Jason Lescalleet - The Pilgrim

Glistening Examples
GLEXS-0601

There’s a common criticism of much contemporary electro-acoustic improvisation that it’s “emotionless”, too remote, effete, too unconnected with how people live their lives, how they feel. Even if we grant that this can indeed be the case in a given instance, those of us who follow the music probably also agree that it’s generally untrue, that it’s more a matter of listeners being conditioned to respond to certain archetypal triggers which may have been hidden or replaced. On the other hand, it’s also decidedly true that overt displays of emotional attachment, of personal sorrow, etc. are, if not taboo, looked at with some suspicion. I’ve picked up a bit of a shift in that stance in recent years, for example in the work of Stangl and Kurzmann (schnee_live) or, more recently and less overtly, in some of Kai Fagaschinski’s performances. This amazing, heartrending release by Jason Lescalleet, however, casts all those concerns to the wind, strips the cool façade to display the naked, beautifully emotional core of its creator.

“The Pilgrim” is a deep, loving homage to Harrison Foster Lescalleet, Jason’s father, who died of cancer in September, 2005 after having been diagnosed in the spring of that year. It includes both an LP and a disc, the former imprinted with, on Side One, two snapshots of the senior Lescalleet and on the reverse, a tape reel. The LP begins with a performance from May 16, 2005, shortly after Jason learned of his dad’s condition. He introduces the piece by reading, in a voice that seems on the verge of breaking, an e-mail his father had sent a couple years prior upon receiving an earlier recording of Jason’s, his duo with John Hudak, “Figure 2”. To Jason’s surprise, his father had greatly enjoyed it (one gets the sense of an undercurrent wherein it had been a long struggle to get the elder Lescalleet to appreciate his work) and made some insightful comments, an evaluation that obviously meant an enormous amount to Jason. He follows it with an extraordinarily strong, relatively brief piece, all low rumbles. It’s not difficult to read into the work any number of emotions including forlornness and pissed-offedness. There’s also something both eerie and profound in watching (or imagining) the stylus track across Harrison Lescalleet’s image, as though the sounds are somehow coming being elicited from it, from him.

On Side Two, Lescalleet lays it out, stark and unapologetically. In late August of 2005, about a week before his dad would succumb to the disease, Jason visited the hospital, bringing along his four year-old daughter and a tape recorder. We hear their conversation, Jason being accommodating, trying to speak of everyday things like his father’s comfort, who he’s spoken to, etc. His father, very weak by this point, responds as best he can, his voice slurred (there’s something of an evocation of Robert Ashley’s great, disturbing “Automatic Writing”). There are extended gaps where no one speaks and we hear the noise of the room, the air conditioner, the occasional clatter of shifting utensils and furniture. It’s awful; it’s beautiful. For Lescalleet to put this out there is one thing. Given the history he provides with regard to his father’s recent appreciation of his work, I’m more than willing to give the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t have minded at all being remembered in such a context. For the listener, however, it’s very close to having been ushered, perhaps less than willingly, into that same room, unable to experience the depth of emotions that would have come from a lifelong association with the dying man but, via his son, beginning to sense these feelings, if twice-removed. Critiquing it is beside the point. It’s there, unsweetened, and I can’t commend Lescalleet highly enough for having the guts to go there.

The CD is a single 74-minute track that can be read as a portrait of Harrison Lescalleet’s life as experienced by his son. It begins with church bells and rain, soon shifting to a mournful, cavernous five-note “melody”, repeated for several minutes. This morphs into what appears to be a subtle mix of field recordings as we hear, very softly, chimes, far off dogs, maybe a gull or two (I often had difficulty distinguishing between the recording and sounds outside my window, always an enjoyable dilemma) before a electronic, throbbing drone wells up from below. A more or less steady state is maintained for quite a while, the throb and an occasionally occurring high-pitched tone providing enough forward impetus that one easily imagines a slow boat ride, oars dipping silently in black water, through a dark and vaguely threatening clime. The chimes, muffled, reappear. It’s a very unusual piece for Lescalleet, at least in my experience of his work, far more tonally centered, far less overtly in turmoil (though that’s there, beneath) than the harsh rough and tumble I’ve come to expect and savor. More occurs in the first hour than I can possibly get into here; suffice it to say, purely on a musical level, it’s absolutely stunning, solid and endlessly fascinating. It gradually builds in volume and intensity until, about an hour in, the work it begins to sputter, the mechanism breaking down, then explodes in an anguished, raging cry against the reality of death. Everything turns ugly, horrific. Five minutes of an extreme noise, fist-shaking assault, the body consumed by disease, anger. And then you hear a small girl singing. At one bedside visit, Harrison Lescalleet asked his granddaughter Audrey to sing him a song. To the surprise of all—no one realized she knew the piece—she launched into “Molly Malone”. Lescalleet writes: “Listening back to the recording later, I could hear Audrey falter as she suddenly realized that Molly dies in this song, and that maybe it’s not such a cheery song after all.” The effect on the listener, after the shattering squall, is devastating. The gentle chimes that surface throughout the piece take things out, serenely, quietly.

“The Pilgrim” is a brave and powerful document, one of the strongest, most rewarding experiences I’ve had in quite some time.

Available from ErstDist