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The Final FREESTYLE JAZZ Show @ CBGB'S 7/31 |
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Written by Fay Victor
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Saturday, 30 July 2005 |
A One Man Show
"I plead insanity" says Dee Pop, when I asked him why he started his
Freestyle Avant-Garde Events weekly series. It was set up as a place to
have musicians solely for their musical contribution and without
pressure point of money. "I love jazz and wanted to play the
music.
What's not a better way to see up close great musicians, meet
some of
them and EVEN get to play with them."
For the past 4 years, the Sunday evening series at CBGB's Downstairs
Lounge featured music left of the dial - free, improvised, fractured,
etc, and this coming Sunday will be the last. CBGB's Freestyle
Avant-Garde Events is closing down and it's also full circle for Dee
who has been affiliated with the venue for much longer. "I have
been
personally performing in the club for almost 30 years. I have a lot of
history there. I've made a lot of friends there and consider them
(and
them reciprocally) as family" Dee says. So why is the series stopping?
"Essentially because CBGB's as an entire entity may close completely in
September."
Unfortunately this has been a trend in the Lower East Side of late.
Venues such as the Tonic barely escaped closing down, The Issue Project
Room changed course and moved to Brooklyn. The underground-granddaddy
of them all, the club that gave groups like the Ramones and Blondie
their start, may be singing its own swan song in light of rising rents
and area gentrification. With Dee's long affiliation, it seems
almost
fitting that he ends it with running his own series after playing in
numerous rock bands at the club for years.
And he plans on ending it with a bang. The grande finale will differ
from the normal weekly format of 3-4 bands playing a one hour set. For
a reasonable price at the door, listeners tuned into fresh, new sounds
in the warm and dark atmosphere, amidst worn-out sofas, a long and
sometimes lonely bar, and sound guys reading Hunter S. Thompson with
earplugs in while the music is playing-and that was the point: the
music playing on. Dee is happy to say that "while the series has had
it's up and downs, pros & cons, it has maintained itself without
any outside help and it has always had only the music itself to support
it."
As you might have figured out by now, I asked Dee some questions
because I wanted to talk about the series and about Dee. Although
I
never went as much as I would have liked, I (and many others) are
grateful that the series was there and that there is someone so
dedicated to offering musicians an option to do their "non-commercial"
thing in NYC. I was touched by Dee's responses and by how
straight-forward and open he was, and his willingness to share what the
experience was like for him. Dee tirelessly promoted the series and
worked hard to keep it going. With the sadness that surrounds it
now,
he feels it would be much worse if it folded because it could no longer
support itself, which he made sure wasn't the case. "First of all, you
have to have stamina and patience...things take time. There will
always be slow periods. There will always be competition. You can
never take anything for granted...It takes a lot of leg work to let a
city like New York know your scene exists. There's a lot going on
out
there."
On July 31st, the last of the series will be held and it will embrace
an evening of small sets comprising numerous artists who have played
there over the years. Musicians such as Susan Alcorn, Tatsuya Nakatani,
Joe Giardullo, Audrey Chen, Daniel Carter, Dom Minasi, Roy Campbell,
Hayes Greenfield, Daniel Levin, Ursel Schlicht, Matana Roberts, Reuben
Radding, Louie Belogenis, Kevin Norton, Joe Morris, Andy Haas,
Sabir
Mateen, Cooper Moore, Henry Warner, Ken Filiano, Angie Sanchez, Steve
Swell, Dee Pop himself, and me. Please come down and hang out.
The
final evening is free and the music will be urgent as ever. As it
usually is.
After the 31st, Dee plans on focusing on his own playing and projects.
There are no immediate plans to start up anything new. "It is
necessary to my existence that I play. And as the phrase goes
'necessity is the mother of invention'" he says. "I have tried to live
my life with as much self expression and creativity as possibility.
Life is really just one huge improv. And while I see the
need for
structure and form within anything, there is something strangely
exhilarating about living in the moment and the immediate reaction."
Amen to that.
for more info, please go to www.cbgb.com
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 Friday, 05 December 2008
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