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Mats
Gustafsson-Paul Lovens Duo / Leroy Jenkins Solo
Houston TX, 16 & 22 June 2001
by Frank Rubolino
September 2001
 The
final two concerts of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation's season featured
the duo of Mats Gustafsson and Paul Lovens on their 'Nothing to Read'
tour, and Leroy Jenkins in a solo performance. Both concerts were
held at the acoustically friendly and comfortable Diverse Works,
a theatrical/musical/art space located in the warehouse district
of downtown Houston. The Foundation's concerts have been gaining
momentum by attracting highly creative improvising musicians to the
area, and the dual finale for this fiscal year lived up to all the
pre-billing.
Viewing a presentation by Gustafsson and Lovens is an intimate experience.
While both musicians are capable of being outlandishly bombastic,
it is the subtle side of their nature that dominates their sessions.
The artists asked that the air conditioning be turned off so that
all the nuances of their performance could be heard properly, and
although that is a heavy request for Houston audiences, no one complained
once the music started.
 Using
cymbals and gongs as a primary source of percussion, Lovens carved
out a delicate channel of sound. He created arrhythmic and rhythmic
patterns of sensitive beauty that seemed to hover in the dead silence
of the room. There were those moments when he opened up fully and
exploded his kit, but the meticulous development of quiet strokes
and shimmering clangs were the more dominant aural images. Lovens
also used a handsaw to simulate an unusually eerie ambiance. He bowed
the edges to produce high-pitched, nearly inaudible screeches and
then quivered the saw itself for reverberant effects. Lovens used
numerous special effects, and each of them fed into a delicious sound
collage.
Gustafsson
played an array of reeds, including flutes, tenor, and baritone sax.
He also eschewed eruptive blowing in favor of more sensitive artistry.
Oh, there were those moments when he and Lovens caused the amp meters
to peak, but he also took great care to transform his saxophone into
a soft percussion instrument. He accomplished this by using his fingers
to click the neck just below the mouthpiece as he tongued and fluttered
the reed. Gustafsson used this technique on several occasions, producing
an otic mystique that could only be accomplished in a stone-quiet
atmosphere. His facial expressions betrayed the intensity inside
him. He appeared to be in pain exorcising these exotic sounds from
his instrument. Gustafsson also played his flute with its bell buried
in the instrument's stand to simulate a bass clarinet tone. His entire
performance was a study in controlled dynamics. The empathy transmitted
between these two was overwhelmingly evident, and each developed
his art in simultaneous, independent, yet perfectly synchronized
movements. It was an inspired session of art on the leading edge
of creativity.
 Leroy
Jenkins culminated his stay in Houston with a solo violin/ viola
concert. He had spent the earlier part of the week in summer residency
with a class of improvising students of MECA (Multicultural Education
and Counseling through the Arts), the inner city haven where young
musicians concluded their study program with the string master by
executing a composition/improvisation he wrote especially for the
occasion. For his solo concert, Jenkins played a series of freely
improvised songs where he displayed his wide range of string talent.
Jenkins seemed to enjoy taking a fragment of a theme and weaving
its notes intermittently into the fabric of the improvisation. He
used this technique often, and it allowed the songs to have a frame
of reference whereby the audience could relate to the direction he
was taking.
Jenkins showed a penchant for flair during his long wanderings. He
would subtly break out into an overt demonstration of energetic bowing,
bringing several songs to a crescendo in this manner. Every so often,
Jenkins introduced a bit of humor into his playing. On one occasion,
he produced a disguised opening line of "Red River Valley", and then
sprung from that into freeform playing, only to return to the second
line from the classic western tune before leaving it for more unstructured
realms.
Jenkins
alternated between the violin and viola, which kept the program diverse
and stimulating. The fuller tone of the viola combined with his energized
playing of this instrument gave the viola songs dense body, yet the
exhilarating violin passages were equally absorbing in a subtler
way. The intense set concluded with the only true song form of the
evening—a
rendition of Coltrane's "Giant Steps". Jenkins returned for an encore
on a piece he called "A Romance", which was an inventive, highly animated
string discourse.
A solo concert of this nature is a very difficult path for any performer
to take, but it appeared quite natural for Jenkins. He displayed originality
and the ability to keep everyone's attention through his imaginative
playing, which was much appreciated by the knowledgeable crowd.
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