Tigersmilk: Improvisational jazz explodes at the University of Chicago

The trumpet wailed as it bent down a half step. Mingling with dripping alien drones for a beat, the note dribbled over throbbing bass notes and into a fatal battery of rimshots that left a heavy echo in the gallery air. Applause. Though the improvisational, post-bop jazz-trio Tigersmilk hadn't made music together in almost a year and a half, during a rare 90-minute set in the gallery of the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago Oct. 12 they gelled, swung, and stopped on a dime, according to Hamza Walker, associate curator and concert organizer at the society for 13 years. Part of the society's annual 10-show experimental and improvised music series, the concert attracted about 35 students and area residents on a night when Chicago's earliest recorded snowfall kept many home. The Renaissance Society presents contemporary art seldom seen in the Midwest, according to Director Susanne Ghez.

Like all groups playing the Renaissance Society, Tigersmilk performed in the society's spare, white gallery space amidst exhibition works. On display since Sept. 17, the current installation, by Dutch abstract artist Avery Preesman, offered what Walker called "an interactive stage set" for the concert in the form of a plaster, lattice-like web snaking across eight gallery windows and a massive timber and cement floor piece that claimed much of the room. In town for the weekend to record a third album, Tigersmilk has performed only eleven times since they formed in 1998. The trio consists of Chicago bass player Jason Roebke, Vancouver percussionist Dylan Van Der Schyff, and cornetist/laptop musician Rob Mazurek, a former mainstay of the Chicago post-rock and avant-jazz scene who now lives in Brazil. Describing the trio as "a full improvising group," Mazurek said: "There's no talking before [a performance]. We just step up and make sound." Performing so rarely "certainly keeps it fresh and improvised," said Van Der Schyff, best known for jazz/new music collaborations with Talking Pictures, NOW Orchestra, and his wife, cellist Peggy Lee. "Every time we play it never feels extremely different. With personalities so strong, there's a certain solidarity to our approach," he said. The night began with an introduction from Walker and a plug for a future show featuring a clarinetist "with a lot of street cred." Then Tigersmilk backed into their first improvisation, a nimble cacophony of clicks, clacks, trumpet squeals, and bass moans that seemed knit together at times by the high-ceilinged gallery's booming acoustics. Van Der Schyff spent the piece's early minutes rubbing groans from his drum heads with licked fingers and accompanied the next section by jumbling several drumsticks between his hands and kick drum shell. Later he rapped out a chain of brush rolls and cadences that finished out the piece.

Tigersmilk: Tales from the Bottle Following the performance, Walker reserved high praise for the percussionist, who made the most of playing a borrowed trap set without cymbals, which had been forgotten behind earlier that night. "You don't know a good drummer until you hear him play without cymbals," he said. He compared Van Der Schyff's work to that of a young Paul Lovens, one of the most prominent drummers from Europe's 1970s improvisation scene. "He has that same kind of recklessness. He can be spare. He can be plunky." Before the second Tigersmilk improvisation, Mazurek adjusted some settings on his laptop. Rocking his foot back and forth on a pedal, he blew almost inaudible low notes on his trumpet that, once processed by the computer, were heard as unrecognizable buzzing, crumbling smudges. Van Der Schyff joined in with a clanging cowbell and Roebke, hunched over his bass with a grimace on his face, elicited high-pitched shrieks from his instrument by scratching his bow across its strings. As the piece progressed, jazz rhythms and melodies began to take form, surprising Walker by their resemblance to sections of Miles Davis" 1969 recording, "Bitches Brew." "I was shocked by how much they really are a jazz trio," he said. "It was a brand of improvisation that's not textural, it's still melody and rhythm-based." According to Van Der Schyff, improvisation is about more than just listening and responding to other musicians. Repeated cycles and phrases of rhythms also structured his playing at points during the night, he said. During the second Tigersmilk improvisation, a slideshow sequence of Mazurek's abstract paintings played on his laptop, a video score, providing visual prompts for the trio's play. Tigersmilk launched into their final improvisation just after 9 p.m., a groove-oriented piece that featured low-end feedback from Roebke. Of the three, he narrowly edges out Van Der Schyff, whose racing hands belie a poker face, for the title of the trio's most physically expressive player. Slapping, scratching and pumping his upright bass, he used every inch of his instrument over the course of the night. "When I play I'm trying to think about being my own orchestra," he said. "Everyone's trying to play together but every instrument has a certain logic to itself. Hopefully you can hear something from each of us." Tigersmilk gave its audience a "sweet" encore, according to Walker, another whirling collection of intricate trumpet runs and frantic rhythms that ended around 9:40 p.m. with a shared look, a sudden finish and smiles from the trio. The gallery's bare walls and smooth floor held the trio's last notes on into the final applause. "This space is one of the best places for all sorts of music," said Ben Boye, 22, a former student at the University of Chicago and performer in its jazz program. "You get wrapped up in the sound so quickly. It just supported what they were doing so well." The audience filed out quickly after the show into near-freezing temperatures but the members of Tigersmilk, joined by the head of their record label, Roebke's wife and musician friends from the Chicago area stayed around to pack up their gear, catch up with one another, discuss the impending recording sessions and drink whiskey. Walker found the concert "a beautiful pairing" of art and visuals. "Being able to sit and listen while the candles are burning, I really appreciate that happenstance nature," he said. "Where's this going to go? They don't know and I don't know, and that's great, but we're excited to find out." Avery Preesman's work will be on display at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago until Oct. 29. An exhibition of work from Chicago artist Ben Gest will begin Nov. 12.