Pandelis Karayorgis Trio / Julia Werntz / Eric Moe — Climbing To Sleep (Driff)
Photo of Pandelis Karayorgis by Stephen Malagodi / Photo of Eric Moe by Ross Mantle
The equal temperament tuning system is so ubiquitous in contemporary western music that when one hears differently tuned sounds, they may seem wrong or alien. But in fact, they’re simply vibrating at different frequencies. This recording involves the convergence of differing frequencies, both personal and musical. Julia Werntz teaches and composes microtonal music; if you’re learning about that topic in New England, you’ve probably taken one of her courses. Pandelis Karayorgis is a pianist, composer, improviser, and music teacher. He and Werntz once took the same course in microtonal composition and performance at the New England Conservatory in the late 1980s. They were also married around that time. They went in separate directions, both personally and musically, but their common interest in microtonality reunites them on Climbing To Sleep.
Karayorgis has operated in the realm of jazz. He has led bands, in which he plays conventionally tuned pianos, and co-led the label Driff with Jorrit Dijkstra. For this project, he, bassist Nate McBride, and drummer Randy Peterson recorded their interpretations on Werntz’s “Capricious Nocturnal Variations,” which they realized with a microtonal keyboard and a piano in equal temperament, as well as several pieces by Karayorgis that use the same instrumentation. In the middle of the album is classical pianist Eric Moe’s performance of the piece, once more on a microtonal keyboard. The album seems to trace an asymmetrical arc, diving deep into Werntz’s tone world and then pulling up and out of it near the end. But if you look at the composing credits, you’ll see that Werntz actually composed the second equal temperament piece, which also finishes the album, and that five of the trio performances were written by Karayorgis.
The trio approaches microtonal music with unsentimental respect. They’re not solely committed to the tuning’s mildly mind-altering effects; their allegiances to instant creation and a swinging rhythmic foundation also come into play. Karayorgis’ playing in this setting is a bit sparer than it usually is when playing his own music, but having an equal temperament piano on hand permits him to bulk up the sound as needed. McBride takes to this auditory environment with preternatural comfort. He sluices through Peterson’s ever-changing patterns and timbres like an otter sluicing through fast flowing water. But he also roots Karayorgis, spiking the pianist’s elaborations upon line and harmonic with a muscular throb. They successfully reconcile a keyboard language that stretches back to Andrew Hill and Bill Evans with the unusual contours of microtonality.
Moe’s performance of Werntz’s piece has an entirely different sense of motion, equally purposeful but ungrounded; it’s as though the music hovers just above the ground, affording the listener a vantage point to perceive its funhouse shapes and interlocking joints. Its place in the middle of the album asserts the centrality of Werntz’s tuning concerns, just as the trio’s interpretations demonstrate its malleability.
Rep. McNerney Introduces Bill to Spur Veterans’ Entrepreneurship
Washington – In an effort to help veterans maximize their broad skill set off the battlefield, and navigate the tricky field of startups and entrepreneurial opportunities, Congressman Jerry McNerney (CA-09) has introduced the Strengthening Technical Assistance, Resources, and Training to Unleash the Potential of Veterans (STARTUP Vets) Act of 2016. This legislation would connect veterans aspiring…
winter storm = working from home again = time for listenings.
Rob Mazurek Octet - Skull Sessions [2013]
Jeff Parker/Nels Cline/Nate McBride/Frank Rosaly - Turning Point: Live @ The Empty Bottle 2005
On FIllmore - Sleeps With Fishes [2004]
Rob Mazurek - Calma Gente [2010]
DKV Trio - Baraka [1997]
Exploding Star Orchestra - We are all from somewhere else. [2007]
White Denim - Takes Place in Your Work Space (EP) [2011]
Slint - Spiderland [1991]
Neneh Cherry & The Thing - The Cherry Thing [2012]
The Whistler’s Relax Attack Jazz Series is kicking off a month-long residency featuring Bootstrap, a new group led by drummer Frank Rosaly. Every Tuesday in June—beginning tonight—Rosaly will be joined by Mars Williams (sax), Jim Baker (piano, synthesizer) and Nate McBride (bass), playing material based on anthems and music of rebellion, from Andres Jimenez to Max Roach. Rosaly describes the inception of the project as an attempt to connect improvisational strategies of the Chicago avant-garde scene with melodies and rhythms abstracted from Puerto Rican traditions:
“Over the last several years, I have been studying bomba and plena music of Puerto Rico as a means to further connect with my heritage. After the conception of another group of mine which focuses on integrating my experiences as an improvising experimental musician with the traditions of bomba, plena, jibaro and seis called ¡todos de pie! (everybody stand up!), I had compiled a lot of transcribed music from the island. Bootstrap is a smaller group, and that will allow us to explore some of these melodies, rhythms and song forms (which I have abstracted) in a free-jazz informed setting. Using these melodies/anthems as springboards for improvisations, these anthems also help regroup for the next improvisation. Though much of the tunes are original compositions, the themes and anthems act as connective tissue throughout the set.”
Rosaly’s stint with Bootstrap continues The Whistler’s residency program—which has included groups led by Rob Mazurek, Josh Berman, and Jason Adasiewicz—as a vehicle for some of Chicago’s most ambitious jazz and improvisational artists to develop new material in the context of a lively crowd, full of spirited conversation and (of course) cocktail shaking.
Tonight at The Whistler: The Relax Attack Jazz Series presents The Engines.
The Engines is a collaborative quartet founded in the spring of 2005. The group began as trio, featuring several mainstays of the Chicago improvised music scene: Dave Rempis on saxophones, Nate McBride on bass, and Tim Daisy on drums. In the spring of 2006, trombonist Jeb Bishop was added to the group for one concert. The dynamic of this lineup worked so well that Bishop immediately became a regular member of the band.
All of these musicians have distinguished themselves as leaders with their own groups, but formed this band to purposely shirk that duty in favor of a more equal musical relationship that better reflects the nature of their improvisations. Each member contributes original compositions, providing a wide range of expression from high energy jousting over driving bass vamps to quieter moments of melodic exploration. With McBride on both acoustic and electric bass, the band can explore some of the sonic textures associated with the early AACM, or launch into hard-hitting Zeppelin-like grooves, and they use this range of possibilities to its fullest.
In the fall of 2007, their first self-titled CD was released on Bruno Johnson’s Okkadisk imprint. The group toured the US and Canada in December of that year, and followed up with a European tour in the fall of 2008. Their second release, Wire and Brass, was a live recording made at Chicago’s Hungry Brain in April of 2008, and released by Okkadisk in February of 2010. The above track was recorded at that same concert, but does not appear on the album.
The Relax Attack Jazz Series showcases The Whistler's vision for presenting Chicago's top jazz artists in a lively atmosphere, full of cocktail-shaking and spirited conversation. Relax Attack: Tuesdays at The Whistler.
