JAZZOLA: The man machine
eye WEEKLY
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eye WEEKLY October 10, 1996
Toronto's arts newspaper .....free every Thursday
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JAZZOLA JAZZOLA
THE MAN MACHINE
by
TIM POWIS
To "excalceolate" may sound like what an oral hygienist routinely does
with a hooked metal pick to tartar build-up, but according to David
Dacks, it's a biblical term that means to take off your shoes in some
ritualistic context or another -- and, by analogy, a botanical term
meaning to remove the roots of a plant. Neither of which definitions
has much bearing, really, on what Dacks' band Excalceolators does, but
so be it.
"It is kind of a bitch of a name," admits Dacks, sipping tea in a
small apartment cluttered with records, tapes, CDs and the tools of
his trade: a MIDI'd computer-and-sampler rig. "But I like it. At least
it's not one syllable. I figure if you actually know how to pronounce
the word 'Excalceolators' [ex-CAL-see-oh-laters] you're likely the
type of person who's going to get into the music."
This is not to say that there's anything too highfalutin' about what
they do. Though Dacks concedes that thus far gigs have prompted
precious few displays of terpsichorean abandon, he still likes to
think of the band's music as dance music -- the name of the 'Lators
debut CD is, after all, Eternal Good Foot. With Dacks' loops and
sequences filtering through a dub sensibility and seamlessly
integrated with the three conventional-musician Excalceolators --
drummer/percussionist Great Bob Scott, guitarist Nilan Perera and
bassist Bryant Didier -- the band has an undeniable affinity with such
contemporary dance-music offshoots as acid jazz, trip-hop and
"illbient," not to mention with various outfits currently laboring
under the exceedingly vague rubric "post-rock." (Dacks and Nick
Holmes, his partner in Combustion Lente and Excalceolators' live
sound-mixer, did a remix for Ui's Unlike, which is about as post-rock
as post-rock gets.)
But well before Dacks mentions Tortoise or Portishead or DJs Shadow,
Spooky and Krush, he brings up some far more venerable kindred spirits
and influences. "Inspirations for me are Sun Ra, AACM, Louis Moholo
and the whole London/South African jazz scene, people who have such a
command of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic structures that it's totally
infectious and you can't help but respond to it in a physical way.
It's funky, but it's funky on its own terms.
"No. 1 for me has gotta be James Brown, because he invented it all:
five saxophones sounding like the second coming of Jesus Christ and
three drummers playing such completely well-syncopated stuff that it's
impossible to ignore. Nobody's been able to get that kind of
syncopation before or since. It's just... it's diseased, yet it's so
soulful."
If Dacks' programs act as the conceptual/textural/rhythmic spine, what
gives the music flesh and blood is the real-time interface between
Dacks' cyber-sounds and the more spontaneous input provided by the
other three members, all of whom have experience on the Queen St. jazz
scene: Perera with N*O*M*A, Not King Fudge and Handslang; Didier with
Whitenoise; Scott with N*O*M*A.
Excalceolators germinated, oddly enough, without Dacks, when Perera,
Scott and bassist Chris Gartner (who, like Scott, was in the Look
People and who left Excalceolators in March, right after the recording
of Eternal Good Foot) began jamming together. "About two years ago,"
recalls Dacks, "Nilan called me up. He knew I had this MIDI music set-
up, which I'd had in various bedrooms for seven years, and I'd been
just frustrated and wanting to do something more productive and
professional with it. He said, 'We're gonna be doing this acid jazz
project.' And I thought, 'Well, that'll be kind of bulky carrying the
computer around everywhere,' but then I thought, 'Jeez, nobody's
really doing it. What the heck.' "
Eventually, Dacks "just sort of evolved" as leader. He brings his
sequences to the band more or less fully formed and the music sort of
snowballs from there. "But I think now," he says, "it's starting to
swing more into a collaborative effort. It's jazz-like in its
orientation, the way Miles [Davis] in the '60s would have these four
people who were peerless players, and you would unmistakably say,
'That's Wayne Shorter; that's Herbie Hancock.' Nobody else could play
like that, although Miles got the music to sound exactly the way he
wanted it to sound. That's the kind of dynamic I'm looking for. I'm
the leader, but I'm more corralling the energies and trying to make
decisions about what sounds good and what doesn't sound good."
The Excalceolators play The Rivoli Oct. 16 and host a CD release with
DJ Paul E. Lopes at the Dot.Com Cafe Oct. 18.
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