New Music Fest Review
by Seth Rogovoy(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Oct. 11, 1996) -- The inaugural concert of the inaugural Berkshire New Music Festival in Chapin Hall at Williams College on Thursday night was a suggestively eclectic affair juxtaposing traditional and contemporary styles in a typically post-modern manner.
Thus, the Williams Jazz Ensemble -- really a jazz orchestra with a complete string section -- played music that drew heavily on the Western European classical tradition, while acknowledging the African-American jazz tradition running from Louis Armstrong through Duke Ellington to John Coltrane and beyond.
And in various permutations, Kusika, the college's African dance company, the Zambezi Marimba Band, the African music ensemble, and the Williams College Dance Company, the modern dance troupe, along with members of the jazz ensemble, all combined their efforts to present traditional African folk music and dance through a modern filter.
The centerpiece of the evening was the world premiere of "Portaculture," a new work by Andy Jaffe, the director of the jazz ensemble. Over the course of the piece's five movements, which mixed elements of 12-tone composition and jazz improvisation, the work evoked an array of influences that were both playful and mathematically precise.
Beginning on a two-chord vamp, the work, which Jaffe describes as "a large arch form based on the cycle of fifths," recalled one of Ellington's mood pieces in its epic scale and colorful textures. Pianist Tom McClung, one of four soloists featured in the work, interposed a Gershwinesque cadenza before the ensemble did a 180-degree turn from a bimodal vamp into a polka dance rhythm.
The second movement opened on a featherbed of Muzak-like strings, which clarinetist Bill Smith, to whom the piece was dedicated, knifed through with the first of several boldly aggressive solos. Smith was echoed by saxophonist Bruce Williamson, who in turn was echoed by McClung. The third movement was particularly characterized by a jaunty solo by McClung, which was answered by some taunting woodwind ostinatos.
Smith, Williamson, McClung and drummer Randy Kaye made the fourth movement into a swingfest when they jumped around from one to the next trading fours, after which Smith and McClung took the piece into never- never land with some free soloing on the edge.
The jazz portion of the show opened with a tribute to Smith -- here in his guise as composer William O. Smith -- when a student woodwind quintet attempted his aptly-titled "Schizophrenic Scherzo." Written in 1947 at Mills College and recorded by the Dave Brubeck Octet, the short composition -- an early work in what was to become the "Third Stream" movement -- lived up to its billing, bouncing formal lines and harmonies against freely swinging passages, all underlined by a strong, rhythmic pulse.
The first half of the concert was a colorful spectacle of rhythm, song and movement. The Zambezi Marimba Band, under the direction of Ernest Brown, highlighted the symphonic potential of the marimba ensemble. "Skoikiaan" was a bright, cheery piece of urban world-pop, and in its subtly evolving repetitions the traditional Zimbabwean song "Hombi" anticipated contemporary minimalism.
The Williams College Dance Company, under the direction of Sandra Burton, and Kusika, co-directed by Burton, Brown and Gary Sojkowski, weaved their performances in and out of each other. "Turn Jump Nrut" by Burton, a dance based on the movements and structure of double Dutch, a Black girls' jump rope game, was full of youthful energy and humor. "Gota" was a ceremonial dance for male-female couples, and "Women's Dance" was inspired by girls' puberty rites in West Africa.
"Gome" featured percussion and ensemble singing which was echoed by a trio of horn players from the jazz ensemble. A simple, New Orleans- inflected figure by the trumpet which answered a female chorus made explicit the trans-Atlantic connection between traditional African music and American jazz. "For Whom the Ball Rolls," choreographed by Holly Silva of the dance company, was an exuberant piece that found dancers expressing their individuality, their freedom and their frustrations in solos and ensemble movements accompanied by tennis balls, many of which found their own way to freedom, with or without the assistance of the
dancers. [This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Oct. 12, 1996. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
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