All About Jazz is celebrating Ken Vandermark's birthday today!
For the past 20 years, Ken Vandermark has been exploring and working to expand the possibilities of improvised and composed music in North America and Europe. Since moving to Chicago from Boston in 1989, he\'s performed and recorded in a variety of contexts, and with many internationally renowned musicians. Past groups of significance include the NRG Ensemble, the DKV Trio, AALY, FME, the Vandermark Quartet, Spaceways Inc., School Days... Read more.
Tim Daisy, left, and Ken Vandermark play together in three ensembles besides their improv gig as a duo.
By Walter Tunis Contributing music writer
When wholly improvised music — meaning music conjured entirely in the moment without compositional or even melodic preconceptions — is created between two musicians, one might think that being total strangers would be a plus. After all, if you don't know your fellow improviser, you certainly won't know what kind of music he or she will bring to the table.
Saxophonist Ken Vandermark and drummer Tim Daisy don't possess that unfamiliarity. The two are longtime friends and musical cohorts. One, in fact, is pretty much a protégé of the other. And at last count, these two veterans of Chicago's famed improvisational music community play together in at least three ensembles in addition to the duo configuration that brings them back to Kentucky for an Outside the Spotlight performance at the Downtown Arts Center.
Yet, when they meet onstage Saturday, the idea will be to present music that exists outside of their personal and musical relationships. It will be jazz based solely on the immediate ideas the players throw at each other at that instant.
"One of the things I like about how we play together is the fact that we're interested in finding ways to create structure spontaneously, so that what we play ultimately feels like realized pieces of music," Vandermark said.
"Sometimes when I improvise with other people, the music remains in a kind of abstract territory. But with Tim, I really feel like we're trying to create new songs on the spot. And that's really exciting to me, to push the melodies further and further. It's a different kind of risk."
"It's very important to listen to each other in this kind of setting," Daisy said. "But it's also important not to get into a space where you're being reactionary. What I mean by that is, I don't listen to what Ken does and then try to copy it. That generally lends itself to poor improvising, in my opinion. But you can listen to what he's doing and do your own thing — you know, manipulate it, change it around and then give something back, so that the music has the flow of a real conversation.
"Of course, it can also be really effective to just throw a wrench in there and do something that's completely different from what he's doing. As long as we're listening and understanding each other, those contrasts can really work."
A prolific composer and bandleader, and a soloist and improvising musician of often-volcanic intensity, Vandermark has long been viewed as a mentor to many younger Chicago musicians working around him. Among them is Daisy.
"Ken has really helped me develop a focused determination when it comes to playing," the drummer said. "But he also has helped me to trust my instincts. He has given me permission, in a way, to go on my own path regardless of any kind of critique I might get from anybody. He's pretty fearless in that way."
KEN VANDERMARK (b. 9/22/64, Warwick, Rhode Island, USA; tenor sax, bass clarinet Bb clarinet, baritone sax; Bachelor of Arts in Film and Communications from McGill University, Montreal, 1986).
Since the spring of 1986, Ken Vandermark has worked to expand the possibilities of improvised and composed music. He has worked continuously from the middle 1990's onward- both as a performer and organizer in North America and Europe- and his primary creative focus has been contemporary music that deals directly with advanced methods of improvisation.
Vandermark moved to Chicago from Boston in 1989. Since then he's performed and recorded in a vast array of contexts, and with many internationally renowned musicians, touring on a regular basis in North America, Europe, and Japan for more than half of each year. His concerts and numerous recordings have been critically acclaimed both at home and abroad.
Past groups of significance include the DKV Trio, the Territory Band, NRG Ensemble, AALY, the Vandermark Quartet, Spaceways Inc., FME, School Days, Caffeine, Cinghiale, and Steam. Currently, the majority of his work as a composer and improviser has been developed in the Vandermark 5, Powerhouse Sound, the Frame Quartet, Free Fall, and the Resonance Ensemble. In addition, he works on a regular basis with the total improvisation units Sonore, the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, separate duos with the percussionists Paal Nilssen-Love and Tim Daisy, Lean Left, iTi, and Fire Room.
Each year brings additional new projects and collaborations, which expand the range of his work. Vandermark also performs in a solo context. During December of 2008 he recorded his first soundtrack, for the documentary film, Strade d'Acqua (Roads of Water), directed by Augusto Contento. A second soundtrack will be developed in the spring of 2010, for another documentary by Contento, this time about Chicago's creative music scene. It will involve Steve Albini, Wayne Montana, David Grubbs, John Herndon, Rob Mazurek, and Chad Taylor.
In addition to his work as a performer, Vandermark has made many significant and highly respected contributions to both the Chicago and International Jazz/Improvised Music scenes by organizing concerts and sponsoring North American tours with a variety of artists and ensembles. With John Corbett he began programing the Empty Bottle “Wednesday Night Jazz Series” in 1996, and it brought musicians from Chicago, North America, and Europe to audiences for nearly a decade.
From April 2006 to October 2008 he continued this work by co-directing the "Immediate Sound Series" with Mitch Cocanig at the Hideout; from autumn of 2005 to spring of 2009 he was a member of Umbrella Music, a musician-based group of organizers collaborating in Chicago which also programs an international music festival for Jazz and Improvised Music each November.
Citations of Merit: - Selected as a MacArthur Fellow in 1999.
- One of the "Chicagoans of the Year in the Arts, 1994" (Chicago Tribune, January 1, 1995) for his work with the Vandermark Quartet.
- Selected as one of the "25 For The Future," the most significant improvising musicians under the age of 40, by Down Beat magazine, June 1998.
- In 2004, was named among the "Musicians Of The Year" by All About Jazz, New York.
- Picked as one of Chicago’s “40 Cultural Heroes” by Time Out magazine in September 2008.
In addition to myself and Ken Laster, we have Ken Vandermark. All he has over us is that he can actually play jazz. Vandermark is a horn player (tenor sax, clarinet, bass clarinet) and prolific recorder and composer. To judge by the two albums I have purchased, his work shows the rewards and risks of avant garde jazz.
The Vandermark Five is his main band, though he appears to have several others. Burn the Incline, and Elements of Style, Exercises in Surprise demonstrate the same genius for invention in music as they do in titles. It is no wonder, perhaps, that Vandermark was the recipient of a MacArthur "genius award." Both recordings stretch from edgy bop to out there free jazz, and sometimes the stretch is visible in the same number. There is a strong element of blues funk running through a lot of the songs.
I like a lot of what I am hearing here, but I like the more melodic numbers more than the more free base anti-compositions. Of the two, I think Elements is the better work.Here are some samples. With the reservations noted, I think they are welcome additions to any good collection. http://jazznotesdp.blogspot.com/2009/11/another-jazz-ken-ken-vandermark.html
For the past 20 years, Ken Vandermark has been exploring and working to expand the possibilities of improvised and composed music in North America and Europe.
Since moving to Chicago from Boston in 1989, he's performed and recorded in a variety of contexts, and with many internationally renowned musicians. Past groups of significance include the NRG Ensemble, the DKV Trio, AALY, FME, the Vandermark Quartet, Spaceways Inc., School Days, Cinghiale, Witches & Devils, Steam, and Caffeine. Currently, the majority of his work as a composer and improviser has been directed toward the Vandermark 5, Powerhouse Sound, the Frame Quartet, the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, Sonore, and separate duos with the percussionists Tim Daisy and Paal Nilssen-Love, the Territory Band, CINC, and Free Fall. Upcoming projects include iTi (with Johannes Bauer, Thomas Lehn, Paal Nilssen-Love), Lean Left (with Terrie Ex, Andy Moor, Paal Nilssen Love), a collaboration with the group ZU, and the Resonance Ensemble (an international group featuring ten musicians from Poland, Sweden, the Ukraine, and the United States).
In addition to creating music, Ken has made many significant and highly respected contributions to both the local and international jazz/improvised music scenes through organizing concerts in Chicago and sponsoring North American tours with various ensembles. In 1996, he and writer John Corbett began organizing the Empty Bottle “Wednesday Night Jazz Series,” concerts that brought musicians from Chicago, North America, and Europe to audiences on a weekly basis for nearly a decade. Starting in April 2006, Ken has continued this work by co-directing the “Immediate Sound Series” with Mitch Cocanig at the Hideout. Since the fall of 2005 he has also been a member of Umbrella Music, a musician based group of organizers collaborating in Chicago. His work as a presenter led to the invitation to act as creative director for the ACME Festival, a four-day event held in Athens, Georgia, during April, 2004, which featured concerts and workshops involving 21 musicians from Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the United States.
Awards
Was selected as a MacArthur Fellow in 1999.
One of the "Chicagoans of the Year in the Arts, 1994" (Chicago Tribune, January 1, 1995) for the Vandermark Quartet
Selected as one of the "25 For The Future," the most significant improvising musicians under the age of 40 by Down Beat Magazine, June 1998
in 2004, Ken was named one of the "Musicians Of The Year" by All About Jazz, New York. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=11015
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