Alliance for Improvised Music

New Show


PACHORA
Chris Speed, Jim Black
Brad Shepik, Skuli Sverrison

Tuesday, March 10, 1998, 9 pm, $8
Duke Coffeehouse, East Campus


Pachora is one of the most exciting bands to emerge from NY’s "downtown" scene for some time. Their mix of Balkan, Bulgarian, Turkish, various Middle Eastern and North African musical traditions with the aesthetic of avant-garde jazz improvisation swirls around the complex, but danceable, time signatures associated with these traditions while allowing for the stretching, bending, twisting forms of personal expression we associate with the avant-garde. Speed’s lightning-fast clarinet work is immediately recognizable as it weaves its way around Shepik’s intricate Portuguese 9-string guitar stylings. Black is an amazing drummer, producing a startling array of sounds, textures, accents, and tempos while avoiding the drumming cliches. Sverrison’s bass could be described as stark yet melodic I suppose – whatever it is, it’s damn good.

The band has its roots in Seattle where Shepik, Black, and Speed grew up (Sverrison is Icelandic). Ensembles such as Tim Berne’s Bloodcount, Human Feel, Dave Douglas’s Tiny Bell Trio, Babkas, Myra Melford’s quintet, Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band, Ellery Eskelin’s trio, as well as "solo" projects from Speed, Sverrison, and Shepik, have borne their mark. These musicians have achieved the nearly telepathic level of communication which only comes from playing together regularly.

Pachora is part of a current trend among avant-jazzers of exploring the connections between traditional forms of music and jazz improvisation. The first wave of this exploration occurred in the 70’s with artists such as Wadada Leo Smith, Don Cherry, and others incorporating "world" music. The 90’s have seen a second, more intense wave – from the use of Asian music by Jon Jang, Francis Wong, and others to the plethora of klezmer improv bands (e.g. Masada) to Eastern European melodies appearing sporadically in Henry Threadgill’s latest works. These musicians are immersing themselves in the traditional music before bringing it into their jazz. The goal here is not jazz with a little "ethnic flavor", it’s bringing the jazz improvisational aesthetic to these musical traditions (and vice versa of course). To me, Pachora is the best of the bands melding jazz with Eastern European music, precisely because they sound at least as "Balkan" as they do "jazz."

No doubt jazz purists would be mortified. Chances are folk traditionalists would shake their heads. But as Ben Ratliff of the NY Times put it: "The music was all about exultation, and was a long way from dry musicology and schtick, the twin terrors of cross-cultural projects." Or as Velibor Pedevski of the Knitting Factory (a biased report of course) said: "I grew up in that region and I became tired of this shit, you know. But I love these guys."

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