Live Music Review //
Lemuel Marc, Grant Beale, Cole Olson / Evan Palmer, Michael Larocca, Lemuel Marc
July 29th 2023
Willimantic Records, Willimantic CT
Additional photos can be found in a Facebook album here :::
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1294810991249119&type=3
As we get further into the year and Michael Larocca has been presenting more and more Improvised Music In Willimantic, this month there were only two sets which was to give the artists more time to play. Something I always think about is how the different musicians know what to do- what to play- when improvising, but this also does all come with that idea of when does it end? Who plays the last note? If you're solo, it's easy enough to say "Thanks" and end it, but as a duo or trio, someone else could simply keep playing.
During this particular show there were moments when all three musicians played at the same time, but a lot of it was reduced to just two of them or even one. And that's just my point. In the first set, if Grant Beale and Cole Olson decided they were done, who was to stop Lemuel Marc from jumping back in and keeping it going? That idea of this possibly going on longer than previous shows, this idea of having no certainty of when it might end made the music that much more exciting in ways.
The first set was Grant Beale and Cole Olson playing electric guitars while Lemuel Marc played the trumpet. This was wild because you have two musicians playing the same instrument, so they had to find ways to be on the same page but not sound like they're playing the same thing. I'm always amazed by the sounds that a trumpet can make and Lemuel Marc is proof why everyone else should be equally amazed.
There were times when I was watching and so I could tell who was strumming their guitar, between Beale and Olson, but if I had closed my eyes or only heard audio of this performance then I might have not even recognized these sounds as coming from a guitar at times. It was that sort of wild but also noisy. Lemuel Marc also had a point where he played just the mouth piece of his trumpet, which was another one of those sounds I've probably heard a lot before but just never realized it until seeing it happen now.
The second trio felt a little bit more traditional but their sound was far from it. Evan Palmer was on the upright bass, Michael Larocca on percussion and Lemuel Marc was back on the trumpet. The way that Lemuel Marc watched the other musicians play during his down time was also something to take note of, as it felt like he had been taken over by the music too.
Evan Palmer did things with the bass that the bass isn't always thought capable of doing and the same can be said for the master craftsmanship of Michael Larocca on the drums. Prior to this show, we had stopped off and I got my car washed so as this second set was coming to an end it had decided to downpour outside. Michael Larocca suggested playing another ten minutes to avoid going out in the storm and by the time they were done playing so was the rain.
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