Alan Cook
12:20pm | “Break the Mold” is “a monthly showcase of young, independent musicians” curated by Alex Sadnik that takes place on the third and fourth Fridays of each month (more or less) at Exhibit [A] Gallery, located at 555 Pine Ave.
Tomorrow at 8 p.m., the Crepsuscule Trio will take the floor. The members, each a heavy hitter in his own right, include saxophonist Ken Kawamura, bassist Anthony Shadduck and percussionist Alan Cook. Their music is classified as “free jazz,” a moniker that sends some running from the room, but while they embrace that exploratory and experimental ethos, all three are deeply rooted in musicality.
I asked Alan about the origins of the trio.
Alan: Ken put an ad in the Recycler a few years back, looking for musicians into avant garde creative jazz and improvised musics, and listed influences such as Anthony Braxton, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Cecil Taylor and the like. I was thrilled and excited to respond. It turns out that he was a student of Paul Carman, another good friend and musical compatriot, who I’d done a lot of the same type of musical exploration with, years back, in trio and quartet settings.
Ken and I initially formed a quartet together called the False Face Society, which also included a guitarist and cello player. Soon enough that morphed into our current assemblage. Finding Anthony on Myspace was critical and fortuitous. Four years on, we’re still creatively vibrant and excited about playing together.
Sander: What roles do the elements of composition and improvisation play in the trio’s work?
Alan: Initially, we relied heavily on gleaning thematic elements from open, spontaneous improvisations, developing them into compositional frameworks. In addition, Ken brought in some compositions that he’d developed on his own and I did as well. We used those compositions as springboards for creative exploration and delineation of their various elements. Oftentimes in performance we’ll create open ended segues of improvised interaction between compositions.
Sander: After you’ve conquered the technical aspects of performance, where do you focus your attention?
Alan: If I can speak for my fellows through my own experience, I look to the emotive expressive aspects of what we’re creating, trying to fuel in the process a deeper communication and connection with my fellow musicians, a deeper commitment to experimentation, most assuredly desiring to risk it all for the ‘sound of surprise’, as I think Whitney Balliet named it.
One other essential aspiration is to heighten my cognizance of the fact that music, our music, will be shared with others, with those who listen and hopefully are touched and moved by it. We seek to make it deeply honest and reflective of who we are, threads in the fabric of a greater community.
Sander: What is the role of the audience in the trio’s performances?
Alan: Well, we know or it seems to be my experience, that the more creatively improvisational or experimental a music is the greater investment of time, effort, willingness is required of the listener. That reflects exactly what is also required of the musicians who seek to make the music and so that communal shared endeavor should be honored and nurtured in whatever way possible. In other words, “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together,” if that makes sense. It’s about being humble as well as regards to one’s place in community, and gratitude and connection to those who support and embrace you in it.
The “Break The Mold” series is a perfect example of the D.I.Y. ethic that most creative musicians, artists, visionaries of every stripe must rely on to get their work out there to the community at large. It is an open invitation to those with a willingness and hunger for immediate creative experience to encounter it with others of like mind. Crepuscule Trio is the milieu in which Ken, Anthony and I’s creative efforts flower best, and we hope that others will be inspired in their own endeavors through our own.
There is a $10 suggested donation, but nobody will be turned away for a lack of funds. The Exhibit [A] gallery is part of the Vayden Roi galleries. The Trio’s CD, Unveil, is available from Circumvention Music.