i still can't believe yuriko got trevor dunn to play at blim. this was one gig worth being wrecked the next day for.
i've only seen dunn perform once before, with john zorn's electric masada - perhaps the greatest live musical experience i've ever had. truly mindblowing.
this time dunn played double bass and teamed up with shelley burgon on harp. they played a few pieces that had a sinister cinematic feel. there both improv and scored pieces. shelley is really charming, and works the harp like a dangerous weapon. besides alice coltrane, i don't think i've ever heard the harp used in jazz / improv before. whereas coltrane created big washes of sound (a monastic trio), burgon focused more on plucking.
joining dunn and burgon after the intermission was brett larner on koto. the combination was dreamy (in an intense quasi-nightmare kind of way). the koto is another instrument i've only heard once before in jazz - with miya masaoka. larner added a great element, taking the intensity of the performance up a notch.
during the intermission i picked up a cd-r of dunn and burgon's live and home recordings. you can't beat the feeling of slapping cash directly into the hand of an artist, knowing that every cent goes back into helping them create their next works.
dunn is one of those sidemen who winds up on half the albums you own (various zorn, fantomas, mr bungle, junk genius) and i'm glad to see him finding time to do more work on his own, including his duo with burgon and his work with his trio convulsant. like so many of zorn's associates, dunn has his fingers in a lot of projects and they all fit him well.
show at blim, vancouver, october 20, 2004.
{October 22, 2004 09:06 PM}