ICP has a tight looseness perhaps only bested by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. They stumble and sway in common directions, and can hit a head like no one's business when no one's expecting.
They began their first set at Tonic like drunken sailors, half of them just sitting on the stage, one missing altogether, but trombonist Wolter Wierbos clearly ready to play. He, Tristan Honsinger, Han Bennink and Tobias Delius (a new addition for this tour) kicked off sounding like they'd been playing for hours and had hours left in them. Fresh off a week snowbound in Denver, that might actually have been the case.
Band members joined in one by one. Michael Moore drifted up and took off his sweater. Leader Misha Mengelberg sat at the piano, scribbling on a score and only glanced up when Ab Baars cued the band into a jazzy head that immediately dissolved into a sustained trumpet/violin duet. This, too, the ICP shares with the AECO: The ability to glance off of themes as if they were slippery stones that had to be used to cross a creek.
Were there jokes? Sure. Humor is central to the New Dutch Swing. They pretended to catch bugs and eat them. Bennink and Mengelberg argued on stage. Mengelberg discussed a journal he's founding, The Daily Fuckoff. But the question always asked about the ICP is, does the humor get in the way? (Oddly, I've never heard that question asked about AECO, who have also used plenty of humor in the past.) The answer is simple. No. They just enjoy what they're doing.
The humor, though, shouldn't be allowed to detract from Mengelberg's deceptively rich compositions. The second set opened with a sort of string vs horn baroque duel, then moved into Mengelberg playing a pensive solo while Bennink clamored away, overpowering the former with volume as well as stage presence. The only sense in which they were playing together was that after some 40 years, if they didn't want to be doing this, they wouldn't. But Bennink's insanely loud playing, his hambone, his acting like a bird, his stick-in-mouth-foot-on-drum shtick could only be viewed as a distraction (as many like to consider it) if you wish Bennink wasn't on stage. Mengelberg does solo concerts, and he continues to hire Bennink, so take what you're offered, naysayers.
Such are the standard elements of the ICP. Also standard is great playing. What was new this time was a touch of the old: the group went back into their '80s songbooks and revived from their repertoire some Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols and Hoagy Carmichael. This is the stuff of Mengelberg's soul, and under his direction the ICP keeps it well alive.
But ICP, especially with such a songlist, have never been a mighty band. The addition of Delius' big, gutteral, rambunctious tenor was welcome, especially when they went for the mania. The Pool is never altogether new (Mengelberg's fresher ideas have been reserved for other outlets for the last several years). But they're always rewarding. They're entertainers to the end.
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