Alliance for Improvised Music |
New Show |
Peter Kowald will perform solo at Go! Studios in Carrboro (on Brewer Lane, behind the Car Wash, where Franklin St becomes Main St). Show time is 9 pm and cover is $8. The Micro-East Collective will also perform. The Micro-East are a large improvising ensemble of many of the finest Triangle area musicians, with a fine release on Umbrella Records and another cd on the way. As of press time, at his request, Peter Kowald will play first, so don't come late. He may collaborate with the MEC as well. You may also want to visit Peter's website at www.kowald.de, where he's got more information and even a couple sound files you can check out.
Travel America ... by Bass
The Penguin Guide to Jazz gave a string of 4-star reviews to bassist Peter Kowald's records, which they knew would catch some by surprise, so they wrote: "Readers may have raised eyebrows at the very high ratings for this relatively little known musician (as far as straight jazz is concerned, at any rate), but they should be reassured that such marks do accurately reflect Kowald's historical importance in the development of European free music."
A strong statement, but how else to describe the man who was there with Peter Brotzmann in 1962, the Globe Unity Orchestra in 1966, Evan Parker in 1967, Irene Shweizer in 1968, and on and on? His list of performing credits is simply ridiculous: Alexander von Schlippenbach, Wadada Leo Smith, Derek Bailey, India Cooke, Rashied Ali, Marion Brown, Marilyn Crispell, Bill Dixon, Charles Gayle, Barry Guy, Jeanne Lee, Jimmy Lyons, Albert Mangelsdorff, Keith Tippett, David S. Ware, Fred Anderson ... and that's just a sampling. Now Peter and his bass (and his historical importance) are getting in a car and driving across the US for 3 months what a great way for us to start the millennium.
It's certainly not his fault he's "relatively little known" as he's traveled the world, playing with musicians from an impressive array of musical and non-musical traditions. We all know of musicians who've performed with dancers, but how many do you know who've performed with dancers from Germany, the US, Japan, China, Greece, Brazil, and France? Most impressive may be Kowald's Global Village project. Global Village is a series of duos, trios, and larger ensembles featuring musicians from a vast array of musical traditions Japan, Greece, Turkey, West Africa, Australia, China, Portugal, and Tuva so far.
In fact, a Tuvan throat singer once told him something very important: "Music has to pass through a small hole, through a very narrow channel. It is difficult, but it has to get through. And once it is through, it can open itself out, and you can hear all the animals and the wind, the whole of nature. But first of all it has to pass through this little hole." How nice that we get to be at the listener's end, where we get to hear the (seemingly effortless) full flowering of Kowald's playing.
But back to the critics: "Kowald is perhaps the greatest living solo bass improviser" (The Wire 1995); "...a standing-room-only crowd heard an astonishing solo performance from bassist Peter Kowald. To assert that Kowald creates new techniques for producing unfamiliar sounds on doublebass would be an understatement. The man effectively transforms the instrument using his bow, his voice and his phenomenal finger technique to create unprecedented sonic effects and ideas...Kowald articulated melodic lines and harmonic structures unimagined a decade ago" (Chicago Tribune 1995); "An astonishing display of endurance and triumphant intuition" (Downbeat 1996); "Kowald drew from his double bass not only virtuoso and very complex sound structures or tone successions, but also simple minimalist ones. He knew remarkably well how to combine these conceptually in a highly dramatic manner, to handle tensions in a refined way, thanks to his great sensitivity for form and feeling for time" (Westdeutsche Zeitung 1996).
Please note those are all relatively recent comments. Some of you may remember my motto when it comes to concerts by legends: don't show up for the great music they played then, show up for the great music they play now. I got the chance to see Peter Kowald in a trio with trombonist Konrad Bauer and drummer Gunter Sommer two years ago at the (Re)Soundings Festival in Atlanta. The festival was 3 days and featured some of my favorite musicians Fred Anderson (w/ DKV no less), Wadada Leo Smith, Peter Brotzmann, Roscoe Mitchell, Evan Parker, etc. But the Sunday afternoon show, in a chapel at Emory University, by this trio was the height of the festival. And to be honest, the competition wasn't even that close. And during the trio set, each of the musicians performed a solo number as well, and each of them blew away any notion that solo performances might be "limited" in some way. I can't think of an intelligible way to describe it beyond I was so damn happy. And amazed. I don't know that anyone in that chapel knew what to expect, and we were all blown away not your regular standing ovation, but one long enough and loud enough that I think we scared them a little.
This is a rare opportunity to see a rare improviser. I don't mean to sound harsh or hyperbolic, but you'd be a fool to miss this one.
--walt
More info: