Double Bass New Quartet CD & Tape

[damonsmith]

JeJaWeDa
Pioneer Works Vol. 1 BPA 19
Pioneer Works Vol. 2 BPA-8

Jeb Bishop - trombone, electronics
Jaap Blonk - voice, electronics
Weasel Walter - percussion
Damon Smith - double bass



Video from a concert in Chicago on the last tour:


This new quartet, JaJeWeDa, debuted in the spring of 2019 with a series of concerts in the Northeast. The band features the great Dutch sound poet and improvisor Jaap Blonk, trombone virtuoso Jeb Bishop, and the versatile and powerful "rhythm section" of Damon Smith and Weasel Walter. Jaap Blonk is unique for his powerful stage presence and playful freedom in improvisation, combined with a keen grasp of structure. The frenetically prolific bandleader/composer/multiinstrumentalist Weasel Walter summons myriad timbres from a (mostly) conventional drum kit, while also bringing a strong performative element to the proceedings. Jeb Bishop is an extraordinary improviser, composer, and simply one of the finest living trombonists, and has been a major voice in improvised music for more than 20 years. Tireless organizer and Balance Point Acoustics label head Damon Smith expands both the sound world of the double bass and the roles it can play in an ensemble.

The sonic result of this alchemical gamble is a wide-open, unruly field of play where anything can and will happen. The New York City session and performance documented on these releases run the gamut from delicate chamber textures to Xenakis-meets-cracked-video-game burbling to all-out electronic meltdowns.
Pioneer works Vol. 1 is a CD with a deluxe ten page booklet of artworks by Jaap, Vol. 2 is a cassette with a cover by Jaap and an unpublished sound poetry score from 2001 and a lime green tape. Both are designed by Alan Anzalone.

 

[damonsmith]

More video from STL:

 

[damonsmith]

You can enjoy them at this wretched hive of scum and villainy:

&

 

[J_Bass]

Congratulations on your new work, Damon!

I watched the videos you put and, although I don't usually listen to Jazz this far from mainstream, i liked it very much.

How do you organize the tunes? Or practice? I'm really curious. Is there any chord structure or a main scale to follow? Or is it completely free, in the sense of deciding in the moment? If so, how do you call the tunes?

I noticed that there is a significant amount of performance by the vocalist. Which I found to be very interesting and it adds another point of interest that I don't see very much in the (few) acts of free jazz I usually see live.

How do you decide what to play? There is definitely interaction between the musicians, but how do you decide what notes to play? This goes back do the first question about the structure of the tunes.

Again, congratulations on your new work.

Cassette as in cassette for Walkman? Ahah, that's very nice, I think I still have mine somewhere!

 

[damonsmith]

This is all free improvisation. We have all worked together a lot to varying degrees, this is the first project for the drummer and the vocalist.

Jaap, the vocalist, used play saxophone, and he works from the tradition of sound poetry or concrete poetry. Basically poems without real words. The tradition started with Dada in the 1920s, with Hugo Ball and Kurt Schittwers.
He uses that to work from in free improvisation in a similar that I work from classical and jazz bass.
Ball founded Dada with six sound poems, we perform them as a duo here:


Here is Schwitters doing his Ursonate with the text:


We don't talk much about the music and it has been different every time. There are moments that have happened regularly that we have been developing, such as the singer and drummer doing performance art around the room while the trombonist and me do pitch based improvisation. This group is even more open than others I've been in, I have no idea what will happen the next time!
There is a frenetic movement under this group that relates to jazz via free jazz.

As far as deciding which notes to play, that is far more traditional, even in this group, there is a pitch area that develops in the music and we hear it and either decide to go with it or against. Going with it is a more interesting option in this group due to the performance elements.