Saturday afternoon was spent at the Kava Gallery, for the second day of the Trummerflora Spring Reverb event. I wanted to get David Hurley's CD, Outer Nebula Inner Nebula, which is a journey into free jazz. He put together a group to play in the same vein for this event.



He started out with some conga work and flute, while backed by  bass, drums, and organ before settling down to his main instrument.


David plays in a very free and creative fashion. He's told me before that he has to play like this because he can't keep a straight beat, but I'm sure he's joking.


As you can see, this show was right in the middle of the day with many windows around, so light was streaming in. But the windows on the left through people into sillouette, so I still had to expose for shadows. It's not quite the look I'd like to present, since it doesn't match the music, but having lots of light to play with is a luxury I can appreciate after so much dim club shooting lately. 


David's CD is mainly a vehicle for his layered percussion tracks along with some ordinary and unusual melody instruments, some of which I've never heard of before. It's not background music, it requires attention to really get the most out of it. With no pocket playing, this kind of music can quickly degenerate into aimless noodling and selfishness, but these guys don't fall into that trap. It's like listening to a conversation among several people in a language you don't know. It doesn't make complete sense, but if you just pay attention to the sound of the words, it can be beautiful.


There is some tasty organ work on the album, the opener's handled by Preston Swirnoff, who played for this whole set. All 15 minutes of it. I felt a bit shortchanged by the amount of time they had to play, I was just getting into it, and so were they.