It was cool to stand under the full moon at Stanford last night, and I was extremely excited to and honored to have the drum chair in the Life's Blood Ensemble! Filling in for Timothy Orr felt daunting!
We played six improvisational pieces, all cued from Kalevala-themed paintings done by Collette McCaslin. It seemed to me that we got into some pretty tranced out musical spaces, fitting, as one of the main focuses for Rent is the shamanic tradition embedded within the Kalevala. Of course, when Rent started getting seriously wild with his alto sax, I couldn't help but try and throw in some swinging riffage, but more often than not I tried to use space, leaving as much room as possible for the flutes of Mika Pontecorvo and Heikki Koskinen and delicate vocals of Ron Heglin and Bob Marsh.
At the end of our 50 minute set, I was dripping with sweat and pretty well gone. Hopefully others felt the same way!
Below: Life's Blood Ensemble sets up
Above: Rent Romus and his mighty alto
Below: traps, pre and post freak
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