by Kurt Gottschalk

The Interpretations series brought an inspired first time pairing to Roulette (Oct. 11th) in the form of trumpeter Peter Evans and visiting German bassist John Eckhardt, each playing short solo sets before an exploratory duet. Eckhardt opened with a surprisingly rich arco growl and slowly crawled up the neck, deftly moving between tonal territories (the sounds were too resonant to call them simply “notes”). Each movement of the bow seemed essential: from a full 15 seconds in silence spent building up enough vibration in the bridge for the strings to resonate to a percussive exploration of bow handle between muted strings. Evans similarly explored minutiae, although magnified by the microphone and moving into jet propulsion. He considered and then pushed past the instrument’s sonorities, working it as a sound chamber, a feedback chamber, seeming to give it breath of its own and perhaps not getting to what might be called a melody line or three until the last few minutes of his solo. Their duo began cautiously, Eckhardt traipsing across the bass before settling at the back of the scroll where he matched Evans in a prolonged but broken single note. From there on they stayed in close proximity like a joint monologue. Perhaps it was a part of feeling each other out, playing together for the first time. Perhaps there was a bit of a shared hesitancy, but even if so it was a hesitancy of alarming proficiency, resolving with a wonderfully satisfying sort of walking (and tripping) blues. – Kurt Gottschalk