Brian Slattery Photo
Zero Dollar.
Nicholas Serrambana on bass came on with a prowling, acrobatic line. Jeff Dragan on electronics countered with purrs and hisses, as though from a virtual snake. Nick Di Maria played his trumpet into a microphone to apply effects to the horn’s sound, from echoing reverb to electronically generated harmonies.
The project was called Zero Dollar. What was on offer on Sunday evening was billed as “jazz-punk.” Things didn’t go according to plan, as illness prevented drummer Michael Larocca from attending. So the remaining musicians did what musicians do: They improvised. In doing so, they ensured that Never Ending Books remained a weekly home for New Haven’s improvised music scene, bringing a multigenerational crew of players together for show after show. In this month alone, the State Street spot will host the concert series FIM on Jan. 12, Joe Morris’s Instantiation Music Series on Jan. 18, and the New Haven Improvisers’ Collective on Jan. 29.
Zero Dollar started promptly at 7 p.m. and played as though the band was fully warmed up already. For a time the trumpet and electronics became a landscape for the bass to traverse, as Di Maria’s declarations and Dragan’s responses filled the space while Serrambana kept his basslines moving, yielding ominous and epic results. Di Maria then stood down while Serrambana fuzzed out his tone with distortion and climbed into the higher register of his instrument. Dragan joined him in kind with squealing glitches. The three players then ratcheted up the intensity, and Serrambana wrenched noise out of his strings and Di Maria rode his pedals to create blasts of sound.
The tone turned, changed. Dragan churned out guttural moans and chirps, while Serrambana and Di Maria traded muted phrases. Dragan dropped his electronics to a low murmur and Serrambana followed with a rumbling drone. In that context, Di Maria’s trumpet sounded like a call across the desert.
The three musicians then worked together to make a crumbling, writhing texture. Serrambana explored harmonics while Dragan and Di Maria filled and crawled into a musical swamp. In time they returned to the dynamic they began with, but now the energy was higher, more aggressive. They were ready to keep going.
A brief pause, and then Di Maria started a long proclamation on trumpet, a call to war. Serrambana answered with an extended solo, punctuated by Dragan’s electronics. Di Maria returned, and the trio arrived in a spacey, modal place. Another pause, and Di Maria set out with quick, stabbing phrases that exploded into churning dissonance.
The audience applauded. Di Maria checked the time. They had a few minutes left.
“Short one,” he said. “Real short.” And the trio was off again.
