{"id":1959,"date":"2015-12-22T23:32:02","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T04:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=1959"},"modified":"2015-12-23T16:17:23","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T21:17:23","slug":"solstice-beyond-jazz-unruly-mashup-to-meditative-rhythm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2015\/12\/solstice-beyond-jazz-unruly-mashup-to-meditative-rhythm.html","title":{"rendered":"Solstice beyond jazz, unruly mashup to meditative rhythm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"zerang-drake\"<\/a>

Rhythm to help the sun rise — percussionists Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang. Photo collage: MARC PoKEMPNER<\/p><\/div>\n

Saxophonist Mars Williams<\/strong> <\/a>and band ecstatically wed\u00c2\u00a0holiday\u00c2\u00a0songs and\u00c2\u00a0Albert Ayler anthems at the Hungry Brain in Chicago past 12 pm December 20 \u00c2\u00a0— the deepest, darkest, longest night of the year — then\u00c2\u00a0at 6 am December 21 percussionists Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang<\/a><\/strong> performed a flowing, meditative\u00c2\u00a0duet to get the\u00c2\u00a0sun up, for a crowd that felt like a congregation\u00c2\u00a0at Constellation.<\/p>\n

(Better than Chicago’s 606\u00c2\u00a0hiking\/biking trail\u00c2\u00a0did, cancelling its first time “Solstice Viewing”<\/a> from an astronomically aligned endpoint\u00c2\u00a0due to “inclement weather” — in Chicago in December, really<\/em>? Just a little cold rain. . .)<\/p>\n

Drake and Zerang, extending their 25-year tradition by offering this program on three mornings and evening concerts with other collaborators, began\u00c2\u00a0together with hesitant, delicate, then increasingly detailed fingertip work on\u00c2\u00a0frame drums. Their tapping grew faster, more numerous, like raindrops, longer in phrasing and richer of timbre as Zerang took a\u00c2\u00a0goblet-shaped drum in hand and Drake synced lyrically, intuitively with him on his well-tuned traps set. Eventually Zerang went to his traps, too. They kept steady\u00c2\u00a0pace, volume controlled, dimensions of the beat shifting like kaleidoscopic patterns that didn’t repeat but grew out one\u00c2\u00a0into the next.<\/p>\n

They didn’t rush to\u00c2\u00a0a peak, but kept constant in progress. The concert was in a dance studio with folding chairs and people sitting on the floor around\u00c2\u00a0the drummers,\u00c2\u00a0who faced windows high in a western wall behind where most of us sat. So maybe Zerang and Drake saw a patch of Chicago’s\u00c2\u00a0sky turn from Hopperesque street-lit to rain-streaked grey. The drummers swung looser, more physically, as if\u00c2\u00a0having\u00c2\u00a0reached a high plateau they were stretching their muscles. And then assured that\u00c2\u00a0the sun had indeed returned, they\u00c2\u00a0let the energy they’d stirred up subside. The crowd remained silent. Zerang struck his gong, once. The crowd held its hush, as those vibrations rang and died. Someone breathed. We all applauded.<\/p>\n

\"RESIZERenderb\"<\/a>

Jim Baker at the Arp, Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello; photo by Robert Peterson<\/p><\/div>\n

Just hours earlier –\u00c2\u00a0at the Brain around the corner and also presented by Constellation stalwart Mike Reed, to whom much credit for the verve of current cutting edge offerings is due — maverick reeds virtuoso Williams had led a\u00c2\u00a0no-holds-barred ensemble in a mind-boggling demonstration of the malleability of “The First Noel,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” “Partridge in a Pear Tree” and the like. The quaint caroling tunes proved perfectly well suited to mesh and meld with\u00c2\u00a0“The Truth Goes Marching In,” “Spirits” and other gloriously mad,\u00c2\u00a0insistent, utterly open airs from the\u00c2\u00a0Ayler songbook, jazz’s equivalents to the visions of William Blake.<\/p>\n

Brassman\u00c2\u00a0Josh Berman brought the spirit of early jazz collective improv to his phrases, circling around and bouncing off Williams’ squeals and roars; cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and pianist\/Arp synthesist Jim Baker on\u00c2\u00a0one side of the stage supplied a wealth of contrasts and drama; bassists Kent Kessler and Brian Sandstrom (they use\u00c2\u00a0other instruments, too), standing on either side of inspired\u00c2\u00a0drummer Steve Hunt, plucked\u00c2\u00a0and bowed a springy underscore to it. Their unholy fun was perhaps ironic, perhaps celebratory, most likely both, definitely orchestral and wild\u00c2\u00a0party appropriate.<\/p>\n

At the break, Mars mentioned he’d tried this imaginative program a week ago in New Orleans, with New Orleans musicians — “And it was different, but good, too.” His\u00c2\u00a0Chicago troupe was a slightly enlarged version of the band Extraordinary Popular Delusions<\/a>, and he\u00c2\u00a0said he’d been trying to book it in Europe, thought he’d had an engagement in Amsterdam, but then the venue said no, though they could do it in June. “This is a Christmas show!” Mars told them. For those of us who hate the season’s kitschy commercial bombast<\/a>, seasonal favorites\u00c2\u00a0in the key\u00c2\u00a0of Ayler were the perfect antidote. Happy Hollydaze!<\/p>\n

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Saxophonist Mars Williams and band ecstatically wed\u00c2\u00a0holiday\u00c2\u00a0songs and\u00c2\u00a0Albert Ayler anthems at the Hungry Brain in Chicago past 12 pm December 20 \u00c2\u00a0— the deepest, darkest, longest night of the year — then\u00c2\u00a0at 6 am December 21 percussionists Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang performed a flowing, meditative\u00c2\u00a0duet to get the\u00c2\u00a0sun up, for a crowd that felt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/zerang-drake.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-vB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1719,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2014\/09\/the-funeral-at-the-hideout-with-survival-unit-iii.html","url_meta":{"origin":1959,"position":0},"title":"The funeral at the Hideout, with Survival Unit III","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"September 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"After nine years, the free-thinking Immediate Sound \u00c2\u00a0Series ended at Chicago's indie-alt. 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He captured some of the diversity and vigor of the 35th annual Chicago Jazz Festival, August 28 - Sept 1 \u00c2\u00a02013. Click on these photos for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/rudresh-collage-chicago-jazz-fest-2013.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/rudresh-collage-chicago-jazz-fest-2013.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/rudresh-collage-chicago-jazz-fest-2013.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/rudresh-collage-chicago-jazz-fest-2013.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1687,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2014\/08\/jazz-venues-in-chicago-parks-bars-clubs.html","url_meta":{"origin":1959,"position":2},"title":"Jazz venues in Chicago: Parks, bars, clubs","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"August 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Chicago is relatively new in bringing jazz to its many small, diverse parks but the Neighborhood Nights experiment, \u00c2\u00a0conducted by the Jazz Institute of Chicago, works just fine, as drummer Michael Zerang's Blue Lights in Logan Square last Sunday proved. Last of these free shows is Saturday (tomorrow) at 1\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Jenny527M.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Jenny527M.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Jenny527M.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":133,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/10\/connected_in_the_azores.html","url_meta":{"origin":1959,"position":3},"title":"Globalism in the Azores","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"October 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Globalism held its head high at the tenth annual Ponta Delgada Jazz Festival last week. 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