This project seeks to form an asymmetrical group, where the apparent instrumental imbalance would reveal other, more fragile and adventurous balances. These five unfettered spirits, who have never played together before, gathered under one imperative: an immediately readiness to explore a musical territory where everything is possible. One of Chicago’s most renowned poets and visual artists, with an up-and-coming violinist and guitarist. And the new generation of French musicians: a flamboyant saxophonist, an atypical and irreverent bassist, a keyboard player of purity and density. It’s the art of improvisation taken in its most surprising sense, the invention of fantastic territories
ProMusica, April 16. In the lair of dragon and sound engineer Ken Christianson, The Bridge #2.4 (from left to right: Jozef Dumoulin, Morgane Carnet, Macie Stewart, Damon Locks and Fanny Lasfargues) makes its debut in the shadow of shadows. The sounds are subterranean or aerial, like dragons.
Diasporal Rhythms, April 17. It may be Sunday, it may be Easter, but Fanny Lasfargues, Coco Elysses and Ugochi Nwaogwugwu are offering a collective hypnosis session in another treasure-filled cavern.
Hungry Brain, April 17. Morgane Carnet and Jozef Dumoulin welcome (or are welcomed by) Ben Lamar Gay, Keefe Jackson, Jason Roebke and Marcus Evans, for a six-person journey full of extensions and subtractions.
Elastic, April 18. Jozef Dumoulin spends his time with Nick Mazzarella on alto saxophone, Anton Hatwich on double bass and Jeremy Cunnigham on drums. They’ve got all the time in the world, and they’re reinventing time. Something sublime has happened.
Alliance française, April 19. We now know that The Bridge 2.4 travels through Chicago and parallel worlds in Captain Nemo’s submarine, and that they sometimes take on board other pirate captains who are sometimes knighted, like Mike Reed that evening.
Constellation, April 20. In the naval base that is this Chicago mecca for improvised music, where last week pianist Craig Taborn was casting spells, The Bridge 2.4 proposes a concert as much as a ceremony, offering to bewitch and unbewitch, with Jon Irabagon as special guest, a new shell in the group’s tree.
Connect Gallery, April 21. The Bridge 2.4 refines its magic tricks, as profound as they are contrived, its spells even taking possession of Damon Locks’ body and escaping through the wide-open door onto the street, the streets, the cities, the islands.
Logan Center for the Arts, April 22. The Bridge 2.4 moves through quicksand (right up to Damon Locks’ final rhythmic provocation, rounded off by Jozef Dumoulin’s melodic satire): islands pretend to be dizzy and wings make us dizzy.
American Indian Center, April 23. It’s always more than music, songs, tunes, sounds, noises, improvisations… that we share with the Indians of the Plains and the Universe. It’s a way of living through emotion, the idea that there’s nothing more obvious than sharing an experience and experimentation, that the latter can be functional. Serving life.
Corbett Vs. Dempsey, April 23. A bit of 2.4 and a bit of 2.7. Macie Stewart starts out alone, then heads off alone, between the shadows that always float like sheets, covering her, until her voice breaks through and joins another voice, that of Emilie Lesbros, and the card castles of Tim Daisy, who ends up compressing his percussion between his chest and his snare drum.
Woodland Pattern Bookshop, April 24. In Milwaukee, The Bridge 2.4 is in the place, everywhere in the room, in front, behind, around, like a ball of fire at first, tilting, then like a spirit, several spirits even, on the waters. It’s quite cosmogonic, their story, their history of lives and circulations.
The Hideout, April 25. Fish swim in the sky, stars bathe in the water, and The Bridge 2.4 does as they do – despite the missile of overpowering feedback – in music, it’s possible, in theirs.
University of Chicago, April 21. Isaiah Collier, Fanny Lasfargues, Jozef Dumoulin and Damon Locks speak in Steve Rings’ class: “Music Theory in/and the Black Radical Tradition”.
School of the Art Institute, April 22. Fanny Lasfargues and Macie Stewart, followed by Jozef Dumoulin and Damon Locks, take part in Will Faber’s classes.
Experimental Sound Studio, April 26 & 27. The Bridge #2.4 delve into Sun Ra’s archives and interstellar philosophy, and record head-turning, expectant, out-of-control music.
Elastic – Pleiades Series, April 26. In different orders and configurations, Morgane Carnet, Fanny Lasfargues, Emilie Lesbros and Macie Stewart, with saxophonist Sarah Clausen, attempt to explore different approaches to free improvisation. They then open the floor to all the musicians in the room.
The Promontory, April 27. After Weasel Walter’s stormy, drum-heavy solo, The Bridge #2.4 sprinkles its spells, more and more methodically, into the hall’s deserted gloom.
Comfort Station – Homeroom, April 28. Fanny Lasfargues and Damon Locks have broken away from The Bridge #2.4 to thrive and hammer together, welcoming artist Elsa Noyons who traces a map of their peregrinations in her own way. The space on the page fills up as the improvisation unfolds over time.
ProMusica, April 28. The opportunity was too good. Jozef Dumoulin reunited with Nick Mazzarella, Anton Hatwich and Jeremy Cunnigham, whom he had met the week before, to record an unexpected quartet. Disarmingly intelligent and sensitive.
North Street Cabaret, April 30 (gnomes and giants are expected). In Madison, again thanks to the friends and allies of BlueStem Jazz, The Bridge #2.4 bowed out without Macie Stewart, but with Jozef Dumoulin, Morgane Carnet, Damon Locks and Fanny Lasfargues for an increasingly spellbinding concert, truly spellbinding, and ending, as if that weren’t enough, in ecstasy.
BBF Building Brighter Futures Center for the Arts, April 29. Fanny Lasfargues and The Bridge 2.4 play for the center’s children and teenagers, answering their questions and responding to their curiosity.
Chicago West Community Music Center, April 30. Morgane Carnet and Gilles Coronado take part in Howard Sandifer’s class, with the CWCMC orchestra.
