Church of the Friendly Ghost Presents Guitarist Terrence McManus [Show Preview + CD Review]

source

Church of the Friendly Ghost presents Terrence McManus
Sunday, July 10
Salvage Vanguard Theatre (2803 Manor Road)
8pm, $10
[info] | [tickets]

The improvised music world at large hasn't really caught on to Terrence McManus, a New York-based guitarist who builds and modifies his instruments to help create a muted field of sounds and non-gestural phrases, both roiling and understated. Though the guitar is often thought of in a principally soloistic role, McManus' philosophy tends toward emphasizing ensemble and collective orchestration - his master classes spotlight concepts of interactive, free/open, and ensembles within ensemble playing.

McManus has worked with a core group of Downtown NYC heavies - drummer Gerry Hemingway, bassist Mark Helias, saxophonists Tim Berne and Ellery Eskelin, and trumpeters Herb Robertson and Dave Ballou. That being said, he did not record much until the last year or so; following discs with the Twin Cities rhythm team of bassist Adam Linz and drummer J.T. Bates, 2010 saw McManus stepping out in duo with Hemingway, in a power trio with Hemingway and Helias, and a solo EP, all of which are worth investigating.

Below the surface of captures the guitarist in a string-and-drums duo setting on seven instrumental conversations recorded for mentor Hemingway's recently revived Auricle imprint. Influenced by music without a harmonic net - such as saxophone-and-rhythm groups - or those in which the net is quixotically tangled and ambiguous, the overarching feel of this set is one of dialogic commonality. This is apparent early on, when the guitarist emphasizes the snappy tone of nylon strings against the drummer's whittled cymbal scrapes and resonant patter.

Even when the pair stretches out in bright, chunky volleys on "The Rush to Get There," there's no loss of compositional intent as McManus augments warped chords with delay and loops, giving flesh to a vision supported by Hemingway's Max Roach-inspired orbital movement. Though his history includes work with figures like composer-reedman Anthony Braxton and English bassist Barry Guy, a mildly unhinged approach to bebop drumming is the root of Hemingway's approach in this context. On "The Dry Land," McManus' tensile pluck recalls a lamellaphone or balafon surrounded by forest rustle, though a keen ear still focuses on the basic auditory tenets of electricity and percussion. After all, each musician utilizes the properties inherent in their axe to find new sonic possibilities as well as reinforce the vitality of the past.

Adding bassist Mark Helias to the proceedings is a fine recipe for a guitar-based power trio on Transcendental Numbers (No Business), which was recorded live on New Year's Day 2009 at John Zorn's Alphabet City performance space The Stone. The six pieces here are collectively improvised, and begin with an unfurling of the standard guitar-bass-drums trio dynamic. The three musicians flit in clusters, responding to one another with spiky, phased seesaws; the roles of bass and drums as harmonic and rhythmic support are upended, Helias thwacking and shoving with his bow, complemented by McManus' knotty glissandi toward a sudden end. The ambiguity of pianist Paul Bley's voicing seems like a starting point for the vague blues romance of "Upperside," shaky electric needling amidst a supple canvas of brushes and eddying wander.

Bleak, fuzzy twang erupts a few minutes into "Junction," an apt title for this merger of a multiplicity of improvisational paths, seeking wrangled soul and an immediate interplay that, stylistically, recalls nothing but itself. The "rhythm section" consists of two very strong musical personalities, so it's a testament to the empathy that these three players have with one another that no voice is subsumed, especially considering how subtle (and obstinate) McManus can be. The trio is powerful, for sure, but their pyrotechnics are a gradual, alien burn.

Solo is, however, the guise under which McManus will be performing at the Salvage Vanguard Theater, and some indication of what to expect can be heard on the quarter-hour Brooklyn EP (self-released), five brief but extraordinarily intense explorations of horizontal scrapes, vertical clamber, ghostly percussiveness and cloudy distortion that, while evocative, mostly seem excerpted from a larger whole. It would be believable, for example, that the halting minimalism of "Glitch Chorale" could be extended for much longer than this two minutes and change version, and it would still hold interest. The soloist's performance is, of course, another beast entirely from a duo or trio, with a tendency toward language development that might not even be fairly termed "improvisation." That's not to say McManus doesn't stretch out in an un-prodded context - the bowed-guitar skronk of "Sol" is dense and toothy.

When Terrence McManus becomes an international force to be reckoned with, you can say you first saw him in the homey confines of the Church of the Friendly Ghost. Local six-string firebrand Jonathan Horne opens.

Terrence McManus: [website] [facebook event]
Jonathan Horne: [myspace]