Jazz festivals love to slap together combinations of well-known musicians, but some star-studded bands that look good on paper fizzle on stage—sometimes, frankly, because certain stars turn out to be jerks who aren’t easy to work with. Of course 20 nice people don’t necessarily make an ensemble either. This transatlantic bunch are especially congenial; you can see how much they enjoy each other’s company. (Having a lot of funny people around always helps.) More important, everyone can really play, everyone listens, and everybody pulls together.
Exhibit A was the second set at the Bimhuis last night, devoted to Anthony Braxton’s large-ensemble compositions. Braxton likes his Charles Ives-y collage effects, and often during that continuous set, there were three conductors in front of the band. Braxton was flanked by Taylor Ho Bynum and James Fei, who using hand-signals carved players out of the main ensemble to follow their instructions—to play different music from the other players, sometimes in a conflicting tempo, or a radically different dynamic level. Yet the music still had the transparency that Braxton seeks. It was great theater, which yielded clear and invigorating music. (After the show Braxton was already talking about making that set a CD.)
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