Late Arcade

by Nathaniel Mackey

  Everyone had quieted down and sat back down by the time we made it to the performing area. Lambert stepped to the mike and explained why we’d handed out the balloons, instructing the audience to each use the balloon as he or she saw fit to contribute to the music, a new piece called “Some Sunday” we were about to play that I’d written. He made a point of not suggesting how they might use the balloons, saying nothing about blowing the balloon up and letting the air out, blowing the balloon up and rubbing it, stretching the balloon and twanging it without blowing it up, blowing the balloon up and thumping it, stretching the balloon and snapping it without blowing it up, blowing the balloon up and popping it with a pin, blowing the balloon up, putting it on the floor and stomping it, etc. He simply suggested that they join in as they saw fit when he gave them the sign, which would be him raising his right arm and quickly bringing it back down. He would indicate when they were to stop, he explained, by making the halt sign with his right hand.

  We started the piece off with Djamilaa, unaccompanied, repeating the folk song-sounding, children’s song-sounding phrase on piano, a vamp-till-ready we let go on for a while. Djamilaa gave it just the right beginner’s touch, a sometimes heavy left hand that bordered on losing the time and did in fact lose it now and again, only to quickly regain it. Pointedly unpolished, mock-awkward, “amateur” by its own lights, it made me think of Don Cherry’s remark that too many people make a religion of professionalism, a not very satisfying religion he’d found, and there was indeed something reminiscent of his piano work on the “Mu” date about Djamilaa’s playing. This was all the more apt by way of entrance into a piece we had invited the audience to take part in, as if to say it was okay to be amateurs, okay to be other than polished or professional, okay to be rough and ready, even more rough than ready. Poignancy took the place of polish in Djamilaa’s vamp, as if to say, reiterate and insist we’re all beginners when it comes to love, especially the Sunday kind Etta James sings about, not to mention the millenarian, great-gettin’-up-Sunday collective love we all so badly want.

  It was as if it were the childhood or even the infancy of some new order she was auditioning and it wouldn’t be going too far to say that Drennette’s conga beats, when she finally came in, making the vamp a duo, were, threaded into everything else they were, the “patter of little feet.” They made it echo in our heads, the remote broadcast of some ideal order yet to come, a conceptual impendence one ached and winced and almost wept on hearing. (Had I looked out and glimpsed an audience member or two wipe a tear from his or her eye I wouldn’t have been surprised.) The conga-laced piano vamp advanced a nascent ascendancy of all any heart could want. It grew stark in the stitched iterativity it moved by way of, rhapsody met with impediment, pendency’s boon and bequest.

  Djamilaa and Drennette reasoned against reason it seemed, played as if to placate a ghost. The vamp jumped and ran, a run of lost and rewon time that rayed and rippled, nothing if not a swell and then nothing if not a subsidence, done again and again as though it would never end. Its echo grew more and more inscriptive, an introspective “letter to the world” one wrote without intending to, sound all instinctual plea, appeal or epistle, a recess all proprioception fell into.

  Just at the point where it began to appear the vamp would really go on forever the rest of us came in. Lambert’s alto jumped out with an elliptical whimsy he might’ve floated away on were it not for the bottom Aunt Nancy’s bass and Penguin’s bari put under us all. He went from whimsy to bittersweet anthem in no time at all, a march-worthy solemnity and lilt reminiscent of Jesper Zeuthen’s solo on “To Alhaji Bai Konte,” one of the cuts on Brikama, the new Pierre Dorge album we’ve been listening to a lot. I put the mute on my trumpet, a quivering blade I wielded or wove underneath and inside the line he laid down, a needling thread abetting the aspirate cloud he plied. March-worthy though it was, we kept to the near side of march, Aunt Nancy’s bass unpredictable and volcanic even as it proffered, along with Penguin’s bari, what bottom there was. Scott LaFaro’s collateral chatter, the eruptive, side colloquy he used to go at in Bill Evans’s trio, seemed to be her model, her muse, a kicking up she sprung us away from march meter with, fall into a groove though we otherwise did, grumble and go.

  Lambert wasted no time getting the audience involved. At the top of a run one would say put butterscotch in bittersweet’s place he took his right hand from the horn, raised his arm and quickly brought it back down, continuing his high flight or flotation with his left hand on the spoons even as he did so, putting bittersweet back in its place as a consequence, intended or not. The audience responded on cue, addressing the balloons in every way we’d imagined they might. Some blew their balloons up and let the air out, some blew their balloons up and rubbed them, some pulled their balloons taut and twanged them without blowing them up, some blew their balloons up and thumped them, some pulled their balloons taut and snapped them without blowing them up, some blew their balloons up and popped them with pins, some blew their balloons up, put them on the floor and stomped on them and so on. It made for a loud, raucous noise, a not unjoyful noise though not always joyful, a devotional sound or song even so.

  We found ourselves lifted, oddly buoyed by what amounted to a balloon choir, an additive chorus by whose cacophonous ledger we were called to account. As we looked out at the balloons being rubbed, popped, twanged, emptied of air, snapped, stomped on and so forth, we couldn’t help feeling we were being arraigned even as we were being apprised of a corroborative seam or support. That seam, we heard as well as saw, heard even more than saw, paraded haptic amenities before us, audiotactile grip and grain we were called out to chorus and carol with or against in turn. Rise and arraignment rolled into one, the audience’s balloon valences broke thru to a vein of strike, stretch, kick, scratch and scour that offered accompaniment and discontent in like measure, deepseated grievance and regret one would’ve sworn railed against birth itself. What were we doing where we were and what were they doing where they were were only the simplest of the queries they involved us in.

  I stole a glance at Djamilaa and saw that she sat at the piano in the most royal way imaginable (regal straightness of back, regal litheness of arms, regal groundedness of rump, regal fingertip élan), a way of abiding balloon arraignment we could all learn from I felt. She continued with her mock beginner’s tack, a “tentativity” at times that cried out for support, coronation’s darling or doll though she clearly was, royal command and recourse though one knew she had access to. What we were doing where we were was what they were doing where they were she made it clear, no matter she sat enthroned, Queen of Soon-Come Sunday, for we all sat enthroned, whether we sat or stood, we where we were, they where they were, Queen or King of Soon-Come Sunday.

  I stood straighter, having stolen that glance, and I noticed that others must have stolen one too, for not only did Penguin, Lambert and Aunt Nancy stand straighter, not only did Drennette sit at her drumset straighter, but everyone in the audience now sat or stood straighter. We all found ourselves draped in regality and rectitude, the odd, unexpected bequest balloon arraignment bestowed on each of us, the surprise endowment the pressure it put on birth blessed us with.

  Meanwhile, Lambert kept in mind the “bruised bell” instruction I gave him the first time we played the piece. Neither bittersweet nor butterscotch had anything to do with it now, or, if either did, only in the most angular, at-many-removes way, a warm sound that was as wounded as it was warm, a wounded sound that was as warm as it was wounded, reception and incision, warmth and wound, run as one. Bruised bell met balloon arraignment with a whimsicality or quizzicality à la John Tchicai that, atop Djamilaa’s iterative piano, made one beat back tears. Balloon valence, it said, was nothing if not feeling’s inflated premises, felt no less for real, felt no less intensely, no matter now known as such. He picked and played off strike, stretch, kick, scratch, scour and so on at will, inflated premises’ match at every turn, mixed emotions�
�� match at every turn, a wincing, tangential feint titrating woundedness and warmth over every array.

  We had decided beforehand that for this rendition of “Some Sunday” Lambert would not be the only one to solo, that he’d be followed by Penguin, me and finally Drennette with a drum solo before we went back to the head. Before ending his solo Lambert took his right hand from the horn, extended his arm toward the audience and made the halt sign. He went on playing as the balloon choir subsided and the remainder of his solo, albeit continuing the bruised bell vein he’d been working, sounded as if launched by the balloon hubbub it left behind.

  Lambert went on for another minute or two, followed by Penguin, me and Drennette. Shortly into each of our solos Lambert gave the audience the sign to join in, later giving them the sign to stop, having himself been given a nod to do so by the soloist. To begin to end what’s already a very long letter, I’ll let it go at saying that Penguin and I both acquitted ourselves well, negotiating the briar patch balloon arraignment tossed us into with Brer Rabbit-worthy aplomb. Penguin was indeed magisterial, working a bass vein he posed as foil to Lambert’s high flight or flotation, a baptismal, often abyssal plunge that even the balloons went under with, but what I want to get to is what happened during Drennette’s drum solo. It was during her solo that the comic-strip balloons emerged.

  I should note that the audience more and more warmed up to their role the further we moved into the piece, that they more adeptly addressed the balloons and that each of them brought something more like a plan to his or her contribution. With each successive solo, they grew more attentive not only to what the soloist was doing but to the rest of the band and, best of all, to each other as well. Some of those who twanged their uninflated balloons and some of those who snapped theirs could be seen coordinating their respective attacks, not only relative to one another but with an eye and a ear toward Aunt Nancy’s bass, an eruptive amen corner that kept stride with her as best they could. Some of those who rubbed their inflated balloons did so with increasing finesse, eking out, in some cases, sounds not unlike those made by a cuica, running the gamut between moan and squeal, whine and whimper, as they advanced a patient, melodic parsing adumbrating the soon-come Sunday we attested to. Some of those who thumped their inflated balloons and some of those who stomped theirs increasingly waited for just the right crescendoed-into moment, a bomb atop a bomb they kept their eyes on Drennette to calibrate. Others, however, especially those who popped their balloons with pins, eschewed coordination, opting for a randomness and surprise tantamount to an irreverent “boo,” asymmetric occurrence an end in itself.

  It amounted, oddly enough, to the brer patch I wrote you about a year ago, a divinatory field advancing peppered accord, peppered kinship claim. What we were doing where we were and what they were doing where they were made for a tenuous, precarious connection, an on-again, off-again mesh. We were in sync and out of sync by turns, balloon choristers with or without balloons. Balloon-advanced brer patch extended a multiplex field freighted with a feel for polyrhythmicity, vibe-societal strike, stretch, kick, scratch and scour. What we were doing where we were and what they were doing where they were was that.

  The audience appeared to be enjoying itself as well, more and more so as we moved further into the piece and they more confidently found their way. Some shouted, “Alright!” Some shouted, “That’s it!” Some shouted, “I hear you!” Some, without shouting, beamed in such a way as to loudly announce a certain delight, a certain attunement, their faces lit with the glow they felt fitting into the mix. Engagement registered on the faces of others in different ways, intense concentration or deliberateness in some cases, closed-eyed, trancelike absorption in some cases, lips moving as if counting or mouthing lyrics in some cases, head bowed reverently in some cases. I caught a glimpse of the owner and his wife and saw that they fell into the beaming group, a big, toothy smile on each of their faces as, respectively, they thumped and rubbed the balloons they held in their hands.

  Penguin ended his solo shortly after nodding to Lambert to give the audience the halt sign, which Lambert did. The balloon choir fell silent as Penguin continued his low rove, capping off his low rove with a rummaging run in the bari’s lowest register. It was a breathy but oddly subaqueous creep whereby he went foraging on the ocean floor, the rival of any octopus the way his tone seemed to spread and to reach and to scurry, covering ground one would never have imagined it could. The solo ended with a climb to the horn’s upper register one semiheard and semisaw, the wistful run of notes a string of bubbles rising to the surface, balloons rising to the surface one semithought. We all fell silent as these final notes floated away, all except Drennette, whose turn it now was to solo.

  Drennette’s opening gambit was unprepossessing enough. She sat with the conga to the right of the parade snare, the conga held at a slight angle in a stand that allowed her to play it while seated at the drumset. Indeed, this allowed her to address either the conga or the drumset or both the conga and the drumset, the latter being what she began her solo by doing. Back straight, head high, Queen of Soon-Come Sunday, she sat with the drum stool turned somewhat to her right, having put away the stick she’d been using in her right hand while continuing to strike the orchestra snare with the stick in her left. She began beating the conga with her right hand, drumming on the orchestra snare still, tip of stick and palm of hand dealing in timbral shadings it appeared to have become her sole purpose in life to inspect and allow us to hear. Everything slowed down. She struck the orchestra snare, letting the sound hang in the air until it faded, then she slapped the conga, doing the same with the sound it made. She went back and forth that way between orchestra snare and conga, insisting we hear not only distinctions between the two but subtler distinctions between different deployments of stick and between different deployments of hand. It was a low-key start for a drum solo, sublime testing or sublime tinkering though Drennette conveyed it to be.

  A beginner’s tack to the max, Drennette’s minimalist outset was, as I’ve already said, an inauspicious, unprepossessing start. No one would’ve guessed it would be during her solo that the balloons would emerge. I’m not suggesting flamboyance has at all to do with whether or not the balloons appear. We’re not sure what does and I’m not saying that. But, thought of in relation to the eventfulness of the balloons emerging, her opening gambit appears almost pointedly uneventful, certainly, if nothing else, a pointed withholding of the virtuosic display drum solos are famous (or infamous) for. In any case, there appears to have been some occult or in some other way recondite hydraulics whereby legibility of the sort the balloons deliver accrued to deferred buildup.

  A deferred buildup was exactly Drennette’s tack, beginner’s or not, a buildup she invited the audience to join her in. She gradually worked the parade snare and the cymbals into her left hand’s repertoire while adding heel, fingertips and even fingernails to her right hand’s address of the conga’s head, moving on to ever more complex combinations, ever more multifaceted patterns. “Take your time,” Penguin encouraged her at one point, which she did, slowly bringing a wider range of timbres, rhythmic motifs and tempi into play. When it got to where she’d set the table to her satisfaction, laid out the repertoire she sought to activate, she gave Lambert the nod and he gave the audience its cue.

  The balloon choir came on strong, an aggressive onslaught of pent-up energy let loose, more aggressive than what Drennette had in mind, too loud—so much so she took her right hand from the conga and lowered it, whereupon the audience took the volume down. What she wanted, it gradually became clear, was a quiet, accretional field of haptic intensities, a quiet, slowly quickening submission to an accretional muse, aggressive given time as well as loud given time. Accordingly, not as many balloons were popped, either by pins or by being stomped on, as during the earlier solos, many more now being twanged, snapped and, especially, rubbed. What aleatory knocking is to the opening section of Marion Brown’s “Afte
rnoon of a Georgia Faun” aleatory tug, touch and rubbing were to Drennette’s balloon-assisted sonic field, an abiding, aleatory patience allowing what would accrete to accrete, what would accrue to accrue.

  Rub, as I’ve said, was the address of choice for the majority of the audience, an address ranging from quiet, caressive strokes to longer, more cuica-sounding moans made by pulling the thumb along the length of the balloon. Rub’s predominance accorded with Sunday love’s eroticism, suggesting, as it did, epidermal touch, epidermal regard, epidermal warmth. It was clear to everyone that rub, in its multiple senses, applied, epidermal flare well within its range of implication, epidermal friction well within that range as well. Obstruction, difficulty, abrasion, complication and all related meanings along that line were present as well, notwithstanding Sunday love’s utopic promise. Everyone, it was clear, brought his or her own experience to bear, from felicitous meow to saturnian groan, not to mention all the gradations between.

  Rub indeed ruled. A composite, aggregate apprehension, it truly moved, animated by Drennette’s increasingly propulsive recourse to the full complement afforded by the drumset—cymbal shots, paradiddles, bass thumps and such, played with as well as against the conga beats her right hand steadily put forth, she herself on occasion trafficking in rub by pushing the heel or the edge of her hand across the conga’s head, scraping, scrubbing, sliding. Again, briar and burr had as much to do with it as purr, a divinatory field haptic amenity two-handedly drove.

  Conductor as well as Queen of Soon-Come Sunday, Drennette took her hand from the conga every now and then and lifted it, palm facing upward, cueing the balloon choir to take the volume up. It all grew louder over time, more intense over time, collateral repercussion and pop increasingly part of it, a few more audience members popping balloons with pins, a few more popping them by stomping on them on the floor. When the volume and the intensity neared their peak, Drennette pulled her right hand from the conga and took up the drumstick, turned a bit to her left and addressed the drumset full-tilt, all-out, as formidable a display of power drumming as one could want, quantum drumming.