Aside from a few dedicated venues, jazz shows can be difficult to find in Bloomington, especially if you aren't old enough to get into bars. So, naturally, I jumped at the chance to check out indie-jazz night at the Cinemat on Friday, featuring performances from Chicago's excellent blink. and locals The Nowlin Mulholland Quintet.
I was a bit surprised that blink. opened the show, as they're on tour and a more well-established band. However, the audience size didn't fluctuate much as the night went on, so the time slots didn't make a whole lot of difference, and the whole show stayed very relaxed. Tables and chairs were spread out on the Cinemat's screening room floor to let spectators sit and listen, including one near the front of the stage that made a very comfortable spot for me during both sets.
Despite a pretty traditional four-piece set up (guitar, bass, drums and sax), blink.'s music was quite experimental. Parts of each piece were very much composed, but others fell into largely improvisational, freeform territory, with skittering percussion and some very Coltrane-on-acid sax runs from Greg Ward. The group's song "Misadventures" in particular reminded me of some of the recordings from Coltrane's final album Interstellar Space, interweaving schizoid drumming and some extremely impressive playing on Ward's part. As a sax player myself, I was blown away by Ward's performance, which was nothing short of phenomenal.
But the other members of the band held their own as well. As a rhythm section, drummer Quin Kirchner and bassist Jeff Greene are a powerful team, and I was impressed to find out that the group's songs are based on Greene's compositions. Guitarist Dave Miller did a fantastic job as well, especially on the dream-like "We Disappear" and in "Sources," when he used an effects pedal to somehow make his guitar sound like crackling electricity.
During the whole performance, a very odd Japanese movie was playing on the screen behind the stage, made even more bizarre by the free-jazz that served as a soundtrack to it (and the fact that I couldn't see the subtitles). For the Nowlin Mulholland Quintet, the movie switched to an even more unusual cartoon, which I forgot to ask the name of before I left. The combination of these backdrops with the music seemed odd at first, but the out-there, cerebral quality of both movies and the music ended up having a pretty cool effect.
After blink. left the stage, the Nowlin Mulholland Quintet (which actually ended up being a sextet, with an added keyboard player) took a while setting up and waiting on bass player Phil Runge (substituting for Kam Markworth) to show up lugging his huge stand-up bass. Guitarist Lewis Rodgers filled the time by dancing around to some old-timey swing music that was somehow being broadcast through his amp (and unfortunately continued through the entirety of the set). With guys on trumpet, sax, keys, bass, drums, and guitar, the Cinemat's stage looked very full as the Quintet (sextet) began.
They played a three song set that was, overall, pretty solid. Drummer Anson Hohne's kit had two snare drums, which ended up sounding pretty cool, especially on the group's final song "Bottle Rocket" which ended up being their best of the night. They had a more traditional jazz sound than blink., though parts of their songs were clearly improvised. These sections were a bit messier than the previous act's, sometimes leaving Brad Mulholland (sax) and Matt Nowlin (trumpet) looking bored at the front of the stage. Their outstanding musicianship shined through, however: Mulholland showed that he had some serious chops and a great sound on alto, despite fewer wild improvisational runs than Ward. Lewis Rodgers showed a lot of talent on guitar too, throwing in some very energetic leads.
All in all, an entertaining and unusual night at the Cinemat. Both bands did a great job, and the movies playing behind them were pretty cool too. This is the kind of show I'd love to see more often around town, though I might have to wait until I'm 21 to make that happen, unless the Cinemat decides that indie-jazz night is something to be repeated.
Greg
