Vandermark's music celebrates life during hard times
by Jesse Fox Mayshark
When Ken Vandermark takes a saxophone his lips and blows, it's usually out of joy—joy to be alive, creating, and playing.
As one of his many bands, the Vandermark 5, was preparing to take the road in support of its new album, Acoustic Machine, terrorists were commandeering four planes in the sky.
Suddenly, the band wasn't so sure if touring was all that appropriate.
"Music for me has always been celebratory, a happy-to-be-alive kind of thing," says Vandermark, talking before a gig in Providence, R.I. "It's hard to feel super-positive about things right now. It feels strange to be celebrating with all the shit that's been happening," he says. "Before we went out we talked about if we wanted to go out or not."
The band decided to press on. "It's a real strange, intense time right now, and everybody in the band wanted to go. It was in part continuing to do what we think is important regardless of what's going on. Plus, we have a lot of friends that are on the road right now that wanted us to come out."
So far, the crowds have been great, perhaps sharing in Vandermark's enthusiasm for music and life, and feeling more than ever a need to embrace them.
"This tour is a lot different. We're trying to give an alternative to the everyday that's hopefully positive," he says. "We were kind of concerned [the audiences] would be a little numbed out or glazed over, but people have been incredibly enthusiastic."
Vandermark is one of jazz's workhorses, playing and performing in countless bands and touring and recording relentlessly. Aside from the Vandermark 5, he plays in Triple Play, DKV Trio, Spaceways Incorporated, and many others. He gets asked a lot about how he avoids burnout or spreading himself too thin.
"I've always worked this way, from the beginning," he says. "I worked with a lot of different people in a lot of different groups and it was clear to me early on that each band has strengths depending on what the individual people bring to the group."
The 5 differs from the others in the breadth of styles it tackles. "The Vandermark 5 is the one where I'm trying to encompass the most stuff. Some of it has funk elements, or new music, jazz, or free improvised music that's coming out of Europe. There's some musicians who aren't going to want to do all those things or couldn't. So it took me a while to assemble the group."
Aside from Vandermark on tenor sax and bass clarinet, the group (formed in 1996) includes Jeb Bishop on trombone, Kent Kessler on bass, Tim Mulvenna on drums, and Dave Rempis on alto and tenor saxophones.
The new record differs from past in that Jeb Bishop no longer plays electric guitar. "It changed the nature of the band, so the writing changed, but I still tried to keep the stylistic range," he says.
As is the case on his records, Vandermark dedicates many of his compositions to artists that have inspired him. On Acoustic Machine, there are songs for Stan Getz, Elvin Jones and Lester Young. There's also two dedicated to photographers Robert Capa, famous for his World War II pictures, and William Klein, who chronicled New York City in the '50s.
The connections between the photographs and the songs is more tenuous. "It's more an abstract thing," he says. "It's not like I'm trying to write music that sounds like the impact the pictures had on me.... It's not like cause and effect."
What is important about the art is the photographers' passion, Vandermark says. In the case of Capa, he documented life during one of humanity's darkest periods.
"Robert Capa's passion for humanity in the face of those real awful things means a lot to me."
Another reason Vandermark works so hard at his art is because he views it as dynamic form, not a static to be perfected.
"The nature of improvisation is it's a process artform. It's about doing it. The album is just one shot at those pieces and those problems," he says.
The performances are geared at getting the individual musicians to play each night in new and different ways, and work well off of each other.
"One thing I'm doing live is collaging some of the material together so it's not all separate pieces. We know these pieces pretty well right now, so I've been mixing them up in different ways," he says. "It's a matter of trying to assemble new sets, which affect the way people improvise, and then having people reinvent what they may play every night. I'm trying to write music to inspire improvisers."
October 4, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 40
© 2001 Metro Pulse
| 
