Dizzy Ventilators
Big Bar
East Village, NYC
3/3/2024
During a prior tenure as Big Bar’s Sunday night bartender, I could always count on a relatively profitable late-night push. Unusual for what is, if we’re to be frank, the worst shift one can work. Admittedly, this near-guaranteed brief bump in clientele was in no way on account of my presence behind the bar — sparkling charm and cracking conversational prowess are attributes of which I posses a constant dearth. Lucky for me, Daniel Jodocy and Yusuke Yamamoto, acting as Big Bar’s band-in-residence, the Dizzy Ventilators, were always there to draw the crowd.
They stopped playing at the bar right around the time I made my bittersweet exit. Daniel went off to Berlin on two-year arts-residency. Yusuke was increasingly busy being one of the baddest keyboardists/percussionists in town. So Sundays were left quiet.
Last week, Big Bar’s owner texted to let me know the boys were back, and they were bringing with them heretofore unheard-of heat.
My familiarity with Jodocy and Yamamoto’s specific brand of half-ambient/half-dance improvised music did little to soften my excitement. It’s always a pleasure to hear them weave samples of Jonas Mekas monologues, radio adverts, and screwed record rips into a vibe worth submerging oneself within, a subtly danceable trance as liquidous and intoxicating as the cocktails being served. This is no virtuosic showcase. It is deeply felt and thoroughly listened music, not journeying from idea to idea but constructing spaces of tone and time that episodically move groove to groove, stopping always long enough to take in the scenery.
It was always their schtick, as a musically fluid electronic duo, to invite another musician or two to join them. Being working musicians with toes dipped in every pool possible, they’d never had any shortage of brilliant compatriots to choose from.
Sunday night they were joined by two absolute powerhouses: Kenny Wolleson on vibraphone and Marcus Rojas on tuba. Wolleson is one of the greatest around. His vibraphone and drum kit playing is a thing of pure, unadulterated joy. Simultaneously relaxed and ecstatic, Wolleson plays in every context with an exploratory, no-wrong-moves approach. I’ve seen him in several different ensembles and have been listening to his music since I was a freshman in college, particularly the work he’s done with upright-bass legend Eivind Opsvik’s Overseas ensemble. Never once have I noticed any trope or tired personal cliché in his playing. Wolleson’s voice is one constantly developing; it’s always a gripping encounter to follow which lines he choses to toe.
The addition of Marcus Rojas on tuba last night kicked the whole thing up a notch. Rojas seems to have played with everyone worth playing with, and it was apparent in his performance that his personal musical language is bottomless in depth and without horizon in its breadth. Like any great bass instrument performer, he plays with an ear toward arrangement and musical narrative. Knowing full-well the amount of music space his sound stands to occupy in the ensemble, Rojas was calculating in his moves — bringing the earth to shake when things looked thin, screaming through the wiggle-room during the band’s tighter grooves, always guiding the improvisation to the next area of interest, anticipating and carving out clean the music’s tectonic shift.
It was a single-night engagement, and I was happy to see the bar full upon with former customers and friends of mine. A reunion for ages at the best bar in Manhattan. More to come, always and soon.
