It was born quietly out of nothing. The room was black, lit only by a dull red glow at each table and spotlights on the empty stage. One man entered, casually slung an electric bass over his shoulder, played four notes, and stopped. And waited. And played them again. Another man entered with a cymbal in his arms. Four notes again. The cymbal was fixed to the drum set. Four notes again. Another entrance. Four notes. Hits from the drum set. Four notes. A fourth man entered, sat at the piano, and the band exploded into a heavy groove: bass churning, drums sizzling, piano shifting between harmonic shades as the front man alternated between manipulating his voice into a grinding electronic whine through a synthesizer and soaring above the cacophony on the reedy tone of his saxophone.
Amorphous, never stagnant, always fresh in its chameleon-like shifts between colors and textures. The drums and piano drift to double-time and back as the bass remains constant; the drums disintegrate into a totally incompatible tempo to which the bass and piano refuse to yield and they rip against each other like twisting steel until the drums suddenly snap back up to speed or the entire groove dissolves into a totally new landscape. Like the tide, the music comes in waves: first the lone bass, then suddenly the full force of all four musicians, then three draw back leaving the piano marooned, and some join and others drop out forming impromptu solos, duets, trios, quartet. Like a long conversation, as one musician drifts into a tangent the others effortlessly follow until an entirely new song has taken form and the original idea is not be revisited for a moment, an eternity, or ever.
No words are spoken, no introductions or explanations except the musicians’ names over a pounding beat before the final crescendo in the last moments. The first note is the start of an invisible journey, of the familiar presented unexpectedly and the unfamiliar synthesized in the moment, through scenes urban, country, tropical; of loneliness, romance, anguish, triumph.
And then, as unexpectedly as it began, it faded away never to exist again and the audience applauded and left and I truly felt I had witnessed the birth, life, and death of a man.
No comments:
Post a Comment