Big Risk, Big Reward

The Painted Bride pulls the curtain back on the creative process with its experimental Big Ears project.

by Shaun Brady

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Published: Feb 24, 2009

FUR YOU: Big Ears consists of two separate performances. This weekend, John Hollenbeck's Large Ensemble will play the Bride.

As the audience of 30 to 40 people filed into the Painted Bride early one mid-January morning, there was no acknowledgment of them from the stage. The performance — if it can be called that — was already in progress and continued without heeding the fact that there was now a roomful of eyes to see it. Six of the 13 musicians on stage had their backs to the audience. After a brief, barely audible discussion, the ensemble began to play, a round-robin exercise whose rules gradually became clear, as successive pairs of instrumentalists wrestled with complex rhythmic schemes or improvised together.

As the morning continued, it began to feel as if the audience didn't belong here at all — which, in truth, they didn't.

"To be honest, I was reluctant to have you here," was drummer and bandleader John Hollenbeck's first statement to the audience, after the hourlong open rehearsal had wrapped. "I didn't want to have to worry about the results or the sound."

Not a common admission from a performer, to be sure, but all part of the Painted Bride's attempt to pull the curtain back on the creative process. The two performances that constitute the actual public component of the Big Ears project are the result of a months-long process of interaction and community-building. Hollenbeck, the New York-based leader of the Claudia Quintet among myriad other projects, essentially became musical drill sergeant to a dozen gifted Philadelphia musicians, attempting to transform them into a cohesive unit through a two-week residency.

The project was born when Bride music curator Lenny Seidman caught a Claudia Quintet gig in Philly a few years back. "It definitely gave me pause because it was so different," Seidman recalls. "I couldn't even identify the emotions, but I knew it moved me, and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to think about it. In other words, I was impressed."

Seidman approached Hollenbeck and continued discussions until a grant from the Philadelphia Music Project made the concept an actual possibility. Big Ears consists of two separate performances, both featuring new music penned for the occasion: This weekend, Hollenbeck will bring his own Large Ensemble, a stunning, impressionistic big band, followed by next weekend's premiere of the Philly group. "I've got my writing projects lined up like planes at LaGuardia," Hollenbeck says via e-mail from Berlin, where he spends part of the year teaching.

In assembling the local group, Hollenbeck had several goals. "I was looking for musicians who are open, flexible, looking for some new experiences, like or know my approach and want to work with me," Hollenbeck explains. "I also wanted to bring together some Philly musicians that haven't worked with each other before, though it seems like a smallish scene, so this was a challenge."

The Philly group is a Venn diagram of overlapping local sub-scenes: Tenor saxophonist Bryan Rogers and trumpeter Bart Miltenberger regularly perform in the big band of altoist Bobby Zankel, the most experienced musician to sign on for Hollenbeck's experiment; both also perform in guitarist Matt Davis' Aerial Photograph alongside clarinetist/soprano saxophonist Aino Soderhielm and trombonist Brent White. Percussionists Gabe Globus-Hoenich and Patty Franceschy are both Curtis grads and frequent collaborators (they are part of a trio with Rogers' Shot x Shot bandmate Dan Capecchi), while Globus-Hoenich works with bassist Brian Howell. Pianist Matt Mitchell and violinist Katt Hernandez both perform occasionally in Bowerbird-presented experimental music shows.

MIXED: Working with eclectic vocalist Venissa Santi is one of Hollenbeck's most unusual collaborative choices. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Perhaps the most unusual presence is singer Venissa Santi. While Hollenbeck works often with vocalist Theo Bleckmann, Santi's blend of Afro-Cuban influences and modern spins on jazz standards are not as obvious a fit with Hollenbeck's more experimental approach. "As I start to come out as a bandleader," Santi says, "I really want to stray away from doing everything cliché as a singer."

Some of the exercises proved challenging for Santi, especially those involving extended techniques. "It was tough for me on a couple of occasions because I don't have buttons to push," she says. "My extended technique was pretty subtle compared to what a sax could do — honking or squeaking or screeching. I don't want to just scream and holler."

The first week's residency, in January, was largely an attempt for everyone to get to know each other and become comfortable with their disparate styles. Through the use of exercises in rhythmic concepts and extended techniques, Hollenbeck also hoped to generate ideas for the compositions he'd write for the group. Next week's second residency period will allow the group to reassemble and rehearse what is still a work in progress.

"I can say the music will be diverse and cover many areas," Hollenbeck says, "because that's what I always need to do for myself. Since we'll be in the performance space all week, we'll try to use the space and different combinations of instruments as well as the whole ensemble."

In the meantime, the Bride has sponsored a few performances by Big Ears participants' regular projects, as well as a blog (at bigearsphilly.com), where musicians share their impressions of the process. "We're trying to give visibility to all the artists, which is what the Bride tries to do all the time," Seidman says. "It benefits the Bride as an institution to get more people involved, and part of that is to get outside people to actually communicate with the artists. The other great result is that more people are finding out about these Philly artists, and that could be very beneficial for their individual musical lives."

For the musicians, events like the open rehearsal provided a unique opportunity to interact with their audience. "It was fascinating to me to hear what people thought of these exercises we're doing," Hernandez says. "A lot of times with improvised music it's hard to get an objective idea of what this very collective, intimate set of interactions that we use to make this music looks like to people who are not actively participating."

As a big band leader himself, Zankel was excited by the possibilities revealed in Hollenbeck's approach. "You got to see how musically intelligent and clever he is, so it gave you confidence in wherever it is that he's going to take it. He has such a multiplicity of things that he seems to be interested in, and he seems to be up to the task of having musicians of so many different backgrounds working together."

Enviously observing the residency from the sidelines, Seidman, an experienced tabla player and veteran of residencies by the likes of Zakir Hussain and Simon Shaheen, found himself reassured about mounting a project of this scale.

"The first day when I was peeping in, I was wishing that I was there with them and not coordinating it," Seidman says. "That was a good feeling; it told me that was a good choice. A lot of things we do are risky, and I don't know for sure how anything is going to turn out. I just have hunches and use my intuition to guide me."

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble plays Sat., Feb. 28, 7 and 9 p.m., $25; Big Ears: The Philadelphia Compositions plays Fri., March 6, 7 and 9 p.m., $10, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St., 215-925-9914, paintedbride.org, bigearsphilly.com.

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