Roscoe Mitchell & Joseph Jarman in L.A. 10/08

[RDK]

Rare west coast appearance. I'll be there - looking forward to it!

http://www.soundnet.org/sound/2006/september.shtml

[Adam]

Rare west coast appearance. I'll be there - looking forward to it!

http://www.soundnet.org/sound/2006/september.shtml

I'm bummin' that i'll be missing it, but I'm filming a medevac mission and will be in Iraq this Sunday.

Should be great. I imagine the Ford Amphitheatre will have lots of empty seats though!

[RDK]

Yeah, I'm real curious how many (few?) will show up.

Iraq? Stay safe, Adam!

[Adam]

How was it?

I'm back in DC - at the Holiday Inn near Dulles, actualy, with about 4 hours of sleep in the last 48, and some 32 hours in flying planes over the last 3 days, cancelled flights, lots of times waiting for military planes, and two hours in day time on the air strip in Balad, Iraq. No shelling or shooting going on. We filmed one medevac flight off loading at Ramstein, germent, with 4 critical care patients and about 15 others in various states. Then we caught the next medevac flight (leaving at 5 am, after the one we were supposed to take at 7 pm was canceled due to a break down), and picked up 1 critical care and also about 15 others, maybe more. Some were ambulatory. One had bad burns but was walking. One person was a cook who had just been near a bomber. One was a guy who had taken a shot in his left shoulder & upper arm, had a brace on, and was in a lot of pain.

Balad was hot, sunny dry & flat. A fire going on in the distance and circling helicopters as well. Saw a C-5 plane with its nose & tail open for the first time.

The medical personnel and flight crews on both planes (the one we were supposed to take, and the one we did take), were open, professional, friendly.

I haven't processed it all.

[Adam]

RDK or anyone else, did you go?

[RDK]

Hey Adam -

Yeah, I did go (sorry; missed your earlier post). Surprisingly big crowd - bigger than i expected at least, though quite a few seemed to leave between sets.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect since I'm not a great fan of solo (or duo) sax improv, especially the more avantgarde stuff that sounds like "two seagulls fucking" ©. But the only sax of that sort came from Roscoe Mitchell, whose solo set consisted of three long pieces that was (mostly) the kind of screeching that I generally don't care for. Some of it was intersting, of course, and his circular breathing technique was amazing to behold. My friend Chris likes that stuff more than I do, and he enjoyed that part of the program much more that I.

Jarman really surprised me and I dug his solo set, though he was often accompanied by a younger (local?) kid on soprano and guitar. He sung a lot, too, at least if you go by a very liberal definition of "singing." But I love that sort of raw, world music-y stuff. He spoke to the audience quite a bit and seemed a very warm and extremely spiritual man. Two of his (short) pieces, btw, were Dylan's "Wicked Messenger" and the Beatles "Within You Without You." Cool!

The second set was one long improv between Jarman and Mitchell, which had both performing percussion - first together, then individually while the other solo'd. I liked this part quite a bit, too, though the repetitiveness of the rhythm was a bit tiresome after 45 minutes or so. They didn't play drums, but some sort of (African?) mini-vibes/glockenspiel instrument. This part of the performance reminded me very much of the AEC.

Overall, I'm much more familiar with Mitchell's work than Jarman's and tend to prefer Mitchell, but in this setting Jarman appealed to me more. My friend Chris, on the other hand, prefered Mitchell's solo performance, so mileage does indeed vary.