. When it came to Evans' solo turn, his use of split-tones and multi-phonics served as a reminder of why his solo playing is so highly regarded. His turn here could almost be considered a concert within the concert, eloquent and complete in its own right.

In the course of the generous set, "Being and Becoming" did both of these things, embracing the traditions of jazz and taking it several steps farther.

As the final day of concerts arrived, it was on the one hand sad to see it end, but on the other, it was also satisfying. The Jazz em Agosto team had done an impeccable job of finding and sequencing music that makes the festival, now in its 40th edition, a gem of the European festivals, and the post-show get togethers on the center's terrace gave everyone who cared to, from festival guests to the musicians, a chance to greet old acquaintances and make new connections.

But first, let's finish discussing the music before jumping to any conclusions ...

Black Duck - By Vera Marmelo / Gulbenkian Música

The Gulbenkian's Grand Auditorium floor-to-ceiling windows were wide open to the gardens. The trio Black Duck, comprised of the Chicago based musicians guitarists Douglas McCombs and Bill MacKay, and drummer Charles Rumback, were spread across the wide stage, McCombs to one side, MacKay to the other, and Rumback in the middle. The space between them seemed a good metaphor for the wide-open American landscapes that their atmospheric music invoked.

McCombs, known for his founding role in the post-rock giant Tortoise, among other groups, began the set with a gentle sweep of the strings. McKay added arpeggios while Rumback played something between a steady beat and rhythmic texture - providing a lot of energy without pushing the volume. A more identifiable rock beat followed, stronger, chugging strumming from one of the guitars, and then it happened: McCombs started picking out a clearly formulated desert-rock riff that pulled the atmosphere together and situated the music clearly in the dry, open landscapes of the American West. As a grungier feel crept into the music, it felt like we were climbing to the top of a sandstone butte offering an open vista view over a Walmart parking lot with a red-toned sunset behind it. Dirty and beautiful.

In the next episode, we were racing our Indian motorcycles across the Bonneville Salt-flats outside of Salt Lake City (hmm, weren't we in this area just the other day with Dieb13?), the skyline finally in view after miles of unforgiving flatness. Following this was a 1950's flavored ballad, replete with longing twangs and rising melancholy.

The group's impressionistic music is captured well in the notes on their Bandcamp site:

Black Duck is a gallery of sonic tapestries, unbound by any genre constraints while also utilizing genre touchstones. Challenging what a trio of two guitarists and a drummer can do, pieces move from breezy shuffles to stormy blues rumbles to gorgeous textural drones.

I could not have said it better - the missing bass was really not missing at all, the high and dry sounds of the guitars dripped with a specific kind of nuance. One could think back to Mendoza and Fluke-Mogul's AM/FM set, which also drew on the desert-noir sound, but this was also different. Built rather on the group members' post-rock pedigrees and well-established musical signatures, Black Duck offered a stylized kind of music, whereas AM/FM were synthesizing the musical language into something new. Regardless, both sounded great and offered something unusual to the audience.

Fire! Orchestra - By Vera Marmelo / Gulbenkian Música

The final show was also performed by the largest group - the 16 members of saxophonist Mats Gustafsson's Fire! Orchestra filled the concrete amphitheater stage with two drum-sets, pianos, electronics, and at least one representative from each section of a more traditional orchestra (though no bassoon). Front and center sat tubist Heida Karine Johannesdottir, which was possible to interpret as symbolic of the music - low, rich, and moving with gravitas.

Fire! Orchestra has gone through many incarnations over its 10 year lifespan. This evening, the orchestra was presenting their latest recording, Echoes, out on Rune Grammofone.

The music, like many free jazz big bands, is constructed around broad themes and solos from the various players. It makes sense, these are not traditional orchestras, rather these are improvisational strike forces, the music a vehicle for their attacks, and the Fire! Orchestra is a troop transporting tank. Echoes is built on big, big riffs, they move slowly, deliberately and repeatedly, clearing the playing field for maximum impact. It is colossal and one feels it as much as hears it as the tank lumbers forward. As powerful as this vehicle is, however, it is also quite nimble, there is a litheness to how it moves which keeps it from getting bogged down.

As the vehicle found its pace, Gustafsson himself introduced the first bit of friendly fire, setting off confrontational blasts at the slowly undulating melody with his baritone sax. When the melody changed slightly, it elevated the solo's energy even higher and lead eventually to the end of the first movement. The next song began with a solo by Swedish saxophonist Lars-Goran Ulander. He began melodically, then after several turns, veered in an atonal direction. When he reconnected with the whole group, they had gotten into a rather deep funk vibe, led by drummers David Sandstrom and Blanche Lafuente, and tubist Johannesdottir. A nibbly feeling violin solo provided the next bit of contrast, followed by one from saxophonist Anna Hogberg who began with some legato tones and then entered quickly into the upper extensions of the instrument's range. Guitarist Julien Desprez took a pure skronk approach, channeling his effort into playing his guitar like he was cleaning glass with a dry squeegee. Pianist Alexander Zethson, too, had a captivating turn as he provided the connection to the next movement. His playing sounded like the notes were decaying as he was playing, a bit like a warped record on a child's record player. Then, switching from synthesizer to piano, a cyclical passage led to the three notes of the next theme, drums and bass quickly stepping in to give it a strong push.

Vocal parts from drummer David Sandstrom with support from violinist Josefin Runsteen glided through the next few songs and were an integral piece of the crowd-pleasing arrangement of Chic's "At Last I am Free" whose arrangement was stripped of its saccharine tendencies and given a bit of the Fire Orchestra lumber.

It was a satisfying close to the 40th edition of Jazz em Agosto, and it was also one of those unusual free jazz concerts in which you leave with an ear-worm. So, to return to the earlier point, it indeed had been an excellent festival, featuring musical choices unafraid of challenging audiences, continuing to present experimental groups alongside the more established names of modern and free jazz. It is easy to imagine one looking back to these shows in a far off future wistfully saying "that is where I heard Ava Mendoza, and Darius Jones, and Fire! Orchestra play..."

Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3