The Creative Music Guild Improvisation Summit has returned for its fourteenth trip around the sun, and it’s off to a rip-roaring start. The festivities kicked off last Tuesday at Half Court Studio with a stacked lineup of Brooklyn-based saxophonist Caroline Davis and local experimental music staples YAWA and Mike Gamble, who plunged listeners headfirst into uncharted sonic territory. From avant-garde alto sax explorations to textured soundscapes and adventurous compositions, the sonic blueprint has officially been laid for the weeks ahead. And if you’re not convinced yet, let me assure you: It’s one for the books.
The Summit gathers some of the most groundbreaking acts from Portland and beyond. Brought to life by the Creative Music Guild, a non-profit organization that leads in cultivating Portland’s experimental and improvised music scene, this unique festival runs from October 13-30. And it’s not just a marathon of musical performances, but also artist-led workshops, film screenings, and multimedia presentations at venues throughout the city.
Mike Gamble, the artistic director of the Creative Music Guild, says it’s come a long way since its conception in 2012. “Ben Kates, the previous artistic director, started it at Disjecta [now Oregon Center for Contemporary Art],” he says. “It used to be a two-day festival. My dream after becoming artistic director was to make it more comfortable for traveling musicians to have a place to play.”
Drawing inspiration from Seattle’s Earshot Jazz Festival and Jazz Refractions (formerly Angel City Jazz Festival) in Los Angeles, Gamble began luring in some top-shelf, out-of-town talent. “The first festival I put on in this format was with Shahzad Ismaily, who’s a fantastic musician,” says Gamble. “Since then, I’ve been growing the festival a day longer each time. Now we’re up to eighteen days of music and exploration.”
This year’s Improvisation Summit also marks a time of transition in Gamble’s own life. “I’ve been running it for 10 years, and this is my final year,” he says. “I feel like it’s about time to pass the torch.” While Gamble can’t reveal who’ll be filling his shoes just yet, he says he’s had someone in mind for a while.
From the rustic brickwork walls of Swan Dive to the vaulted A-frame ceiling of Leaven Community Center, the festival has a new home nearly every night. “It’s a really intimate environment because you’re seeing improvisers give it all that they’ve got,” says Gamble. “It’s between you and the artist that’s there transforming in front of you. To have that experience in the types of venues that we’re doing this around town is something that I feel creative music fans want to come back to. It feels very connected.”
While we’re already a few days into the festival, there’s still plenty left to see. One of the most groundbreaking events will be the Portland Microtonal Chamber Orchestra’s first ever performance this Friday, October 23, at Leaven Community Center. The experimental ensemble, led by local composer, arranger, and instrument-builder Richie Greene, uses microtones (notes or intervals not found in traditional Western tuning) for their compositions, creating subtle dissonances that, to an untrained ear, can sound almost out of tune. These fearless sonic explorations and unpredictable turns are exactly the kind of magic this summit runs on.
And it doesn’t stop there. Other local acts include the Akila Fields Trio, performing Oct. 28 at The 1905, and Brown Calculus, playing the final night of the festival, Oct. 30 at Portland Arts Collective. “What’s cool about improvisation is that you can respond to what the room needs,” says Vaughn Kimmons, half of the intergalactic Brown Calculus duo. “You’re sharing [your music] with people in real time so you can really feel out what’s happening and receive whatever downloads need to be shared in the moment. That’s the part I really enjoy.”
Brown Calculus is the brainchild of Kimmons (Brown Alice, POPgoji, Tribe Mars) and André Burgos (Brown Calvin, Tribe Mars), who describe themselves as “two spirits, sprung forth from the same body in a past life.” For the better half of a decade, the two have been leaning further and further into improvisation, with Burgos describing it as “a natural lane for us to explore.” They’re fully conscious of the fact that experimental music isn’t for everyone, but on the flipside, it’s part of what makes the festival so endearing.
“It gives us a space to be able to be weird without people being really caught off guard,” Kimmons says. “People are celebrating being strange. It’s nice to have that space.”
And when it comes to booking the festival itself, Gamble’s fully on the same page, largely looking for artists who he feels will bring a new, inspired sound to the city. “For the past couple years specifically, I’ve focused on [booking] female artists,” he says, pointing to last year’s set by renowned cellist and composer Lori Goldston as a high-water mark, along with Lisa Mezzacappa the year before.
This year, he decided to spotlight Judith Berkson, a mezzo-soprano, pianist, and composer from Los Angeles. Outside of a solo show Oct. 22 at Swan Dive and a performance as the Judith Berkson Trio with Mike Lockwood and Andrew Jones Oct. 23 at Leaven Community, Berkson will also partake in the Improvisation Summit “Round Robin” Oct. 24 at Desert Island Studios. It’s a festival mainstay: a spontaneous set where musicians are cued at random to improvise together. “It’s going to feature a whole slew of amazing improvisers,” says Gamble. “It’s fun to see because you don’t know who you’re going to be performing with, so you have to be ready for it.”
Ultimately, Gamble views the festival as a harmonious exchange between local artists and out-of-towners. “What it does is incite new collaborations and foster more connections across generations and disciplines that aren’t necessarily pure traditional jazz, or pure noise music, or pure avant-garde,” he says. “In a day and age where it’s so easy to just be on your device and not go and see community, not go and see shows, I feel like this whole festival entails a huge community in the Portland scene.”
Creative Music Guild Improvisation Summit, October 13-30, various venues, various times, some events are FREE with others sliding scale suggested donation $10-$30, more info.