| Slow/Fast performs a Music in the Forefront concert Monday in BG (Photo by Reuben Radding) |
Musician Ken Thomson likes to go his own way.
A classically trained clarinetist, he sets aside his main instrument to perform with
his jazz ensemble Slow/Fast.
Even when he composes more classically oriented pieces for a string quartet he tries
to ignore the form’s revered tradition. Still, he admits, bits of the quartets
by Bela Bartok still pop up. As a performer and composer his entanglements range
from the chamber orchestra Signal to the avant garde marching band Asphalt
Orchestra. He performed at Bowling Green State University last spring as part of
Alarm Will Sound.
Thomson returns to BG for a BGSU Music at the Forefront concert with Slow/Fast Monday
at 9 p.m. at the Cla-Zel, 127 N. Main St., Bowling Green. A donation of $2 to $5
at the door is suggested.
When Thomson arrived at Columbia University in 1994 studying classical clarinet, he
spent much of his time performing jazz on saxophone. He picked up the larger
horn because he wanted to play jazz. "For me the saxophone as always
exciting precisely because I hadn’t studied it."
Playing clarinet involves dealing with the "baggage" of "all those
years of people telling me what to do."
With Slow/Fast he plays alto saxophone and bass clarinet.
The quintet, which includes Russ Johnson, trumpet, Nir Felder, guitar, Adam
Armstrong, bass, and Fred Kennedy, drums, came about as Thomson contemplated how
to bring his "two different musical personalities" together "and
come out with a personal musical statement."
He has composed some chamber works which use elements of improvisation, but for
Slow/Fast he came at it from the jazz direction. He’s applied "a greater
rigor" writing for small jazz ensemble.
Typically jazz combos will play a song, and then jump into a series of solos, usually
based on a revolving chord sequence from the opening tune.
Thomson instead wrote more involved lines to start. This would prompt "maybe one
person taking an extended solo which serves the composition." The chords
the soloist blows over would move the performance forward instead of simply
rehashing those under the initial ensemble section.
Johnson, a well-traveled trumpeter, has told Thomson that his music is some of the
most difficult he’s encountered.
"Some of the really great jazz players we have are also fantastic readers and
fantastic interpreters," Thomson said. "It’s not only playing the
notes in front of you but bringing something to it. Some of the great musicians
we have are under-utilized."
Slow/Fast continues to evolve as performs live. Rehearsals, Thomson said, are devoted
to nailing the tricky ensemble sections. "The more gigs we can do, the more
we can open up the solo textures."
Thomson has called his work "21st century Third Stream," a nod to the
movement in the 1950s and named by composer Gunther Schuller that sought to
integrate formal elements from classical music with jazz improvisation. Thomson
said he was inspired by those efforts. His music brings in a number of elements
including Felder’s rock-tinged guitar.
As a composer, he said, he works to the strengths of the musicians, whether
improvisors or classically trained. When writing pieces more in the classical
vein "you can shape all of it quite specifically."
Regardless of the setting, goal for Thomson is always the same: "to create my
own sound and my own music."
http://www.slowfast.net/audio.html
