The Powers That Be are a funk/blues/jam band playing originals and coming straight outta El Cerrito! We just hit the studio, so an EP is in the works for ‘09!

The band features Judy Padilla (Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir) on lead vocals, Dean Claeys on alto/tenor saxes and background vocals, myself on tenor/soprano saxes, Alex Scammon on bari/tenor saxes, Patrick Petzel on keys, Dave Gantenbein on bass (and “rehearsal studio” keys and winebottle!), and David Strong on drums.

The composing process is jam-tried and true. Dave G may bring in a bassgroove, or David brings in a beat, Judy might have a vocal hook, and then we just let it grow from there. It’s a good time, and we feel that you may catch that feeling too! Check out the myspace…  http://www.myspace.com/powersthatbe

We’ve also added an original of mine into the repertoire… “Davo’s Revenge,” written in 1993 for a buddy of mine (Dave) who seriously wanted to quit his lame day job and make custom windsurfing boards fulltime. I lost track of Dave way back when, after a few personal tsunamis, and I hope he’s been living his. I’ve managed to keep playing his tune (a 12/8 shuffle B flat blues) through the years, and it is always fresh…  We had the honor of having Vince Wallace join us on the tune at Speisekammer, plus we did a fine version on our own at SoCha… very pleased!

Four-of-a-Kind

I’m excited to say that I recently joined the Dogs Playing Poker.

I’m filling in for the wonderful bassoonist Wendell Hanna. I won’t be able to match her bassoon’s exquisite tone, but I will try to do it’s spirit justice. The band features quirky, experimental, original music. Fellow composers and compatriots include Carl Herder on the bass, Zachary Smith on the guitar, and Joe LoBue on the drums. We have a monthly show, every fourth Monday, at Albany’s Ivy Room, on the corner of San Pablo and Solano Avenues. Shows from 930pm until 1230am. Never a cover! Upcoming shows include January 26th and February 23rd!

Look for us around the bay, including San Francisco’s Caffe Trieste on Market Street (January 31st) and SoCha Cafe on Mission at Valencia (February 21st). Also check out http://www.myspace.com/dogsplayingpoker4 for more info and to hear some samples of what you May hear.

I’ve since done some tweaking of the standard quartet orchestration (Sax-Chords-Bass-Drums). At first I added a second Chordal instrument. Playing once, at the end of September ‘08 at the Ivy Room in Albany, with vibes and guitar. A week later, I used guitar and keys at Linden Street. Then I got an opportunity (And a budget!!) to do an experiment I had on the drawing board for several months… use a rhythm section with 2 drummers, and 2 bassists. Linden kicked me down a gig, and I brought out the whole crew. In addition to Weems on drums, I brought in Andrew Griffin on drumset, Rafael Ramirez on percussion, Canton and Smith on bass, Rob Lyons on guitar. Plus a guest appearance by John Gordon on guitar, and his nephew on trombone. It was wild. Everyone had a great time, and I’m pleased to say that we are going to take it to the studio in early ‘09. In the meantime, I have some composing (well, arranging) to handle.

I had the honor of splitting the bill with the Laney College Big Band on December 8. I sat in on “Caravan” on tenor sax, and on “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” on digital sax. After a brief intermission, I brought in my quintet for the night: Patrick Petzel on grand piano, John Gordon on guitar, Peter Canton on bass, and Steve Weems on drums. We played a few songs from one of the first CDs I ever owned, Ben Webster’s “Soulville.” We played the title cut, a dead-slow 60BPM blues; plus we played “Late Date,” a more-traditional blues at 120BPM. Also on the bill were versions of Dexter Gordon’s “Fried Bananas;” Benny Golson’s “Stablemates,” dedicated to the memory of good friend (and fellow Laney Big Band tenor sax alum) Bruce Blackman; an original vamp-medley; and an original of mine, “Remembrance.”

Patrick Petzel (piano), Steve Weems (drums), Peter Canton (bass), Colin Gleason (sax), John Gordon (guitar). Photo: Brian Compton

It was on this gig that we all got to experience the Amazing Steve Weems and His Magic Drums!
(ASW+HMD! ??) Steve and I met at Van Kleef a ways back, after many anonymous transactions at Best Music (where he works, and I shop!). He was running the sound board back in the day. I knew he played drums and had a thorough knowledge of every gadget under the sun. What I didn’t know was how well he can use the technology to create on-the-fly loops and delays and glitches and digital Tsunamis, all while keeping the beat fresh and funky. It was a perfect match for my loops, plus it fit hand-in-glove with the digital sax!

I also brought in cohorts from Powers That Be, keyboardist Patrick Petzel and drummer David Strong. Plus, bassist Ian Smith. This line-up was filmed by my friend Tatek Aragaw, and you can check clips of the band on the sidebar, or just search youTube with any 2 of our names… and voila!

Here’s us getting down by the front door…

Patrick Petzel (keys), Colin Gleason (sax), David Strong (drums), Carl Herder (bass). Photo: Brian Compton

And here we are on the back loading dock!….

My basic question was whether this straight-ahead trio (“The Colin Gleason Trio”) was indeed the same band. I still don’t know, there are arguments for and against. But in the end, it certainly continues to play it’s part in my music equation. The run at Zza’s ended in early October, essentially due to the economic collapse, and the lack of customers willing to come out and drop ducats on wine, candlelight and actual atmosphere. In the month or so since, I’ve realized that I really do value, and in fact need, playing straight-ahead. Even with the ego-gratifying headrush that composition brings, it isn’t as immediate an impression as when I’m leading a group through a standard like “Polka Dots and Moonbeams,” or a blues, or even a fairly obscure tune transcribed from a personal fave such as “Thembi” by Pharoah or “Le Coiffeur” by Dex.

So I set up some shows with my new band. I had a bigger, more dependable budget, and could finally afford to bring in a drummer. We played a show in November, another in December, one in January, and then a final show in March. In between CVK shows, I hooked up some shows for the Quartet at Park Avenue Grill across from the Piedmont Theater. It was during this phase that I got into the whole notion of seeing the gigs as science experiments. It was experimental music at it’s most basic level. I got to appreciate the process of trying to predict what would happen if I nudged certain variables a little this way or that. I was wrong about stuff on nearly every gig, but, more importantly, I was also right about some things too, and I came to love the feeling of figuring out ahead of time that something could work. Not that it did work, but that it Could.
I also got a chance to re-connect with bud Peter Canton on electric bass. Peter came in to sub for Carl, and I just had to keep him in the mix. The drum chair had gotten me accostumed to handling the usual juggling that comes from getting a full band to actually all show up on the same day. So, with Carl and Peter trading off on bass as well, the notion of a single (regular) 4-person Quartet was seeming to be an old-fashioned ideal. But this trading off has actually been a positive on the music. At least so far. I’ve realized that I had to get my act together (from a composer’s point of view), so that I could make the actual musicians modular, much as the music itself is modular in nature. Life imitating and art and such.

The band has gone through many phases, roughly coinciding with various residencies at local venues.
Phase 1 was last summer (‘07) at Coffee With A Beat. I live one block from the cafe and have hung out there for years. Long time back, CWAB was known as Nicole’s and featured the great local saxplayer M.B. Hanif. I would occasionally wake up early on Sunday (noon) and stroll down to the spot with my old Marigeaux tenor (before it was stolen from mi casa).

The gig was primarily a houseband situation, my buddy Nate Jr. wanted to get a poetry night going, and he thought a band could help get the idea off the ground. The weekly event was called “It Is What It Is” and it

was what it was. It was good. Hell, it was great, considering it was the place that I finally got back to the basic need of playing one’s own music, and really focusing on it. Sadly, the business side of the event was

not as smooth as I envisioned it might be. But I’ve been playing music for 20 years in clubs, cafes, and bars. The money is almost never what you envision. It’s about the music. And it was what it was.

It was on this gig that I debuted my vamps. It was also on this gig, a month or so into it all, that I got the chance to do some playing with my longtime guitarist John Gordon’s bass cohort, Carl Herder. Carl and I clicked, and, with John on guitar, we had the first real version of the band… the Colin Gleason Trio if you will. I did plenty of experimenting with my digital sax, putting together the basic components of my rig, and getting used to the process of bringing it into the real world as opposed to my non-judgemental bedroom.

Unfortunately, after withdrawing from Sonoma State, it would be years before I did any conscious composing again. And by that, I mean the act of sitting down and composing for oneself, not because one has a homework assignment due. I had written in the interim, but the tunes lacked an inspiration, if not a general “feel”.

The idea at Sonoma was a sort of jazz-spectacle which evolved and morphed from one piece into another. I was in my acid-phase and it just sounded like a good idea at the time. As a composer, I was impressed with Anthony Braxton’s non-stop pacing at quartet shows at the original Yoshi’s on Claremont Avenue. Plus the rise in raves and non-stop trance. So it was a mix of Braxton and the Cat in the Hat. The idea which I would return to, many years later: compose 2-bar vamps, and have the performers switch between them at will.

I ended up with nearly 100 of these vamps. I had BIG plans for them, and I wrote them on oversize (11″x17″) 18-stave heavy-count paper. I loved the feel of the paper, and wrote all the notes with a Berol Eagle Chemi-Sealed Draughting pencil. Thing is: I only actually needed 5 of the 18 staves.

1 stave for a Bb Tenor Saxophone melody.

A grand staff for piano. 50 vamps written with chord changes, 50 with notes-on-staff…

A stave for bass (unspecified between acoustic and electric).

And an interesting, if completely failed, attempt at recreating a simple ’80s Brooklyn beat… a percussion staff using just snare and bass drum. With only one of the two drums sounding at any point in time. Usually. Again, not my greatest outcome, but the idea still shows promise even today. Re-write in full effect.

I saved the notebook through the years. It had also doubled as a bit of a scrapbook, holding jazz postcards from highschool days, plus concert tickets (lots of Robert Cray and Sting shows), Oakland A’s tickets from 1982 through 1984, and random CD cardboard covers that I found artistic (I still have “Blues for Allah”, but the CD is long, long gone.)

After years on shelves, and in boxes, closets, storage units, I realized that digitizing the vamps could be a really efficient and effective way of manipulating them into larger works. That was late 2006 through early summer ‘07. And the flurry of activity before the first experiments at Coffee With a Beat’s weekly jazz/poetry nights.

I first had the idea of making cardstock vamps (3 per “page”) and then scissoring them into the collection of 73 which had survived the decade. That part was easy. I found that my artistic choice of neon blue and neon green cardstock was largely unappreciated. So I shelled out more dimes and put it over to manila and ivory versions. I experimented with various physical contraptions that could hold several of these shards at once, often to very little success. Finally common sense prevailed and I realized that the computer could print out any combination (of 3 vamps per page) with simple drag-and-drop preparation.

I spent several months exploring using the vamps in different keys, for varying lengths of time. The Van Kleef shows were always interesting as the music itself was not particularly difficult, it was just written in such a contrary/confusing manner that when we did gel as a unit, it was only to be broken up by a pre-”arranged” notated Rorschach repeat sign/fermata.

The vamps then moved quite easily into longer, modal jams. The good part of this is that the spirit of the music itself has been given space enough to grow and to flower. I often feel like the vamps lend themselves towards a early-’70s Miles Davis jazz-funk fusion. The layers add up quick. I found that changing the orchestration, primarily through augmentation, could quite easily change the amount of “script” that we, as musicians, would use.

From a composer’s point of view, this presents me with a current music which I feel is rich with possibility. I feel proud to realize, via the stage and audience, that original idea for the “piece” (which is hardly one work, but more of an overall style, or approach). And yet, in many respects, the clay is just starting to take it’s shape into the music to be. I feel that I have to lend more direction, and actual compser’s ink, to an “escape clause.”

The vamps are musical seeds of sorts. And once they sprout, the improv takes it’s course. Sometimes it leads itself to a natural conclusion, or to a bridge towards a new seed. Sometimes the question in the air lingers, and as a composer, that is where I have the opportunity to re-assert my presence and shape the process, whether it be concluding or continuing…