The Fuzz Box: Eye and Ear project promotes local experimental music

By Kevin Muhitch///Staff Writer

The methods of jazz musicians Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman were far from orthodox. Ayler and Coleman were for many years considered on the fringes of jazz and they preferred it this way. While their style of “free jazz” pushed the tenants of improvisational music further into the depths of experimentalism than it had ever gone, their influence always seemed in many ways confined.

Whether we focus on the sounds of New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore or Portland, a string of new musicians are again embracing Ayler and Coleman. Portland’s Eye and Ear experiment will showcase these musicians.
While Portland’s Jackie-o-Motherfucker and Smegma have long been leaders of the city’s improvised music scene, it is rare that we experience a show with such a huge cast as Portland’s Eye and Ear. Eye and Ear is a monthly series that showcases a rotating cast of musicians performing freely and fully improvised music.

This month’s lineup includes Wyatt Schaffner (CAS ’11), Alieta Train, Ben Kates, Cyrus Lampton, Dane Overton, Michael Griffith, Michael McManus, Nick Makanna, Matt Shandorf, Nick Arms, Christine Denkewalter, Jonathan Russell, Matt Doyle and a surprise guest.

Portland’s scene is known for its tight-knit group of musicians and a tendency toward collaboration. Eye and Ear flips this on its head, pushing musicians from vastly different spectrums of Portland’s ever-growing musical scene and forcing them to create within the constraints of improvisation— it will be impossible to know where any of the musicians are going before the piece is over.

Regardless of what bounds Eye and Ear end up pushing, it is a signal of what is to come in Portland, a city embracing the ideals of Ayler and Coleman and pushing deeper into the realms of free music through endless improvisation.

Recess Gallery (1127 SE 10th), Monday, Feb. 27, 8:30 p.m., $2.