InFlightPress

Rory McGill drums and trombone cutlery and hardware

David Broscoe woodwinds , Linsey Wellman woodwinds

Eldritch Priest guitar and electronics

The concert opens as a Priest conjures Léon Theremin like space between Linsey Wellman'sand David Broscoe’s heavy low notes. The sacrament of music is bestowed on the flock of cold weather jazz fans at UMI Café. Rory McGill is gentle, touching horse hair brushes and a soft left foot to hump the bass drum. Eldritch forgoes an electronic tuner for precise brightlyfinger picked notes. Two clarinets carry long sonorous sound as Eldritch leads on intently fixed on low notation. Highly charged clarinets and toughthin sticks on cymbals pitch us with mimicry to a climax.

The jello mold is on the snare drum and a foghorn bellows from a sea side baritone sax. They meet heavy dockside industry as empty steel hulls are heard from  guitar screech and cymbal scratch. Gulls squawk and work is being done as Mr. Fender amps things up.  David Broscoe softly puffs air past a wide reed. James Watt again wins the volume contest as Eldritch Priest thrums in at number eleven on the volume dial. 

Suddenly the crew is on break and notation for a song is chosen.  Notes are passed in class until all are on the same page and a slow deliberate introduction heightens  anticipation.  Is it planned or  befuddled?  What seems to be a misfire on a guitar pedal bleeds the tune afresh as there is bassoon erotica and lightness on the drum kit.  Skinny drum sticks, all  their own sound, match Linsey who carries the tune high then low.  Eldritch’s left hand fingers find fifth frets  and first frets.  He is wide, wild and fast but singing Tibetan bowl sounds from Rory’s cymbals chime in and shift  attention softly back to David’s bassoon as we close on a Choral Descant on  Descent;  tune by Eldritch Priest.

Plump turkey drumsticks pump in the bassoon as men of Occidental origin strike out from the caravanasary on the silkroad.  Eldritch enters with new world guitar but Rory’s solid beat is the glue. Linsey meets Eldrtich in free exploration before the entire band of  travelling musicians stop at an oasis for respite.  “Wha Wha Whant a new direction”, the guitar  insists that it is time to go and no time for a yawn Linsey holds long a notefor which breath is forced both out and in. David too expresses long, a note of the rising sun.  Four strong men lead camels into teathers and  bits.  Goods are loaded, the route is new  and all hands are at work breaking camp and heading further East from the  Nubian realm of Sun Ra’s Ancient AEthiopia.

We are surrounded as players approach from the  doorway and the cash tray of the Café.   The guitar is coaxed to match the woodwinds and a muted trombone.  Now the strings are massaged to time with  David as he pipes in a tune and a walkabout, not a Bourbon Street march but a  Percy and Somerset, minus thirty retreat from cold streets.  Reminder notes are cribbed from as David  heads to center stage, the other players in support.  If this tune was called, “Barney’s Version”  then a flighty marriage of convenience just saw Linsey divine by gyration what Eldritch would play.  The notes blur for a time before baritone sax, tenor and guitar are all identical.  Intense eighth notes blurt together in what  for a moment appears to evolve into a jazz standard but which is in fact Balinese  gamelan music written by David Broscoe. Sukra Skeleton and Zinc are fronted by synchronized saxophones but drum  and guitar strongly support the hauntingly familiar, yet new music.

The sixth tune of the night emerges as David  borrows from the natural world the hum of livestock or a mountain pasture  breeze.  His bassoon sounds electric but  it is not mic’d for sound.  Rory supports David’s long notes and much needed breaths as trombone then bassoon hold long  the nature song.  Linsey and Eldritch are   like    Sam’nEric    from the,  "Lord of the Flies";  twins  that play off one another  mimic and finish phrases as new song signatures intertwine and distort.  Eldritch has his Hendrix moment as he clips  to an end, his own tune.

Next up is a tickle tune playfully matched by Guitar, sax and bass clarinet.  Rory goes  to his own magic tickle trunk for new hardware. David double fists clarinet and tenor sax as Eldritch pulls out an   e-sax.  Battery cables hook up to a   Cummings diesel engine as power surges mightily.  A switch is thrown and loops appear as hoops   that David and Linsey jump through in triple summersaults: Poodles at the  circus dance, prance pretty until the ringmaster lowers the lights.  Sad clowns waddle about the shadows to check  the trunk of the all too small car for more magic from these ten or twenty  instruments.  Yes, there may seem to be  too many toys for little UMI Café, but these clowns are clever.  Tricks up sleeves lead to a third ring.   A ringing guitar is now held up on all sides  by clarinets as Rory yields a magic wand we listen to bass clarinet.  Eldritch squirts water from a flower on his  lapel with a loop machine that recorded something earlier.  The high wire act has been under way for long    dangerous moments before the big top spotlights catch the flicker of trapeze artists   left then right all Cirque du Soleil.  We   are drawn in by the sensuous leotards and muscles; the sexy lithe bodies are inflight and pressing.  Strong men and strong women   balance in impossible Kama Sutra positions and we are all on the edge of our   seats.  Our attention is focused on what   we cannot tear our eyes or ears from. Shimmering makeup, snake skin tattoos and geckos on roof tops play in   our minds as the concert ends and the elephant leaves the room.

Thanks to Uzumaki and Linsey Wellman and Craig  Pedersen for another IMOO night at Umi.  

Next up is the 6th of February with a     show by Adam Saikaley, then on the 13th, Sainct Laurens (Pierre-Yves Martel andPhilippe Lauzier) will share a Sunday with Kim Myhr, and then on the 20th,Craig Pedersen will be debuting his new project for trumpet and electronics,with a first set by Linsey Wellman on solo alto saxophone.