Recording: Nobuo Kubota

Artist: Nobuo Kubota

Song: [last section]

Recorded at The Music Gallery, April 19, 2024.

Nobuo Kubota - [last section]

There was some savvy programming in choosing the openers for two nights of absurdist, polymorphously-perverse puppeteering duo Poncili Creacion. (I heard that the second night's performance from Brian Ruryk was a cracker, too.) Music Gallery O.G. Nobuo Kubota, who's been improvising joyfully in this city for over half a century, was on point with his mix of percussion, giddy babble, and crackle synth. Now in his nineties, it was clear he'd won over a room with a younger-skewing crowd, most of whom probably didn't know anything about his history, but connected with his energy.

Recording: Nobuo Kubota

Artist: Nobuo Kubota

Song: [excerpt]

Recorded at The Great Hall's Conversation Room (Long Winter 4.5 – Night 2), March 19, 2016.

Nobuo Kubota - [excerpt]

You can't fault Long Winter for being ambitious and for wanting to close out the season by cramming in as much music and art into the Great Hall as possible, but their plan to close the year out with a two-night stand didn't entirely pay off. Giving patrons the choice of two nights (and holding them at the end of Spring Break) seemed to especially cut into the younger crowd and both nights (especially Friday) lacked that "about to burst" feeling that makes LW unique. But even if the crowd was at less than maximum strength, there was no certainly no lack of music spread throughout the building.

Celebrating its 40th anniversary as a vital cultural institution, The Music Gallery was invited to present a handful of acts at this final outing of the season — a gesture that made even more sense to anyone who knew that the Great Hall's basement was the Music Gallery's home from 1984 to 1991. As a lead-in to the current CCMC trio of Michael Snow, John Oswald and Paul Dutton, founding member Nobi Kubota performed a set of solo vocalizations.

Recording: Snow/Kubota/Roblin

Artist: Michael Snow/Nobi Kubota/Diane Roblin vs. Artists' Jazz Band

Song: Improvisation on top of Tapioca

Recorded at Array Space ("Audiopollination 28.1"), March 1, 2015.

Snow/Kubota/Roblin vs. AJB - Improvisation on top of Tapioca [part 1]

Snow/Kubota/Roblin vs. AJB - Improvisation on top of Tapioca [part 2]

An unusually packed house out for this special evening. I might mutter a wish that some more of the crowd that comes out for "celebrities" of the local improvised scene would also drop in to support some of the emerging players that are at Audiopollination month in, month out — but that said, I would be the last person to say we shouldn't celebrate the players that helped build the city's musical community.

Michael Snow (piano) and Diane Roblin (piano) had not played together for decades, and alongside Nobi Kubota (vocalizations and loops) they decided to pay tribute to the Artists' Jazz Band, one of the formative groups that they all passed through. Their first piece was inspired by AJB's late-70's loft recording of an improvisation called "Tapioca", which was mostly percussion (though Kubota played some sax on it). Then and now were squashed together with the trio responding in real-time to the playback of the piece, with rolling chords on the pianos and clusters of vocal loops building up on top of the older percussive clatter. I've heard it said that you never stop improvising 'til about the time you stop breathing — and that's always worthy of celebrating.

[As always, you can revisit the whole night with a sterling recording over at the series' bandcamp. A busy month for Audiopollination wraps up on Monday (March 16th) at Array Space, with a special night of improvisations from visitors Aalborggroup plus local guests.]

Recording: EAR-CAM

Artist: EAR-CAM

Song: [excerpt from first set]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), March 28, 2014.

EAR-CAM - [excerpt from first set]

Full review to follow. Regrouping after a ten-year hiatus, I was familiar with the individual members of this group, but not sure of what to expect from them as an ensemble. Composed of Christine Duncan and Nobuo Kubota (voices), John Oswald (alto sax), Tomasz Krakowiak (percussion) and Glen Hall (laptop, electronics, bass clarinet), this is by design a full-on free-form experience, with electronic textures giving a framework for the chatter of voices and saxophone to bubble (or babble?) along.

I don't know how long this ensemble is sticking together for this time around, but I see that they will be performing again on Thursday (April 17th) at Musideum.