Shifting and switching from No Wave skronk to interstellar guitarist-as-drummer virtuosity, from stampedes of miniature Pomeranian Buffalos to All-You-Zombies heterophonies, Han-earl Park (박한얼) has been performing beautifully messy, joyously difficult, ambiguous and discordant improvised musics for over twenty years. Park is the mastermind behind ensembles including Eris 136199 with Catherine Sikora and Nick Didkovsky; Juno 3 with Lara Jones and Pat Thomas; and Gonggong 225088 with Yorgos Dimitriadis and Camila Nebbia; and performs as part of a duo with Richard Barrett. [More…]
Three gigs; and I couldn’t ask for a more varied and musically valuable seven days.
I learned a heck of a lot (about my capabilities as an improviser, and about the social dynamics of interactive play) performing with Evan Parker. Still reeling from the experience, I’m grateful for the opportunity to play with Mr Parker again, and to have sat in with the Bleeding Edge Trio.
The performance with Catherine Sikora and Josh Sinton was the most craftily accomplished. We’ve been engineering, navigating and negotiating these improvisative, tactical considerations since February, and it’s been a pleasure and a privilege to be working with two imaginative and gutsy performers. I expect our performance at Harvestworks in October will be something else. (Plus thanks to Josh for the post-gig reflections.)
If I had to choose just one of these gigs as a stand-out though, it might have to be the duo with the stupendously creative Andrea Parkins. Insanely fun! Despite (or perhaps becuase of) severe technical limitations, I found myself in some very odd places. (Andrea was one of the first NYC people I contacted before moving here, so this performance was looong overdue.) Let’s play again. I had a blast.
The British saxophonist Evan Parker, 69, has been a major figure in free improvisation since the late 1960s. That’s not only because of his sound and style, which starts from late Coltrane and pushes ahead—turning the process of circular breathing into a supercollider of tones and overtones—but also because of his sociability. The best free improvisers are drawn to him, and he to them, and his weeklong residency at the Stone corrals the best of the New York-based ones across three generations. [Read the rest…]
This Thursday (September 19, 2013), at 10:00pm: a performance by Evan Parker (saxophones) and Han-earl Park (guitar) takes place at takes place at The Stone (16 Avenue C, New York, NY 10009). Admission: $20 (students 13–19: $10; children <12: free).
Evan’s residency at The Stone will feature some amazing musicians (check The Stone calendar for the full program) including the Bleeding Edge Trio (with Peter Evans and Okkyung Lee) performing the 8pm set on Thursday.
Whether it’s the most creative interjections from Catherine, the merging of Nick and Catherine’s sounds, the moments of Roscoe-Mitchell-plays-the-music-of-Napalm-Death, or something akin to the sound of a broken ECM record, I’m enormously proud of this performance and this ensemble.
