On Friday, July 10, as tenor saxophonist David Murray reached the last of several emotional peaks during a blissful yet intense version of “Flowers For Albert,” audience members both young and old whooped and raised hands as if they were at a church revival.
Here was the annual Vision Festival in full swing, asserting its spiritual heft, sounding echoes of deep legacies and a displaying its power as in-the-moment entertainment of an exalted sort.
In fact, this was a church: After two decades of shifting venues, owing to the vagaries of New York City real estate, this year’s event, marking the event’s 20th anniversary, was held from July 7-12 at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village.
Murray first recorded “Flowers for Albert” nearly 40 years ago, in dedication to the pioneering saxophonist Albert Ayler, who is one of this community’s dear departed masters. At Judson Church, Murray performed it with his “Class Struggle” band, which includes his son, Mingus Murray, whose electric guitar solos leaned forward stylistically while also honoring his father’s personal history.
The Vision Festival has long stood as this country’s essential gathering of avant-garde improvising musicians—yet that description is neither entirely accurate nor complete. First off, the festival involves dancers, poets and visual artists. Also, even the sloppy signifier “avant garde” fails to sum up even a single night of the event. Any given five hours at the Judson Church—each night presented a half-dozen or more performances—ranged wildly in sound and texture.
“The aesthetic isn’t so easy to define,” Continue reading “Twenty Years On, The Vision Festival's Enduring Vision”
