Wildcard: Gratkowski, Brendel, Pauß, Schröder

Now that was the wildest of the wildcards I’ve yet seen at the two LOFT festivals I’ve been to. Both in respect as to how spontaneous the group that actually hit the stage was formed, and the music itself.

Frank Gratkowski, once upon a time Hayden’s teacher, and widely recorded reed player, had been invited and brought his bass clarinet. Plus Adrian decided he hadn’t sufficiently hugged the stage for the day. They both sat on there and were waiting for a third member to join, when suddenly pianist and composer Theodor Pauß offered to give it a go from the audience, was greeted heartily, and they all just began playing, while most of the audience still waited outside and had to judge for themselves if they wanted to step in or if that would disturb proceedings. It wouldn’t.

The musical scenery changed from moment to moment, it began with ostinato-like figures from the piano, over which everybody could quickly find an understanding, the cello changing between bowed melody parts and plucked walking figures. Then inside piano went against percussive sax key noises, then Adrian plucked his cello like a guitar on his lap, well, almost mistreated it as such, and we were in lightning-quick-decision-making European improv territory.

For a second piece John Schröder joined on drums (voted by the members of the stage), and he was the one that first lost patience on the “whoever moves first loses” situation that ensued, but made up for it with an array of clatter that had everyone trying their quickest moves, except the piano which hovered above the whole thing with slow voicings.

I love how improv pieces like these come to a close. It’s always a gamble. Should you have the recording and listen to it over and over, the first ending was more satisfying than the second, which was a sort of surprise ending that proved a logical conclusion only after the fact that it offered no way out. But if you watch the situation life, the tension that leads to all these decisions is beautiful.

The pic is of Frank trying to figure out his horn after the gig. If I was a bit too blow-by-blow today, sorry, it’s because the damned stream stayed down and I sort of overcompensated.

That’s it for today, greetings from the LOFT, Lutz