Reviews

Chris Burden, Extreme Measures, New Museum

Among my first stops during this year’s New York trip was the New Museum, which is currently featuring a museum-wide exhibition of works by Chris Burden.

His work spans several decades and includes sculpture, performances and pieces that blur the boundary between the two. While the exhibition officially focuses on “weights and measures, boundaries and constraints”, the theme that seem to most unify all the pieces was “play”. Certainly, he has access to toys on larger scale than most of us could only dream of as kids who loved building sets. This was most apparent in his series of bridges, made from custom erector sets and other materials.

Similar principles are at work in his large-scale sculptures, which use metal and found material and also included a sense of motion. The Big Wheel is indeed a huge wheel constructed from weathered metal.

It is designed to spin freely, and visitors are treated to a twice-a-day “performance” of the piece where a motorcycle is used to start the wheel spinning. You can see a bit of this in the following video:

A nearby sculpture address the absence of motion with a perfectly balanced Porsche and meteorite. I am curious as to how Burden obtained such a large meteorite to use in this piece.

Motion is taken to another extreme in an outdoor piece (shown as video documentation in the exhibition) where large steel beams are dropped into a pool of wet cement. As the positions, angles, are unpredictable, the result is a rather chaotic jumble of vertical steel spires. The video itself is quite interesting with the motion of the cement in response to the the dropping beams.

Perhaps the element of play is most apparent (and most poignant) in A Tale of Two Cities. Burden constructs a tableaux of two city-states at war using sand, plants and a large array of toys.

Some of these toys (in particular, a few of the space-themed toys) were familiar from my own childhood. And certainly we sometimes created battles with them. But those fantasies never touched on the realities of war, and somehow Burden made that very apparent in this piece. Perhaps it was the presence of bullets among the toys that made it seem like something very, very bad could come of this.

The exhibition also includes other conceptual pieces, as well as some examples of Burden’s early video work, which was interesting precisely because it seems dated.

Chris Bürden: Extreme Measures will be on display at the New Museum through January 12, 2014.

Surplus 1980 and Fred Frith Trio, Brick and Mortar

A couple of weeks ago, Surplus 1980 joined the Fred Frith Trio at the Brick and Mortar in San Francisco from a night of energetic avant-rock and jazz. It was a show we have all been looking forward to for quite a while.

Surplus 1980 went on first, with a set that combined songs from our recent album Arterial Ends Here with older selections. In addition to Moe! Staiano and myself, the band includes Bill Wolter and Melne Murphy on guitar, Thomas Scandura on drums, and Steve Lew on bass.

Surplus 1980
[Photo by Michael Zelner.]

For this set, we expanded our Fred Frith cover “Cap the Knife” into a full medley featuring excerpts for some of his other songs. In a brief exchange back stage, it sounded like he appreciated the gesture, and even suggested that his group perform a “Moe! Staiano medley”, which would have been fun. But overall, it was our strongest performance as a band to date, with rhythms and phrasing much tighter as well as more sophisticated use of all parts.

After Surplus 1980 was done, Fred Frith took the stage with his trio that included Jordan Glenn on drums and Jason Hoopes on bass.

Fred Frith Trio
[Photo by Michael Zelner.]

It was quite a contrast, going from post-punk to avant-jazz. The trio played through longer pieces that moved between fast intricate sections and more familiar idioms with ease. The polyphonic sections were certainly impressive, but I do find when technically strong musicians play in unison or at least synchronous rhythms, it leaves a more memorable impression. Frith deftly filled up the otherwise sparse texture of the music, but not so much that one would get lost or overwhelmed.

Overall, it was a successful show, with a good turnout. Surplus 1980 is now looking forward to our next show in December, but I hope we get to play with the Fred Frith trio again.

APAture 2013 Music Night

The 2013 APAture festival concluded with a diverse evening of music, ranging from avant-garde jazz to metal to rap. The event took place at SUB/Mission in San Francisco. Featured artist Karl Evangelista opened the evening with a group that included Francis Wong, Margaret Rei Scampavia, Cory Wright, and Jordan Glenn.

The music was a frenetic style of avant-garde jazz, which moved freely in and out of more conventionally harmonic sections. Many of the pieces were inspired by Evangelista’s own personal history and his Filipino heritage. It was also fun to see Francis Wong, whom I usually encounter in more rarefied venues, at punk club in the Mission.

The Evangelista group was followed by something completely different both sonically and visually. Bestiary, a solo project of Rai Yin Hsu featured experimental noise guitar and a rather unique black-and-white suit.

There were a variety of long sounds processed through effects, with a few sharper elements as well.

Some of the evening’s entertainment happened in between the official musical acts, with our hosts Rupert Carangal Estanislao and Jennifer Chu keeping the crowd energized.

Next up was The Residuals, a self-described “hardworking, Do-It-Yourself metal band.”

As expected, they were quite loud, and Joshua Lykkeberg provided vocal fry. But the group, which also featured brothers Anand Jobanputra and Rohan Jobanputra was quite tight, with unisons and fast syncopations.

From metal we then moved to rap, with a set by Joal Vargas that focused on community issues as well as his experience as a teacher.

The diversity of the evening continued with a cabaret style performance by Bellows, featuring chanteuse Kyle Casey Chu and Rachel Waterhouse on keyboards.

After the fast energy of the previous two sets, the mellow and expressive style was welcome, and their stage presence was a lot of fun.

Bellows was followed by Little Sister, an East Bay rock trio featuring Erica Benton, MonBon and Nada Diaz.

They had a contemporary rock sound that was quite moody and a bit melancholy at times, but they still had a warm stage presence. Benton and MonBon traded off guitar and bass duties during the course of the performance.

There was still more music to come in this rather long event. I unfortunately had to depart after Little Sister, but glad I had the opportunity to be there for most of it and hear such a cross section of music in the Bay Area.

(For a review of the APAture opening-night event and gallery show, please visit this link.)

Music For People & Thingamajigs Festival Closing Night

There is never a shortage of music and art festivals in the Bay Area in the fall, and one can’t see them all, especially while also being a participant. But I was fortunate to catch the final show of the Music for People & Thingamajigs festival on October 14 at Berkeley Arts. For those who are not familiar with Thingamjigs, they focus on music and educational programs using “made/found materials and alternate tuning systems.” Both of these concepts were integral parts of the performances on this evening.

The show opened with an ensemble led by Dennis Aman. The stage was populated by a variety of instruments, including a tuba with a rotating leslie mute, and modified/re-created toy xylophones with alternate tunings.

The music varied considerably. I enjoyed the more esoteric pieces that showcased the instruments and way experienced musicians play them. The toy percussion and electronics worked particularly well. There were also some more conventional pieces, including one that sounded like a typical celtic folk tune, that did not particularly work for me in context of the darker, more percussive sounds of the other pieces.

The second half featured the premier of Symphony in Sea by David Samas. Rather than simply a piece inspired by the sea, Samas took the concept rather literally, with instruments of his own creation as well as contributions from Tom Nunn. The stage was set up with a variety of aquatic themes both natural an artificial, with a beach lounge as well as pirate apocrypha.

[Photo by Bryan Day.]

The piece unfolded over several movements, each related to a well-known phrase about the sea. Different combinations of instruments and vocal techniques were used to evoke different environmental qualities of life in or around the sea.

[Photo by Bryan Day.]

During the early movements, the music was more abstract, with room to listen to the timbral details of the various instruments. However, the later movements were more idiomatic, and even a bit tongue-in-cheek, such as a rousing pirate shanty.

Things did take a turn for the darker with a dance segment featuring Bob Marsh as a sea monster.

In the end, it was a fun performance to attend, both musically and visually. Thingamajigs has several other programs coming up. Please visit their website for more information.

APAture 2013 Opening Night

After a four year hiatus, Kearny Street Workshop’s APAture festival is back. The previous APAture in 2009 was my first look into the Bay Area’s vibrant scene of emerging Asian Pacific American artists. This time around, I not only attended the festival and gallery exhibition opening, but participated as well as one of the featured musicians. I created a set that featured the dotara, a South Asian folk instrument, as well as a sketch box, DSI Evolver, and analog modular.

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The presence of blue and purple in the setup is not an accident, as the color blue was central to this performance. It was part of my costume and the lighting as well.

The piece unfolded with the usual black-cat-blue-light opening, followed by a gradual swelling and fading of sounds from the modular. The dotata and sketch box were fed into the Make Noise echophon for effects reminiscent of old studio tape delays, alongside more modern noisy elements from the other modules. Overall, the performance was well received. For some, it was their first experience with electro-acoustic improvisation, and expressed to me their curiosity about it afterwards.

The opening night also included an opportunity to see the work of the visual artists participating in APAture. There was quite a range of work, and several pieces were quite strong both technically and conceptually. Jessica Tang covered an entire wall with panels connected by strands of red string. A closer look revealed that the panels were successive runs of Google translator on a block of text. The view can observe the decay of meaning and language through her piece:

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Yuki Maruyama’s wooden blocks function as 3D versions of manga (comic) frames. The blocks can be assembled into new comic narratives, i.e., an “exquisite corpse”. Having three dimensions, however, allows for more combinations and interpretations of the assembled comic.

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More traditional artistic media were represented as well. Wenxin Zhang’s presented stark versions of portraiture and architectural photography.

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One of the more amusing pieces was an interactive conceptual work by Alison Ho, in which she invited visitors to stick gold stars with various Asian stereotypes on a blown up image of her face. Her piece was intended to challenge the notion of Asian American’s as a model minority. Clearly, many people were having fun with it.

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Other works that piqued my interest was Mido Lee’s starkly beautiful photographs of dead/forlorn trees, including some from desert landscapes; and a minimalist ring of light presented by featured artist Michael Namkung.

APAture has continued throughout October with events focus on different media, including writing, performance, and comics/zines. The next event will be music night on Friday, October 25, at SUB/Mission (2183 Mission Street, San Francisco). If you are in San Francisco, do check it out.

A Tale of Two Duos

Today we look back at duo performances from the middle of September: an electro-acoustic spoetry performance with Polly Moller, and a punk-themed Pitta of the Mind performance at Bay Area Ladyfest. Musically, conceptually, and socially, these were contrasting experiences, but both very rewarding. Both duos combined voice with live electronics, and both involved my feminine persona . They also provided opportunities for different styles of playing and collaboration.

Ode to Steengo is a piece based on spoetry (spam poetry) derived from Harry Harrison’s “Stainless Steel Rat” series. Polly Moller and I performed it several times as an electro-acoustic duo in 2008 and 2009, and then later in our band Reconnaissance Fly. We reprised the piece for our duo performance at The Nunnery in San Francisco on September 15. It was a more expansive interpretation, with more instrumental breaks and live processing of voices. It was also different in that I used the analog modular for the electronic parts. The Make Noise Echophon was great for processing Polly’s vocals and wind instruments. And overall, I thought this was our best performance of this piece to date. The technology, timing and overall musicianship were strong, and we both had a good time while playing. You can enjoy it in its entirety via the video below:

Amar Chaudhary / Polly Moller Duo: Ode to Steengo, The Nunnery 9-15-2013 from CatSynth on Vimeo.

The performance by Pitta of the Mind at Bay Area Ladyfest in Oakland was something altogether different. Maw Shein Win and I interpreted several classic punk-rock songs as “art-damaged” music and spoken word performances. Musically, this involved a mixture of idiomatic and freeform improvisation on electric piano, mixed with some odd synth sounds. As with Steengo, the performance itself was a lot of fun, and in this case we made that a deliberate and overt part of the show. This was especially apparent in our final piece, an interpretation of The Ramones’ “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” where we invited the audience to sing along with us.

Pitta of the Mind at Bay Area Ladyfest: The Ramones “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” from CatSynth on Vimeo.

Both performances were well received by the audiences, which filled their respective venues, and of course I hope to do both again. Pitta of the Mind already has two more performances scheduled this year, and of course Polly and I perform together quite often. It is a good reminder to make time for duos as a specific performance format even while spending much time on solo work and on full-size bands.

Report from BPOW!!! Part 2: The Concerts

Today we conclude our reports from the Battery Powered Orchestra Workshop (BPOW!!!) in Portland, focusing on the evening concerts. Like the workshops, which we covered in Part 1, the concerts focused on DIY technologies, as well as analog synthesis.

The Saturday-evening program opened with Stephanie Simek performing on her custom multi-armed turntable.

The arms on the turntable were outfitted with contact microphones which picked up vibrations from the grooves of hand-cut records. Each arm fed a separate audio channel, creating a multi-track, spatialized performance from a single record. Musically, the repeated sounds of jungles, space, human activity and instrumental sources formed complex rhythms with changing syncopations and graduation motion over time. The effect was quite hypnotic. Even with the enveloping sound system, there was something intimate about the performance, probably related to the visuals and distinct sound of the record player.

Simek was followed by F-DT (Future Death Toll). F-DT is an artist collective and performances feature a rotating lineup, but on this occasion it included Edward Sharp and Nathanael Thayer Moss. F-DT describe themselves as “a throbbing mess of noise that eats technology and shits performance art.” And it was certainly a performance filled with loud noise in a variety of aural ranges – high electrical noises and pounding low-frequency patterns – set against a relentless stream of glitchy visuals and text.

Although it is hard to tell from this photo, much of their gear was colored orange, which seems to be an important part of the group’s identity. The music and presents is undeniably challenging, but well worth for those who make the effort.

Then it was my turn to take the stage. My setup focused on the analog modular synthesizer, along with another analog synth, iPad, the dotara (Indian string instrument), and Skatch Box. I also used the Synthrotek 4093 NAND synthesizer that I built during one of the workshops earlier in the day.

The 4093 worked flawlessly, as did the modular and the Luna NT analog synth. The acoustic instruments (dotara and skatch box) also worked well. As with any experimental electronic improvisation performance, there were a few technical glitches and a few things I would have done differently in hindsight. But overall, I thought it was a good performance, and it was very well received by the attendees. You can see and hear it in its entirety in the video below:

CatSynth (Amar Chaudhary) at BPOW, August 10, 2013 from CatSynth on Vimeo.

The final act of the first night was Mechlo. His performance combined lo-fi glitch audio and video from an NES console.

Clearly, there were modifications made to allow the system to be performed in a way that a traditional NES could not. Nonetheless, the graphics and audio were reminiscent of what one would expect from the classic 8-bit games. There were repeated modulating patterns, some of them more melodic, some noisier, with occasional glitches and pauses.

The Sunday evening concert opened with a performance by analog modular virtuoso Jeph Nor with Dan Green on analog video. Green brought an LZX modular video system, while Nor had a large collection of audio modules from different manufacturers.

Nor built complex patterns of sound that went from sparse and resonant to thicker and more pad-like. There were moments of eerie ambience and others that had a machine-like precision. Overall, he was able to give his improvisation with this instrument a musical and even narrative quality. The visuals focused on patterns of colors, curves and lines that were constantly changing, but occasionally slowing to a standstill before shifting rapidly and switching to a completely separate collection of shapes.

Next was Mike Todd performing custom visuals and sounds. Unlike the sharper edges from Nor and Green earlier, or the noisy intensity from F-DT the day earlier, Todd’s performance was software and more organic. The visuals, based on his own software, were composed of curving liquidy shapes that seemed alive. Similarly, his music had an equally liquid quality, with more open space between fast elements, as if a swarm of moving organisms.

Todd was followed by JMEJ, who assembled sonic circuits live on stage. One can think of this as “analog live coding”.

The process was fun to watch. As one might expect, the sounds were a bit on the noisier and unpredictable side, but with a lot of good crunchy lo-fi texture. As the performance continued, the circuits grew more complex and culminated in this tangled product:

The final performance featured Claus Muzak performing some of his electronic-music compositions.

This was a more structured performance, divided into songs. His music had a strong rhythmic and harmonic foundation, realized with a diverse collection of synthesizer and drum-machine sounds. It was dark and richly textured, and at times danceable, especially when he employed rhythmic lines with high-Q filters. It was probably the most “traditional” of any of the performances on either night, well crafted electronic music that would be at home in a club setting. But it was a fitting conclusion for evening’s performances and for the festival as a whole.

You can see and hear brief excerpts from all the performances in this video:

BPOW!!! Battery Powered Orchestra Workshop – Aug 10-11, 2013 from Molecule Synth on Vimeo.

Overall, both the concerts and workshops from BPOW were a rewarding experience. It would be great to visit again to participate in future events, and in the meantime I look forward to hearing more from the artists involved. Thanks to Travis Feldman of moleculesynth for organizing BPOW and Myles de Bastion of Cymaspace for hosting.

Desire Obtain Cherish, #sideffects, The McLoughlin Gallery

For us at CatSynth, the summer is usually a time of intense musical focus, and this one more so than most. While I keep up with the visual arts as best I can during these periods, it often takes something strong and unusual to get my attention for these pages. #sideffects, the solo exhibition by Desire Obtain Cherish (DOC) at The McLoughlin Gallery, is one such show.

The cover piece of the exhibition, shown above, along with the title itself, gives the viewer an immediate sense of what the show is about. The piece combines several banal and commercial elements, a store mannequin stuffed inside a replica of a familiar peppermint candy. These materials fit perfectly with DOC’s use of commonplace materials and tropes, but they are also provocative, pointing out the association of the female figure (particularly Asian female figures) with a commoditized “sweetness” and sense of possession. Clearly, we should expect to have our sensibilities tweaked a little bit as we progress through the exhibition. At the same time, the title with its hashtag and the written style tell us that along with the art, we will be subject to a bit of the artist’s written opinion, whether we want to or not. Indeed, the gallery layout for the show juxtaposes groups of similar art pieces with written thoughts from the artist, titled with a hashtag, an organization I found fun and creative.

The entrance to the exhibition is dominated by a piece featuring a “red carpet”, which was particularly amusing for the opening.

[Image courtesy of The McLoughlin Gallery.]

The cartoon hands at the end of the carpet are sweeping something in some direction, but it’s not clear if it’s the carpet or the gold bricks that lie beyond it. The gold bricks, which were simultaneously part of the larger installation and individual works in their own right, bore DOC’s official designer monogram, if one imagined such a thing existed outside the confines of an art gallery.

The resemblance to certain well-known designers’ monograms is clearly not a coincidence. Indeed, the monograms of actual well-known designers featured prominently in the series Designer Drugs:

[Image courtesy of The McLoughlin Gallery.]

A sardonic and somewhat dark sense of humor permeates much of the work, with an emphasis on twisting commercial or pop-culture references. There was a series of crucifixes made from flavored chocolate bars emblazoned with the brand-name “Heresy”. (Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for the artworks, they were not made of real chocolate). The theme was most strongly present in the series of “pill portraits” featuring iconic images of celebrities who died from drug overdoses, assembled meticulously from thousands of individually wrapped pills. The subjects range from movie legends like Judy Garland as Dorothy to artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat.

[Image courtesy of The McLoughlin Gallery.]

Despite his open ridicule of commercial and celebrity culture, Desire Obtain Cherish – whose real name is Jonathan Paul and was refreshingly down-to-earth when talking with visitors to the opening – is not without humility about his own role as an artistic provocateur and his history in Los Angeles street art. Indeed, one of the most fun parts of the opening was an installation in which visitors were invited to grab hold of a paintball gun and shoot a hanging figure directly mocking street art heroes including Banksy.

I did of course try my hand at the gun, which is quite an experience for those of us not immersed in so-called “gun culture.” It did splatter not only on the figure and the surroundings, but some bits rebounded back out into the main gallery dangerously close to myself as well as innocent bystanders.

It should also be noted that Desire Obtain Cherish, who was trained at the Parson’s School of Design, still retains his knowledge of art history and practice even as he openly rebells against it. This was particularly noticeable in his riff on Dali’s famous “melting clock” piece. In a contemporary play on the original piece’s title, DOC’s is called “Short Term Memory.”

Overall, this was a strong show, and a coup for a gallery that I have been following since its inception about two and a half years ago.

Desire Obtain Cherish, #sideeffects, will be on display at The McLoughlin Gallery through August 31. If you are in San Francisco this week, I strongly recommend checking it out.

Report from BPOW!!! Part 1: The Workshops

It’s been a little over a week since the Battery Powered Orchestra Workshop (BPOW!!!) occurred in Portland. Today we look back at the workshops, which were in many ways the central components of weekend.

During the Saturday morning session, I attended a workshop on electronic textiles hosted by Cat Poole of Cacophonous Creations. The skill was to learn how to use conductive thread to embed both light and controls into clothing for future performances. But for the workshop, the task was to simply sew an LED and its associated circuit onto a dinosaur patch:

BPOW electronic textiles

Of course, we at CatSynth approve of Cacophonous Creations’ chat noir logo! As for the task itself, the biggest challenges related to general sewing and laying out elements to properly fit (at least for someone with little sewing experience beyond repairing buttons). But I got through the threading of the circuit. It would be great to incorporate something like this into costuming for future performances.

In the afternoon, I attended a session presented by Steve Harmon of Synthrotek. It centered around DIY electronics and the ubiquitous 555 integrated circuit. But that then merely building an Atari Punk Console with a 555, we stepped it up with Synthrotek’s 4093 NAND Synthesizer.

4093 NAND Synth kit

The 4093 includes three square waves, based on a dual 556 integrated circuit. I was quite intent to complete it and be able to use it for my performance that evening. The soldering of the components went quite smoothly – it helps to both see other people soldering and to have access to a good iron. It was a quite a rewarding moment when the synth was complete and making sound.

Completed 4093 NAND Synth

My only disappointment was the pots not quite fitting and ending up a bit lopsided. But it worked great in the performance and will certainly be used again in the future. The additional confidence on soldering will also be valuable for future projects.

Additional workshops in the afternoon included an introduction and demonstration of modular synthesizers by Jeph Nor. He demystified modular for a general audience by presenting the fundaments (oscillators, filters, amplifiers) and adding additional elements.

Jeph Nor analog modular demo
[Image from the BPOW Facebook page.]

Attending all the workshops on Saturday would have been impossible, especially if one wanted to complete the associated tasks. In particular, I was also interested in the Raspberry Pi which was presented by Edward Sharp.

Sunday’s workshop sessions opened with a demonstration of “squishy circuits”. It turns out that homemade play-doh is quite a good conductor of electricity, and can be used to quickly prototype circuit ideas. It also serves as a very accessible medium for introducing principles of electronics to children.

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We also got to see other non-traditional conductive media including ink and paint that can be used to integrate electronics into artwork without the use of wires.

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Then everyone scattered for an electronics scavenger hunt to find electronic toys and various media to use in projects during the afternoon. The participants reconvened later in the day and got to work.

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Our host Travis Feldman of Molecule Synth hacked the interior of an Atari console with both audio and video modifications, attaching it to a Moog pedal.

Hacked Atari console

Other creations included a circuit-bent toy keytar and a tactile surface used to control audio and video on a laptop.

Overall, the workshops at BPOW were a rewarding experience. In addition to new inspiration and a few new skills, I liked seeing the wide variety of interests and disciplines that others brought to creative DIY electronics for music, video and performance art. If the event does recur next year, it will be interesting to see how technologies and the skills of participants have further evolved.

In addition to the workshops, BPOW also featured performances in the evening. We will look at those in a subsequent article.

Outsound Music Summit: Lords of Outland, Lewis Jordan, Kyle Bruckman’s Wrack

The 2013 2013 Outsound New Music Summit concluded last Saturday with an evening of energetic jazz composition and improvisation, including the world premier of two large-scale works.

The concert opened with a set by Rent Romus’ Lords of Outland. Romus was joined by guest artists L.A. Jenkins on guitar and Hasan Razzaq on saxophone, along with regulars CJ Borosque on trumpet and electronics, Philip Everett on drums and Ray Scheaffer on bass.

[Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]

The Lords of Outland performed The Proceedings of Dr. Ke, a suite of original compositions inspired by the essays of experimental psychologist Dr. Charles Ponce on what he termed “Blade Runner Psychology.” The music was high-energy and frenetic, as I have come to expect from this group, but punctuated by unison hits and silences. There were also spaces for each of the ensemble members to come to the front, in particular Jenkis and Razzag, as well as Romus on double-saxophone. One piece in particular centered around CJ Borosque on electronic effects pedals, with an extensive the rest of the group joining in with sounds that matched the noise elements from the electronics.

Lords of Outland was followed Lewis Jordan’s Music at Large. On this occasion, the ensemble included India Cooke on violin, Karl Evangelista on guitar, John-Carlos Perea on electric bass, and Jimmy Biala on drums/percussion.

[Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]

The piece, composed by Jordan, was anchored by text relating to his experiences as an only child. The music was a mixture of scored and improvised material, and ranged from more luscious harmonic sections to fast virtuosic runs by Evangelista, Jordan and India Cooke. It was punctuated by quieter moments where the narrative text (read by Jordan) came to the front. Although there was improvisation mixed in, the music maintained a somewhat melancholy sound throughout. One of the more memorable elements came near the end, with a series of repeated “false cadences” with very idiomatic chords. After each repeat it built up more and added more improvised elements, eventually leading to a completely different section of more atonal sounds, before returning back to the harmonic cadence one more time.

[Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]

The final set featured Kyle Bruckmann’s Wrack and the world premier of Bruckmann’s …Awaits Silent Tristero’s Empire, a 2012 CMA New Jazz Works commission. This large-scale piece was inspired by the fiction of Thomas Pynchon, specifically three of his novels V., The Crying of Lot 49, and Gravity’s Rainbow. Bruckmann took cues from the many song and song-like elements in these novels, and his composition traverses just about every jazz idiom imaginable along with a variety of other song styles from the early and mid 20th century. Often these style quotes were quite humorous, especially when they took listeners by surprise.

[Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]

The music never stayed in one place for very long, but there were a couple of extended sections, including a fun one that featured trombonist Jeb Bishop displaying his talent in both traditional and extended techniques. Guest trumpeter Darren Johnston was featured in sections as well. Rounding out the ensemble were Jen Clare Paulson on viola, Jason Stein on bass clarinet, Anton Hatwich on string bass, and Tim Daisy on drums. The group made what was undoubtedly a very complex piece sound rhythmically and timbrally tight.

It was a musically impressive show, but also a very well-attended one with a packed house and possibly one of the highest attendance records for a Summit program. Now it time like to look forward to next year’s festival.