Nathan Clevenger

The Nathan Clevenger Group in Oakland, 2013. NC, Sam Bevan, Jon Arkin, Rebecca Kleinmann, Kasey Knudsen and Cory Wright

The year is ending and the world, as full of pluck, gumption and outdated slang as ever, carries on. Personally, I haven’t been this disappointed in an end-times since that Higgs Boson-crazed particle accelerator at CERN failed to strain us all through microscopic lab-created black holes. Life is full of disappointment.

Anyway, the major news from the Nathan Clevenger Group world is that we are halfway through our sophomore album and still on track to release it in 2013, which, it just so happens, is our 10 year anniversary as a band. My crack marketing department assures me all manner of promotional opportunities are just around the corner, so that’s something to look forward to. So far, we have 5 finished tracks featuring Kasey Knudsen, Aaron Novik, Evan Francis, Sam Bevan, Jon Arkin and myself. Just this past Friday, I had the pleasure of welcoming old Clevenger Group collaborator and master percussionist/composer Jason Levis (in town from Berlin) into the studio to record a marimba overdub on one of the tunes. I am really excited by what we’ve got on tape and even more excited to record the second half of the record early in 2013 and get it out there.

There have been some personnel changes in the months since the first session, with Evan andSylvain Carton (our tenor saxophonist for several years now) relocating and Aaron moving on to other projects. We’ve been playing with different combinations of some great winds players, namely Cory Wright, Rebecca Kleinmann and Aram Shelton, which has been fun and inspiring. After a pretty slow year for new compositions, relatively speaking, our last gig of the year saw the introduction of 3 new pieces and there are more nearing completion. I’m looking forward to exploring this music and integrating the new players into the band further in 2013.

In reviewing the end of the year, it would be absurd not to mention our appearance earlier this month at the 2 day Festivus Festival at the Makeout Room, curated by Lisa Mezzacappa. This event has been written about and explained in other places (if you’re facebook friends with anyone in the SF Bay Area jazz/improv scene, you probably already know the story), so I won’t recap too much, but I will just say that both nights of the gig (we played the music of Darren Johnston on the 2nd night) were incredible. Rhapsodizing about “the community” — whichever community it may be — generally stirs up my deep reserves of skepticism, but this was one case where I actually felt it. Hearing and hanging with so many wonderful players (and people!) and hearing everyone play the music of colleagues with such imagination and skill was a brilliant, buoying thing. On a selfish note, I have a feeling this event produced enough warm feelings to keep me going through any number of crises of confidence — the standard microscopic lab-created black holes endemic to this particular artistic pursuit — in the coming year. Deep thanks to Lisa and all the musicians, composers and listeners who participated.

See you next year. Please go see some live music.

N.S.C.

Greetings, people of the future (I am assuming you are not currently reading over my shoulder as I type).

I am striving to provide more frequent website updates this year (please note that the Gig page is always up-to-date – don’t let the occasionally moldy nature of the main page news fool you), so here are a few bits of possibly interesting information:

- First and foremost, we are delighted to be returning to the Makeout Room’s Monday night series (curated by Lisa Mezzacappa and Darren Johnston) on Monday, March 5^th. This is going to be an unusual gig for us, in that all 4 of our recent horn players – Aaron Novik, Kasey Knudsen, Sylvain Carton and Evan Francis — will be on the gig, making the Group a septet for the first time. It’s an embarrassment of reed riches. We play first, at about 8:30, and there is no cover. Please come check out what might be a one-time-only lineup. See the Gigs page for more info.

- An early 2012 highlight was the latest installment of our annual double-bill with Lisa Mezzacappa’s Bait & Switch. This year, we tried a San Francisco venue, namely the wonderful and mysterious Viracocha. If you get a chance, do check this place out. I hope that we’ll play there again at some point. The gig went well and we were lucky enough to receive nice pre-gig and post-gig blurbs in the East Bay Express and the Memory Select blog.

- The big news for later in the year: the Nathan Clevenger Group will be recording our 2^nd album! The plan is to record in the spring and early winter with the goal of getting the thing finished and pressed in time for 2013. This vague release date has some significance, as 2013 marks the 10 year anniversary of the west coast Nathan Clevenger Group. Yikes. We have a lot of music we’re eager to record and I’m looking forward to heading into the studio with Kasey Knudsen, Aaron Novik, Sam Bevan, Jon Arkin, Evan Francis, Sylvain Carton, and Eli Crews.

- Finally, I am the quasi-composer-in-residence for the recently-launched 1000 Fathoms podcast. The Baltimore-based podcast is focused on self-sufficiency/D.I.Y. aesthetics/efforts, and I’m staying true to the theme by providing music that is entirely written, played and recorded by me, in my apartment, using whatever instruments I have lying around. It’s been an interesting challenge creating small, simple, often goofy pieces appropriate for the context and a lot of fun experimenting with a working method that is so quick and simple compared to the work I do composing for my main musical gig. It’s also stretched my limited vibraphone chops a bit and taught me that brushes on a cardboard box can be very effective drums. You can check out 1,000 Fathoms here and some of my music for this series here.

Thanks for reading.

n.c.

40 gigs, that is.

Yes, dear friends and statistical enthusiasts/anomalies, according to the very official-looking memo I recently received from the crack NCG Statistical Analysis Team, our gig this Sunday (March 20th) will be our 40th. What better place to celebrate this milestone than the site of 10 of our 40 gigs, the lovely Café Royale?

I’m delighted to be joined by Aaron Novik (clarinets/36th NCG gig), Sam Bevan (bass/28th gig), Jon Arkin (drums/15th gig), Sylvain Carton (tenor sax & clarinet /10th gig), and Evan Francis (alto sax & flute / 1st gig). We’ll miss Kasey Knudsen (alto saxophonist of record and veteran of over 20 gigs) and Mitch Marcus (tenor emeritus).

Please check the gigs page for more info.

In semi-related news, I have been writing jazz reviews for the East Bay Express…check out my first efforts:

Chris Speed’s Endangered Blood
Steve Coleman & Five Elements

In the spirit of never burying the lead under a mountain of prattle, I want to start by announcing that the Nathan Clevenger Group is ending our 3 month gig-hiatus with the 2^nd Para-annual Free Jazz Holiday Office Party on Friday, December 17^th. The gig is a double bill with friend/colleague/brilliant bassist Lisa Mezzacappa and her Bait & Switch ensemble. As some of you may recall, we first attempted this in 2008 with a gig at the Temescal Arts Center, and we’re really looking forward to reviving the idea this year. We’ll be playing at the lovely Subterranean Arthouse in Downtown Berkeley (2179 Bancroft Way). I suspect that this will be a ridiculously fun gig and, it goes without saying, it is your only chance to hear us in the last 1/3 of 2010! It would mean a lot if you would consider lending your ears and support. We’ll pay you back in music and cookies.

By way of 2010 in review, what can I say? Our CD, The Evening Earth was released and caused the East Bay Express to refer to me as a “fascinating composer” and describe the Group’s music as “long-form, dreamy, sectional without being rigid, and bluesy — albeit in a non-traditional way.” Thanks! Gig-wise, it was our busiest year ever with 8 gigs. The highlight was no doubt our CD Release gig at 21 Grand, with our tenor saxophonist emeritus, Mitch Marcus, back for a reunion gig (check out the versions of “Monsoon” and “Trellis” from that gig on Youtube). What a blast. Besides the core band members (Kasey Knudsen, Aaron Novik, Sylvain Carton, Sam Bevan, Jon Arkin & Eric Garland), this year we were thrilled to we welcome guest stars Aram Shelton and Eric Vogler on a gig apiece. Frequent guest star Eric Perney will be joining us for the December gig.

Plans for 2011 include the recording of our 2^nd album, hopefully in the early Spring, and perhaps some occasional variations on the sextet format we’ve been working with. Now is not the moment for pontificating on the State of the Scene (as everyone knows, it’s not hard to get me going on that subject, so let’s just back away slowly…), but I will say that the nightlife habits of the San Francisco Bay Area can be puzzling and the local attitude seems to turn ever more inimical toward original jazz music. Yet we carry on, waiting for the wave to rise again. Perhaps 2011 is the year the Nathan Clevenger Group will stop fighting the tide and dedicate our gigs to performing the music of some jazz superstar or dead celebrity singer du jour, but probably not. In fact, definitely not. I guarantee it. We hope you’ll join us on this Quixotic campaign…there’s no time like the present. Literally.

Thanks for reading and all the best.

N.S.C. 

P.S. – Regarding my restraint in not titling this post “State of the Nathan”, you’re welcome.