On Monday evening, musicians set up for spontaneous jam sessions in an unexpected venue: the top floor of the Missoula Public Library.
Their only prompt came from the session’s leader, Naomi Moon Siegel: Remember to be in service of the music.
The spirit of listening and the surprising contrasts it generates were a few of the goals at the first new version of the FreeSessions, a monthly creative meet-up that Siegel and fellow improviser Bill Kautz started back in 2017.
Part of the mission is to break down silos between different genres and learn from each other.
In a city the size of Missoula, Siegel said she believes it’s important that “noise musicians talk to the country musicians, hang out with the jazz musicians and the sound engineers and the university musicians.”
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Each session is structured to bring those varied styles together: A new curator, whether a musician or movement artist, gives a presentation on a concept, then guides a jam session. It’s free and open to anyone, on any instrument or skill level. Dancers are welcome, too.
“The curated part of the FreeSessions has always been designed to be an incubation ground for new projects and to be a place to perhaps push your edge a little bit, get out of your comfort zone and try something new or maybe present a new composition or a new concept,” she said.
Monday marked a change in leadership. Siegel and Kautz are handing them over to a new set of collaborators: the community radio station KFGM, which broadcasts from the library, along with Daisy Chain Presents, a local production company that presents local and touring acts, including not just rock but electronic, experimental and DIY music.
Kautz plays cornet and composes as well. To him, the benefits of improvising with others “transcend music” when it goes well.
“It creates a moment where the world is right. You sense what a functional community feels like, where everybody is working toward a common goal.”
Hierarchies can be set aside and people can see that they can collaborate with others, regardless of their backgrounds.
“People have to really be fully engaged and listen and be present and set aside the ego and just be attentive to the piece of art that’s being spontaneously created by everyone involved in that moment,” he said.
Ideally, it can reach outside of the room after the session is done.
“It builds courage to get in touch with their true selves and bring that into their community for whatever work they do,” he said.
Listening and learning
To mark the transition, Siegel curated Monday’s session. She performed a piece for solo trombone, accompanied by effects pedals that allowed her to create loops and startling contrasts in sounds that you might not have guessed originated with a horn. Then she led everyone in group “sonic meditations” written by the pioneering electronic composer Pauline Oliveros that required listening and responding to the sounds of the environment and each other, with or without instruments.
She quoted Oliveros’ mantra, “to create an atmosphere of opening for all to be heard with the understanding that listening is healing.”
She demonstrated “conduction,” a form of improvisation and conducting created by the trumpeter-composer Butch Morris with three University of Montana trombone students. They improvised based on a system of hand signals, eyes trained on her, as the sounds were variously rhythmic, abstract and jazzy.
During one jam session, Ken Grinde sat behind a drum kit with a panoramic view of the valley behind him, one of the benefits of the top floor of the library. In front of him, Justin Matsoulek leaned over a small synthesizer setup, manipulating knobs to generate tones and drum machine rhythms. A performer who goes by the stage name of Brain Stew bowed on a saw that he’d outfitted with a microphone to run through a delay and looping pedal. After they established a beat, the bassist Rob Cave, of the bands Fuuls and Rob Travolta, turned on a small amp and began locking into a melodic groove underneath the inquisitive swathes of noise.
New location, new season
Jesse Blumenthal, executive director of KFGM, had participated in past sessions. The station and the Daisy Chain crew were interested in keeping it going, and thought that between the two groups it could be sustainable.
Colin Merrick of Daisy Chain said they thought the sessions were a special feature of the music community and think it’s “important to have an accessible space for artists to collaborate and appreciate each other’s art without it being commodified.”
The sessions were previously held at Imagine Nation and the Westside Theater, and Blumenthal said the library was open to hosting it now.
In the past, he’d curated a session with Michael Musick of the University of Montana who plays saxophone and likes to “make noise in general,” in addition to creating live visuals for performance.
He views the sessions as a place to gather disparate voices from the community to collaborate and explore. With the “semi-public nature of it,” it can be a step toward more live performance.
Looking ahead, they’re seeking curators with diverse voices and perspectives who are accomplished and have something to present to the community.
The next session on April 29 will be hosted by Cole Bronson, who plays drums in Cosmic Sans, Rob Travolta, Crosstalk among others, and also produces hip-hop beats under the name s_nya. After that is Jay Bruns, a member of the improvisational group Modality and provides its visuals. On May 31, he’ll be “pairing video synthesizers with longform ambient granular synthesis through immersive multi-channel audio playback,” according to KFGM’s website. “Participants are encouraged to pursue the relationship between abstract video and sampled ambient and percussive audio.”
Anyone interested can submit a proposal through the station’s website in the FreeSessions section, where they have all the details listed.
Blumenthal said the program falls within their mission to provide educational and creative opportunities. Lately, they’ve been taking in programs that originated elsewhere. Last weekend’s annual Missoula Rock Lotto at the Wilma is one. They’re starting up an A/V Club, which includes free media arts workshops and hang-outs that Bruns, one of the curators, had hosted at his office, Wave & Circuit, before the pandemic.
Like the FreeSessions, those are examples of programs that were successful and can help “make sure that Missoula stays weird,” Blumenthal said.
During the session on Monday, he and Siegel reminded everyone to tell everyone they know who might be interested.
“We really need all of you to participate and show up and use this space that we are trying to create,” he said.