By
Keith Prosk
Big Ears is an annual music festival occurring in Knoxville, Tennessee that
took place March 21-24 this year, which marked the 10th anniversary of the
festival. Big Ears was developed by Ashley Capps, who has also developed
several other music and arts festivals in the American South, including
Bonnaroo. Curation for the festival is ubiquitously praised for its
diversity in the face of increasing homogeneity in mainstream American
music festivals. And rightfully so! Established and rising acts from the
realms of classical performance, improvised musics, left-field rock and
techno, international folk musics, and others typically fill the bill. I
will note that the improvised music curation tends to lean heavily towards
ECM, International Anthem, and other popular acts like Kamasi Washington,
Shabaka Hutchings, and Colin Stetson. As well as the performances I cover
below, I caught (somewhat in order of fondness) a pipe organ concert from
Kara-Lis Coverdale, Meredith Monk with a vocal ensemble performing
Cellular Songs, This Is Not This Heat, Jlin, Mountain Man, a
performance of Arvo Pärt’s
Passio with the local St. John’s choir,
Max Jaffe, Avey Tare, the Carla Bley trio, and Mercury Rev. And there were
about twice as many performances that I wish I could’ve seen.
Which brings us to the logistics of the festival, which are not as stellar
as the bill. Capps got his start organizing performances in Knoxville, and
Big Ears is as much an ode to the resurging downtown economy and culture as
it is to the music. So several performances are scheduled across more than
a dozen downtown venues simultaneously. Though every venue is within a
short walk, venue capacities and queues make attending a performance a
commitment; if you wish to eat some of the exquisite local fare, ducking
into a cafe or restaurant will likely cost catching a performance.
Additionally, schedule conflicts seem like a method of crowd control;
particularly frustrating situations included scheduling Susie Ibarra and
Tomeka Reid/Nicole Mitchell, the two premier improvising performances of
the entire day, at the same time, or, after billing the Columbia Icefield
quartet in the morning, scheduling Nate Wooley solo and Thumbscrew at the
same time that afternoon (people that enjoyed the former would likely want
to see both the latter). Big Ears also features several thought-provoking
panels featuring musicians discussing topics such as “Answering the Bach
Cello Suites,” “Sound and Spatiality,” “Women in Music,” or “Sound and
Silence,” but I was only able to attend one of these due to schedule
conflicts. The wonderful diversity of the bill would be better served by
something in between its current state and the linear scheduling of No Idea
or Vision, where you’re able to witness the entire program. The festival
passes are also expensive compared to most festivals. This was my first
time attending the festival and I decided upon a VIP pass because I wanted
greater guarantees that I would not be affected by venue capacity and be
able to see the shows I wanted to see. The actual added value of the VIP
pass is greater advance notice of surprise performances, seating at most
venues, and some great food and drink towards the beginning and end of the
festival. But the seating at every non-theatre venue was always largely
blocked by the standing general admission crowd. If you attend Big Ears, I
highly suggest the premier pass, which nets you the same entry guarantees
as the VIP pass and is a greater value until they develop some real VIP
perks.
However, despite vexing schedule conflicts, the relatively high expense,
and several smaller logistical oddities and frustrations, I do suggest you
attend, if able. Every year, Big Ears presents a weekend of enriching
performances from diverse styles that you’d be hard-pressed to find in
combination anywhere else in the world. I intend to return next year.
Here’s some impressions of some improvised performances from this year.
Yunohana Variations with YoshimiO, Susie Ibarra, and Robert Aiki Aubrey
Lowe
Susie Ibarra (percussion), YoshimiO (percussion, keyboard, voice; most
famously of Boredoms and OOIOO), and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (voice,
electronics; most famously of Om, Singer, and Lichens) seemed to improvise
on the general structures and ambiance documented on 2018’s
Flower of Sulphur. Ibarra’s effortless, dexterous virtuosity is
awe-inspiring. She fluidly transitions from brushes to mallets to sticks to
hands, bells, gongs, chains, and from textural extended techniques to
discrete percussion. YoshimiO is mostly big bass kicks and booming toms
recalling the austerity of taiko drumming, with occasional, playful
keyboard explorations and a voice like warped air above fire. Together,
they create a rich, polyrhythmic soundscape that Lowe compliments with his
solid range of vocal techniques and digital rain and waves. Ibarra and
YoshimiO exchanged smiles in the middle of the performance, highlighting
just how much fun this performance was.
Alien Flower Sutra (Rob Mazurek/Emmett Kelly)
Rob Mazurek (electronics, cornet) and Emmett Kelly (guitar, voice) play
around the general structures and ambiance of 2016’s
Alien Flower Sutra. This performance walked too close to the
recording for my taste, but the delicate, detached emotivity of the
recording - recalling Sparklehorse or Grouper - was still present and
effective.
Evan Parker/Matt Wright/Mark Nauseef/Adam Linson/Ned Rothenberg/Paul
Lytton Trance Map +
Trance Map + is a project between Evan Parker (tenor saxophone) and Matt
Wright (electronics, turntable) and they were joined by Mark Nauseef
(percussion), Adam Linson (contrabass), Ned Rothenberg (contrabass
clarinet, shakuhachi), and Paul Lytton (percussion). The Schlippenbach Trio
was originally scheduled to perform but Alexander von Schlippenbach didn’t
receive his visa in time, so this ensemble performed twice across two days.
Lytton and Nauseef use extended techniques on an array of traditional and
non-traditional objects to create a dynamic soundspace around the baseline
of Linson’s arco, though Linson will occasionally break off into plucked
ventures. The twin snakes of Rothenberg and Parker entwine each other and
this soundspace with timbrally-rich drones and their characteristic,
blistering, breathless multiphonic lines punctuated by key clicks, chirps,
and tongue slaps. Wright accents the communal effort but also appears to
modulate the players in a way similar to Parker’s Electroacoustic Ensemble.
The two sets were brimming with subtle dynamics but this is the gist of
each.
Evan Parker & Ned Rothenberg
This was a surprise performance (at a venue with very little capacity) and
one of my favorite sets of the festival, perhaps justifying the VIP pass
for the advance notice. Rothenberg traded in the shakuhachi for a B♭
clarinet, and they played five discrete improvisations rather than the
continuous sets of Trance Map +, with two duos, a solo each, and a final
duo. What this duo does is the same as it ever was (see description above)
but it’s always entrancing.
Monkey Puzzle and
Live at Roulette live but how can you not experience pure joy in
their timbral nuances? A part of me wished that Parker would’ve whipped out
his soprano sax but I can’t complain. Particular highlights include
Rothenberg’s contrabass clarinet swiftly switching from nimble multiphonics
to a titanic didgeridoo drone, Parker’s sense of humor in between playing,
Rothenberg rocking in his wooden chair during his solo to inadvertently add
a fourth or fifth line of sound, and Parker and Rothenberg accidentally
playing about ten consecutive notes harmonically on the last duo before
ripping away from each other as if in embarrassment.
Columbia Icefield
Nate Wooley (trumpet), Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar), Mary Halvorson
(electric guitar), and Ryan Sawyer (drums) perform the three Wooley
compositions from 2019’s
Columbia Icefield. The more easily
audible differences between the recording and this performance were a
particularly fiery interplay between Alcorn and Halvorson and some
delectably wild improvisations from Alcorn. I’ll review the recording later
this year with more depth.
Nate Wooley
Another one of my favorite sets. Wooley performed two compositions; one
from Éliane Radigue’s Occam Ocean series and one co-composed with Annea
Lockwood called “Becoming Air.” Whereas
Columbia Icefield
demonstrates the more musical mastery of Wooley, thinking performances like
this (or recordings like
Syllables) are where I believe Wooley is
really expanding the language of the trumpet. In the first piece, Wooley
begins at the threshold of sound but only emits air notes until the
smallest sound squeaks out. He then puts on a mute for a low-volume hum,
statically holding the valves and modulating the pitch with largely just
breath. He places a small piece of sheet metal against the mute and the
resonance causes a multiphonic metallic shimmer that increases in volume
until he pauses again. He continues to play with silence, volume, and
modulation through breath alone until spending the last minutes of the
performance playing a continuous low-volume pitch while rotating in a
semicircle, all very reminiscent of Michel Doneda. For the second piece,
Wooley performed several timbral acts, separated by gong hits, such as
blowing across the disconnected tubing and mouthpieces of the trumpet like
end-blown flutes, a metallic roar with sheet metal pressed against the
horn, multiphonic gurgling and bubbling and breathy notes, a loud drone
with a mic’d up horn, and a long, low-volume pitch while pointed skyward.
An excellent performance by an excellent performer that really explores the
nooks and crannies of the trumpet’s timbral possibilities.
Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn
Vijay Iyer (piano) and Craig Taborn (piano) were set up in a kind-of
yin-yang formation. Iyer wore black; Taborn wore white. Their Steinways
were set up next to each other with the curvature fitted like puzzle
pieces. Logistically this show was great because the piano cover in front
was removed to allow a better view, and the performers switched sides in
the middle of the set so those seated close enough to see their hands could
see both performer’s hands. There was more energy and fire here than on
their recording from this year,
The Transitory Poems. Both took
some time inside the piano, both had a few fast complex polyrhythmic
flights, and both played to the low-end resonance of two pianos so close
together, at times creating thunder.
Irreversible Entanglements
A mighty blowing session, with Keir Neuringer (alto saxophone) at times
channeling Brötzmann or Gustafsson and Aquiles Navarro (trumpet) spiraling
into and out of control with him like Kramer & Smith of the MC5. With a
swinging backbone of Luke Stewart (bass) and Tcheser Homes (drums)
constantly shifting and locking in to a funky punk forward drive. And Camae
Ayewa’s (Moor Mother’s) poetry on the recent and also ever-present police
brutality in America and inhumanities of Flint. This is what the phrase
“fire music” conjures up. Politically relevant enough to actually be
capital Free Jazz.
The Art Ensemble of Chicago
Roscoe Mitchell and Famoudou Don Moye were joined by an orchestra of
performers too long to list (and I apologize to the trombonist cut off in
the picture), though I was particularly pleased to see at least Jean Cook
(violin) and Tomeka Reid (cello) join them. The ensemble performed eight
pieces, five of which were more-traditionally orchestral conductions with
the other three being freer, more rhythmic collective improvisations. I
can’t recall a single performer that didn’t shine but especial highlights
include Reid constantly complimenting the ensemble, floating into and out
of space comfortably, plucking, bowing, always a joy to watch and hear, and
Mitchell, who began soloing in one piece so haggardly that you feared he’d
lost it, until it gradually transformed into an extended,
circularly-breathed, multiphonic solo as transcendent as a sunrise.
