Sound pressure

Saturday turned out to be a very full day so I've ended up writing my latest installment on Sunday morning.

I ended up feeling totally invigorated from the Friday night recording session, so the next morning the creative juices were flowing. We had the whole day off until 3:00pm when we had to the sound check for the evening concert. I had only two objectives: get a lot of work done on my composition and practise the rough parts for the performance. That was one goal too many as it turned out.

The first thing I did was to gain access to the percussion room and start working on some marimba patterns. I played the basic pattern from the Steve Reich score that I studied. I'm no mallet percussionist - it's one thing to play the pattern a couple of times, but to keep it up for 20 minutes or so when all of these other sounds are being created, real and perceived, well that's another thing. The Reich patterns were a good launching point but what they didn't have was a close connection to clave. Again, in the hands of a skilled percussionist, just a slight shift in how the pattern was accented would have immediately changed that.

I've talked with our drummers and though they can play mallets, neither of them considers himself that proficient. And I want to add at least Marianne and our guitar player Marc on marimba as well. I'll have two people on each marimba, and another person playing my pandeiro, the Brazilian version of the tambourine. That means I have to keep each individual part simple, so there is a quick learning curve. My aim is that once all five layers are played simultaneously, it will sound very complex. I don't think that phasing effect will be created but it would be cool if it happened.

I don't know if I can really explain clave in a paragraph, but for those who are not familiar with latin music, it's the basic rhythmic pattern that underlies most of the music, salsa and bossa nova being two prime examples. It's usually a short two-bar pattern, most clearly heard when it's played on two hardwood sticks, also know as claves.

About a year and a half ago, I asked John Korsrud if he had heard any improvisatory music built out of the latin tradition and he couldn't recite a clear example. It's often been said "Don't fuck with clave." Serious latin players know it's a very sacred and deep tradition. My friend Patrick Dubois has written a couple of essays about it - this is heavy stuff to be messing with.

But in my typical behaviour, I believe there are no sacred cows, and hopefully Chucho won't be offended if he hears my piece and send out a Cuban death squad. I'm sure he has a direct line to Fidel Castro, so nothing's out of the question.

So I ended up spending most of my free time on Saturday working on my piece and conceptually completed things. I also got a number of marimba patterns down on paper, so I was well on my way. One of our drummers, Karl Schwonik, was practising in the room next door, so he was able to play a bit for me so I could hear the two most basic patterns together. That's when I discovered that he has a surround sound 5.1 system set up in his practise room, with the sound centred on his drum throne. Brilliant! And we will be able to listen to the playback of our recording session!

In the end, I had about a half an hour in total to practise for the evening show. I was just able to go over the roughest spots in the Love Supreme suite, and gave up on nailing the fast flute part on Mambo Influenciado. It's something I'll work on when I return to Vancouver, so I can play it with the Wanda Nowicki Group, probably as an instrumental before she sings.

The sound rehearsal went relatively smoothly. It's always a compromise situation in a large theatre with a 24-piece band. Not everyone can be pleased with the onstage sound quality, but there was minimal time spent messing with monitor mixes, which can be tedious.

In no time at all, it was time to play the show, and I knew I was as ready as I was meant to be. My only real concern was to do Love Supreme justice - it's such a monumental work in jazz.

The whole show went very well. This orchestra has come together extremely quickly and I feel that everyone is very compatible with one another. The overall level of the musicianship is very high, not to demean any of the previous editions of the orchestra, as each one has been excellent in its own way. I knew the concert would be good, but in the end, it exceeded my expectations. Mostly, it was a really high level of excitement that the band generated, so that there was a real uplifting effect on the listener. That's a damn good reason to go out to hear live music, and something that Hugh very actively and intelligently pursues.

Love Supreme went quite well, and Hugh set the bar very high with his impassioned piano playing. I felt that I held up my end of the deal - definitely the other tenor players Jon Stewart and Mike Ruby are great soloists. I just played from my heart and did my best to convey what Coltrane meant for me. I am the free jazz guy here, so that's what I do best when it comes to playing with passion, which is one thing that Trane had in spades. It wasn't a total freakout on my part and hopefully it will sound good on the recording.

The final piece of the night was a McCoy Tyner composition called The Man from Tanganyika, very African in a 12/8 feel. He opened this piece up and did a set piece for the ending. During the extended drum solo near the end, the trumpets all left the stage. Hugh has often ended such pieces with the members of the band leaving the stage one by one, ending with a pulse-like drum beat. But in this case the trumpeters all ran back around to the entrances to the theatre. The walked down the stairs through the audience, all soloing. Somewhere in transit, they acquired trumpet legend Jens Lindeman who was visiting, so this killing group of nine or ten trumpets (I lost count, and Reno won't let me turn around to count them) were all blowing their brains out. Mike Herriott and Jens were on opposite sides and they were definitely going toe to toe at the very top of their range, full blast. They were playing so high, there was probably a pack of dogs amassing outside the theatre. The total effect was incredibly loud and thrilling, but mercifully didn't go on forever.

When the rest of the band came back in with the melody to end the piece, the effect of the sound pressure was very evident to me. It was the same repressurization on my ears as when I am decending after a long flight. The rest of the orchestra sounded distant and a bit muffled for a few seconds until our ears readjusted to normal sound levels. And then we were done.

I went to the after party for a while - it was worth taking in the vintage videos of Earth, Wind & Fire that Hugh was showing on the projection TV, then called it a night relatively early. I have a lot of work to do on Sunday as it is the day I must complete my piece.