CHA'AK'AB PAAXIL: Festival of EAI, Noise, and Free Jazz

[surfer]

Abandoned store window off the Paseo de Montejo, Merida


If you go, you could easily do the whole trip for under $1000 for a week.

My round trip airfare from San Jose to Cancun was $320 (I think).

Shuttle from Cancun airport to Merida = $40 ($80 roundtrip) Takes about 4 hours from Cancun to Merida.

I stayed in a hotel a few nights. For a OK hotel right in the middle of the Centro Historico (within walking distance of all venues / museums / zocalo), with air-conditioning, private bath, it was $40 a night. You could definitely do cheaper (but maybe not with air-conditioning).

I spent about $20-$25 per day on food and drinks - the food in Merida is excellent and not at all stereotypically "Mexican" (I could do a whole post on the food!).

All museums were free. Uxmal cost $10. I think the cenotes cost a few pesos too.

The first night of the festival cost $8, the other two nights were free.

Gerardo says he's moving the festival to January, which would be much more hospitable to gringos not used to 100 degree heat and 50% humidity.

Its a great opportunity to see some great music in an intimate atmosphere, hang with the musicians, and do some cultural sightseeing, and eat great food.

Thanks again to Gerardo, Juan, Enrique and all the musicians.

[RFKorp]

Thanks for the recap surfer! Great pics. Wish I could have heard some of this music too.

[bryan]

I really enjoyed all the photos, thanks for sharing man! This festival seems like a great time for the music and for the atmosphere. Mexico's a beautiful country.

[augustopalma]

Nice graphic memory of the festival, though it was a bit of a down not seeing a mention of my name in the review.

[Gerardo A]

Amazing review and graphic recap, Darren!

And yeah, if anyone deserves a mention it's Enrique R. Palma (a.k.a. Augusto Palma), the festival producer and someone without whose work none of it would have happened. I'm the festival founder/director/curator and Juan Garcia is the academic coordinator. BTW Enrique can be seen in this pic, the long-haired dude with glasses at the control board amidst the audience, next to the tripod:

[Gerardo A]

Merida: population 734,153.

This figure may be a little outdated, my dad and I both think Merida has at least 900k people now.

Manrico played a stringed instrument that he bowed and was then processed through a computer. Armando played a acoustic guitar. I believe Armando's guitar was also processed by Manrico.

Armando actually played an electric guitar, and he wasn't processed by Manrico. Manrico played laptop, effects and a children-sized electric guitar (with a small tremolo and everything).

[Bhob, Vic and Chris] were backlit, which made it impossible to get any kind of good photos even with a tripod.

Yeah, sorry about this, all photographers and videographers complained about it, the same with Vic and Juan's duet on the last night at UADY. I do think it looked great if you were there in the audience, though.

Scott played tasteful guitar runs in an echoey, ambient sort of style, Carmina did non-verbal vocalizations and other voice effects (she may have also played keyboard, I forget), all to accompany clips from Bill Morrison's Decasia.

Carmina played some effects but she didn't have a keyboard. I'm glad you recognized the film and mentioned it to me so I could announce it to the audience after the set.

This man was not invited to play Cha'ak'ab Paaxil




These men were not invited to play Cha'ak'ab Paaxil

They're already included in next year's lineup (at least the guy from the first pic certainly is).

The rest of the exhibits [at MACAY] ranged from OK to downright awful, and the Nierman is hideous, honestly some of the most awful work I've ever seen in a major museum

Yeah, I totally agree with your assessment of Nierman's pieces, they were ungodly. But for some reason, everyone seemed to love those pieces (Leonor, Enrique, Manrico, Remi, etc.) And yeah, Garcia Ponce is truly a master, and the Coronado child portraits are awesome as well.

The sculpture garden outside MACAY was very nice though:

All of those sculptures are by Jose Luis Cuevas, and yeah, some great stuff in there.

III. Vic Rawlings solo

Vic didnt even give Gerardo a chance to introduce him . . . . . . . .




Vic started to pack up his cables, announced the set was over as his equipment was still buzzing.

Yeah, both were some of the funniest moments of the fest, great theatrics from Vic.

Juan García, who I dont think I've yet mentioned, is a classically trained cellist who has a seat in the Merida orchestra. Needless to say his touch and timing is impeccable.



In addition, he handles the academic side (the workshops) and also doing shuttling, housing and all the rest. He coordinated a trip for Bhob Chris and Vic out to a small village where the 4 of them did some workshops for gradeschool students. I didnt get to hang out with Juan as much as I would have liked, but his contributions to this set and sets to come formed for me, some the the definitive highlights of the three nights.

Juan's actually a (gorgeous-sounding and extremely-sensitive) double-bass player, and he's indeed one of the bass players at the Yucatan symphony orchestra. Here are some pics that Chris Cogburn took from Juan's weekly workshop at Chunkanán (one of the poorest communities in the state), the girl on the first one is Aimée, Juan's gf and workshop assistant (and the cellist from the No.Estacion.Arte Ensemble), and you can see the local Chunkanán kids playing with Vic's wires/circuits on the 2 last ones:

Evening 3, June 5: UADY | Centro Cultural Universitario (University of Merida)

I. Ensamble de Improvisación No.Estacion.Arte [Aimée Theriot + Elí Pinto + Juan García + Alfredo Bojórquez]

This was a group that consisted of three students (who had participated in the workshops) and Juan García. Juan and Aimée (both on cello) were very simpatico and melded well together.



I believe it was Eli on turntables, and he did some extremely skillful stuff rubbing a small stringed instrument (like a mini-harp) on the stylus, and other textural sounds. He did some quick vocal drops from warped records (ala Taku on Motubachii) that I wish he had done more of.

Juan played the double-bass in this set too (as well as in his duet with Vic). Eli Pinto was indeed the fantastic turntable player, a real revelation, and his stringed instrument was actually a psaltery (kinda similar to a zither). This was truly of the best sets of the fest, really fresh-sounding. I too kinda wish Alfredo (the percussionist/objects' player) would have played more.

Bhob quipped that this is actually the long lost album cover of the No Idea Trio's legendary 1972 prog rock opus Live At The Mayan Temples



I believe this was the back cover

These two are awesome!

Self portrait in two broken mirrors


All of my photos from the trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12727368@N ... 124969075/

This last one is fantastic too, where did you take it, at Unas Letras?

BTW Darren, I really liked how you juxtaposed the Dia de Muertos pics with your pics from Remi-Milo's set, as well as the open wiring from Merida streets into the pics of Vic's circuit-manipulation workshop.

[leroysghost]

Juan's weekly workshop at Chunkanán (one of the poorest communities in the state), the girl on the first one is Aimée, Juan's gf and workshop assistant (and the cellist from the No.Estacion.Arte Ensemble), and you can see the local Chunkanán kids playing with Vic's wires/circuits on the 2 last ones

this is really cool, and all these pictures are wonderful. what a gorgeous area.

[surfer]

Nice graphic memory of the festival, though it was a bit of a down not seeing a mention of my name in the review.

I'm truly sorry Enrique, that's an awful embarrassing oversight on my part. In my defense, though Gerardo had mentioned you and how much work you'd done, I had forgotten your name, and didnt have a picture of you. Your behind-the-scenes work was instrumental in making sure the festival went off smoothly. I remember Gerardo also mentioning that you ran a net label, do you have a link? The three of you deserve all the credit in the world for the amount of unpaid work you did purely for the love of this music. Kudos, and please accept my sincerest apologies.

[surfer]

This last one is fantastic too, where did you take it, at Unas Letras?

Yeah, Unas Letras, in the bathroom.

[surfer]

Juan's actually a (gorgeous-sounding and extremely-sensitive) double-bass player,

Thank you for correcting this and so many other errors. You can tell I'm not a musician (or a journalist - though perhaps I'm ready for The Wire, ba da bing!), and trying to remember everything about the 15 sets is challenging. That's why I wanted to pump this out this weekend, already beginning to forget some details.

[faster]

Really great, Surfer. Thanks for the awesome report and wonderful photos. Great work Gerardo, Enrique, et al. Looks like a terrific fest.

[surfer]

Gerardo, can you post the Kafka quote?

[rainey]

Great to see such a detailed summary of this festival. Kudos, Darren.

That Remi/Milo set was pretty amazing. I've never been enamored by that style of free improv, but this set was beyond style.

I also really enjoyed playing in the set with Juan and Chris. Juan's beautiful tone and slightly tangential sensibility were challenging without being thorny. He made the music new.

About the duo with Juanjose: Originally, I was going to do a 30-minute set with Manrico. At the last minute, Gerardo though it would be a good idea to do two duos, 15 minutes with Manrico and 15 with Juanjose. I'd seen Juanjose play a number of times and thought a duo was a good idea, but I wanted to make sure that he didn't feel obligated to be all "sensitive" with me (he'd seen me play a number of times in particularly "minimal" settings). Right before we started, I leaned back and told him not to worry about being quiet. He said "Really?" and I said "Yeah". I honestly wasn't uncomfortable with what he did and thought that he was listening quite closely. In many ways, this set was the peak of exchange for me, beginning at Ex Theresa in Mexico City, where the exchange was with the space itself (a large, raw, 16th century cathedral right in the city center), and culminating in the sets with Juan (in which there was an immediate, unforeseen group understanding) and Juanjose (hard-wrought but full of fascinating questions).

I'm planning on posting some audio from a number of these sets, though the best recordings I have are from Mexico City. Since all of Cha'ak'ab Paaxil was outdoors in debilitating heat and humidity, I wasn't too keen on bringing out the expensive stuff, unsupervised and unprotected. Still, there are recordings, and they're not half bad. I wouldn't expect a quick turnaround, though, 'cause that's how I roll....

Thanks Gerardo, Juan, and Enrique. And thanks to Chris Cogburn, whose work made it possible for Vic and I to be there. And thanks to Darren for all the photos and reportage.

[surfer]

About the duo with Juanjose: Originally, I was going to do a 30-minute set with Manrico. At the last minute, Gerardo though it would be a good idea to do two duos, 15 minutes with Manrico and 15 with Juanjose. I'd seen Juanjose play a number of times and thought a duo was a good idea, but I wanted to make sure that he didn't feel obligated to be all "sensitive" with me (he'd seen me play a number of times in particularly "minimal" settings). Right before we started, I leaned back and told him not to worry about being quiet. He said "Really?" and I said "Yeah". I honestly wasn't uncomfortable with what he did and thought that he was listening quite closely. In many ways, this set was the peak of exchange for me, beginning at Ex Theresa in Mexico City, where the exchange was with the space itself (a large, raw, 16th century cathedral right in the city center), and culminating in the sets with Juan (in which there was an immediate, unforeseen group understanding) and Juanjose (hard-wrought but full of fascinating questions).

Thanks for responding Bhob. I wanted to ask you about this and my sense of it while we were in Mexico but there didnt seem to be an appropriate moment. I was definitely wondering whether the narrative I constructed around that set was unique to my own perspective (it appears it was, but that's ok). It makes me re-evaluate what what I heard, and that's healthy. Look forward to hearing the audio from both Mexico City, and Merida too.

[rainey]

I don't think your narrative was that far off. It still took a while for the set to work, but the process wasn't so much a stabbing in the dark as it was a gradual chipping-away.

[surfer]

I definitely think you got some of the loudest applause of the fest. Several standing ovators.

[Gerardo A]

Heh, very, very sorry it took me A WHOLE YEAR to reply, I guess time does slow down when you're in Mexico.

First of all, thanks again Darren (Surfer) for the great report and wonderful visual documentation. It was a treat having you here, dude! And Bhob, man, it was a treat having you guys here too, I can't express my gratitude to you, Chris and Vic for the wonderful music, and like you said, particularly to Chris for the hard work of organizing the Mexico tour. All your sets were completely beautiful, I hope we can find a way to get you back soon. And hopefully with Greg and Jason! We will eventually for sure, I just hope we can do it this year or the next one. Again, our perennial problem is the lack of budget here at both the national and state level, it seems that the only way to thrive for a fest like mine is to play the bureaucratic/government game, which I've done but I'm really tired of.

Gerardo, can you post the Kafka quote?

Here it is, although it's the first translation I found online, can't speak on how kosher the version is, although the Spanish version uses almost exactly the same words. I actually don't like very much the Spanish translation I have of the "Diaries", so right before the concert I googled it in English and re-translated it into Spanish to my absolute liking (unfortunately, I did it by hand on a piece of paper that I've lost). I think it did work to get the audience to be quiet and in the mood for listening intently to Bhob's solo set. FWIW, I had only seen Bhob play solo once before (at Chris Cogburn's No Idea fest in Austin in 2006, where Nmperign also played a trio set with Sean Meehan, and Greg Kelley played a KILLER solo set too the day before; actually, I was sitting next to Mark (Mudd) on the night of the Bhob solo/Nmperign + Meehan sets, and Vanessa Rossetto was in the front row; Nick Hennies played the day after IIRC, and I think it was also the night when Juan Garcia played a breathtakingly beautiful acoustic duo set with Tetuzi Akiyama), but Chris, who's seen Bhob solo several times, told me later that Bhob's Cha'ak'ab Paaxil set from that night was the most fully realized solo concert he'd seen Bhob play so far. It was just awesome, and I was deeply moved when I read a couple of months ago that Bhob considers all his solo sets as different versions of the same "song" (please expand on this if I'm not explaining it right, Bhob). Anyway, this is the Kafka quote that I thought would fit before Bhob's solo set:

"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

BTW I'm pretty sure I also read a Virginia Woolf quote before the Rainey/Garcia/Cogburn set (more on that set below, including an audio track), one from "To The Lighthouse" that Walto Horn posted on Jazzcorner many years ago, which eerily describes EAI music (and after reading which I finally and luckily took the plunge on that book). Unfortunately for me, I wrote my version on the same piece of paper that I lost, the punctuation that I used was very different from the original:

"There rose that half-heard melody, that intermittent music which the ear half-catches but lets fall; a bark, a bleat, irregular, intermittent, yet somehow related; the hum of an insect, the tremor of cut grass, dissevered yet somehow belonging; the jar of a dorbeetle, the squeak of a wheel, loud, low, but mysteriously related; which the ear strains to bring together and is always on the verge of harmonising, but they are never quite heard, never fully harmonised, and at last, in the evening, one after another the sounds die out, and the harmony falters, and silence falls."

About the duo with Juanjose: Originally, I was going to do a 30-minute set with Manrico. At the last minute, Gerardo though it would be a good idea to do two duos, 15 minutes with Manrico and 15 with Juanjose.

Yeah Bhob, sorry about the last-minute change, I always try (at least for the last night of the fest) to leave the sets somewhat flexible in case I have any sudden ideas or if the musicians ask me to do a different set other than what I had programmed. In any case, it truly was one of the most memorable sets of the entire three years of the fest so far in terms of the risk and the FUCKING BLOOD left on the floor afterwards. It may sound corny but it was probably the first time during the fest when I thought the applause afterwards would never end. Hats off to you, Bhob, and to Juanjose Rivas too.

That Remi/Milo set was pretty amazing. I've never been enamored by that style of free improv, but this set was beyond style.

Indeed. I was particularly moved by how "Mexican" it sounded, too (this is also the reason why I liked so much the pics you chose for your review of that particular set, Darren). These guys (sax player Remi Alvarez and drummer Milo Tamez) are true masters, they were just wailin' non stop. That duo has also been the first grouping so far that has played twice in the fest (several musicians have played all three years, like Remi, Milo and Chris, plus the locals, but this is the first "group" that has played with the same lineup twice).

I also really enjoyed playing in the set with Juan and Chris. Juan's beautiful tone and slightly tangential sensibility were challenging without being thorny. He made the music new.

I'm planning on posting some audio from a number of these sets, though the best recordings I have are from Mexico City. Since all of Cha'ak'ab Paaxil was outdoors in debilitating heat and humidity, I wasn't too keen on bringing out the expensive stuff, unsupervised and unprotected. Still, there are recordings, and they're not half bad. I wouldn't expect a quick turnaround, though, 'cause that's how I roll....

Wish I could have heard some of this music too.

In Bhob's defense, he sent me this file MONTHS ago, but here it is, if anyone's curious, one piece by the Rainey/Garcia/Cogburn trio, live on early June 2010 at the Cha'ak'ab Paaxil fest in the Yucatan, at MACAY (the Merida Museum of Contemporary Arts):

http://soundcloud.com/bhob-rainey/bhob- ... gburn-juan

[Edited several times for typos]

[Gerardo A]

The unmiked percussionist Alfredo i believe played tiny sounds (spoons, egg beater, keys, metal cup, etc), and for most of the set was not audible. I was literally on top of him for 10 minutes and I could barely hear what he was playing.



If I have one criticism of this set (which was of a very high quality for students) its that the percussionist needed to make a few bold statements, and really just be aware of the acoustics of the courtyard generally. Just a nudge to the metal cup would have send the it clanging loudly on the cobblestones, which imo was just what the set needed at certain moments. Unfortunately, he stayed in the very quiet register, and thus made (for most of the audience) very little audible contributions. Good music overall though.

Darren, re-reading your review, I forgot to add before that while I appreciate your take on Alfredo's contribution to that set, I should make it clear that it was my fault not miking him, especially on an open air space such as the university courtyard. I seem to remember that he actually asked to play unmiked, but I should have insisted given that I probably didn't make it entirely clear to him that they would be playing where they did. Like I told you then, I like a lot to have each set in a different space of the room (if the location permits it), in order to provide if possible a specific physical character to each performance. With the other things I had to take care of, I just forgot to have another microphone/line available for him on that set. Anyway, Alfredo is actually one of my favorite improvisers from Merida, and Eli and Aimee are great ensemble improvisers too! That band, the Ensamble No.Estacion.Arte, is playing even more killer each time I see them now. I think this year they'll rock the place, too.