Film music can be a narrative tool, heightening the drama on-screen. Free improviser Ken Vandermark plans to turn the traditional role of film music on its head with his upcoming mixed-media series Chicago Eye and Ear Control. Joined by some of Chicago’s finest improvising musicians from the rock, experimental, and jazz scenes, he’ll create instant sound tracks to a variety of films. “Some purists might not be happy with what we’re doing because there isn’t going to be any sound from the original films,” says Vandermark. “And it’s not going to be the old organ-accompanying-the-silent-film thing.”
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A few years ago Vandermark organized Head Exam, a monthly series of free-improvisation concerts in which musicians improvise without any precepts to guide them and focus more on interaction and development than on typical concerns like melody or standard harmony. Despite its impressive array of participants, Head Exam failed to draw much of an audience. Vandermark’s idea for Chicago Eye and Ear Control stemmed from the desire to reach more listeners and was influenced by Michael Snow’s 60s film New York Eye and Ear Control, for which free-jazz legends Albert Ayler and Don Cherry (among others) improvised the sound track.
Vandermark admits to watching TV with the sound off and music playing. “The mind makes strange correlations between the visual and aural even if they’re not really connected,” he says. “It’s something that really interests me.”
