DKV trio's concert in the course of 2012 Autumn Jazz Festival was a night to remember for many reasons. The trio played up to the promise and delivered. The concert itself, a result of a decade - long logistical struggle to bring together the three at one place and time, was also the release date campaign to a 7cds boxset called "Past Present" that would gather a several of the famed DKV performances done near the end / beginning of each year in Chicago and Milwaukee.
Collider solders together The Thing, the drummer’s punk-jazz trio with Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten with its U.S. counterpoint, the DKV trio of reedist Ken Vandermark, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Hamid Drake. Like a recurring guest star on a sit-com, Vandermark is a frequent Nilssen-Love collaborator. More notably Collider is an opportunity to compare the styles of the Norwegian and Drake, his American doppelganger, who seems to be behind every drum kit that Nilssen-Love isn’t.
Bridges are a symbol of bringing people together, of communicating with each other, of connecting ideas. What else could reading bridges in the context of the music we usually talk about here mean but presenting different approaches of making music and trying to understand how communication works? Who else but Ken Vandermark has been constantly presenting such approaches by crossing the borders between hardcore jazz/punk (with The Flying Luttenbachers), noise core (with Zu), free funk (with Made to Break), new classical music and of course with his various free jazz/improv projects (everything from duos to larger ensembles like Audio One or the Resonance Ensemble) – and these are only a few examples! Ken Vandermark is simply one of the great masters of notated music and completely free improvisation.