SAMIR CHATTERJEE and WILLIAM PARKER @ Local 269, July 28, 2009
JULY 28, 2009 -- MANHATTAN: Decked in colorful robes, tabla master Samir Chatterjee and upright wizard William Parker looked relaxed. At 7 PM, the sports bar Local 269 (converted to an avant jazz club once a week by RUCMA / Vision Festival) was full of attentive audience members, and the two performers were tweaking their setups, Chatterjee attempting to avoid feedback from an effects pedal his tabla was running through, and Parker checking the microphone level on a large whistle he was playing through. Neither were used in the performance. Maybe it was because the feedback couldn't be tamed, or maybe because the musicians decided last minute just to go for something different, but whatever the reason, the result was wonderful.
Before kicking into the 45 minutes of straight improvised music, Parker made note of the artistic figures who have passed away in the recent months: Michael Jackson, Merce Cunningham, and George Russel to name a few. After running down the list, Parker chose to dedicate the forthcoming performance instead to everyone is still alive today. That positive energy is especially profound knowing that a little over a week later, one of Parker's collaborators and friends, drummer Rashied Ali, would also lose his life.
The music was a tank, the force being Parker's low end. He began alone, repeating a medium, swinging figure, walking it and the ripping it apart, only for a moment, only to slide back into the pattern. Though repeated over and over, Parker was able to inflect his low melody with a slightly unique push each time he played it. Samir Chatterjee observed patiently. He could have easily stuck to his guns and allowed Parker to adjust his swing to the a mostly historic, Indian tabla approach. Instead however, it was Chatterjee who adjusted, using his immense knowledge of the sounds housed in his two drums to compliment the path that Parker was treading. Or plowing. It was pretty intense.
Sparsely tapping out high pitches, Chatterjee eventually settled into a completely novel sounding swing, moving his fingers in a delicate, specific sequence that one isn't used to seeing in the realm of percussion, a space normally reserved for pounding sticks or open palms.
The connected music took different routes but stayed grounded in Parker's pulse and Chatterjee's tabla vocabulary. When his finger tip would punch the middle of the lower drum, the room shook. Halfway through the set, Parker grabbed his bow and didn't let it go, drawing moans from the low end, and fiddle like melodies from the high end. And old country figure over a table groove was unlike anything I've heard before, and the joining of these two forces seemed like a surefire way to draw brand new sounds to the listeners ears. I plan on witnessing it again as soon as I can.
