Re: attitude/ree publicity

[improv@peak.org]

My band does a lot of benefit/activism gigs, and they can run the gamut
from being great experiences to completely dismal. I like the idea of
demanding a fee, and then donating an amount for every 100 audience
members :-)

I played a show the other night (not a benefit, just a club gig) at a club
in Portland, it was my new quartet, and a Portland ambient jazz/breakbeat
group. It was a wednesday night in a club that seems generally kind of
hard to get peole to go to, maybe it's all the wierd music they book.
Anyway, there was virtually nobody there, except the other band had
invited a number of great local players to sit in with them. The stage
area was large enough that both bands could leave all their gear setup for
the whole night, and by the end of the night we were all onstage, 12
players in all, with 6 horns, 2 drummers, keys (me), bass, dj and an MC.
The amazing thing was that the whole thing remained pretty musically
coherent, which in my experience almost never happens in large ensemble
improvs without some sort of a leader/conductor. In this case, everyone
was just listening, and seemed to tacitly agree to underplay rather than
overplay. I don't know if this is coincidental or not, but there were no
guitarists on the gig, that might explain it, though :-). It was an
amazing experience. My band made $50, which pretty much covered gas. On a
$$$ level, it was a complete wash, but as a musical experience, wonderful.
After this, and re-reading the Sun Ra biography, I really want to start an
avant big band.