MLK birthday bash

Man, that was fun.

Tonight was the debut of the duet with Steve Bambakidis, and I think it went really well. Got lots of compliments and inquiries, met a few new musicians, and learned a little about the Homer music scene.

It was a pretty last-minute affair. I met Jenny Martin at an adjunct orientation meeting for the college just over a week ago, and took her up on the offer to play at an open-mic type deal celebrating Dr. King's birthday, after meeting with Steve and floating the idea with him just this Wednesday. We garnered the second slot, 7.15-7.30, which meant that Cathy and Sabre could be there, and (as you'll see) that made me really happy. The venue was Alice's Champagne Palace, apparently a staple in Homer (it was my first time there) with a nice corner stage and an affable sound guy who was easy to work with. I was set up in no time and Steve even faster.

Instrumentation was Steve on 4-string bass guitar, straight into the board, and me on mandolin through an old DOD AcousTEC unit, which applied a smidge of delay, chorus and (most importantly) a notch filter for feedback. The AcousTEC then went straight into the board as well.

We came prepared to play three tunes, all substantially improvised. The first was John Coltrane's "Alabama", which is a C-minor vehicle featuring some very rubato, slow brooding statements followed by a beautiful and haunting chord sequence. (Cm9 - Cm7/G - Cm/D - Abmaj7 - Gm7 - Cm ... Abmaj7 - Bb - Cm) This is the tune I first thought of when I thought of doing something for Dr. King's birthday, and introduced the tune and its context with the statement, "this is for those who will not go to the back of the bus". Given that we had covered the tune together perhaps four times previously, I thought it came off rather well, and we were even reasonably together on the ending chord sequence, which has a lot of blank space in it.

The next tune was based on a really neat bass riff Steve started playing the first time I met with him. The riff (which dresses up alternating C and G chords, with a turnaround of D-E-C) is busy enough, and sounds good enough on its own, that my task as decorator is to make sure that what I do does not detract from what he's doing. We developed a cool unison line for one of his thematic statements, and then I improvised chord decorations (mostly light brushes) a couple of countermelodies, and some scattered note-cluster decorations. I hope we continue using it as a staple, as it's really pretty (a nice contrast to my typical gravitation toward minor modes) and I continue to learn about what to do with it the more we play it. It seemed to go over well, although I definitely had some hesitations that I want to work through.

The third "prepared" tune was another Bambakidis bass riff, this one moving from an alternating Dm - G cadence up to a surprise D major, which sounds really good with a back-cycled A7 immediately preceding the D. (Think I remembered that at speed? Ha! I remembered it just about as we finished up.) I did a lot of chord brushing interspersed with some single-note decoration and even a couple of double stops that were mostly intentional. (One harmony that worked particularly well, against the Dm - G sequence, was Bm7 - G/B.) The audience, bless 'em, seemed to be right with us--watching some of the later acts I think that we held their attention more directly than anyone I saw tonight, so there appears to be hope for improvised music in Homer!

At this point we still had some time left and they encouraged us to play something else, so I warned folks we were going to make this one up on the spot, turned to Steve and said, "what about G minor?" He grinned and came up with an ostinato on the spot, and we were off. Cathy later told me that there was more energy in the last "piece" than in the entire rest of our set, and I'm not surprised. (I had just joked with her not two days previously that I seem to have much more confidence in my own playing when I'm not trying to make it sound like anything scripted, and you can hear it.) I started interacting with what Steve was doing and then ranged all over G minor and harmonic minor (love that major seventh), with lots of different phrasings...Steve was right there with me, even coming up into lead a couple times when I would throw in some chords to contrast the single-note stuff.

It was about at this point that I noticed that Sabre was walking (with only a little of Mom's help) right up to the front of the stage to see Dad.

As far as I remember, Steve and I never broke stride as I knelt down and engaged my 13-month old daughter with the same sort of improv that I've done for her since she was born. (No way I could have done that trying to play a scripted tune. No way. But I was fine, improvising. Weird.) Talk about making my day!

We finished up and the audience really seemed to dig it. That was a charge. (Got a lot of approving comments about hearing some "different" music in Homer. This encourages me greatly.)

Subsequent acts included more traditional stuff; my own favorite act of the night was the tap-dancer. She actually gave a little history of tap as she demonstrated it; both Steve and I were really impressed with her presentation, and when I went to congratulate her afterward I jokingly told her that I'd suggested to Steve that we recruit her to work with us as a "drummer"...

...and she was into the idea.

She had not seen us perform, and I made sure she understood that we were doing mostly improv and possibly odd time signatures, so this really surprised me. Steve was floored when I told him this and showed him her card. (I ran into her while she was talking to the director of the Homer campus, who was discussing her teaching tap as an adjunct.) We'll see what happens of course, but I think it might be really cool to have an act featuring mandolin, bass and tap percussion. Improvised.

I guess that qualifies as another "Homer moment".

In all, a highly satisfying evening. Lots of smiles, fewer nerves than I'm accustomed to, that priceless moment with Sabre, and the possibility of working with another improviser. Nice!

I really enjoy working with Steve. He's very gracious with musical space, easy to communicate with, responds well to what I seem to do and enjoys taking risks. He's got the same sort of aesthetic and aspirations, which is a real plus with work and family considerations. And he's a great player too--I think I'm only seeing the tip of the iceberg thus far.

In short, he'd fit in really well with the group of fantastic folks I miss so much back in Colorado. (Dave C, when you get a chance to come visit, I can now say I've found someone here who would be more than happy to work with "those weird Crafty guys". He even seems keen to work with me on Chlorinated Duck! :-)

Here's to as much more of this as I can manage.