by Ed Reynolds

Some people like improv music—which could be described as music in real time—though many tend to hate it. Nevertheless, Birmingham is home to two of the most revered artists on the international improvisational scene, Davey Williams (guitar) and LaDonna Smith (violin), who have performed free-expression improv for more than 30 years. In Birmingham the month of August will be devoted to the spontaneous sounds of the 2010 Improvisor Festival, a four-week celebration of 30 years of improv music from the area.                        

The festival will take place in several cities in the Southeast, with satellite performances nationwide, throughout August. Birmingham will host its share of gigs at various venues, including WorkPlay, Bottletree Café, Pepper Place venues, including the Farmers Market, and Bare Hands art gallery.

                                      
         Percussionist/composer Andrea Centazzo, violinist LaDonna Smith, and guitarist Davey Williams. (1978)

"This is really esoteric stuff, very cutting edge," says Lee Shook, assistant executive director of the Improvisor Festival, though he readily admits that the cacophony of sound can sometimes put nerves on edge and prompt eyes to roll. But he offers a more refined observation: "Improv has a lot to do with the idea of aleatory music [or 'chance music,' according to Wikipedia] that John Cage developed in the early half of the 20th century." (Aleatory is derived from the Latin word alea, meaning dice.)

                                   
                                                    
                                                 Ut Gret, who will be performing at this year's festival

"Aleatory music is the idea of spontaneous composition where people are literally composing music with no idea or preconceived notion about what the music will be," says Shook of the basic philosophy behind improv music. "A lot will think, 'This is a bunch of racket, this is a bunch of noise.' And some of it can be like that. It depends on the players, it depends on the personalities involved. To some people [improv] can be quiet and gentle and like looking out over the ocean at dusk."

In the 1980s, Williams and Smith began publishing The Improvisor, a newsletter dedicated to the genre that currently exists only online (www.the-improvisor.org). It established Birmingham as hallowed ground for cultivating improv music, art, spoken word, and dance.

"It began as a little four-page, Xeroxed mailout that went out to fellow musicians and artists in the genre of free improvisation," says Lee Shook. "Improv is really a remarkable contribution that Birmingham has made to progressive art and music in America."

Improv is complete freedom of expression. "Like with Davey Williams [who, at age 19, played guitar with blues great Johnny Shines], if he wants to throw in a blues lick, if he wants to quote an old Robert Johnson song in the middle of someone playing a theremin—it's whatever," says Shook. "It's putting together all these interesting combinations of people, which is what we're doing. We're going to have Oteil Burbridge from the Allman Brothers playing with Davey and this guy Chris Cochrane. He used to play with Davey in Curlew, one of the great avant-jazz funk bands. Those guys could smoke!"

On Friday, August 6, Grammy Award–winner Henry Kaiser will perform his world–renowned guitar experiments. Kaiser has performed on soundtracks for Werner Herzog films and is one of the key members of the U.S. Antarctica Dive teams that film footage for underwater sea life in Antarctica for National Geographic and Animal Planet. Colonel Bruce Hampton of the Aquarium Rescue Unit will also perform, with the Shaking Ray Levis, who describe themselves as an old-timey, avant-garde synthesizer and drums duo. Shook explains that Hampton might do anything from playing incredible guitar to spoken word, to "riffing on some vocal technique." Visit www.the-improvisor.org for performance schedules and festival details.