P2 Quandaries! (was: Fripp Nerves)

["Stephen P. Goodman" <sgoodman@earthlight.net>]

Unclench your fingers, folks.  :)

> Are there any of you out there who actually prefer looser
> "open" jamming and minimal imposed structure? Possibly
> with each member bringing their own compositional ideas
>  in the form of "surprises" which they employ at random in
> response to the nature of the improv?

Well, I don't know that it's a matter of preference past how one feels at a
given moment or series of moments, actually.  I think most of the ways in
which we address allegedly non-structured content may have a lot more to do
with our expectations of that content, than the content itself.

As far as the ProjeCKt shows are concerned, though... I went to the one at
the House of Blues/LA last February, thanks to a fine fellow from AZ from
the Elephant Talk n'letter who had an extra ticket and dropped it off on 
the
way to the Ventura shows.  I was prepared in some regard by the reactions
from people on that n'letter that had gone before:

* Those who expected something from the music that didn't happen (flaming
Frippian solos, KC material from the 70's, ad nauseam) were very, very
disappointed, and primarily chose Fripp as their whipping boy, though their
comments tended to be less precise on the topic of the music itself, with
the exception of the "cheesy FM piano patch Fripp used to play THRAK".

* Those who went Without Expectations, and withheld judgement until they'd
heard entire works, were far, far less disappointed, but in general tended
to discuss the material a lot less than the angry ones did.

I had already heard a lot of the comments about the material by the time I
had my ticket to see them; and, in a similar fashion to my filtering of TV
News, knew I had to completely dispose of all the good AND bad opinions if 
I
was going to be able to assess all this stuff for Myself.

I liked the performance, and I believe that it was because I didn't attempt
to create a framework for the material before I knew what it was.  This is 
a
common failing of most folks going into the Unknown (as far as perceived at
least), and not one I've avoided succumbing to, either.  I just didn't
expect RF or anyone else to play What I Want Them To Play.

And, I didn't feel ripped off in any way.  I laughed at the execution of
THRAK in that manner, in a good way.  It should be evident that playing 
such
a work Over and Over and Over Again can be a real strain; and given new KC
fans' tendency to want replays of favorite pieces, I wondered if this 
wasn't
a way of being able to make fun of it all without being mean.  It was
obvious they were having a good time with all of the work.

And I ended up having a good time watching and listening to them too.  It
was a good example of a collaborative approach to performance.  Is it
possible that RF et al wanted this very effect to experiment with?  Perhaps
so...!

So, does improvisational work - either participating or listening to it -
say more about us, or about our feelings about it?

Stephen GoodmanÊ -Ê It's... The Loop Of The Week!
EarthLight StudiosÊ -Ê http://www.earthlight.net/Studios