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Photographer Richard Nickel died in 1972 in the ruins of architect Louis Sullivan's 1893 stock exchange building, crushed when the floor of its famous trading room collapsed. Decades before, a photography class assignment had led Nickel to fall in love with the architect's intricate ornamentation, and he soon made it his life's work to document every surviving Sullivan building. A similar enthusiasm for Sullivan's work has fueled the development of Steven Tod's group, the (Richard Nickel) transaction Ensemble, which presents its multimedia improvisations twice next week. A bassist and guitarist, Tod has been active in Chicago's experimental film music scenes for the last five years. He launched the new ensemble in 2001, after percussionist Josh Dumas approached him at a show by one of Tod's other projects, the Silver Measure, and suggested they collaborate. The two brought in
four other musicians and put together a list of six sources the group
might be able to mine for inspiration. After a vote, the winner was the
architecture of Louis Sullivan, and the ensemble members were sent out
into the city to each shoot a roll of eight-millimeter film documenting
one of Sullivan's buildings. The ensemble-which can range from four to fourteen musicians-operates in round-robin style. Sitting in a circle, one player starts to explore an idea and then passes the thematic baton to the person on his or her left with a nod. "I designed the form of the improvisation to reflect Sullivan's ornamental design concepts and the structural elements of his buildings," says Tod. "He wouldn't try to conceal them. His ornament would emerge from those structural elements and that parallels how we're actually composing symphonies live. They're improvisational symphonies. Nothing is written out ahead of time." A recent performance
began with a sequence on drums; that was passed to "Whenever I play," adds ensemble member Thomas Mejer, "there's a tape running as well, at some level, and it just records everything that's been played. For other people, they might be focused more on just the moment." Mejer is Swiss, and is in Chicago as part of an artistic residency. He's a virtuoso on the contrabass-saxophone, a six-foot-tall brass behemoth with an extremely low register that's adding an especially distinctive sonority to the ensemble during his stay. When asked about his influences, Tod mentions the songs of robins, and musicians as diverse as Charlie Mingus and Duke Ellington. "I like Vivaldi as well," although, "It may not be a hip reference." Among cynics, Vivaldi is said to have written the same concerto over 500 times, but his use of repetition was masterful. "He was one the first minimalists," comments Mejer. The results change from concert to concert. A recent performance on WNUR was "a whisper piece," says Tod. "We had three separate circles, and everyone played no louder than a whisper, and the three circles functioned independently, with three microphones, one in each circle." At another recent show, the music was reminiscent of Steve Reich or Terry Riley, built on a series of ostinato-like phrases that evolved and transformed as they passed from player to player. Brian Wyrick, a filmmaker who creates the videos the ensemble uses in its performances, is currently working on one for next week's concert at HotHouse that will draw on images of Sullivan's Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral in Ukrainian Village-the white stucco church on Leavitt and Haddon with the gold onion domes. Lindsey Bowman, the group's publicist, contributed an audio recording of a service during which a priest hidden behind the iconostasis prays in a near-drone while another priest, at the pulpit, sings lines echoing the prayers. "It gives you a reference tonality," says Mejer. "And even a spatial reference," adds keyboardist Paul Giallorenzo. "If you use your imagination, you can imagine you're in the church." At HotHouse, the taped liturgy will be playing in the club's gallery, from which Tod hopes the sound will spill out into the main room, where the ensemble will perform accompanied by Wyrick's video. "I'm kind of the obvious link between the music and the architecture," says Wyrick. "The structure that they've built, I will then represent. Since they're improvising, they'll make changes on it when they play it finally, but the elements that everyone starts out with stay there. In a way, I'm like the video metronome." Tod quotes from architectural scholar William Jordy on how "Sullivan's ornament came out of the concert hall and onto the building. . . It records the structure which sustains it. … but, like a blossom, also transcends it." Tod is asked if any members of his group are into religious music. "I think it's all religious music," he responds. Sullivan, both with his architecture and great love for the music of Wagner, would have probably agreed.
© Copyright 2004 Lynn Becker All rights reserved.
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Listening
to Louis Sullivan