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Monday, April 13, 2009
Review: Ab Baars and Ken Vandermark at Victory Grill
Tenor saxophonists Ab Baars and Ken Vandermark both brought the heavy artillery to the Victory Grill Friday night, but their pairing was not so much a firefight as a joint show of strength. Although Chicago’s Vandermark has toured only once before with the Ab Baars Trio, a staple on the fertile Dutch improvised music scene for some 17 years, he and Baars have such a striking rapport, anyone not familiar with their history might be forgiven for assuming the Trio had always been a quartet.
Baars and Vandemark share, among other things, a muscular, take-no-prisoners approach and an affinity for such pillars of the avant-garde as Von Freeman, John Carter, Roswell Rudd and Sun Ra. Their shared sensibility is highly evident on “Goofy June Bug,” a live recording from their 2007 European tour, and was even more striking seven dates into their current U.S. tour. They frequently played in tight formation, giving incremental harmonic shifts and small changes in tone heightened meaning, and while they each made numerous explosive solo excursions, rather than competing, they reinforced each other, like a well-choreographed detonation team. Precise, sharply executed endings to the compositions brought suitably dramatic closure after cathartic outbursts.
The twin tenorists might have started to seem almost too well-matched after a while, but they mixed it up by switching off on clarinet, jointly or singly, and Baars also played shakuhachi, a Japanese end-blown bamboo flute. The material, mostly from the new album, was sufficiently varied, ranging from Baars’ Stravinsky-inspired “Straws” to Vandermark’s sly, jaggedy “Waltz Four Monk,” where the waltz tempo is a mere allusion. A taut, brand-new Vandermark piece, “7 over 5 is 12,” featured an absorbing, rhythmically assertive riff, and Baars’ bluesy “Goofy June Bug” swaggered with Mingus-style soul.
Most importantly, drummer Martin van Duynhoven and especially bassist Wilbert de Joode supplied kaleidoscopic color, as well as brilliant propulsion. De Joode, while possessed of intense melodicism, often treated his bass more like an upright percussion kit, bashing at the strings, snapping them like rubber bands, or holding a bow at both ends and bedeviling them with it. By contrast, his arco had a chamber-like elegance. His unique fusion of aggression and nuance was both grounding and enthralling.
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Review: Morrissey at Bass Concert Hall
Laura Skelding AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunday night at Bass Concert Hall, Morrissey reminded his audience just to what extent he was holding them in the palm of his hand.
The moment came after a thrillingly powerful run at the Smith’s classic “How Soon is Now?,” complete with enormous-sounding guitars tremeloed into infinity, thunderous beats on a very large bass drum and Morrissey himself, posed like a corpse, feet on the drum riser, body on the floor. The identically dressed six piece band roared around him, a tiny, crack rock ‘n’ roll army doing his bidding, including lead guitarist (and former Austinite) Jesse Tobias.
After the song shuddered to a halt and the crowd picked up the roar, Morrissey strolled to the microphone, saying: “Is there a better place to be on Easter Sunday?”
Um, no. No, there isn’t.
It was a huge rock star moment that a lesser (or less confident) talent would have parked squarely at the end of the show. This was song number four.
Of course, Morrissey is showman enough to play to the crowd most of the time, handing over the mic now and then. We look forward to his Vegas revue some time in the future. The 49-year old singer ripped off his third shirt of the evening during the line “someone you physically despise” in the song “Let Me Kiss You,” eliciting the night’s loudest laughs and screams of approval.
Mixing older Smiths material with songs from his new album “Years of Refusal” and a good deal from his stellar 2004 comeback album “You Are The Quarry,” Morrissey’s 90-minute set moved from precise rock ‘n’ roll to blown-out, almost psychedelic codas.
In front of a frankly homoerotic (and extremely funny) backdrop of a muscular sailor, opener “This Charming Man” saw our man in a tux, his band in matching black outfits and white ties with their boss’ face on them ($50 at the merch table.) Newer songs (“Black Cloud,” “Something is Squeezing My Skull”, “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris”) amped up the sharp, almost punk verve that’s shot through “Refusal.” The energy of older material (“Irish Blood, English Heart,” the fiercely rockabilly “The Loop”) was scaled up to match.
The Smiths classic “Ask” was stripped of its chime and swing and turned in a driving ode to joy, while “Death of a Disco Dancer” ended with a noisy, emotive jam emphasizing the band’s raw power. Nothing wussy here and no place anyone in that room would rather spend Easter Sunday.
SETLIST
This Charming Man
Billy Budd
Black Cloud
How Soon is Now?
Irish Blood, English Heart
When I Last Spoke to Carol
How Could Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?
I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
Something is Squeezing My Skull
Seasick, Yet Still Docked
The Loop
The World is Full of Crashing Bores
The Death of a Disco Dancer
Goodbye Will Be Farewell
I Keep Mine Hidden
Sorry Doesn’t Help
Ask
Let Me Kiss You
I’m OK By Myself
(encore) The First of the Gang to Die
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