Rempis, Corsano & Adasiewicz Hit The Bop Stop

A road trip to Cleveland's Bop Stop was in order this past Wednesday, when (left to right above) vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, saxophonist Dave Rempis and drummer Chris Corsano set up shop for two amazing sets of free improvisation. I had seen Rempis there a few years ago at the same venue with the group Ballister, and Corsano frequently comes to Pittsburgh with his various projects. Yet the only time I saw Adasiewicz in these parts was 2011, when Starlicker (with Rob Mazurek and John Herndon) played at the Andy Warhol Museum. He dropped out of music a few years later, working as a carpenter.  Luckily he resurfaced when Corbett V. Dempsey released two albums by him in 2023. As something of a fanboy for the vibes man, I was ecstatic, albeit eventually bummed that I missed seeing him at the Bop Stop last year. 

The evening was the group's seventh show during a nine-day tour and they immediately locked in with one another, knowing how to lift the bandstand. Rempis began the set on tenor, blowing with a fury and heavy vibrato that almost overpowered the vibes. But Adasiewicz is still a heavy hitter and he put his whole body into his playing throughout the night. "God help those mallets," was scrawled in my notes from the first part of the set. 

Corsano never let his momentum waver whether he was flying over his trap kit or incorporating accessories into his playing. When the dynamics dipped down during the first set, he dexterously placed some bowls on his drum heads to get some sustained sound. He also used a paper hand fan, in a effort to bend the sound of the heads a bit, as he later explained to me.

The first set lasted close to an hour, giving Rempis a chance to switch to soprano and later baritone saxes as things surged forward. On the big horn, he began producing a flury of brutal overtones that eventually began to lock into a wave of sound that felt more like a spiritual. When Adasiewicz joined him for pedal point wave over Corsano's rolling work, it felt to my ears akin to the spirit of the final moment of A Love Supreme without recurring line that offered thanks to any higher power. That was left to the audience, who whooped enthusiastically and waited patiently for the second half.

People who look down on free music but think it lacks nuances, but there was plenty of that in the second half of the night. 

Rempis had picked up his alto during the first set, but put it down in favor of the baritone. The second set began with him on alto, at one point blowing in little peeps and murmurs. Adasiewicz, who began by clanging his instrument with the opposite end of his mallets, showed some admirable restraint when his bandmates took off in a brief duet, looking at them thoughtfully but not playing. Corsano seemed to take inspiration from the vibraphonist's visceral performance because the whole drum kit was trembling at one point while his dug into it. Even when he used brushes later on, the sounds he made felt like thunderclaps.

Rempis switched back to tenor saxophone and his blowing evoked the throaty tone of pre-bop players, creating something rich and full-bodied. Things built to a climax when Adasiewicz placed a plastic stick across the sharps/flats on his instrument and repeatedly created a sustained cluster of notes with his left hang, while his right built some concluding statements. When that device fell between the metal bars of the vibes, he pounded them with his fists to keep the sound flowing. 

Musicians who are skilled at free, open playing always astounds me with the way they know when they've reached a conclusion and know that it's time to stop. Watching this can be compared to a rollercoaster ride coming to a stop, creating another rush. Rempis, Corsano and Adasiewicz did something like that last week. As much as I wasn't looking forward to the two-plus hour drive back home, I had the energy for it after their set.