Improvised Elegies
November 9, 2024
Tomorrow night at sfSound’s West Oakland Sound Series, the trio of Tim Bulkley, David Dvorin and myself will be celebrating the release of our new collection Stinson. It’s a bittersweet event, as the session itself came about from the sudden loss of our friend and bandmate Clifford Childers in February of 2023.
I met Cliff back in the 2010s through the vibrant Sacramento scene that Tony Passarell, Ross Hammond and others spearheaded at Art Luna’s Cafe and later Gold Lion Arts. Cliff and I shared many a stage as a duo or more frequently as part of a larger ensemble of improvisers. Cliff was such a great musician, serious about the music but also that charismatic stage presence that you couldn’t help but gravitate towards, the one onstage that the band and the audience responded to. He also was a great person to hang with, always real, full of humor and heart.
David Dvorin came into the picture when he invited Cliff and I to a duo set for an event in Chico, CA, where David teaches, in 2016. David later recruited us for concerts of his work at Chico State, one of which, with the addition of drummer Tim Bulkley, became the band Flounder in 2019.
We had great fun with this band. Great tunes from David, a killer drum vibe from Tim, coupled with unique instrumentation– Cliff’s trombone, harmonica (!) and bass trumpet (?!) and myself holding down the bass chair on bass clarinet and later EEB contralto, made for a heady combination of fun and free-for-all musicifying. I felt lucky to be part of this crew of players. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen at the next gig–we had tunes from Zappa, Monk, and Howlin’ Wolf mixed in with our originals, there were surprises galore, with Cliff leading the charge, always kicking things up to the next level.
We were stunned when news came to us in February 2023 that Cliff had passed suddenly in the night. Everyone who knew him was devastated. Tim, David and I wrestled with the question of whether to continue as a band, playing the same book of music–we quickly came to conclusion it was not conceivable to continue Flounder as a trio without Cliff’s unique sound and personality fueling it.
The three of us gathered at David’s house in Chico one weekend in March and instead of playing David’s tunes we decided to just improvise. I for one was conscious of Cliff’s absence. Instead of navigating familiar waters with a crucial member missing, I wanted to wander and see if I could find him somewhere in the mist. The three of us played for several hours. It was at times somber and mournful, but also joyful and rejuvenating. At the end of the day, we came to the conclusion that the best thing for our healing process would be to set up a session to record and capture these moments as best we could.
On Memorial Day Weekend of May 2023 we headed out to David’s family cabin at Stinson Beach in Marin County. After an initial walk along the beach to get our bearings, we set up relatively quickly in the tiny living room and got to work. We combined hours of sessions–I played all of my horns, the clarinets from low EEB contralto to high A & Bb soprano, plus alto & tenor saxes; Tim on drum set, using brushes, sticks, and bare hands; David in stocking feet playing multiple guitars and effects–with an epic hang and reminiscences of our lost friend. We took breaks to take in nearby Bolinas, food and drink flowed much of the time, but ultimately the two days we spent were centered around how to make music when there are no certainties, no guidelines, no guarantee of permanence.
David subsequently took the hours of playing and whittled it down to the selection of tracks found on our new release. Tim created this amazing artwork that captures the otherworldliness of the setting.
I like to think Cliff would dig this set of squeals and squawls, of herky jerky rhythms and plaintive melodies–amidst the cries of mourning and wandering in the dark there is an underlying spirit of adventure at work. Part of the joy of making music with Flounder was the pervasive sense of fun that was inherent in the act of being in one place making music together. There is that same abandon at work in this session–we are trying to evoke his presence while he is simultaneously there with us egging us on to new discoveries.
RIP Cliff, thanks for sharing your gifts with us.