Luke Robinson
Contributor
When you’re not tripping over them in the seedy back corners of Vari Hall, you can find music students throwing elaborately staged, and recorded, jam sessions that offer them the opportunity to perform with nothing prepared.
The faculty of fine arts hosted a night of improvised music by students as well as passers-by on the all-too-calm evening of Oct. 8 in Accolade East’s Sterling Beckwith Studio. The event was precipitated and emceed by associate professor Casey Sokol, a paradox of a man with many stories to tell.
As is sometimes the case with improvisational music showcases, the event was wrought with confusion and inner tension. This became especially apparent after the first few pieces, when nobody was sure who was playing next or if it was okay to go up to the front and take the reins. Indeed, there were times when the entire studio, gradually filling throughout the performance to a peak of about 50 or 60 patrons, would fall completely silent in awe or awkward expectation of the next act.
The studio had a self-sustaining ambience from the moment the lights dimmed. The atmosphere was spurred by idiosyncratic signs hung over the refreshment table that read “Shut up! : ) Please” which people were only too happy to obey once the music began.
The acts were, for the most part, hit or miss and ranged from very weird a cappella arrangements and disappointing avant-garde poetry to a very exciting percussion piece by an African performer who told stories about Nigeria while banging huge walking sticks on the floor and against each other. By the second hour of the show, all the regulars were playing their third or fourth pieces, and you could guess the potential for each act.
Sometimes you could be pleasantly surprised at the chemistry strangers developed, as was the case with the vocalist who sung “Once in the morning, twice in the evening, and three times in the dead of night” to a sweet piano accompaniment.
At the same time, you could be devastated by how an act that had so much to offer would fail, couldn’t find the key, couldn’t get off the ground or couldn’t make any logical sense of itself. But always, even when it was hard to keep a straight face, the talent of the musicians kept the show going.
The standout performance of the evening belonged to a long-haired greaser with dual citizenship who got behind the mic with a harmonica and a notebook. Dressed in a sense of humour and an Indiana Jones hat, he was ready to play a prepared piece that was probably called “Nifty North American.” A templar knight of harmonica talent, he elicited the best response from the crowd – laughter and cheers – with his simple song structure and clever, to-the-point lyrics.
After the show was finished, Sokol and some of the performers went to the Absinthe Pub to wind down with drinks and stories. Sokol held his disciples in calm reverence as he told them about how he began hosting the Soire?e in the ’80s in response to student requests for a chance to play at an event that didn’t have a concert atmosphere.
All these years later, the impression of that idea is still upheld in the talent demonstrated by all of the performers at the Improv Soire?e.
