The Ironworks hosted Michael Bates last night, showcasing his Outside Sources release with Quinsin Nachoff, Russ Johnson, and Jeff Davis. The venue was great, Michael was disarmingly charming on stage and his backup was technically impressive. Unfortunately, my stylistic tastes seem to be outdated.
Michael gave us an idea of how everything fell into place while organizing the tour by describing the chaotic travel itineraries that his backup had to endure. All these guys were at either end of a 12 hour flight to various European destinations with high culture.
Acoustically, these guys were pushing my boundaries. This is something that I can appreciate intellectually, academically and artistically. The complexity of both the music’s inspiration (often Michael’s favourite writers or personal experiences) and it its resulting manifestation were both theoretically and technically impressive. We had complex discordant harmonies on top with fast runs and a massive dynamic range with the two horns. The drummer had fantastic independence and varied his tools from sticks, to brushes to mallets and hands while Michael on his abbreviated travel bass added the drive. All of this was obviously well arranged and well rehearsed.
That being said, I found my only avenue to the music was an intellectual one. I couldn’t dig the chaotic harmonies or busy style any other way. With no pianist or guitarist to flesh out the middle ranges, it was like the horns were flying high on the brash overly spiked peaks of the mountainous drumming and rockout simple but rythmicaly sophisticated bass licks. These guys obviously could swap from 3/4 to 26/89 without skipping a beat. But, man, that kind of stylistic chaos only resolves to meaning by it’s counterpoint with simplicity and melody. I kept hoping for the sunrise of melody – like the Bad Plus do well – but they never gave it to me.
I understand that music is a give and take from musician to audience as much as any non-verbal means of communication. And there are means of effective communication. I might be uneducated, because these guys are obviously way better musician’s than me both technically and financially, but I had to keep a wall securely up between me and the music in order to appreciate it. That’s ineffectual communication if you ask me.
Photo by Scott Friedlander
Tags: music