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ARTS & CULTURE | THEATER CRITIC'S CHOICE 


June 08, 2000 


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Gregg Bendian & Nels Cline 

By Monica Kendrick 


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Interstellar Space, the series of duets John Coltrane recorded with 
drummer Rashied AN in 1 967, was the saxist's mesmerizing, 
harrowing final statementâ€”and it sounded so alien that the folks at 
Impulse! didn't get up the nerve to release it until seven years after 
his death. Though the idea to cover the whole thing started as a 
one-liner cracked during a rehearsal for something else, drummer 
Gregg Bendian and guitarist Nels Cline applied themselves to the 
task with mad-scientist focus on last year's Interstellar Space 
Revisited: The Music of John Coltrane (Atavistic), studying the record 
thoroughly, transcribing portions of it, memorizing its leaps and 
twists and turns, and finding ways to depart from it on flights of 
their own. Bendian, who was backing Cecil Taylor at the tender age 
of 23, is the more accomplished free-jazz player of the two. But the 
participation of Clineâ€”who's probably best known for his rock- 
oriented collaborations with Mike Watt and the Geraldine Fibbers and 
has claimed the key to his inventive style is that he's "too stupid to 
play bebop"â€”makes things especially interesting. Cline occasionally 
mimics Coltrane's sax with his guitar, but more often he uses a 
crackling, pulsing tone shadowed by feedback to get beyond the 
limits of the hands' articulationâ€”in what's probably a truer tribute to 
Coltrane's idiosyncratic genius. On the quieter pieces, like the lovely 
"Venus," his echoes and trembles convey a sense of awe at the 
vastness of space and hint at a comparable sense of surrender. I'm 
still not completely persuaded that it "works" in every sense, but it's 
nervy, exciting, and thought-provoking, and hence more worthwhile 
than something tame flawlessy executed. The duo will play the 
album in its entirety here; Scarnella, the improvisatory project of 
Cline and the Fibbers' Carla Bozulich, opens. Tuesday, 10 PM, Empty 









Bottle, 1035 N. Western, Chicago; 773-276-3600. â€”Monica 
Kendrick 

Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Silvia Acosta. 


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