Marsh, Wong, Eubanks
Luggage
"Luggage - duets with a sense of place
The intersection of Market and Sixth Streets in San Francisco is more than a street corner in an iffy neighborhood. It is a collision course for several cultures: pasty suburbanites coming to see the Robert Goulet; stony rockers lining up outside the Warfield; Berkelians on their way to the Asian Museum or the Symphony; European families seeking cheap lodging; hookers, dopers, pan- handlers plying their wares and their ways.
Located two doors west of the corner of Market and Sixth is the Luggage Store Gallery. It was indeed a former Market Street luggage store, with many of it’s heirs still plying the luggage trade on adjacent blocks. But this one has been a gallery for a long time now, dedicated to serving the deserving but underserved inner city and marginal populations. As such, it has been the tolerant home of the longest running avante/experiment music series in the country.
Some potential audients don’t like to go there very often, maybe because the neighborhood is a little rough or sleazy, or there are too many fire engines, buses, street cars and crazy people shouting from the outside, or the room is too boomy. However I like the echoey, noisy space. I love the harsh sulfur street lights that are always in your face if you’re in the audience, or that transform you into a shadow puppet when you are performing.
I like performing in this space. I like working with the sound of the rooms and the sounds leaking in from the outside-- the fire engines, street cars and buses, screaming maniacs, honkers and boomers. It is a special place for me and in a very secular way, a sacred place. A place where a rough kind of magic happens. So this is a fine place to engage in duetic exploration and thinking with interesting and inspirational partners.
Bryan Eubanks, whether playing soprano sax or home brewed electronics, is always full of fundamental and uncompromising surprises. He is like a train conductor who announces that you have just arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska, just when you thought you were near Toledo. An adventure of mystery and intrigue.
With either her voice or her cello, Theresa Wong improvises with the authority of perfection. I am always saying to myself: “Yes, yes, that’s exactly right”. And in the midst of her rightness, she is totally generous making it an easy delight to play with her." (Bob Marsh, San Francisco, October 20, 2006)
Of Mr. Marsh, I find his music closest to the Alan Silva's recordings on ESP, which is to say that Marsh is a multi-instrumentalist who tends to seek out the richer textures in improvised music. Even in the context of a duo, the two voices here often become quite a bit more creating an un-earthly atmosphere rather than being too busy or diluting each other.
I've heard Bob now in a number of contexts, from the Emergency String Ensemble to some of his new experiments in electronics--all rewarding! The duo context however allows for us to hear more of the inner workings, while retaining the sense of motion and depth that can be heard in the large scale settings.
You can read more about Bob marsh here: www.bobmarsh.net
"For the past fifteen years, San Francisco’s Luggage Store Gallery has hosted new music and avant garde improvisational music on a weekly basis. Its long history is a testament to the dedication required to keep the improvisational listening experience alive.
This set of duos finds the familiar figure of Bob Marsh collaborating with two new (to this listener) voices in free music. Marsh, a longtime collaborator with saxophonist Jack Wright, moved to the Bay Area in 2000 as Wright was heading to the East Coast. His current projects include String Theory, the Che Guevarra Memorial Marching (and Stationary) Accordion Band, Robot Martians, Opera Viva, and Moe! Staiano's Moe!chestra, to name just a few.
The first track here is a lengthy cello duet with Theresa Wong, a musician, designer and performance artist. Like Marsh, she is also a Bay Area resident and collaborator with the familiar figures of Gino Robair and Phillip Greenlief. Both Marsh and Wong take advantage of the warmth and earnestness of their instruments, spilling the mostly gentle lines of sound in and around each other.
There’s no one-upsmanship here, no bravado, just the tranquility of sound. Thoughts bounce gently—even, I’m certain of this, passages from Warner Brothers’ cartoon music—and float around your brain. Wong’s voice, then Marsh’s, can be heard in wordless accompaniment. The music, surprisingly (!), or maybe indulgently, has a calming— meditative quality.
Slightly shorter, by eight minutes, is Marsh’s session with soprano saxophonist Bryan Eubanks. I don’t know if these two compositions were recorded on the same night, but Marsh and Eubanks maintain the quiet meditative mood of the first track. Eubanks, a New Yorker, likes repetitive lines of thought, at times leading Marsh’s cello into and out of resolution, other times responding to Marsh’s prodding.
Both duets heard here should be applauded for the musicians' eagerness to
really listen to their partner and react accordingly."
--Mark Corroto, All about Jazz
"...Split into two tracks Marsh/Wong and Marsh/Eubanks, the music scrapes and
rattles along beautifully, the musicians interacting with sympathy and
precision, creating images of lonely marshlands, desolate yet captivating.
Abstract voices add another layer to the compositions, wringing yet more emotion
from the pieces."
--Terrascope/Rumbles