Douglas Ewart and Wadada Leo Smith

Gelvin Noel Gallery
Krannert Art Museum
Champaign, Illinois
February 28, 2013

Douglas Ewart, alto clarinet, sopranino saxophone, didgeridoo, flutes, percussion, electronics
Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet

Elaine and I were fortunate to hear Douglas Ewart when he was last in east-central Illinois, for a week-long residency at the University of Illinois’s Allen Hall/Unit One. Last night’s performance was part of a second Allen Hall residency devoted to teaching and improvising with students.¹

Ewart and Wadada Leo Smith met in 1967 as members of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. They brought to last night’s performance — a single improvised piece, somewhere over an hour long — a long history of musical empathy. The two musicians made a striking contrast: Ewart sitting or standing before of a table full of instruments, some modest electronics in front of him, a cloth covered with little instruments and tops at his feet; Smith with one instrument and two mutes. Their communication was a matter of deep listening, as Smith rarely if ever opened his eyes while playing.

The performance offered a great variety of musical textures: muted trumpet against didgeridoo, open trumpet against alto clarinet, a long wooden flute pinging and popping like a percussion instrument, sopranino saxophone playing multiphonic parallel fourths, sopranino and trumpet chasing one another and bouncing off the walls, and at times nothing more than tiny bells (fitted to a crepuscular stamping stick) and whistling columns of air. Ewart was often the supportive figure, furnishing a rumbling foundation for Smith’s fanfares, growls, half-valve effects, multiphonics, and brilliant, round sound. Most striking to me were three somber interludes — two for sopranino and trumpet, one for flute and trumpet — that sounded like spontaneously composed music for mourners. The performance ended almost as it began, with short muted trumpet statements, this time against alto clarinet. Then, as Ewart’s sonic tops spun and fell, Smith commented on our hapless, hopeless Congress, and Ewart commented on the need for greater government support for the arts — support, he said, that would be paid back “nine-hundredfold.”

Last night’s performance was a rare blast, and at times a rare whisper. Great thanks to Jason Finkelman for continuing to bring the news to east-central Illinois.

¹ Lucky students. Our son Ben was among them last time around.

Related reading
Douglas Ewart
Wadada Leo Smith
Douglas Ewart and Stephen Goldstein (Krannert 2011, my account)
Douglas Ewart and Quasar (Krannert 2015, my account)

Douglas Ewart and Stephen Goldstein

East Gallery
Krannert Art Museum
Champaign, Illinois
February 10, 2011

Douglas Ewart, alto clarinet, sopranino saxophone, didgeridoo, flutes, voice, percussion
Stephen Goldstein, digital percussion, handclaps, rainstick

Sitting down to write about this performance, I realize that I have no idea how long these musicians played last night — an hour? hour and a half? two? Someone said things ran late. All I know is that I was listening to a collaboration that was a delight to the ear, one that made time both fly and stand still, with Ewart shifting from instrument to instrument and Goldstein drawing an ever-changing variety of sounds and textures from two percussion pads (played with hands, sticks, and brushes) and an iPhone.

Like other musicians who came up in the AACM (Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), Ewart is an unassuming virtuoso, with an extraordinary command of tone and dynamics. Last night, he sustained circular breathing for longer than I would have thought possible, producing overtones, squawks, and whispers along the way. The most surprising moment though was a song, “BP They Making a New Dead Sea,” a solemn and fiercely satiric parade of long e rhymes: “BP means Bad Philosophy.”

Ewart is both musician and instrument-maker. In a pre-performance talk (whose topics ranged from the importance of water to the horror of plastic bags), he explained the importance of making, which for him began when he was a child in Jamaica, raised by a grandmother who pointed out that the toys on store shelves were likely to fall apart all too quickly. So Ewart began making things of his own. Last night he showed a group of Sonic Tops, made (in adulthood, for children) from found materials. The tops spun mightily on the gallery floor.

The most exciting moment for Elaine and me was the final piece. Ewart invited our son Ben and concert organizer Jason Finkelman to add their voices — banjo and berimbau, respectively — to the proceedings. It all makes sense, really: Ewart was a guest-in-residence for the week in Ben’s residence hall, where Ben (a Resident Assistant) spent a good chunk of time with him.

[Douglas Ewart and Ben Leddy. Photograph by Elaine Fine. Click for a larger view.]

You can see some of Douglas Ewart’s instruments and other artworks at his website. Note the Lab Coat and Crepuscular Stamping Stick in the above photograph.

Thanks to Jason Finkelman, who continues to bring the musical news of the world to east-central Illinois.

*

In March 2013, Douglas Ewart returned to Krannert for a performance with Wadada Leo Smith.

*

In November 2015, Ewart returned to Krannert for a performance with Quasar.

Douglas R. Ewart and Quasar

Douglas Ewart, sopranino saxophone,
    didgeridoo, flute, percussion
Edward Wilkerson, clarinet, alto clarinet, tenor
    saxophone, didgeridoo
Preyas Roy, marimba
Darius Savage, bass, percussion
Walter Kitundu, invented instruments
Duriel Harris, voice, percussion

Gelvin Noel Gallery
Krannert Art Museum
Champaign, Illinois
November 12, 2015

The Quasar ensemble’s performance last night began and ended with Douglas Ewart’s voice, first asking a fellow musician about homelessness (“Do you know how close you are to being homeless?”) and later offering life truths: “To get there fast, go alone. To create legacy, go together.” The evening’s performance, a single uninterrupted piece, joined music, poetry, and electronics in ever-shifting and compelling configurations: alto clarinet and bass creating an ostinato over which the sopranino soared, an interlude for flute and phonoharp that evoked the sound of the koto, a percussive exchange between marimba and bass. Harris’s poetry seemed to take up the spirit of inquiry with which Ewart began, asking questions about identity (“How many languages do you speak?” “What does your real voice sound like?”), privilege (“Would you say you’re lucky?”), and state power (“How much water?” “How many chokeholds?”)

About that phonoharp: a brief demonstration followed the performance. The instrument has three bass strings (to be bowed or plucked), a zither-like arrangement of doubled strings, and a turntable for sampling. Kitundu also played a kora, or kora-like instrument. Elaine took a photograph (with permission):



I believe in what Eric Dolphy said: “When you hear music, after it’s over, it’s gone, in the air. You can never capture it again.” But I still want to write about it.

Thanks to Jason Finkelman, who continues to bring the news of the new to east-central Illinois.

More about the musicians
Douglas Ewart : Edward Wilkerson Jr. on practicing : Preyas Roy : Darius Savage : Walter Kitundu : Duriel Harris

Three related posts
Douglas Ewart and Stephen Goldstein : Douglas Ewart
and Wadada Leo Smith : Gray, Ra, Wilkerson

The George Floyd Bunt Staff

Fresca posted a photograph of a man playing a Bundt pan instrument in George Floyd Square. “That’s Douglas Ewart!” I said.

Douglas was playing a “sonic sculpture” of his creation, the George Floyd Bunt Staff, which he describes as “an idiophone comprising tin and cast-aluminum Bundt baking pans whose sonic potential and possibilities are incalculable.” The staff honors Floyd as “the Everyday Hero,” known to and loved by many. As Douglas says,

George Floyd Bunted with his life to open the eyes, and awaken hearts, portals, conscience, intelligence, ire, reprimands, demands, and commands.

Here is Douglas Ewart’s website. Here is his commentary on the instrument and the events that gave rise to it. And here is a short video, with Douglas, Ananya Chatterjea, and Julia Gay playing staffs. Videography and editing by Stephanie Watt.

How do I know Douglas Ewart’s music? From LPs and CDs of course. But also from three performances at the University of Illinois, with Stephen Goldstein, Wadada Leo Smith, and Quasar.

A Douglas Ewart exhibition

Good news from Chicago:

Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) is pleased to present a retrospective of the virtuosic artist and educator Douglas R. Ewart, alongside Ewart’s recent large-scale audio-visual work Songs and Stories for a New Path and Paradigm, created in collaboration with NOW Society of Vancouver and 36 artists from across the globe.

The exhibition runs through December 11, with concerts scheduled for mid-October. Here’s more information.

Related reading
All OCA Douglas Ewart posts

Douglas Ewart in New York (and in The New York Times)

“Some artists earn the ‘multi-hyphenate’ label by doing two or three things. But Douglas R. Ewart works on a whole other level”: The New York Times reports on a night of art and performance. With eight photographs and a link to a recording of a 1981 performance.

Related reading
Five more Douglas Ewart posts