DRESHER, NO-MAN'S LAND, AND THE SKELETON CREW
                                              By Paul Hertelendy
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
                                                                 Week of Nov. 19-26, 2004
                                                                  Vol. 7, No. 31
        Performer-composer Paul Dresher is striding out in that fertile no-man’s land, between the tight frontiers of contemporary music, pop, jazz, blues, fusion, Philip Glass, rock, and maybe another well-delineated camp or two.
        Once there, he looks as though he belongs. That no-man’s land is a hard area to cover, either as a performer or composer. But the San Francisco-based Paul Dresher Ensemble is out there, doing it handsomely and creatively as it launches its 20th home season at the Yerba Buena Forum.
        The PDE has now evolved into the PDE Electro-Acoustic Band, and the tall, slender, soft-spoken  Dresher, 53, still plays his electric guitar. But there are new wrinkles. Perhaps in light of the official sanctioning via his gig in hallowed Carnegie Hall Nov. 12, he no longer plays the pedals barefoot. There are midconcert light shifts. He dabbles in a new string instrument the length and shape of a steel-frame bridge called a Quadrachord. And his group comes on, thoroughly rehearsed and ready to play, without delays or distractions.
        In short, the PDE has hit the national touring scene emphatically, with a new CD, an informative web site and a New York management. Only the vagaries of scheduling into S.F.’s tightly booked facilities force the PDE into a couple of less-than-choice midweek dates for its more-than-choice home-base program, as played on Nov. 17-18.
        Take four strings 14 feet long stretched horizontally in a cello-like array, and you have a 21st-century Quadrachord, whose tones are further processed for various effects. Plucked, struck or bowed, they produce a spectrum of sounds more than of actual themes. With it, and an accompanying electronic marimba, Dresher produced a world of wonder and mystery with his  “In the Name(less),” perfect for a sci-fi ambiance, and visual fascination, too, especially in moments when the sound-maker is a large ball bearing rolling down the strings without a care in the world.
        We learned a lot about labor-saving devices in Dresher’s  Violin Concerto excerpt (1996-97). It’s an effective display piece for the violinist Karen B. Pollick, even though the usual orchestral supplement was replaced by a skeleton crew of a bassoon, a guitar, and two percussionists, all with suitable electronic wizardry. Can our orchestras continue to prove effective, or even to survive, when an impact piece like this replace some 75  conservatory-trained, unionized musicians?  I see a whole new genre of music-making popping up, invoking both traditional forms and contemporary electronics.
        Three world premieres written by others were trotted out, forming one of the most ambitious programs I’ve heard brought off this season. James Mobberley’s 18-minute “Fusebox” was an effective tour de force for lead guitarist John Schott. Progressive jazz and rock entered the fray with considerable syncopations and complexity, along with probably much more loud pulse-beat than it needs. Shimmering runs, and cadenzas for guitar and percussion, point up the display side of this exuberant, explosive piece.
        Ingram Marshall’s “BlackRock” has a quiet start and end, perhaps because of the desert and the Swedish poetry that inspired it. A melody with a small compass starts the tranquility into motion. Violin, marimba and bass clarinet, with a wealth of delay and processing circuitry, predominated. There is close ensemble and close harmony throughout, with some post-minimalism. Marshall ends in an alluring, consonant space that has a distant-galactic aura.
        Neil B. Rolnick’s “Plays Well with Others” intersperses prerecorded spoken texts satirizing and deriding today’s administration. It’s the kind of protest piece we heard often (far more often!) during the Vietnam War. Multiple repetitions of text like “Halliburton” gets the point across. Musically, the points are made with electronic percussion strong in the instrumental mix.
        Most of the concert involved the PDE as a sextet. By the conclusion, it became evident that here in its 20th season, Dresher & colleagues have reached a new plateau of performance creativity enriching our concert life, using state-of-the-art tools, and music from several highly contrasting genres.
        The Paul Dresher Ensemble Electro-Acoustic Band, Yerba Buena Forum, 3rd and Howard Streets, S.F. Nov. 17-18. For more info on Y.B.: (415) 978-2787. Or the PDE online.
        ©Paul Hertelendy 2004
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        Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into recordings by local artists, books (by authors of the region) and theater as well.
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