A soaring play on Coltrane
John Coltrane’s album ‘Ascension’ inspires wild Up’s soaring experimental set.
“Ascension” is the launch pad for wild Up’s exploration of musical universe.
John Coltrane’s “Ascension” album of 1966 was a courageous declaration of independence even for him. It was an independence from conventional jazz harmony, melody, groove, a 40minute burst of dissonant, often violent, always highly emotional, yet surprisingly logical free jazz from a massive, ad hocgroup. It drove a wedge between him and the mainstream of jazz, devoted fans, and even some members of his own quartet who reeled with confusion and quit not long after.
But its undeniable power was bolstered by the weight of Coltrane’s authority and sincerity, and its influence has filtered down to the present, in particular to music ensemble wild Up’s chief spark plug, Christopher Rountree, who organized his own idea of what “Ascension” means, with concerts that try to jam together several compositions of varying styles in hopes of making them soar and sound like one world of music.
An unconventional concert inspired by an unconventional album deserves an unconventional format — which it got Saturday night at the Soraya in Northridge. The audience was seated onstage on risers facing the empty hall and band. At times, members of wild Up aimed mini-cams at their colleagues and themselves to produce sometimes grotesque video selfies on a pair of video monitors.
There were no program notes, no spoken introductions; the works were listed only on a not-easy-to-read banner hanging from the ceiling. It leaves those who’d like to know more about the music in the dark.
Now, it should be made clear that this program, which Rountree calls “Of Ascension,” was not a re-creation of Coltrane’s album. On the Soraya stage, pieces by different composers followed one another, often without pause, whereas the Coltrane album is a succession of individual jazz solos separated by cacophonous outbursts by the entire band. The styles within wild Up’s 100-or-so-minute set varied erratically, unlike the album, rooted in jazz even in its wildest flights.
Yet there were passages within the set of nine compositions that approached the sound of Coltrane’s album, deliberately or not. Ted Hearne’s “Illuminating the Maze” came the closest, with the 13-piece ensemble going crazy all at once as Derek Tywoniuk laid down a steady groove on trap drums, albeit without the complex polyrhythms of an Elvin Jones. Some free ensemble blasts in Weston Olencki’s “bent” also captured the feeling of “Ascension” at its most liberating.
When bass clarinetist Brian Walsh plowed through Brian Ferneyhough’s “Time and Motion Study I,” an avant-garde staple, one could imagine sometime Coltrane collaborator Eric Dolphy improvising something similar. But Ferneyhough wrote out every torturous note of the score.
Much of the time, though, with Rountree conducting in his cheerleading manner, wild Up created its own musical universe.
The Julius Eastman revival continued with a version of “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?” Much of the piece consists of slowly ascending or descending chromatic scales, bolstered by thick, satisfying, bottom-heavy textures. Trombonist Matt Barbier hunkered down to navigate the solo gymnastics of George Lewis’ “Oraculum” — a U.S. premiere — under the gazes of no fewer than eight mini-cams.
Hearne’s “One Like,” a West Coast premiere, juxtaposed barrages of electronic noise triggered by a keyboard with off-kilter rhythms and outbreaks of extended technique from the wind players operating in the shadow of “Ascension.” Björk’s “Constellation,” with plaintive vocals by Jodie Landau and Maggie Hasspacher, made for an ethereal interlude performed in the dark. It was hard to tell where Olencki’s “bent” — a world premiere — left off and Jen Hill’s “Piece for Internet” — a West Coast premiere — began. But together, they formed a wild, exhilarating, disturbing picture of our pixelated times, with video images taken right off the web in real time, and free passages in which trumpeter Jonah Levy could be heard throwing Mahler, Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky quotes into the mix.
After the chaos had subsided, French hornist Allen Fogle could be spotted in the top balcony delivering the “Interstellar Call” from Olivier Messiaen’s “From the Canyons to the Stars” to wrap things up. You could say that this final touch was a peaceful ascension in a literal sense above a fragmented, polarized, digitized world that is driving us mad.