Edgefest: Ann Arbor’s Avant Garde Festival
(featuring E3Q, the FAB Trio, Henry Grimes, Les Projectionnistes and the Tobias Delius Quartet)
Live at the Firefly Club and the Kerrytown Concert House, Ann Arbor

The ninth annual Edgefest – I checked the roster back in August to see who was playing, and I was blown away at some of the names that were going to be here in Ann Arbor.

I was able to make it to see five acts, the first of which was E3Q, a trio consisting of trumpeter/electronician Mark Kirschenmann, his wife cellist Katri Ervamaa, and percussionist Mike Gould. The group played an odd assortment of tunes, many with fusion leanings, but all with a very avant-garde flair. Their pieces were all titled to include some sort of prefix of the number three, like “TRIcycle” or “MisTRIal”, a gimmick which became a bit tiresome but which was nonetheless part of the band’s eccentric nature. Musically, this band was confident, unique, and interesting. Katri’s cello played several roles in the group: sometimes, she would walk a bassline like a double-bassist might, and other times she played higher pitches, sounding quite like a viola. A highlight of the set came when Kirschenmann announced that the band would play an arranged version of a recognizable tune, and that if anyone could guess the tune, they would win a “prize”. After the tune, no one could guess, and Mark revealed that it had been “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns n’ Roses. That definitely took us all by surprise!

E3Q was opening for the FAB Trio, consisting of Billy Bang on violin, Joe Fonda on bass, and Barry Altschul on drums. This band played an energetic set, full of variety, color, and life. A half-hour-long improvisation kicked their set off, and Bang demonstrated his mastery of his own technique. Highly unconventional but certainly not amateur, he certainly knew how to effectively convey what he wanted to, and he took the audience through several high-intensity romps. Fonda’s style is very similar to that of bass legend Charlie Haden, and his contributions to the group were complimentary. Being in the same room with Altschul was a real treat — he certainly did not disappoint. It was a moving experience to hear his idiosyncrasies in a live setting, after knowing them for so long on records that were made thirty to forty years ago. The show was memorable, but the best was yet to come.

Saturday night was one of the most highly anticipated shows of Edgefest: Henry Grimes’ appearance at Kerrytown Concert House. Playing to a sell-out crowd, Mr. Grimes made it clear that after thirty years of absence from the music scene, he was still the man of remarkable musical vision and talent he was in the mid-to-late 1960′s. Reedman Andrew Lamb and percussionist Newman Taylor-Baker rounded out the trio, which was named the Best Jazz Trio of 2004 by the NYPress. As one would expect from such an amazing line-up, the players were very in-tune with each other: their interplay was practically telepathic. The set was free throughout, but it was only near the end of the set when things really started to get raw. For about five minutes near the end of their last improvisation, the group exploded into a frenzy of beautiful dissonance. They received a standing ovation and played an encore, one of the most amazing minor blues I’ve heard in a long time. I had seen Grimes back in early 2005 with saxophonist Marshall Allen and it wasn’t very impressive, but this show blew me away.

I had to zoom over to the Firefly to catch the beginning of the next show: a group from Montreal called Les Projectionnistes. The group, consisting of trombone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, electric guitar, electric bass, and drums, played an intense kind of jazz-rock music which was full of notes, but often devoid of emotion. Their pieces all generally had the same sound: bass ostinato, slightly unusual drumbeat, long and winding melodies, and solos which were occasionally crazy. They were clearly influenced by the French avant-gardists in Art Zoyd, as well as by Frank Zappa’s fusion groups in the early 1970′s. Although the group was interesting at first, by the end of their eighty-minute set, I began to get weary of their consistently high volume and unchanging ensemble sound.

Closing out the festival was the Tobias Delius Quartet (pictured), with Delius on tenor saxophone, drummer Han Bennink, Icelandic bassist Valdi Kolli, and cellist Tristan Honsinger. This was a truly unique and fascinating group. Bennink, a master of extended drumset technique, behaved like a kid in a candy store: constantly finding just the right sound to accompany his band mates, regardless of how ridiculous he might look doing it (i.e. putting a drum stick in his mouth and rubbing the other drum stick against it). The quartet had a dynamic that was similar to Don Cherry’s from the mid-1960′s, the band that recorded Complete Communion: short motives which were stated and improvised upon. It was my favorite show of the ones that I saw.

Ann Arbor has had a vibrant avant-garde scene for many years, but this festival is not what keeps it alive: it’s merely the largest expression of the spirit in this town. In short, Edgefest is a joy to have.

Reviewed by Matt Endahl