The duo trip with Nate continued in New York at the Winter Jazz Fest, performing on a bill with 4 other acts in a situation that was something of a showcase so groups could present their work to various national and international presenters. The concert took place at Judson Church, in their theater space, a large expansive room. I last played with Nate in the New York area at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, a somewhat similar space, but the feeling at that concert was much more intimate, more connected with the audience overall. The music of the group that played before us was usually slower in tempo and pretty, so I suggested to Nate that we shift our set list so that John Carters, And She Speaks, a beautiful and introspective composition, wasnt the first piece; it made sense to start with a more aggressive tune and we began with Nates, Best Coast. For me, the concert was another lesson in the fact that no matter how often I play, Ill be dealing with performance situations that are confounding. There was no soundcheck for the show, the equipment for the previous set was taken from the stage and Nate and I brought our instruments and music up and then we more or less started our gig. Thats when I found out that the lighting situation made it nearly impossible to see my music, so I had to spend much of the first piece trying to figure out where to stand so I wouldnt be cast a solid black shadow on the score and still keep in range of the microphone. Having Nate on left side instead of right, the bell of his trumpet too far ahead of my ears (set up evenly means his horn is in front of me) were also unexpected issues. All were added distractions to fight which, based on experience, I should have considered before. Overall the performance went well, and by the 2nd half of the set I felt that I had compensated for the added interference running against my concentration and was able to focus more clearly on interacting with Nate and executing the written material. Other than playing, the best part of the night for me was being able to talk to the guys who run the Copenhagen Jazz House and thank them for standing up to the attacks against their current programming coming from people who want to put jazz back into some non-existing time capsule that codifies the melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, and structural aspects of the music in ways that have never existed. https://youtube/watch?v=H3TqEr9eri0
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 21:55:34 +0000
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