‘Earjam’ Gathers Fringe Into a Community

What was this thing called “earjam II,” you ask? It’s hard to say, and therein lies its charm. Twenty-five acts played Friday and Saturday, part of the downtown Side Street Projects, on the far side of classical, jazz, pop and other traditions. Each had individual artistic purpose, but all leaned into the winds of improvisation and experimentalism. One upshot, as heard on Saturday’s four-hour-plus program, was a sense that the musical fringe is alive and well in Los Angeles.

The new-music confab, curated by sound artist Jacki Apple and recorded courtesy of the L.A. chapter of the American Composers Forum, presented a more-than-peaceful coexistence of diverse, sympathetic, music-makers.

That diversity included the surreal pop of Petra Haden, a charismatically understated vocalist atop George Sarah’s ironically saccharine synth parts. Adventurous jazz emerged when Vinny Golia offered improvised ferocity on soprano sax, in dialogue with Wayne Peet (also the evening’s recording engineer), who drew fascinating textures and rhythms on that retro keyboard, the clavinet.

We also heard instrumentalists pushing the envelope of their wares, whether Ellen Burr’s deftly twisted flute and voice mixtures--sometimes sounding like 2 1/2 musicians in one body--or bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck’s furthering her undersung instrument’s sound potential. Veteran instrument-maker Susan Rawcliffe made her own kind of music, meditative and primal, on handmade ceramic wind instruments.

On the alternative guitar front, we heard painterly brushwork from electric players Noah Phillips and Jeremy Drake, part of Lynne Johnston’s Double Duo. Twelve-string acoustic player Jim McAuley offered genuinely evocative and refreshingly cliche-bashing work, and electric guitarist Michael Fink made creative, smart use of his wah wah pedal, building a pleasantly dark, wobbling wall of sound.

One standout, and also a necessary dispenser of comic relief, was trombonist Bruce Fowler’s solo, bearing an identifiable, pranksterish structure. Faux fanfare motives dribbled into goopy abstraction, and he randomly barked out numbers (a Lotto-oriented shtick) between virtuosic and original instrumental activity.

Impressive flutist Fawntice McCain handily extended technique and form on “Eucalyptus Tree Garden,” written for her by Wadada Leo Smith. McCain soared across an acutely contrasting backdrop of Erin Barnes’ tinkling glockenspiel tones and Harris Eisenstadt’s softly booming bass drum.

Each of the two sets ended in jams, the first of which was colorfully “conducted” by David Ornette Cherry. In both instances, musicians erred on the side of humility, adding to the collective whole rather than seizing the spotlight. It was a community thing, which also defines this loose musical subculture.