A concert hosted in the basement of a house in northeastern Kansas City on Sunday, July 3, acted as a study in risk/reward theory. A multitude of ill-advised gambles were taken. A high percentage failed, but the payoffs of the sporadic successes were enormous.
The audaciously programmed bill featured three divergent acts. The exploratory saxophonist Phillip Greenlief opened the show with an approximately 25-minute solo excursion. The Californian seemed intent in creating previously unheard sounds.
Following an opening segment in which he sputtered without a mouthpiece, Greenlief used a mouthpiece cap to transform his tenor saxophone into a novel percussive instrument. Groans and shouts heightened the intensity of more familiar wailing in the mode of Albert Ayler in the latter stage of his recital.
The locally based duo Midwestern ratcheted up the rumpus. Categorized by Shuttlecock as “experimental hip-hop,” Midwestern’s frenzied set more closely resembled metallic hyper-pop.
Four representatives of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society- saxophonist Ben Baker, drummer Brandon Cooper, bassist Krista Kopper and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Osborne- strove to equal Midwestern’s manic showing with abrasive free jazz.
A punk rocker proudly sporting bruises inflicted in a mosh pit the previous evening, an intrepid violinist and the euphoric author of Plastic Sax were among the handful of observers who stuck around for an evening-ending jam featuring all of the musicians.
The bonkers saxophone bleating of Midwestern’s R.W was the most surprising component of the anarchic collision of free jazz and electronic turbulence. For connoisseurs of chaos, being tied to the tracks for the sonic equivalent of a proverbial train wreck felt like winning the lottery.