Performance Commentary 11/12/15

This recital forms part of my research into the work and style of drummer Chris Dave. Key elements of his style from which I draw for this recital are his use of sophisticated syncopation, temporal manipulation and interest in recreating electronically generated sounds acoustically. Dave’s work is heavily inspired by DJ culture and much of his work sonically represents the syncretic nature of jazz music in real-time, by playing ‘medleys’ or ‘mash-ups’ of tunes as a DJ would. Below is information about Dave’s life and work that also features in the programme notes, but to save repetition and additional reading, I have presented it here.

Chris ‘Daddy’ Dave is a drummer, composer and bandleader born in 1973. He has worked with artists as prolific and diverse as Mos Def, Kenny Garret and Robert Glasper and has been called ‘the world’s most dangerous drummer’ by industry stalwart Amir ‘?uestlove’ Thompson.[1] While Dave’s work spans many genres, he is perhaps most renowned for his sticking speed, control, complex application of syncopation and his continuing quest to expand the sonic possibilities of the drum-set. For example, he often plays in multiple time signatures simultaneously or gives the appearance of being out of time or dropping beats. This recital represents research by performance in my on-going stylistic study of Dave’s playing in an effort to define how he ‘is totally reinventing just what you can do with drums’.[2]

The recital is rooted in two quotations that epitomise Dave’s approach to live performance:

[The Drumhedz live music] is kind of like playing like a DJ because half the band might fade out while the rest of the band comes in with something else, so it’s almost like you’re on a mixtape. This song fades out while the DJ fades this other one in[3]

Think of this experience as a live audio mixtape. So we’ll go through different genres of music. Maybe things people know, things people don’t know, but it’s just a journey. Take the journey with us through this music…[4]

My methodology is framed by these two quotations and the performance will be a continuous medley or mixtape, a polyglot musical landscape, to investigate Dave and my shared view that music is ultimately genre-less. The audience are invited to explore the musical landscapes instantaneously with the musicians. 

As such, I aim to follow Dave’s concept through his playing with the Chris Dave Trio and The Drumhedz throughout my recital. Each piece performed is individual in scope and purpose, but the recital follows an overall teleological arc from the assimilation of Dave’s and my inspirations; through an application of Dave’s ideas in a performance of a Dave arrangement; to a combination of Dave and my own approaches in performing an entirely electronically produced piece live. My choice of ensemble orchestration is also forms part of this arc: beginning with just the drums, to reflect Dave’s early ‘shedding’; adding bass and sax in the manner of The Chris Dave Trio; and later adding a chordal instrument and effects as Dave does with The Drumhedz. In short, I aim to explore from where Dave’s ideas came and where they could go.

Like most jazz music, the forms are loose and melody lines often improvised over. My approach to the recital utilises the notion of the tunes performed as a means of departure rather than a desire to represent a literal sonic account of the notated tune. All structures of all tunes are very roughly planned to allow for organic musical interaction within the trio. Preparation of the tunes between the musicians has been minimal to enable an exciting live interaction that could travel anywhere on its journey.

A Note on my Equipment

My approach to the set-up of my drum-set for this recital can be traced back to Dave’s affection for snare drums as a means to emulate processed or produced sounds. Dave explains:

I guess the snares … they’re all different personalities. … All snares, you can make them sound different because they’re already two sounds: with the snares on it’s a snare, with the snare off it’s a tom. So, you’re already getting twice as many sounds per drum off top. And then, if you’re into tuning and emulating sounds – stuff like that – then it really comes in handy because now, every song can sound slightly different, but more like the actual original [on the record], instead of everything sounding the same.[5]

Developing Dave’s concept of accessible variations of sound in live performance through my own interest in replicating electronic sounds, I have reached my current set-up. My aim was to keep all sounds used in performance as acoustically and organically generated as possible. I wish only to use produced sounds when they rely too heavily on their inherent contexts. In the case of this recital, that means primarily the vocal samples taken from interviews and films.

The result of these experimentations into acoustically generated ‘processed’ sounds could be called a ‘prepared drum kit’, much like one would ‘prepare’ a piano for performance. Consequentially, through preparing my equipment in a certain way, I am able replicate the sounds of a Roland 808 hand clap (with a 10” splash cymbal on a 13” steel shell snare drum), a heavily compressed snare sound (by heavily dampening a low-tuned copper shell snare drum) and a trashy, white noise sound with a lot of attack (by stacking two cymbals together – one unlathed, the other fully lathed) for a few examples.

The Tracks

Below is a series of points of interest, the extent of which are roughly sketched out between the musicians. Due to the nature of improvisation, however, these are entirely subject to change and additional elements may be used. (Uses of ‘we’, ‘our’ or ‘us’ refers to the trio as whole). To develop Dave’s ‘mixtape’ and ‘DJ’ analogies, these tunes will be presented as a continuous sonic experience. The audience will be taken on a journey through these musical landscapes that blend into one another.

            Open Improvisation

The opening of the recital will be totally unprepared and improvised, but I will be bearing the following ideas in mind:

-          I will explore the sonic possibilities of the drum-set beyond the traditional approach through extended techniques as a means to discover new ways to replicate and create sounds

-          I will emulate my own and Dave’s musical influences (on drum set and otherwise; from jazz to classical) to explore how Dave developed his technique[6]

A Love Supreme (‘Acknowledgement’)/Rigamortus

-          We will explore Dave’s influence on both jazz and hip-hop and the relationship between the two

-          Like Dave’s early work with The Chris Dave Trio, the tracks will be presented as a mash-up, as if a DJ were playing them together. This allows myself the freedom to open up the relationship between (and influences through) the two genres and tunes by switching between them in my musical interpolations

-          We exploit the DJ analogy by performing vinyl ‘scratches’ through the rhythmic repetition of melodic ideas, resulting in a displacement of the drums and sax relative to the unchanged bassline

-          I am also able to pry open the apparent rhythmic dissonance between the two pieces with heavily polyrhythmic grooves

Fall in Love/Transition

-          A further exploration of Dave’s influences, combining the work of John Coltrane and producer J.Dilla (James Yancey)

-          Our version of The Drumhedz arrangement of the tunes, placing them again in a medley to examine their relationship in a more nuanced manner. In this medley, the rhythmic disparity is not solely the work of the drum-set and feel as it is in the Love Supreme/‘Rigamortus’ medley, instead contrasting the fast be-bop swing of Coltrane’s ‘Transition’ with the slower hip-hop, jazz-inspired production work of J.Dilla. This contrast occurs both temporally and dynamically

-          I am able to liberate the drum-set from the traditional role of support by freely changing between the two tunes

-          By playing a few of Dave’s own polyrhythmic beats, I can impose different levels of groove (for example simultaneously combining 12/8 and 3/4 pulses) and feel upon the tunes in the same way and polyrhythmically adjust how the audience perceives the main pulse

Butterfly

-          Exploring the influence of Herbie Hancock on electronic music

-          A loose arrangement of the piece in which two bars of the lead sheet occupy one 11/4 bar (as 6/4-5/4), instead of the standard 4/4 to add a more whimsical and less propulsive feel to the tune

-          At this point I begin to assimilate my own playing style with Dave’s by using brushes, which Dave rarely does. I use them in an unconventional manner, however, in what I call a ‘flutter-tongue’ effect to replicate the floating wings of the ‘Butterfly’ and drive the beat forward

-          A free drum feature allows me to play over the bar lines and in different time signatures over the bass and piano (particularly in the written drum break) to question the traditional ‘hierarchy’ of pulses or beats. While the majority of the tune is in 11/4, I vary the rhythmic placement of the beats, giving the illusion that the time signature has changed. I do this to demonstrate that all ‘pulses’ exist always-already extra-musically, irrespective of the coordinates of performance; only by strictly contextualising one pulse does one become authoritatively ‘correct’ and open up the possibility of dragging or accelerating. I am able to stretch and mould the beat, taking away the network of support traditionally available to other players, creating a free improvisatory environment

-          The ending section turns to 4/4 to drive the feel forward and allows me to explore replications of electronic sounds with extended techniques on my kit to take the place of Hancock’s iconic synthesiser sound

Long Live the Jazz/Four

-          At this point, I am only using Dave’s concept as a means to approach the tunes, the aim being to play electronic music acoustically (or acoustically-generated electronic music) and in a variety of genres, suggested by the drum-set

-          I utilise non-traditional techniques to replicate sampled sounds used in the original tune in real time and without the aid of looping technology

-          I use elaborate four-way rhythmic independence and syncopation in order to reproduce all disparate sampled parts of the original drum part; to accurately portray the feel of the original, which utilises sampling and looping technology, at most I perform five different drum parts simultaneously

-          We can further develop ideas earlier suggested such as the temporal relationship between tunes, the mash-up, supposed contrast in styles and who ‘supports’ whom

-          The ending allows us to then advance these concepts by exploring how drum patterns affect feel and subsequent definition of style: while keeping parts of the independent rhythms constant, I will occasionally change into feels from different contexts. This idea will be further exploited towards the end of the tune

-          In an increase of tension and excitement, the trio will then break down the groove further into a heavy 2/2 feel, allowing me to replicate the sound of heavy, repetitive bass lines with my left foot on the bass drum (a task usually reserved for both feet on a double bass drum pedal)

A Live Analysis.