"It's not a competition," but this year at Big Ears I saw more sets by or featuring keyboardist Brian Marsella than any other performer.
It all started early Friday afternoon, Day Two of Big Ears, with a 12:30 set by Marsella's Gatos do Sul ensemble, one of my highlights of the festival. In addition to Marsella on piano, the ensemble included Marsella's mentor, the percussionist Cyro Baptista, as well as drummer Tim Keiper, bass player Jorge Roeder, accordionist Felipe Hostins, nylon-string guitarist John Lee, flautist Itai Kriss, and saxophonist Jon Irabagon. Their music is a playful fusion of jazz, improv, and Brazilian forms like choro, samba, and bossa nova. The Big Ears program notes advised that the performance was going to be a "stripped-down" version of the octet featuring only Marsella, Baptista, Irabagon, and violinist Mark Feldman, but the full band actually played on Friday.
Fun fact/extra bonus points - Marsella and company were staying at the same hotel in Knoxville as me, and I ran into them in the lobby immediately after their set. I respected their privacy but couldn't resist quickly thanking them for a great performance. I saw them again at the breakfast buffet the next morning.
On Saturday, I saw a performance of John Zorn's Suite for Piano performed by Marsella, Roeder, and drummer Ches Smith. And on Sunday, I saw the Brian Marsella Trio, including Trevor Dunn on bass and Kenny Wollesen on the drums, perform Volume 6 of Zorn's Bagatelles (this year's festival, in part, was a celebration of Zorn's 70th birthday).
Finally, the Sunday night grand finale for the festival was a performance of Zorn's game piece, COBRA, which featured an insanely large and insanely talented roster including Marsella on piano, John Medeski on organ, Mary Halvorson, Wendy Eisenberg, and Will Greene on guitar, Mike Nicolas on cello, Trevor Dunn on acoustic bass, Simon Hanes on electric bass, Sae Hashimoto on percussion and vibes, and Ches Smith, Aaron Edgcomb, and Kenny Wollesen on the drums. COBRA is a composition whose performance is based on rules of a game among the players, with John Zorn acting as the conductor. Whatever the rules of the game are, they were lost on this observer but seemed to involve the musicians volunteering to lead an improvisation and pick their collaborators, with Zorn occasionally holding up signs giving the players instructions which he didn't show to the audience. He also conducted using his usual hand signals and gestures, and the game seemed to also involve Zorn periodically putting on and taking off a baseball cap and the musicians occasionally donning a headband for whatever reason. It was all quite opaque, but I think the point wasn't understanding the game but appreciating the haphazard, chaotic composition that it generated.
Anyway, in response to some game situation and cue from Zorn, at one point Marsella got up from his piano and ran around behind the rest of the band clucking like a chicken and flapping imaginary wings. As I said, I don't understand the COBRA rules and don't believe they're written down anywhere. Whatever it was, it was all madcap fun and the musicians seemed to be having fun, laughing frequently and enthusiastically waving their hands in the air to be picked to lead the next improvisation.
So in total that was four sets over three days featuring Brian Marsella, and I now have a new respect for his playing, his composing, and his artistry. And he can dance a mean Funky Chicken. You can stream the Brian Marsella Trio's Intersection of Dissections on Spotify and purchase his Zorn performances on the Tzadik Records website.
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