Tonight the "Expedition Sextet" is performing at the local club at the Banff Centre. Instrumentation is piano, trumpet, bass clarinet, banjo, bass, and drums. Quite a special sound. The trumpet player player writes fiddle tunes on his trumpet, the pianist has the #1 jazz album in Korea, and the drummer has studied deeply in the South-Indian classical tradition. An amazing group. We will be playing all original material, including some of my tunes. The ideas on form these musicians have are so broad, with ideas for open solos, soloing together, changing the feel, loosening the time, and countless others to keep it constantly interesting for both the musicians and the audience. It has been highly educational and a refreshing look at some of my material.
My first assigned ensemble was a 12-piece band with Dave Douglas as our coach. Quite an interesting group of eclectic musical instruments. Our first activity was free improv in trio settings, playing in front of the group. For example: drums, Rhodes, and bass clarinet, or piano, violin, and bass. My assigned trio was 2 vocalists and banjo. One of the vocalists kicked it off making noises like she had something stuck in the back of her throat. Hmmmmm, not quite like playing "Roll in my Sweet Baby's Arms." At least not any version I have heard ;-) The next improv I did was a duo with an electric guitarist that also plays laptop computer. he started this off with a computerized tinkling broken glass sound. Hmmmm, kind of like mandolin?
I am headed to Banff in less than 2 weeks and madly getting ready for what promises to be a life-changing experience. I was fortunate enought to see Dave Douglas last weekend at the Village Vanguard in New York, and being the music director for the program, it brought it all home.
