Liner Notes by PEK

I formed Turbulence in 2015 as I started to assemble players for the Leap of Faith Orchestra. Turbulence, the extended horn section for the Orchestra (along with guests on other instruments), also records and performs as an independent unit. As if this writing, in 2024, we have recorded over 50 albums on Evil Clown with greatly varied ensembles.  All the smaller Evil Clown bands are really more about a general approach, rather than a specific set of musicians.  A session gets credited to Turbulence when it is mostly horn players and the only musician on all of them is me. The sessions range from an early duet with Steve Norton and me (Vortex Generation Mechanisms) to a 5-horn band with bass and two percussionists (Encryption Schemes) to four albums by the side project Turbulence Doom Choir which feature myself, multiple tubas, percussion, electronics, and signal processing and many other configurations.

For the last several years, Bonnie Kane (tenor sax, flute, electronics) and John Loggia (drums), who have a long running improvisation duet, have been participating in Evil Clown sessions with Turbulence and Leap of Faith.  Bonnie lives in Holyoake Ma and John lives in Brattleboro VT where he owns and operates a wonderful performance space at the 188 Elliot St Gallery.  Bonnie runs a performance series in Holyoake and John is a central figure in the Brattleboro scene.  John and I decided that we would do a Turbulence Orchestra performance at 118 Elliot where we would bring regulars from the Evil Clown Headquarters Turbulence sets in Waltham and add other musicians from the Western Mass/Vermont scene.  I really like this dynamic of 2 groups of familiar players performing with each other so that well established combinations and new combinations of players are interacting in the improvisation.

Turbulence Orchestra Livestreams (https://evilclown.rocks/turb-orchestra/) from Evil Clown Headquarters typically have an ensemble size of 8 to 12.  For an ensemble of this size, I establish a rule that each performer should lay out for roughly a third of the total duration.  Combined with players each performing on multiple instruments, the resulting broad palate and shrinking and growing of the number of simultaneous players, creates a sequence of sonorities which run through the duration and tell a story.  Generally, in improvisation, this transformation is necessary to establish form, which in more conventional music is determined by key, harmonic rhythm, rhythmic structure, modulations, tempo changes and other devices of traditional Western Music.

When the ensemble size grows much larger, I have used graphic scores to preplan these transformations without specifying specific pitches or rhythms.  Six of these scores were performed by the Leap of Faith Orchestra with ensemble size as large as 25 in the several years prior to the pandemic (https://evilclown.rocks/lofo-graphic-scores/) (https://evilclown.rocks/lofogsp-essay/).   I love this approach, but it is a tremendous amount of work – both to prepare the scores (which takes as much as 6 months) and to mount the performance (which requires a large Uhaul truck to move equipment).  I have shifted to Livestream performances from the YouTube studio at ECH as the principal presentation method for the enterprise and am mounting only a few live performances a year instead of the roughly 20 live shows typical pre-pandemic.

This third performance of the Turbulence Orchestra & Sub-Units is modelled after 13 Leap of Faith Orchestra and Sub-Units performances (https://evilclown.rocks/lofo-sub-units/) which occurred during the same period at the now defunct performance space Third Life Studios in Somerville MA.  We also performed once early in the Contemporary Period as TO&SU at the LilyPad in Cambridge.  We present 5 Sub-Units comprised of a quarter of the total orchestra, each performing a 14-minute improvisation as part I of the concert.  I selected the Sub-Units to combine some players from each of the scenes so that the familiar/new interaction dynamic would play out in the small group settings as well as the full orchestra setting.  These 4 shorter pieces are Disc 1 of the CD package.

Part II of the concert combines all 22 of the performers into the Orchestra, performing a continuous one-hour improvisation for Disc 2 of the CD package.  The ensemble is bigger than the maximum numbers of players on Evil Clown Headquarters Livestreams, but not quite as large as the biggest scored performances by the LOFO.  I decided to use a new rule structure to control the form of the improvisation.  I created a bunch of small signs each displaying a section of the orchestra for the Sub-Units from Part I of the concert, instrumental groupings for the reeds, brass, percussion, basses, and several other groups, and a sign for the full ensemble.  Each player belonged to at least 3 of these sections.  I also made a sign with the “+” symbol.  If I showed the Plus Sign along with another section sign it meant that the players in the new section should join in with the players already playing within the next 30 seconds or so.  If I showed only a section sign without the Plus Sign it meant that the players currently playing should stop within the next 30 seconds or so while the players in the new section make their entrance.  This system proved very effective in controlling the form of the work.

In the first TO&SU set last spring at 118 Elliot St Gallery, we used this sign system, and I played my horns as well as performing the direction role.  While that worked fine, I really had to split my attention across multiple tasks, and I decided to spend my full attention on direction and play my instruments in all the sub-units sets.  I also introduced at second set of signs which direct group actions at my downbeats.  This idea was used in the LOFO scores and was very effective in that setting and now in this one.

John and I spoke after the performance and the plan is to repeat this Turbulence Orchestra and Sub-Units performance twice per year in the Spring and the Fall when there are no Winter weather travel issues.  The next one is likely to be in September 2024 – We’ll fix a date in the calendar in the coming months.

Anyway, I like this set and I bet you will too…

PEK – 11/10/2024