ted hearne
bio // calendar
// music // links
// sounds
// katrina ballads
NEW AUDIO:
vessels (2008) // make it out (2008) // you have aids (2008)
//
mass for st. mary's (2008) // i remember (2007)
//
cordavi and fig (2007) // patriot (2007)
bio // calendar
// music // links
// sounds
// katrina ballads
NEW AUDIO:
vessels (2008) // make it out (2008) // you have aids (2008)
//
mass for st. mary's (2008) // i remember (2007)
//
cordavi and fig (2007) // patriot (2007)
mass for st. mary's (2008) // i remember (2007) //
cordavi and fig (2007) // patriot (2007)
ethan and tim at the stone
my friend taylor always inadvertently refers to the musicians he loves by their first names. i love that - it’s like once he feels where they’re coming from, that’s an intimate enough experience to be on a first-name basis.
i went with nathan and dan vezza (thankfully back from germany for a few months) to see ethan iverson and tim berne at the stone tonight. of course that’s always an intimate space, but for this show it was especially so. the ensemble seemed almost embryonic; i know the two of them have played together publically many many times, but i imagine most if not all of those performances have been in the context of trios or quartets. this felt exposed, careful, fragile… sometimes i wasn’t entirely convinced - sometimes their improvisations stopped breathing for a while, sometimes the two would jump to the written page and fall into a staid reading of the head.
but it was clear we were watching an energy just beginning to form, and i felt lucky to be there to hear it. here are two heady-ass musicians, not only creating complex musical constructions but using them as a runway from which to embark into various states of improvisation. some of these tunes sounded almost like hindemith, rigid and thorny, only more mathy and (thankfully) with weirder bass lines. the project of using tunes like these to experiment with elasticity, falling in and out of time and togetherness, seems like it would be made even more difficult with only two performers. (as nathan pointed out, there’s almost nowhere to hide in this texture.)
but this duo could be, and hopefully it wil be, gripping and mesmerizing, and i know this because at times the music really took off, and occasionally tim and ethan found the perfect place to hide, and then all of a sudden the timbral obstacles fell away. it was heartening to see these two badasses searching for a new sound and honoring the process.
