Con Works

The listening session on Monday evening convinced us that we indeed have something good with the ion Zoo recording from the Cellar. Listening to it on Lisa Miller's home stereo was helpful. The group sound was not as together as it sounded on Chris's studio monitors or in my car, which has a nice stereo system. I have yet to give it a listen at home where we have a decent stereo, or at Clyde's, who has a great system. The challenge is to get a mix that sounds good on all systems.

We seem to be inclined towards releasing it as a cd, but this is not a process to rush. One thing for sure is that we want to perform more with Lisa. We've got a couple of more dates already booked for coming months where there's a nice piano, so the opportunity will be there.

I visited Raymon Torchinsky yesterday to pick up some more recordings from subsequent Cellar gigs. He is a big booster of ion Zoo, so that is encouraging.

I'm writing this from a cafe in Seattle near where I'll be playing tonight. What can I say - either Homeland Security has totally failed or free jazz musicians are not yet on the watch list. I guess they are too busy listening in on America's phone conversations.

I think it's such a crock that it's not permitted to have a free flow of artists over the border. Certainly in the musical circles that I inhabit, it's not like there is a massive amount of money being sucked out of the Vancouver music scene by visiting Seattle musicians, or vice versa. There's a negligible amount of money involved at all. For my case, it has averaged out to gas money, perhaps covering accomodations occasionally. It's great that I have friends here where I can crash on a relatively comfortable bed for the night. But really, if I was into creative music for the money, then my motivation would be dead wrong from the get-go.

I come down here to play with Paul whenever possible because we've always created great music together. I figure we've played about a dozen gigs together in various configurations since we've first met and they've always been musically satisfying. He's a great player and a fine person, just the sort of musician that I prefer to spend my time with. Besides, my daughter loves him, and that is the litmus test. Her radar is way better than mine.

Tonight's show is with the Paul Rucker Large Ensemble, a group that he created two years ago directly out his experience at Banff. Driving down today, I listened to the cd of the initial concert we played at Earshot, the one that got so much acclaim. The opening tune in particular absolutely kicks ass, and the music is strong throughout.

We are back at Consolidated Works tonight to reprise that show. The event that brought this show about is rather unfortunate as it is being staged to mark Con Works' closing. I don't know the circumstances at this point, but I would bet that money is at the core. This place is about 30,000 square feet and it's in the Westlake area, fairly close to the Space Needle. It has been a multi-media artists' space with facilities for theatre, film, large scale installation art, music and a pretty cool lounge. I've been envious of not having such a great space in Vancouver, but now it's coming to an end. Judging from the fairly virulent anti-Republican material I seen there, it's a safe bet these guys haven't been getting a cent from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Time to get to the soundcheck...

I'm now finishing this post off back home in Vancouver.

The show went fairly well. Paul has often gotten funding from the City of Seattle to produce the Large Ensemble Concerts. But in this case, he was really doing it to honour Consolidated Works, and it was a door gig. Half of the people from the original show performed, about a dozen. The entire evening was improvised, rather than playing Paul's compositions and the first set went fairly well. Fairly early on in the second set, Paul starting having some fun and a general goofiness permeated the set, as evidenced by a deconstruction of Row Row Row Your Boat. The audience enjoyed it - perhaps it was just refreshing for them to see some avante-garde musicians not taking themselves too seriously onstage. At one point, the seriously talented guitarist Bill Horist struck a rock god guitar pose, placing his foot on the middle of my back for maximum effect. It was that sort of night. To be honest, it wasn't my favourite set that I've played with this band, nevertheless it was fun.

Best of all for me, I had the pleasure of playing with all of these guys 3 or sometimes 4 times now, and they're all great people. I'm sure more musical connections will evolve out of this. And they all want to come up to play in Vancouver, quite envious of the scene we have up here. And here I am thinking that Seattle is pretty great. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the world's longest undefended border, undefended at least for now.

I hit the road for home at midnight and ran nonstop to the border, then home for 2:15 am. By not taking any pee breaks, I was sufficiently uncomfortable to stay awake for the drive, but just barely. Then of course, I couldn't get to sleep at home.

So this morning was a bit rough, and it stayed that way for the day. By the end of of the afternoon, I had a short temper and just wanted to get the evening's gig over and done with. I arrived at the restaurant with instruments and PA system, but no charts. I've been playing Wanda's tunes enough by this point, so I did quite well from memory, aided by the odd peek at the bass book. I had been feeling fairly comfortable with the music lately and I know I should just ditch the charts. They're a bit of a crutch, but I really have a poor memory for chord changes.

I have a great wealth of arcane trivia that I can call up but something that really matters, like chord changes, elude me. What can I say - I'm lame.

On the whole, it ended up being a pretty good gig. The place was quite full of people and they really liked our performance.

So here I am pecking away at a keyboard rather than hitting the sack. Lame!