Sat 10/10 @ 9PM
Why do so many avant-garde/free jazz ensembles feature collaborations of musicians from not just different cities but different countries? It’s undoubtedly because the improvisational nature of the music doesn’t require rehearsal so much as strong musical grounding and understanding of the dynamics of the style, and the ability to “read” other musicians on the fly, as well as the fact that the community of players with the skill and inclination to play this type of music is small.
Swiss sax player Christoph Erb did spend some time in Chicago, which is one of the hubs of this type of music. He’s teamed up for his current tour with two other musicians with deep roots in the style: keyboard/synthesizer player Jim Baker who has played with adventurous musicians like Ken Vandermark and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and drummer Frank Rosaly who has worked with a couple of dozen groups as well as a solo project called Milkweed, featuring electronically manipulated percussion.
Cleveland-based promotion company New Ghosts, which is working hard to mark Cleveland a regular stop for this arcane type of music, is bringing the Erb/Baker/Rosaly trio to Mahall’s 20 Lanes, just ahead of the release of their new CD. (Not that that matters much: every performance in this genre is a one-time-only experience.)
Opening act will be a first-time collaboration between noted Cleveland modular synthesizer experimentalist Bbob Drake and Columbus’s Ben Bennett on extended technique percussion.
Tickets are $10.