Too much music going on in New York to mention it all, but I was struck last week by two trio performances. Bill Frisell’s show at Celebrate Brooklyn on August 3 had him playing with Tony Scherr (bass) and Kenny Wolleson (drums) in front of a giant screen, onto which were projected Buster Keaton films, several of Jim Woodring’s “Frank” cartoons, and Bill Morrison’s treatment of the 1926 Karloff picture “The Mesmerist.” The previous night at Joe’s Pub, DJ Spooky debuted something called Subliminal Strings, with Min Xiao-Phen on pipa, Yumiko Tanaka on shamisen and Spooky himself on digitized turntables. A “conversation,” as Spooky termed it, between traditional Asian string instruments and futurist beats, with fairly extensive commentary along the way. Spooky quoted William Gibson to start: “The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.”
August 4 was also a treat — trombonist Curtis Hasselbring and his quartet The New Mellow Edwards played Cornelia Street Café, followed by a trip to the Jazz Gallery for alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon and his thunderous, phenomenally intricate Rhythm Collective. It struck me that Zenon and his fellow saxophonist Marcus Strickland are both juggling two different types of bands: a piano-based acoustic quartet and an earthier combo with electric bass.
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