YESAROUN' DUO TUES., APRIL 20 A COUPLE WEEKS ago I met percussionist ...
r> TUES., APRIL 20
A COUPLE WEEKS ago I met percussionist Sam Solomon. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned that he threw his back out practicing Andriessen's Workers Union. As this is not your typical classical music concert injury, I was intrigued (as well as reminded why all percussionists are to be approached with extreme caution).
The problem, it seems, can be traced to the fact that the piece is normally played by six to 10 people, but Solomon and his partner in crime, Eric Hewitt, young and daring as they are, tried to produce a noise exponential to their four hands.
It's that attitude that makes their programs sound so good, even on paper. Known together as the Yesaroun' Duo (their name is a tribute to all the song lyrics you never understood-here specifically inspired by the slurred "gets around" line from Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle"), the two are bringing a program to Merkin that's one of the more creative I've seen lately.
To start off the show, they've asked Jefferson Friedman to write a series of pieces based on Mick Barr's work as Crom-Tech, an experimental guitar project that consists of one-minute, super-fast displays with Barr screaming overtop like icing. In the Friedman version, Solomon explains, "since Eric will have his saxophone in his face the whole time, I will be doing the screaming while drumming."
Dominique Schafer's Triplex Unity brings out the multiphonics and microtones, so mind your ears.
Making it a one-two punch, Yesaroun' also have programmed "Venus" from Coltrane's Interstellar Space, the album recorded just a few months before the great man's death. Here, as with the Bach, purists may become nervous, but should rest assured that every effort will be made to recreate exactly what Coltrane and drummer Rashied Ali laid down on the original recording.
Then things start to get really odd. Solomon and Hewitt take on Bach, updating one of his concertos for violin, oboe and string orchestra by substituting vibes, soprano sax, synthesizer and electric cello.
Then there's Workers Union, closing the show, albeit in a modified and hopefully safer-for-all-involved arrangement. The piece, if you've never experienced it, is dissonant and aggressive. The composer's main instruction is that "only in the case that every player plays with such an intention that his part is an essential one, the work will succeed." That one of the players ended up bedridden at the conclusion is not outlandish.