Live Log 2024: Tak Ensemble's Collective/Protest
Two brave new works, one by Jessie Cox, open Tak's season in stunning fashion
There is an oft-expressed sense that the current era, full as it is with eruptions, disruptions, and generational flashpoints - like the murders of Black men and women at the hands of the police or those acting as their proxy - has yet to get the protest songs it demands. It’s tough to argue with that, especially when you look back at the Civil Rights and Antiwar movements of the 1960s, each of which comes with its own robust soundtrack. But it just may be that we’ve been looking in the wrong place. Instead of leaning on what could generally be called popular music (rock, folk, pop, and hip hop) for our message music, perhaps we need to look to the world of contemporary classical music - and redefine what we mean by a “song.”
It was actually days after the Tak Ensemble’s season-opening concert at the Center For Performance Research, a flexible “white box” space in Williamsburg, on March 2nd that a thought hit me like a thunderbolt: Jessie Cox’s Censored Sounds: Structural Erasure, which was premiered that night, was essentially a 45-minute protest song. Maybe not one to turn into a rallying cry on the streets but something that will fuel and energize continuing action, not to mention inspire through its sheer artistry and passion.
But first a few words about the opener, another premiere of what was Tak’s first collective composition since they were formed over a decade ago. All five members - Laura Cox (flutes), Charlotte Mundy (vocals), Marina Kifferstein (violin), Madison Greenstone (clarinets), and Ellery Trafford (percussion) - are brave and virtuosic masters of their instruments and several of them are composers, too, which makes this work no surprise. The only question is why it took so long.
The resulting work, Artefacts, was lively and varied, full of startling effects and ritualistic moments. Each member’s contribution shone on its own and in relation to what the others were doing, parts creating a whole that was, in effect, an aural mission statement for the ensemble.
It started with each member facing the audience and tapping rhythmically on their bodies, calling out both to the ceremonial and the therapeutic. Mundy spoke some lines of poetry as a silvery tone developed from the other players. The silvery tone fragmented, followed by a powerful drone. Trafford’s drums growled, breaths were heard, then explosions of swirling, shrieking melody.
The growling drum became a rhythm which grew and grew in intensity until: hard stop. Then, a high-pitched collective drone took over, with Trafford rattling bells. Greenstone attacked with piercing clarinet note, duetting with Mundy’s sleigh bells while Kifferstein’s plucked violin seemed to introduce another droning section. After a while, it quieted down to bells, breathy violin, whistling flute, and bowed percussion.
From within this peaceful glade, Mundy intoned: “I spoke to you, looking in on the world, all bright, fingers touching, like stargazing.” The words seemed to unleash a dramatic cross-talk, Trafford using brushes to jam out on the drums, Greenstone blowing bass clarinet, Mundy exclaiming in a wild vocalise, everyone excited, shrieking, swirling, in fear or argument.
Then: a cymbal crashed and Mundy said: “I dreamt that kisses turned to ash on our lips,” as the others resumed their tapping and Cocks destroyed a small, sere plant with a barely audible rustle, a quiet bit of theater and the perfect way to end the piece.
Cox’s Censored Sounds: Structural Erasure began with Tak illuminated all in red. Trafford made a dry sound from a drum, Cocks generated a low thrum from a bass or alto flute, and Kifferstein played some breathy violin. A hushed beginning, creating a sense of anticipation…then Greenstone expelled a vicious tone, not unlike microphone feedback. As we had been duly warned before the show started, it got loud.
As a rhythm ascended, the flute and clarinet started wailing. Then, solo flute, joined by violin, both rising in intensity. Pause. Breathy violin. Cymbal taps. A spacey section ensues, the violin defining a tone and the others joined. Occasional cymbals. Others dropped out, violin persisted but was drowned out by a cymbal - and then psycho shrieks, distorted notes, breaths, and squeals from clarinet and flute.
Cocks and Mundy next moved to a separate music stand illuminated in a rectangle of light, the former making noises on their flute as the latter recited a contemptuous news article about a burned “negro” and how the sounds he made while dying were recorded and sold. This grim subject matter led to an agonizing expression of sound, an expiration in descending tones. A wail from Mundy brings it up again and then: descent.
Things grew both wilder and more “musical” from there, with interactions and crosstalk between instruments leading to some sharply rhythmic phrases. High modernism had entered the picture. Cox himself then emerged from the audience playing a small talking drum before taking his place at a simple drum kit. His presence seemed to permit the others to atomize, walking all over the space, each alone in their rage, sorrow, or both.
Gradually, all returned to their spots and played some unison phrases, almost like angular jazz. Back at the music stand with Cocks, Mundy recited a letter to the editor of a newspaper in Decatur (Illinois? Georgia?) from the 1880s, protesting a “Muslim store” where sounds of the burning negro were sold.
This inspired some murderous clarinet, shrieking piccolo flute, and wailing vocals, the volume nearly painful…until: Near blackout, breathing, Kifferstein’s violin taking command.
Mundy, back at the music stand, recites some hard facts, then concludes: “The forgetting of George Floyd’s murder and Black Lives Matter are happening faster than time.” Appropriately, I heard sirens in the background, bleeding in from the neighborhood outside.
The players emitted varieties of white noise…sounds that were sometimes so quiet that they could have been defined as the absence of silence. A half-hearted rhythm tried to establish itself alongside murmured agonies from Mundy at the music stand, who quoted W.E.B Dubois from the December 1916 issue of his magazine, The Crisis:
“We place frankly our greatest reliance in publicity. We propose to let the facts concerning lynching to be known. Today, they are not fully known; they are partially suppressed; they are lied about and twisted.
We propose, then, first of all, to let the people of the United States, and of the world, know WHAT is taking place. Then we shall try to convict lynchers in the courts; we shall endeavor to get better sheriffs and pledged governors; we shall seek to push laws which will fix the responsibility for mob outbreaks, or for the failure to suppress them; and we shall ask the national government to take cognizance of this national crime.
As Mundy ended with the words “WE KEEP ASKING,” all the lights went out, an exhalation of breath was heard, and the piece was over. The audience was initially stunned, then applauded wildly. Censored Sounds: Structural Erasure is a major statement from Cox, perhaps the first true sequel to Abe Meeropol’s Strange Fruit, the 1939 song made famous by Billie Holiday. Like that song, Cox’s piece seeks not to comfort the audience, but to challenge them, put the issue front and center, and use words and music to create an unforgettable experience. May more people hear it and see it and feel it.
From the archives:
Live Log 2023: Tak Ensemble Takeover
Of Note In 2020: Classical
Record Roundup: Contemporary Kaleidoscope
Record Roundup: Composed, Commemorated, and Beyond
Note: The graphic above contains text from the December 1916 edition of The Crisis, as found here.