SET 1 - DUO
Ken Vandermark (US) - Saxophones & clarinets
Paal Nilssen-Love (NO) - Drums & Percussion

SET 2 - TRIO

Ken Vandermark (US) - Saxophones & clarinets
Paal Nilssen-Love (NO) - Drums & Percussion
John Edwards - Bass

“This is free improvised music of very high energy. Vandermark is stretching the tenor, baritone saxophone and Bb clarinet in a continuous flow of tones and timbres, whilst the Stavanger-drummer Nilssen-Love proves his reputation of being the avant-garde jazz’ most powerful mallet and stick wizard. However, Vandermark’s logical lines stir the flow of energy. Though tonal and rhythmic patterns/structures appear, the duo does not seek simple solutions. This is raw music, with a brutal beauty, which becomes more and more exhilarating the more you let the music take control of body and mind and set aside the normal understanding of nice and ugly.” Dagbladet (Terje Mosnes)

Vandermark and Nilssen-Love started their collaboration in 2000 when the group School Days was formed. One year later they started FME, a trio with bass player Nate McBride. After this it seemed very natural to define a duo. The first occasion for this format was when they recorded the cd ”Dual Pleasure” in Oslo during the summer of 2002. Shortly after this they performed their first duo concert at Molde International Jazz Festival. “Dual Pleasure” was released by the Norwegian label Smalltown Supersound and has received excellent reviews.

Vandermark is also known for the work with his own quintet the Vandermark 5, the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, the Territory Band, Spaceways Inc., and the DKV Trio. In 1999 Vandermark was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, previous recipients of this prize in the field of music include Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton and Max Roach. He has also been was voted ”Talent Deserving Wider Recognition” in the critic's poll of the American jazz magazine Down Beat, both as composer and as a tenor saxophonist, every year since 2000.

Nilssen-Love has, during the last couple of years, established himself on the international scene as a powerful drummer with high energy and creativity. In 2002 he was "Artist in Residence" at Molde International Jazz Festival, a title Chick Corea and Pat Metheny held in previous years. After 7 days and 9 concerts at the festival, Down Beat stated, "His week at Molde proved a revelation: Nilssen-Love is one of the most innovative, dynamic and versatile drummers in jazz."

Their musical expression results from the influence of several traditions, both geographic and historical. In this duo, Vandermark and Nilssen-Love use free improvisation as a means to explore all levels of dynamics, density, rhythm, timbre, form and tonality. The results of their work are experienced as intense, exhilarating, and boundary breaking.

Tonight they will play two sets one as a duo and one as a trio with Phil Wachsmann.

Phil Wachsmann

John Corbett notes that Phillip Wachsmann came to free improvisation from a predominantly classical background, particularly via the contemporary experiments of "indeterminacy, graphic and prose-based scores, conceptualism and electroacoustics, listening to Webern, Partch, Ives, Berio and Varèse, reading 'Die Reihe' and interrogating the rhythmic, harmonic and melodic preoccupations of Western art music. Starting in 1969, Wachsmann was a member of Yggdrasil, an ensemble performing works by Cage, Cardew, Feldman, Ashley and others and in this group he used contact mikes on the violin and made his own electronic instruments, ring modulators and routing devices. Ironically, his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris (1969-1970) pushed him hard in the direction of free music. He recalls: 'Despite her neoclassical orientation, her insistence that composition is about the imagination of performance and its realisation, the live moment, and her stunning ability to make this happen was a powerful influence on me, steering towards 'performance' and therefore 'improvisation'.'"

LINKS
http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mwachs.html