When two different artists collaborate, the result can either be bountiful or a mess of half-baked ideas. Luckily, the pairing of Amsterdam’s Ab Baars Trio and Chicago’s Ken Vandermark is definitely the former.
Both play free jazz, which favors loose, sometimes chaotic instrumentation and eschews conventional rhythms and time signatures. Baars hails from the European avant-garde school, which places more emphasis on the “free” part of free jazz. Vandermark is influenced by the Chicago brand of free jazz that incorporates a little more structure into the improvised madness.
“I’m not the kind of guy that has one idea and makes a program based on this one idea,” said Ab Baars, the trio’s tenor saxophonist. “I’m interested in chaos, I’m interested in the jazz tradition and I would like to give the jazz tradition a contemporary feel.”
Vandermark argues that challenging the norms is the main purpose of art.
“Real art works against boundaries and categories, and this is what I am interested in as a creative individual,” said Ken Vandermark, who also plays the tenor saxophone. “This means constant challenge and risk, and it demands an open-minded audience.”
Baars and Vandermark first met in 1999 when the ICP Orchestra, with which Baars was touring, made a stop in Chicago.
Vandermark invited Baars to do play a session at a club with him, and both showed interest in collaborating.
As a result, Vandermark made a guest appearance on the Ab Baars Trio’s 2007 record Goofy June Bug. Influenced by “the great tenor duo groups [such as] Stitt/Ammons [and] Griffin/Davis,” Vandermark said, the album puts his and Baars’ strengths on full display.
Vandermark uses more composition and “larger forms,” while Baars is more improvisational. Combined, they move throughout several moods fluidly.
“Having a guest is always very stimulating because a good musician always brings in something unexpected, something refreshing,” Baars said.
Baars also likes working with guests because it allows the Trio to become a tighter, more knowledgeable band.
“We always play different because the language has become richer,” he said.
Vandermark said the collaboration showcases much “intensive playing but also elements of chamber music.” He mentioned that collaborating with Baars provided new artistic challenges.
“With this project, I am a guest joining an ensemble that has a two decade history of playing together,” Vandermark said. “It’s been exciting to find my way into their aesthetic world and to try and contribute to it without being redundant.”
The Ab Baars Trio and Ken Vandermark descend upon Victory Grill (1104 E. 11th St.) tonight at 8 p.m. Vandermark stresses the importance of preserving historical buildings — the Victory Grill was a central part of the “Chitlin’ Circuit” in the early to mid-20th century and has remained a landmark of East Austin.
“It’s easy to tear something down, but it’s impossible to replace the history that was built there,” he said. “Sustaining a creative performance space is a real challenge in this country, but it’s twice as hard to start a new venue, to convince people to trust in the programming, to ‘break it in’ and make it feel like a home for the work of the musicians.”
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