Ab Baars Trio and Ken Vandemark played a breathless, occasionally disorienting and splendid set at Dazzle on Wednesday. Photo by Francesca Patella, from .
Free jazz has a kind of double meaning in that it describes both a style of music and what most of the musicians who play it get paid. You may not know how you’re going play a particular song before you begin it, but you can be pretty sure you won’t be performing it on “American Idol.”
I had no idea what to expect when I showed up to see the with at on Wednesday, and I know their music pretty well. The Dutch reedist/composer Baars seemed of the same mind before the show, pensively watching skateboarders pull stunts on the sidewalk and the last of the Lincoln St. rush hour traffic go by while perched atop the short cement wall outside the club. Inside, the rest of the band was facing an empty room.
By the time Baars and Vandermark began an opening harmony on their tenor saxes, though, a nearly sold-out crowd had filtered into Dazzle’s back room. Vandermark built the intensity step by step in his first solo, careening from percussive-like skwonks to high-pitched squeals. Like the last of the rain after a storm passes, the two saxes met up again for a softer revisiting of the opening theme.
The song had the timing, space and tones of classical music. The second composition, in fact, “Straws,” was a tribute to Igor Stravinsky. Though the band members would pull out sheet music from time to time over the course of the show, there was a lot of improvising happening. Maybe this was more “free classical” than free jazz.
Vandermark and Baars had played together once before their current tour, about a decade ago. Baars’ approach was lighter and more playful than the ferocious playing I’ve seen from Vandermark on a few occasions in concert. It struck a good balance.
Vandermark’s tribute, “Waltz for Monk,” began with him taking some wide turns on the sax, and, like Monk, repeating lines in off-kilter times. If it wasn’t “light,” it had humor. Baars played a galloping solo punched with lots of whinnying on the tenor sax.
Bassist Wilbert de Joode began Vandermark’s next composition, “Losing Ground,” by bowing mournfully back and forth on the double bass. Feeling the mood of this arco-style playing, I looked away from the stage contemplatively and, through a thin horizontal window, saw a man doing sit-ups in rhythm with de Joode’s bowing at the gym across the street, lifting and falling like a sweaty metronome. It was hard to tell who was in more pain here. I’m not sure why I mention this now, but at the time it seemed like another balance was somehow reached. Vandermark rode out the song with smoky, end-of-the-night tenor tones.
“Song” featured Vandermark’s alternately swinging and skronking clarinet. His solo ended with a jaw-droppingly long stretch of circular breathing — playing and inhaling without pausing — all in the instrumentap highest register. It was this kind of playing, doubled by Baars’ clarinet and the sonic booms of drummer Martin van Duynhoven in the next song, that either willfully or coincidentally chased a loud couple from the room who had showed up late.
The rest of us, however, weren’t going anywhere. After Baars thanked everyone and said goodnight, an awkward silence bloomed between the stage and the crowd. No one moved to get out of their seat. Maybe we were stunned after having witnessed the wide range of emotions just expressed. Maybe it was a “free crowd” moment. Baars exchanged a few uncertain glances with the rest of the band, and, without a word, they began playing.
Denver-based writer Sam DeLeo is a published poet, has seen two of his plays produced and is currently finishing his second novel.
