No Net was a series of seven weekend gatherings of free improvisers I organized from 2004 to 2005, but with a significant pre-history. These groupings of around nine players each were held in Philadelphia, specifically at the Spring Garden Music house, the residence of free improvisers exclusively. On one floor is a large room with rich acoustics, and enough space to accommodate players for the entire weekend. Playing would begin on a Saturday noon and continued through Sunday night, with breaks for public performances each night.

The music we came up with differed from one No Net to the next, depending on the players and instrumentation. But the main result was a form of improvisation in which playing is informed more by listening than by technique, musical concepts, or the desire to make a good impression, as often found in solo playing and performance. Our starting point was a music of quiet dynamics--at times barely a whisper, joined by sounds from the street below-- sustained textures and spaces, and a slower pace than is normally associated with free improvisation. If the foot-tapping beat or pulse is often hard to find in free jazz, here it is non-existent, at least slowed to the length of a long breath. This kind of music focuses on the sensuality of sound, exploring and opening the imagination of the players and listeners.

In terms of this kind of playing No Net began with a session I organized in 2000 at Mills College in Oakland CA, which was recorded and then released on John Shiurba's Limited Sedition label. But even before that, in the eighties I had been interested in large groups, occasionally putting out calls for all sax players in a city to come together for a concert or session. I called those Saxophone Soup--the idea being that the sound of the saxophone alone would be a unifying element. In the early nineties, while living in Boulder, I organized several weekends called “Improv Campout” in Questa New Mexico, at the home of some musician friends, part of a community of players. Also there were sessions in Boulder that included as many as twenty-five people not distinguished as “musicians, dancers, artists” but simply coming together for a full afternoon of free play and expression—sound, visuals, movement, words. These went in very wild directions, both frightening and exhilarating, as psyches were let loose and dramas were constructed spontaneously. There was no pressure to do anything, so people participated to the extent they wanted, which was fully. In the late nineties I made attempts with large groups of musicians in Philly and NY, but these became free-for-alls without any close attention or musical value, in my opinion. If only one person thought of it as a blowing session the entire group would be compelled to go that direction. After this I felt I needed to restrict numbers and select players who could be attuned to something like a large group composition, but relying on the players' ability to do this without suggested or imposed direction.

The Mills session accomplished this. It was followed by two No Net weekends in Boulder/Denver in which I began to see the value of musicians coming together for more than a performance or a recording session; just for playing. And since many people were coming from a distance it made sense to make a weekend of it.

I was inspired to bring the large group idea to the east coast largely by the four-day No Idea festival in Austin Texas in which I participated in April 2004. I was impressed that the first night of the festival most of the audience consisted of the other players, making it more like a session of players in rotation than a conventional performance. As the days wore on and we played in different combinations we grew musically, and in our sense of community. As it happened, by the end of the weekend the festival moved to Houston, and so we were able to take that culmination of listening and playing to a significant audience of non-players, who responded beyond our expectations. The evolution meant that the end of the festival was far more free-flowing than the beginning, as happens on the best tours. Even the most solo-oriented player became an equal contributor to the group.

I saw from this how No Net could be a completely different kind of event than a festival, not the conventional spectacle but a rewarding playing experience for us, the musicians. Each gathering would take a different configuration of players through a process of discovery, each one an idea of where the musical imagination can go. And when we put ourselves in front of non-playing listeners for a performance, they would get the benefit of a fully centered group of players, for we would not be distracted by our conventional performing selves.
In the original statement of intent I pointed to lower-case music as a guideline, but later I didn't feel the need to point to any known aesthetic. Still I wanted No Net to go in the direction of careful playing, which doesn't mean cautious of making a wrong move, but taking care about what we do and carving out a space where spontaneity can flourish. This is where we can first discover and then drop our sense of what makes good music—or a good impression. Improvisation is not about “good music”, for once it’s found it’s gone; the public may not know this but the players do. This is not for every player. It is play that is hard work, of a kind that might seem foolish to many, but right in the middle of it one finds a heightened state of consciousness.

I should add that I organized these weekend sessions for my own musical benefit, which is to play in a focused and strong collective atmosphere with just the right people. This has included professionals, but oriented as they tend to be towards performance they are often not the ones who will fit into this kind of situation. I simply meet a huge number of musicians and get a sense of who would be good together. This is neither social work on my part, nor the promotion of an avant-garde concept, nor an advertised workshop; that is not what I would spend my time and efforts on. Musicians—we--need time for ourselves, for our playing and personal relations, a time focused on what we do musically and not to satisfy anyone else. The social pressure is heavy on everyone these days, especially the young, to be performers in every aspect of their lives. Musicians are expected to personify the performer and only that, as if we were creating music first of all for the needs and demands of others. As a result the ratio of sessions to performance has become way out of balance, such that improvisers, who initially do this as a choice for our musical pleasure, turn sessions into rehearsals. No Net was not about achieving the successful performance--the audience count and applause, the money gig “next time”--but as if we could play one extended session our entire lives. This is what the No Net weekend approached, broken up by periods of boredom with the playing, meals, talk, sleep, and walking around the neighborhood—then coming back with something fresh, bold and intimate. We are placed in an atmosphere where we disrupt the unspoken rules and expectations we inevitably set up between ourselves over a period of time, and we are confronted with a new, even destabilizing situation. I make no claims for what we accomplish, in a conventional sense, for as a player I know how difficult and rare it is to be truly open to the sounds of others—and I mean absolutely everything that happens--and to respond with humility and without judgment.

I consider No Net broadly as an outgrowth of Spring Garden Music, which I created in 1982 to express a vision I had of a player-based community that was widespread and open, yet personal. It is not a membership or contact/resource organization with goals, functions, and a progress chart, but based solely on actual playing and friendship. Playing with others, simply enjoying each other through the pleasure of sounds, wherever they come from, is like letting the other reach around and play one’s own instrument. The true difficulty is that we so believe that our sounds are truly ours, the result of our hard work, that we can’t let them go. Of course, we must work hard on our own, face our limitations and push through technical challenges. But that is not yet the music, not the quality and excellence that music can be.

The reason I stopped organizing No Net after 2005 is partly that I became disillusioned as I saw musicians turn away from sessions and the desire for open group improvisation towards career and closed, performance-oriented groups. Free improvisation has shut down from where it was ten years ago and moved into a more institutional phase of its history, considered now as a musical genre rather than a communal activity. I miss this, and continue to need the antidote of No Net for myself, as I have been enmeshed in that weary struggle for gigs and need to get back to the roots of what improvisation is all about.

The gatherings of players:

July 17-18, 2004,

ten of the following appeared the first day and nine the second:

Ricardo Arias, balloons, NYC
Mike Balistreri, bass, Albuquerque, NM
Dan Blacksberg, trombone, Phila.
Dan Breen, mechanical electronics, Baltimore
Charles Cohen, buchla music easel, Philadelphia
Mazen Kerbaj, trumpet, Beirut, Lebanon
Paul Neidhardt, percussion, Baltimore
Anna Troisi, electronics and amplified objects, Bologna, Italy
Vic Rawlings, cello and electronics, Boston
Nate Wooley, trumpet, Jersey City NJ
Jack Wright, saxes, Easton PA

The concerts were described in the fall issue 2004 of Signal to Noise as "a festival resplendent in great moments."

Aug. 21-22, 2004 :

Gust Burns, piano and tapes, Seattle
Bryan Eubanks, sax and tape recorder, Portland OR
Andy Hayleck, amplified gongs, Baltimore
Michael Johnsen, electronics and saw, Pittsburgh, PA
Andrew Lafkas, bass, NYC
Evan Lipson, bass, Phila.
Toshi Makihara, percussion, Phila.
Gregory Reynolds, alto sax, Seattle
Jack Wright, saxes, Easton PA

April 10-11, 2005

Gust Burns, piano, tapes, Seattle WA
Andrew Drury, percussion, Queens, NY
Evan Lipson, double bass, Philadelphia (Spring Garden House)
Carlos Santiago, violin, Philadelphia (Spring Garden House)
Dave Smollen, percussion, electronics, Philadelphia (Spring Garden House)
Ben Wright, double bass, Questa NM
Jack Wright, saxes, Easton PA

April 17, 2005--Rotunda Concert

Mike Bullock, double bass, electronics, Boston
Gust Burns, tapes, Seattle WA
Tucker Dulin, trombone, electronics, San Diego, CA
Chris Forsyth, guitar, Brooklyn, NY
David Gross, saxophone, Boston
Andrew Lafkas, upright bass, Queens, NY
Catherine Pancake, dry ice/cymbal percussion, Baltimore
Nate Wooley, trumpet, Jersey City NJ
Jack Wright, soprano and alto saxophone, Easton PA

June 18-19, 2005

Alban Bailly, guitar, France and currently Philadelphia
Andrew Dewar, soprano sax, Middletown CT (Weslyan)
Tom Djll, tpt, Santa Cruz, CA
Michael Johnsen, electronics, Pittsburgh PA
Chris Mueller, cello, St. Louis
Morten Nottleman, drums, The Hague, Netherlands
Mark Sarich, cello, electronics, St. Louis
Jack Wright, saxes, Easton PA

August 20, 21

Jonathan Chen, violin, Middletown NY
Rob Dietz, computer electronics, Bloomington IN
Andy Haleck, saw, bowed cymbals, Baltimore
Leonel Kaplan, trumpet, Buenos Aires Argentina
David Kendall, computer electronics, Los Angeles
Rachel Thompson, violin, Middletown NY
Jack Wright, saxes, Easton
Jonathan Zorn, analogue electronics, Middletown NY

Dec. 16-17, 2005

Maria Chavez, turntables, Brooklyn
Bryan Eubanks, electronics, Queens
Andy Hayleck, saw, Baltimore
Bonnie Jones, electronics, Baltimore
Andrew Lafkas, double bass, Queens
Wade Matthews, clarinet, flute, electronics Madrid, Spain
Paul Neidhardt, percussion, Baltimore
Jack Wright, saxes, Easton