Unwritten Thursdays curated by Cole Schmidt recap/preview

New York guitarist Miles Okazaki and drummer Dan Weiss will perform together at Tyrant Studios on Thursday, November 16, 2023, playing from their improv-focused 2021 Music for Drums and Guitar project.

Tyrant has tickets both for a 9:30pm set and a 10:30pm set, with prices of $15 or extra-donation at $20.

The Barking Sphinx Performance Society – a boutique new music presenter helmed first by Ron Samworth for over a decade, then Dylan van der Schyff, and now Cole Schmidt – and Coastal Jazz are making it possible.

Coastal's promo calls the Okazaki/Weiss concert "the first show" in Schmidt's "new monthly series" called Unwritten Thursdays. Au contraire! I actually went to an Unwritten Thursday last month.

Back on October 18th, I attended the second outing in the series – I had missed the first one in September. Last month I heard two improvised sets: a double-guitar duo of Schmidt and Jo Hirabayashi, and then a one-off trio of Mary Ancheta on keyboards, JP Carter on trumpet, and Shaquille Headley on drums.

The duo of Schmidt and Hirabayashi rejected the unwritten name right away, though; they pulled out sheet music and played Cole Schmidt originals plus pieces from guitarists Mary Halvorson and Ava Mendoza, more orderly and less abrasive than I expected. I dare say it was grunge, with their aesthetics of coats and cardigans, messy hair – long hair for Hirabayashi – and shy, soft-spoken banter.

Mary Ancheta's trio was called sous vide. They played an improvised half-hour set with Carter staring down the trumpet through the barrel of the mic, and below to his pedalboard; and Headley playing drums like I'd never heard on the R&B projects I associate with him. Mary played a small keyboard atop the Tyrant piano, sitting down to the piano in the middle to get active and hit harder. It was a fun and unexpected one-off experience that spoke to the curation philosophy at Barking Sphinx.

I was the only pre-sale ticket – apparently the cool kids just walk-up to Tyrant...

I embraced it as the relatively empty room was bumping with funky canned music before the show, musicians discussing grants and rehearsal spaces: there's not enough infrastructure in this town, you know?

Schmidt seemed surprised at the low turnout then, but he spoke confidently that Okazaki and Weiss would be a bigger draw. He's hardly alone in his presenter's grumbles, as I've seen and heard that weekdays right now are soft.

The variety of music to hear is huge this fall, but the number of people going out on any given night is quieter than it was earlier this summer. That's arguably a good problem to have, from the lens of a fan. We'll just have to see if some things eventually break a bit.

There's also a fourth Unwritten Thursday to follow on December 7.