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Home , Mark Feldman, Sylvie Courvoisier

Jazzin’Around

Mark Feldman & A duo known as Duo explores a new improvisatory language

by Gene Santoro

24 may/june 2010 ver the last few decades, the when improvisers deploy highly individual did it more spontaneously as a quartet. improvisation-driven side of languages they’ve each developed within a It’s what I call a blast-off tune—it’s short Owhat we’ll call American chamber sort of highbrow Dixieland context, where but has such a precise character that it music has taken wing. It’s not mainstream everyone reacts to whatever the others are throws you into a certain area of improvi- —it rides few underlying rhythmic or doing in idiosyncratic, even (by some sation. Aside from that, I don’t think harmonic patterns. Because it’s largely standards) eccentric fashion. This practice about the difference between composition improvised, it’s not straight classical (at diverges from mainstream jazz’s harmonic and improvisation much. To me, it’s all least, not the postwar variety) or Gunther and other technical idioms—idioms in- part of the same ball of wax.” Schuller’s Third Stream jazz, whose strict creasingly shared, and sadly too often just How Feldman and Courvoisier got to classical bent foregrounded composition. cloned, thanks to increasingly standardized where they are is a tale worth rehearsing. But whatever it’s not, the small, vibrant schooling. Born in in 1955, Feldman area embraces a frequently fascinating cast The music on the duo’s two new CDs studied violin from age 9. By 18, he was a of people and sounds. is witness to what can result: kaleidoscopic member of the Civic Symphony (“It was Take violinist and pia- textures and edgy sensibilities; tumultuous my version of college”) and playing at night nist Sylvie Courvoisier. Unnoted in most fervor and breathtaking timing; split-second in bar bands doing mostly rockabilly and standard music references, singly and coordination and improvisational lunges; Texas Swing. That lively little circuit made together these two have made names for and vague (at best) demarcations between him some contacts; one offered to help set themselves—Feldman in the 1980s down- written and ad-hoc materials. Seasoned, at him up as a Nashville studio cat. town New York scenes that included the its best, with welcome wit and humor, it At the time, the “countrypolitan” sound, Knitting Factory, and winning the 2007 delivers an uncanny combination of visceral pioneered by producer Owen Bradley and Alpert Award in the Arts; Courvoisier in intensity and intellectual rigor. Hear it for popularized by Chet Atkins, , Europe, then in the downsized descendant yourself on Oblivia, a Duo album, and To Patsy Cline, and dozens of hits, was king of that earlier NYC alternative zone a Fly To Steal, a quartet outing that adds bass- in Music City; its crossover “sweetness” decade later. They’ve been performing as ist and drummer Gerry required lush string sections. So the 25- a duo called, well, Duo since 1997; off- Hemingway, a longtime Braxton cohort. year-old headed south. Driving around stage, they’ve been married since 2000. Courvoisier’s “Messiaenesque” appears Music City soon after arriving, he spotted Think fire and ice—onstage, at least. on both discs, and so suggests something a “help wanted” sign outside the Nashville Feldman’s virtuosic fiddling fans emotional about how these musicians do what they do Symphony office, picked up an application, flames. His techniques, adapted from with their highly personalized collective auditioned, and had another gig. Most days myriad sources when he hasn’t invented improvisation. The risk is unfruitful chaos he was also logging in one or two studio them, make his strings sing, scream, sob, and/or lapses into cliché. The reward is akin sessions, performing on some 200 tracks implore, sting, yield, or slash. Courvoisier to flying. with the likes of Johnny Cash and Willie plays what seems a more cerebral role, Feldman explains, “We listen to a fair Nelson, then joining the touring bands of though clearly passion drives her varie- amount of Messiaen, and Sylvie studies old-line stalwarts like Price and Loretta gated keyboard attack, as well as her work him: she’s written a book about his Lynn. with mallets, adhesive strips, and fingers approach. For this piece, she took a couple In 1986, he had the itch to change scenes on her piano strings. At her most inventive, of elements of his melodic thing—really again. He’d studied with the remarkable she offers the gnarliness of Cecil Taylor basic—to give it the flavor of his music. Chicago jazz teacher Joe Daley, then with with a post-Cagean gloss. It’s not a quote from anything he wrote. David Baker. A summer stint at the Banff Together, the two create personalized That’s why the title is what it is.” Centre, then directed by Dave Holland, musical abstractions that, at their sharpest, The two versions are distinct—and not reopened him to improvised music’s allur- somehow—like a Giacometti sculpture or just because of the number of instruments: ing creative (if not financial) possibilities: a Pollock painting, say—transport the “Even for quartet recordings, we do most “It fired me up. I’d always had this gnawing listener to a space where the rules may not of our rehearsing as a duo,” says Feldman. thing about making my own music, creative be apparent, but the emotional response “We want the other band members to react music. And I was 30, so I was feeling it to their seductive ebb and flow sure is. improvisationally to what we’ve devel- was time.” As Taylor and Anthony Braxton, among oped over more time playing as a duo. So he sold his house (“a little place four- others, have done for half a century, Feldman Like in ‘Messiaenesque’: It’s a pretty intri- teen miles from the Kentucky border”), and Courvoisier are exploring what happens cate head. We mastered it as a duo, then continued on page 55 25 Jazzin’ Around, continued from page 25 Photography Credits quit his gigs, and headed to the Apple, made a reputation in Europe’s lively clubs. Cover: A. Kaiser/Shutterstock.com where the “downtown” scene spearheaded A year later, she moved to Brooklyn, where Table of Contents: David Soyer by by the likes of saxist-composer the couple still lives, and began working her Dorothea von Haeften; ETHEL by was surfacing. Not knowing anyone, Feldman way through the outsider scenes. Among Green Barrett played bebop in street bands (“with a pick- her bands: the cooperative all-woman trio up and a Pignose amp”), then got himself called Mephista, with Ikue Mora wielding CMA Note: Margaret M. Lioi by a steady dinner-theater gig (“eight shows a electronics and drum machines and kinetic Melissa Richard week”). After a year or so, he surfaced in a on drums. American Masterpieces: Christopher trio called Arcado, with bassist extraordinaire You’ll have to listen to Duo’s recent CDs Rouse portrait by Jeff Herman; Ben Jacobson Mark Dresser and cellist Hank Robertson, to hear how intricate their personalized with bow courtesy of the Calder Quartet at the Knitting Factory. That’s where I first idioms can become—and what they can met him and heard his story—and got yield, in the right hands: dramatic interval- American Ensemble: Westwood Wind knocked out by his musicianship. lic leaps; sudden dissonant splashes; jagged, Quintet by John Nelson; Quatuor Ébène Over the years I heard him in a bunch of irregular rhythms that can stir turbulent with pianist Gilles Vonsattel by Chris Tanz; bands. One of my favorites was the John eddies or calm to eerie stillness; and a joyous Beethoven Project Trio by Max Anisimov; Abercrombie Quartet, partly because he reveling in sheer sound, like—maybe espe- Litchfield Jazz School students by Antonio and Abercrombie share a lyrical sensitivity cially like—the chalk-across-the-blackboard Monteiro; Brian Coughlin by Shelley laced with wit, humor, and sarcasm. But scrape of a partial harmonic being wrung Kusnetz; Vinca Quartet by Mike Buscher no matter what the situation—and they from a violin. Jazzin’ Around: Mark Feldman and varied, often wildly—Feldman usually Maybe that irrational exuberance is what Sylvie Courvoisier by Roberto Cifarelli managed to mesh sophistication and raw- draws listeners into the journey that the ness, without leaning on irony, and lure me music’s often vertiginous bends can unfold. Cover to Cover: Song of the Athenians, into his sonic world like some Paganini- But whatever it is, after evolving for half a Emil Rundman, National Museum of esque pied piper. century, improvising American chamber Finland Department of Prints and In the 1990s, Feldman decided to get musicians have left a trail of enduring music. Photographs, Helsinki back to his acoustic and classical roots, re- Add Feldman and Courvoisier to the list. David Soyer Remembered: Portrait of inspired by what he calls “the composer- David Soyer by Dorothea von Haeften performer-improviser tradition, which goes back to Bach, Beethoven, Paganini, Ysaÿe. Gene Santoro is the author of several books Fine, Upstanding Ensembles: Empire That all disappeared from classical music on American music, including Myself When Brass by Tipton Productions; Emerson before the Second World War. So since I am Real, a biography of Charles Mingus String Quartet by Jessica Ebelhar/The my 40s, I changed my whole sound and (Oxford University Press, 2001), and Highway New York Times/Redux; Borealis Wind approach. I’m playing with a much more 61 Revisited, which examines the complex Quintet courtesy of Newport Festival; European-influenced sound. I realized I’d roots of American music (Oxford, 2004). Brooklyn Rider by Rachel Papo/The New taken a detour from the acoustic tradition York Times/Redux; Calefax Reed Quintet that I’d grown up with, which was great in by Eric van Nieuwland; Far Cry by Yoon many ways: I’d developed an improvisa- Byun; ETHEL by Dennis Kleiman tional world. But I wanted to bring that back into the acoustic world I’d lost.” So Feldman stopped playing through an amplifier a decade ago. The Alpert Award helped him buy his first-ever really good violin—one once owned by Jacques Thibaud. His transformation was complete. He met Courvoisier in 1995, during his incremental transition. Born in Lausanne in 1968, she grew up with a jazz-pianist father. She studied composition, piano, and con- ducting at the Conservatoire de Lausanne, while pursuing jazz at the Conservatoire de Montreux, home of one of jazz’s oldest and most prestigious festivals. She’d already 55