Jazz Police - Craig Taborn: Back Home With “Golden Valley Is Now”

Craig Taborn: Back Home With “Golden Valley Is Now”

Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor

Saturday, 13 March 2010

Craig Taborn©Andrea Canter

The Dave King for Two Days weekend at the Walker Art Center (March 12-13) presents the percussion titan with seven projects, ranging from his decade-long associations with the Bad Plus and Happy Apple (which will combine briefly as The Bad Apple) to free improv ensemble Buffalo Collision, rock-ish band Gang Font, and two new bands, Golden Valley is Now and Dave King Trucking Company. It’s a reunion for Dave and cohorts, particularly an opportunity to play again with his Golden Valley childhood pals, Reid Anderson and Craig Taborn. Of course every time the Bad Plus comes to town, Dave and Reid are together on the band stand. More rare is the reunion with Taborn, whose infrequently active Junk Magic ensemble includes King. A veteran of tours with James Carter, Roscoe Mitchell and Tim Berne early in his career, now engaged in projects with Chris Potter’s Underground, William Parker and Gerald Cleaver, and an upcoming piano duo with Vijay Iyer, Craig returns “home” hot off a solo piano tour in Europe. It’s a welcome opportunity to catch up with one of the world’s leading voices in keyboard wizardry, and Downbeat Magazine’s 2009 Critics’ Poll top “Rising Star” on electric keyboards.

If “Golden Valley Is Now,” what was it like to be budding musicians in Golden Valley back then? Recalls Craig, “We met through peers in school. We met probably around 6th or 7th grade and we were all starting playing (at least I started in 6th grade and got up to the level of being in a band in 7th grade). Golden Valley is not a large suburb and we all lived in the same school district,and while I went to Breck for junior high and high school, I was playing music with friends from the neighborhood. We played in a variety of groups and sizes. We occasionally played as a trio later on as well as in larger rock groups, etc. And quite a variety of different kinds of music as well.”

After high school, the guys went in separate directions, geographically, with Dave King heading to LA for a few years, Reid Anderson off to New York, and Craig to the University of Michigan. Dave and Reid of course came back together with Ethan Iverson to form the Bad Plus, just one of many projects that King has managed to work with while based in the Twin Cities. Reid has lived in Barcelona and New York, and Craig has been based in New York, though often playing throughout Europe. His Junk Magic band and an earlier iteration of Gang Font have kept him connected to King and another Twin Cities-based musician, bassist/guitarist Erik Fratzke. But it has been a while since he played with Reid Anderson. “I have not played with Reid in anything official since some gigs with Gerald Cleaver's first recording date Veil of Names which was on Fresh Sound. I think that recording was in 2001 and we played in 2002. That CD has Ben Monder, Mat Maneri, and Andrew Bishop, and Reid is on electric and acoustic bass. So it has been awhile.”

Although racking up accolades and critics’ poll nods for his electronic and laptop keyboards, Craig continues to expand his work on acoustic piano. “Actually about 75% of what I have been doing is on piano,” he notes. “I have just returned from a solo piano tour in Europe this past weekend and am coming off of that straight to Minneapolis for the Walker concert. I also did a piano trio tour in December, and have some more solo gigs in NYC and a piano duo with Vijay Iyer coming up next week. So for the rest of the year, with the exception of a few [Chris Potter] Underground gigs, I am playing piano.”

Craig Taborn©Andrea Canter

And much of that playing will occur in Europe, where audiences have typically been more receptive to free improvisation and the more adventurous of American jazz artists. But Taborn sees audiences growing despite the economic downturn. “I think the audiences are growing as the budgets for presenting the music it are shrinking because of the financial crisis. It is an interesting state of affairs as there are perhaps fewer well-paying gigs in some places but a lot more (younger) audience members. And all of this is happening at about the same time that the big money CD industry has effectively evaporated, so album sales are anemic. But of course all of that could be related. The audience might be growing because there is more liberal distribution in the open marketplace of the Internet. It is certainly much easier to seek out, discover, and listen to whatever one wants without any monopolizing of the market by larger record labels. You can now get a hold of this stuff wherever you may live and listen immediately. You don't have to live in a big city or college town anymore. Now a kid up in the Iron Range can download the Junk Magic recording as easily as someone in Minneapolis or New York. They don't have to drive several hours just to see if it is available in a store.”

And on the subject of Junk Magic, Craig’s ensemble that released a widely acclaimed, self-named CD in 2004--is there a second recording in the works? “No recording set for the next Junk Magic, but it is on the horizon distantly,” he reports. “The last Junk Magic performance (early 2009) found the group exploring a bit of a more epic soundscape and was a bit darker in tone than the recording, but I am not sure what the newest music will sound like. Stay tuned.”

There are other new projects on the horizon. Notes Craig, “I am working towards a new trio recording as this current working trio has a bit of a different concept and sound than my previous versions (although Gerald Cleaver still figures heavily). I am doing a bit more solo piano concertizing as well as the duo with Vijay Iyer. And I have a couple of new ensembles, one a quintet called Ancients and Moderns that is a bit of an improvisational chamber ensemble (in a way), and another quintet that is possibly more of a blowing group (still getting that one together), as well as Junk Magic. So ideally I would like to get all of these projects off the ground as they are radically different from one another.”

And of course, Golden Valley Is Now! Explains Craig, “The Walker show with Golden Valley Is Now is best characterized as a ‘song" band.’ Most of the emphasis is placed on solid tunes and sound. While there is a small element of improvisation, it is in the service of the compositions and

is not at all seeking an overly exploratory space. That being said, I think it is interesting because it is music that is not extensively improvisational but requires an improviser's skills and sensibility to play it.” The repertoire for Saturday night will include new compositions from Dave and Reid, “nothing of mine in there as of yet,” says Craig. And this will be “strictly electronic/electronic stuff, no piano in this group.”

On piano or laptop or something in-between, Craig Taborn keep up the spirit of those early days of experimenting in Golden Valley. Maybe there was something in the local water in the 70s and 80s that fueled the imaginations of some of modern jazz’s most creative jazz artists.

Craig Taborn joins Dave King and Reid Anderson at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis on March 13th for the debut of Golden Valley Is Now; www.walkerart.org

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