By Dave Cantor
In early February, saxophonist Ken Vandermark flew from his Chicago home to London for a series of shows paying tribute to the late Peter Brötzmann—a prickly figure who is rightly considered among the most disruptive influences in jazz over the past 50 years.
“I learned … I don’t really even know how much I learned from Peter in lots of important ways—many, many important ways,” Vandermark says about the departed saxophonist.
The two performed in the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet for more than a decade, weaving together concise horn lines and unrepentant, impromptu bursts of improvisation. Each member of the ensemble was encouraged to compose for the group, though the elder European player eventually pushed the band to play completely improvised sets.
“They’re all these different ways of approaching improvised music that worked with composition. And we were learning these different systems of thought,” Vandermark says about his time in the ensemble. “Then when we moved away from the page and went totally improvised, we had that foundation.”
Vandermark’s time in the band followed the beginning of his weekly performances in the mid-’90s at a well-regarded Chicago rock club.
The saxophonist says he didn’t think the series would last a week, let alone the five years it ran. But during that time—in addition to having a platform to experiment in front of an audience—the bandleader, who was then helming The Vandermark 5, made contact with a wealth of European improvisers, including Brötzmann.
“I started relationships—creative, collaborative relationships—with many musicians from Europe through that series. And continued to pursue them after that series ended,” he says. “It’s way more than economics, it’s a creative thing. I don’t know exactly why, but I find a rapport with European artists that’s very different than in the States.”
In a roundabout way, the series also introduced Vandermark to a long-term partner, Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. The two have performed regularly for more than 20 years, most recently releasing a seven-disc compendium called Japan 2019, a collection of live recordings alongside musicians the duo encountered on tour.
“I think that there’s still a thing in Europe, where the idea of being an artist is a legitimate pursuit. It’s like a real thing,” says Vandermark. “In the States, if I tell someone who doesn’t know me, ‘I’m a musician,’ they go, ‘Oh, what do you do? What’s your job?’”
Within avant-jazz, Vandermark’s a known quantity—a burly improviser with an approach to the horn that enables him to slip just as easily into a 10-piece ensemble or power a sax-drums duo. But amid a 30-year career that’s already connected him with some of the best-known improvisers in the world, taking a new tack would entail more than convening trusted collaborators and angling for something new.
“I realized that I needed to work with people who didn’t know me,” Vandermark says. “The thing is that when you work with people that know you really well, it’s human nature for them to think that they know what you want. If you want to make a change, it actually can be difficult to do that with someone who knows your music really well.”
In 2017, the bandleader convened Marker, a project that found Vandermark leading a group of generationally distinct players through knotty charts dedicated to everything from a Jean-Luc Godard sci-fi noir film to foundational New Orleans performers.
Unlike his previous groups, he decided to include a guitarist. And a violinist.
Sonically, the band still fit into Vandermark’s sound-world: snatches of discernible melody artfully skittering into beautiful cacophony.
His Edition Redux ensemble—which is set to perform Sunday, February 25, at The Front Porch—would be something different. Vandermark wanted to investigate his love of Tropicália, post-punk and funk, among other music—even if those ideas were explored through compositional concepts tied to the jazz tradition.
The second track on Edition Redux’s 2023 debut, “Summer Sweater/Matching Shocks/Coherence/Swan Zig,” opens with languid funk from drummer Lily Finnegan and keyboardist Erez Dessel. (The quartet’s rounded out by tubist Beth McDonald.) The tune’s dedicated to a raft of the bandleader’s interests: a soul vocalist, Constructivist artists, and a European saxophonist. It swings in service of artistic expression and discovery as the groove gives way to jittery improvisation.
“We’ve got to discover this stuff ourselves,” Vandermark says about working with the new ensemble.
Finnegan connected with the bandleader after completing a master’s at Berklee College of Music and moving to Chicago. A mentor—keyboardist Kris Davis—played with Vandermark on an album several years back, and made the introduction. Vandermark sent some charts to Finnegan and set up a time to play.
“Coming from a school setting, you’re kind of always wanting some validation,” the drummer says. “He was just down with it. And I could tell he just wanted me to be myself. That’s what he liked about me—all the parts of me. And the fact that it wasn’t just a jazz thing—it was all these different styles and influences together—it just kind of clicked right away.”
Vandermark says the ensemble’s Charlottesville date likely will serve as a way to test some material not on the troupe’s first recording, Better A Rook Than A Pawn.
“Right now there’s a dozen new tunes,” he says about mixing recent compositions with songs from the record for live dates. “I can write anything I want for them—and they’ll play it better than me.”
