Christopher Dammann

"Christopher Dammann Sextet is a debut record, but it’s by no means a first effort. Bassist, composer, and improviser Christopher Dammann has been making records for about fifteen years, first as a member of 3.5.7 Ensemble and more recently as the leader of Restroy. Throughout that time, he’s also gigged persistently in Chicago, notably as a regular substitute for Brian Sandstrom in the long-lived free improv collective Extraordinary Popular Delusions, and from Charlottesville, VA (between 2010-2018). The choice to give a combo his name amounts to a declaration of arrival; Dammann’s music has evolved to a point where his bass playing, composing, and choice of musicians jointly express his faith in spontaneous collective creation.

That synthesis is evident from the record’s first minute. It begins with an unaccompanied bass solo which is not so much a demonstration of chops as an expression of possibility. A-linear but purposeful, it conveys motion, but contains brief rests and spaces that untether the music from strict time. It establishes a foundation that is supportive but malleable, and that flexibility is one essential element of Dammann’s personal idiom.

Then the other musicians join him, one by one. Edward Wilkerson Jr.’s Eb alto clarinet sounds brooding, yet exploratory, and Scott Clark’s understated drumming stokes the music’s energy like focused steam. Explains Dammann, “The sextet is interested in the possibility of non-linear time. I was hoping the compositions would allow for multiple pulses at once, making scenarios where we could go both backwards and forwards. Time travel is a theme of the record.”

As Wilkerson’s playing heats up, Mabel Kwan’s unobtrusively places piano notes like flagstones in his path, perfectly placed to both support his progress and enable him to pivot wherever his probing exploration needs to go. When Jon Irabagon and James Davis finally join nearly four minutes into the piece, their lines seem to grow out of Wilkerson’s. Each takes its own path, but they articulate a common air of regret. The selection of personnel is a compositional choice, and Dammann has chosen players who are patient but assertive, with personal voices that combine into self-balancing polyphony.

This complex compound of singular personalities did not emerge quickly. Dammann first assembled the group as a quintet in January 2023 working with Irabagon for the first time at Davis’ recommendation. After adding Wilkerson as a guest at a show that summer, Dammann spent a year condensing the material and reworking it for a sextet. They reconvened in July 2024 and played publicly and privately for a week before going into the studio, workshopping tunes that provide just enough information to spark their imaginations and then stay out of their way. “It was a goal of mine not to overwrite but to facilitate space for everyone. It's easy to write too much and choke what is special about an improviser. I made a personal promise to myself not to hold anything I composed in higher regard than what was spontaneously collectively composed the day of the session.” He has kept that promise; the tunes on Christopher Dammann Sextet are made to be finished, reimagined and finished anew each time that they’re performed." - Bill Meyer