Sunship @ Dempster Diving by Bill Barton - All About Jazz - 12/15/2006

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=23953

The day's diving concluded with a relatively brief but energetic set by Sunship. As one might gather from the group's name, the continuum of jazz slash avant-garde slash new music is their milieu. The program notes mentioned Sun Ra, John Coltrane, James “Blood” Ulmer and Nels Cline as reference points; I'd add Ornette Coleman's Prime Time and Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society to that list.

Saxophonist Michael Monhart and guitarist Brian Heaney (who were colleagues in Stinkhorn); drummer David Revelli, electric bassist Andrew Luthringer and the Sound Gatherer himself on trombone, conch shells, didgeridoo and “little instruments” comprise the group. As Dempster said in his introduction, “it's the 11th or 12th inning but we're still tied let's get untied.”

And get untied they did, not to mention unwound. There's a hortatory surging directness to their music. The second segment had an excellent tenor saxophone solo from Monhart, followed by Dempster playing the conch shell most engagingly. Heaney's solo led to a bass/drums segue back to the theme. Then Dempster started circulating through the crowd with his didg, spreading atavistic vibrations, a cyclic connection between the Dreamtime and the here-and-now.

Eventually he returned to the trombone and continued moving through the audience as he played, taking full advantage of the Great Hall's wonderful acoustics, culminating in a glowingly romantic full chorus of “My Funny Valentine” directed (I believe) to his wife. His nonpareil tone and spot-on intonation sang most eloquently of love and life. This touching vignette provided a fitting denouement for this generous “Happening,” this long afternoon filled with music, sound, color, light, spirit, soul and humor.