Gig: The Element Choir

The Element Choir (William Parker / Lewis, Downing & Martin)

Christ Church Deer Park. Tuesday, March 2, 2010.

I know I've strolled by Christ Church Deer Park, just north of St. Clair on Yonge, no few times. But like many houses of worship, it would be a secular concert that would draw me inside. Heading down to this show — a triple-disc release celebration for Barnyard Records — was a last-minute kind of decision for me. Ticketless, I got there in pretty good time, and ended up with a spot nearly right up front. Which turned out to be not only a good spot to hear the music, but to see "music witness" Jeff Schlanger, who has creating action paintings of the artists in real time. His vivid watercolours conveyed the excitement and the movement of these improving musicians.

Meanwhile, there was a big crowd filling in around me.¹ The church was larger than I was expecting, and there was room for more than a couple hundred people underneath the high, arched roof, looking like the hull of an overturned ship protecting the congregation. With a large stage and the giant pipe organ, both of which would be put to use later on, this was a particularly suitable venue for this show.

To start, however, the stage looked relatively barren as Lewis, Downing & Martin took the stage, playing a short jazz set. Their improvisation was "free" and played with each of the instruments — trumpet, double bass, drums — as equals. Starting with a fanfare from Jim Lewis's trumpet, and a response from Andrew Downing on bass, they explored a groove for a few minutes before things settled down to Downing's bowing and again the others responded, Lewis playing in the higher register. The music was unforced, allowing as much sonic space between their parts as there was physical space between them on the stage. Their first piece proceeded for about fifteen minutes and was followed by a second, shorter one of about five minutes, proceeding along a slower, more meditative line. To my surprise, that was the end of their set — enjoyable stuff that could have gone on longer.

Listen to an excerpt from this set here.

I cannot say I knew of William Parker before reading up on this concert, but some quick browsing showed some impressive connections — associated with Cecil Taylor, a member of David S. Ware and Peter Brötzmann's groups — so I was intrigued, though somewhat unsure at the thought of a solo bass set. It turned out to be well worth seeing, though Parker's work in this vein might be more suited to witnessing in person than home listening. To hear his music in a rich acoustic space and to witness the physicality with which he played surely made this a notable experience.

To my ears, his métier was closer to avant-garde classical music than, say, bop — which is to say that it was underlaid with, if not atonality, then something outside an easy harmonic tunefulness.² Parker played with bow for most of the set, but given his tremendous dexterity, he would also sometimes be plucking strings with his upper hand even while bowing. With a continuous internal logic, he played for about twenty-five minutes, and it was pretty gripping throughout. The energy that was flowing through him was well-captured by Jeff Schlanger's painting, shown at the top of this post.

Having seen The Element Choir a couple times before, I had a good idea of what the basic shape of the performance would be like going in. But this was different by a whole order of magnitude. There was a larger complement of choir members, for one thing — around sixty on the stage, although I didn't get an exact count. Plus, the evening's earlier performers were joined by Eric Robertson, playing the church's giant pipe organ. As always, the Choir was under the gifted direction of Christine Duncan, conducting the wholly improvised set with a series of gestures. It started with a small number of voices, Duncan selecting a few people to create an almost chatter-like background. Then the pipe organ kicked in, and William Parker's bass as well after a bit. The choir slowly increased in sound in what I always think of as that 2001 journey-through-the-monolith effect. Jim Lewis and Jean Martin kicked in with a groove which seemed to pull us to the other side, and the choir faded as Parker and Andrew Downing played a brief duet.

And onwards, each — ahem — element on stage playing off the others, all of it making glorious use of the space, which allowed for a wide dynamic range of quiet interludes and explosive outbursts. There was even a delightful moment of contingency when a fire truck raced up Yonge street outside, and as the noise faded, Duncan made a whirling gesture that the choir took up with their own siren noise in response. Ebbing and flowing for about forty-five minutes, the set ended with a cloud of ambient voices hovering over a theme on the organ — the most "church" sounding part of the night, although if we were going to compare theologies this would be more like the grand church of nature than some book-bound dogma. Whatever it was, it was uplifting.

This show was recorded for broadcast by CBC radio. If you dig around their archives, you might be able to find it online. In the meantime, I have a couple excerpts for you to listen to — one more "chattery" and one more "ethereal".

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¹ During the break, I overheard one noteworthy member of the local improvised music scene wryly comment to a friend that if this is what the crowds are like "up here", maybe Somewhere There should move north of St. Clair.

² Though, I guess, one should really file this under "just music" — beyond categories — anyway. Surely that's how Parker would see it — in his brief comments to the crowd after playing he passed along the old joke about what happens when you listen to the blues backwards, which arguably says something about his notion of where the music is coming from.