Craig Harris, Lake, Bluiett, Byron, etc at Spivey Hall
On 7/20/03 I saw the world premiere of Craig Harris' "Souls Within The Veil", a work commemorating the centennial of W. E. B. Du Bois' "The Souls of Black Folk". It was co-presented by the National Black Arts Festival and Clayton College & State University at Spivey Hall on the CCSU campus south of Atlanta.
When the concert was first announced the line-up was Craig Harris, trombone; Hamiet Bluiett, baritone sax; David Murray, tenor sax; Gary Bartz, alto sax; Graham Haynes, trumpet; Hugh Ragin, trumpet; Billy Hart, drums; Kahil El'Zabar, percussion; Cecil McBee, bass; and Rachella Parks, sax. Then Rachella Parks' chair was filled by Don Byron, clarinets. By the time the programs were printed Dewey Redman was sitting in for David Murray, as was Oliver Lake for Gary Bartz. When the band took the stage they were short one Dewey Redman but had gained Steve Coleman, alto sax. A few changes in the roster, but still a strong line-up.
The music was an extended work divided into 14 sections with an intermission. At times the music reminded me of some of Sam Rivers' or Julius Hemphill's big band work (especially Hemphill's "Drunk on God"). Don Byron took a couple of long unaccompanied solos on clarinet and bass clarinet and seemed to find a lot of favor with the crowd. Sometimes he would double the bass part on bass clarinet giving the music a more exotic sound. At the thirty-minute mark I was starting to wonder if Oliver Lake was ever going to solo - Steve Coleman had taken most of the sax solos to that point - but then Lake opened one of the sections with a few minutes of scorching solo sax. It seemed that the younger members of the ensemble - Steve Coleman, Don Byron, Graham Haynes - took long exploritory solos while the older members - Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, Hugh Ragin - took shorter, yet more fiery turns. Bluiett really got the audience torqued up - a baritone sax will do that every time. The rhythm section moved effortlessly from bop to blues to polyrhythmic minimalist patterns as the music called for (Kahil El'Zabar was always doing the unexpected). For the last section Steve Coleman opened with about eight minutes of solo sax, playing 16th notes over a more traditional bop-type set of chord changes. Then the rest of the band kicked in and Coleman kept soloing for another 4 or 5 minutes. There was a clock on the monitor set up next to my seat (several cameras were set up to record the concert) and I would look over at the monitor to see if I could get a differnt view of the stage. Coleman kept playing, the elapsed time kept increasing, and the time remaining on the tape was running out. I was afraid the concert might outlast the tape - I think the music ran a little over two hours.
Craig Harris showed himself to be a strong composer and bandleader. He let each member play to their strengths and would hold off going to the next section of music if the current section was going particularly well. Harris' solos always gave the audience something to hold their interest, whether it was a growling gutbucket trombone solo or walking the front of the stage with a digeradoo. From concept to execution, "Souls Within The Veil" was an exhilarating and exhausting success. There was no encore because no one could expect the musicians to give anything more than they already had. As far as the taping of the concert goes, no mention was made of when, where, how, or if it would be made available to the public.
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