The first performance I saw at Big Ears 2023 - to be honest, the first live performance I saw since Big Ears 2022 - was a Thursday night show by Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes.
In 2018, the two Sams released the LP Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar, followed in 2021 by Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar More Songs. Both were unhurried, almost somnambulant, collections of tender improvisations and relaxed but unwavering grooves. The rhythm tracks on some cuts could be as little as the muffled pulse of a kick drum or syncopated finger snaps, and between tracks you can hear the musicians discussing the arrangement of the next tune. As Kelefa Sanneh noted in a 2021 profile in the New Yorker, “Probably one of the things that people—especially non-jazz people—like about Gendel and Wilkes is that the music they make together sounds slightly unfinished, and rather unobtrusive. If you weren’t paying attention, you could walk right past it.” Their recordings suggest two old friends hanging out while some of their favorite people listen and chat, but surprisingly, this was the duo’s first North American performance.
“Sam Gendel plays like a student at the altar of spiritual jazz," according to Pitchfork. "His songs are just a little too psychedelic to sit in the contemporary jazz section, but his music is as studied and controlled as his counterparts in post-bop." Gendel feeds his sax (and occasional harmonica) through various electronic treatments that muddy and slur his sound. As Pitchfork wrote, Gendel's playing reveals alien qualities inside the songs he plays. Gendel’s closest predecessors might be Jon Hassell and Ben Neill, but he also nods to the slurred aesthetic of West Coast and Southern rap.”
The performance was held at The Point, a modern, non-denominational church. It was a new venue for Big Ears and by far the northernmost stage in the festival - I took the free festival trolley to get up there and didn't return again for the rest of the festival. It took the two Sams to get me to haul my fat ass that far from my hotel.
I saw Sam Gendel again the next night (Friday) at the fabulous Tennessee Theater, which conveniently was literally right across the street from my hotel. That night Gendel was playing with bassist Pino Palladino, guitarist Blake Mills, and drummer Abe Rounds.
Palladino and Mills released an album, Notes With Attachments, in 2021, which featured Sam Gendel's laid-back playing on nearly every track. Palladino is a session musician who has toured with The Who (replacing John Entwistle) and worked with Erykah Badu, Mos Def, and Kendrick Lamar, among others. Mills is half Palladino’s age but he’s also a coveted session musician and producer working with the likes of Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple, John Legend, and Perfume Genius. Public performances by Palladino and Mills are rare events, although later that weekend they took their show to Atlanta for a set at Terminal West on Sunday night.
There was a third performance by Gendel at Big Ears this year, a Saturday afternoon set by his "Concert Group," which includes Gabe Noel and Phil Melanson. I didn't go, not due to any artistic criticism of the Concert Group but because the set was the same time as John Zorn's Suite for Piano with Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder, and Ches Smith. Big Ears is all about making hard choices and strategic decisions, and if I could somehow go through the entire festival again, I could see all different sets and still have a great time.
To give you an idea of how full the Big Ears schedule was, Gendel's set also conflicted with sets by indie rockers Kevin Morby and The Weather Station, singer Josephine Foster, the JACK chamber music quartet performing Catherine Lamb's divisio spiralis, noise improvisation by guitarist Bill Orcutt and drummer Chris Corsano, This is How You Will Disappear by Stephen O'Malley of the avant-metal band Sunn O)))), and screenings of the films 32 Sounds and David Byrne's American Utopia.
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