The Either/Orchestra came into Philadelphia Friday night; the band's equipment came in a couple of hours later. As it was explained to me after the show, by trumpeter Tom Halter, one of the two Dodge vans rented in Boston gave up the ghost somewhere around the Tappan Zee Bridge, and caused a lot of running around, trying to find a replacement.
Despite the long trip and unanticipated automotive hassle, Tom seemed in a remarkably good mood, as did Russ Gershon, who was congenial an M.C. as you'd want to hear. He seemed perfectly happy, didn't mind playing in the basement of a church to about sixty people, was joking, expounding on the songs, and apparently having a great time.
Besides Halter and Gershon, Charlie Kohlhase was an E/O alumnus. I'm afraid I can't recall the names of the other band members (and I should at least remember the piano player, because Gershon went on with this anecdote about how he had bought a Fender Rhodes just for this trip, and it was still stenciled with the name "Maplewood", so he referred to the pianist as (name) "Maplewood"(name)). But this edition of the Either/O was a ten-piece: 2 trumpets/flugelhorn, 1 trombone, 3 saxes (Gershon on tenor & soprano; Kohlhase on alto & baritone; and the unknown alto), 1 electric piano, 1 drum, 2 (acoustic) basses.
They played material that I do not believe they have released on record. The Sun Ra tune "Planet Earth", a Fiona Apple tune "Slow Like Honey", a medley of three Turkish pop hits (that's how Gershon described it, and the melodies did sound somewhat Turkish), a few other originals, and did an encore of "The Bad News," which was a very dissonant, rhythmically static blast (but quite good, I rush to add.)
The arrangements were as tremendously good as all of the Orchestra's material that I'm familiar has been: very intricate, getting a sound much larger than you'd expect from the number of instruments involved. Kohlhase had one extremely good solo on alto, all the players had at least one feature, each handled well.
After the show, Gershon had CD's to sell (and I bought two), and was very personably talking to whomever was interested in discussing the music. He mentioned that he had been nominated for a Grammy a few years back, for "Bennie Moten's Weird Nightmare" (I'm not sure if it was best jazz instrumental, best arrangement, or what.)
I spent Saturday night listening to "The Calculus of Pleasure" and "The Half-life of Desire": these two albums, along with "Across the Omniverse" make me want to go out and buy the three remaining E/O albums that I don't have. An arrangement of King Crimson's "Red"? A tribute to the `73-'75 Miles Davis band? Tunes by Horace Silver AND Julius Hemphill? *If I were a musician, and *if* I had a band, I'd love to do stuff like this. (And I thought Bill Laswell was on track, combining Wayne Shorter, Bill Burroughs, Sly & Robbie, and Bootsie.)
GO HEAR THESE GUYS IF YOU POSSIBLY CAN!!!
Bobby Zankel was in the audience, and was talking to Charlie Kohlhase, who has just finished recording an album for CIMP, so keep an eye out for that.