March 2–9, 2000

music

Light Speed

	Indecisive? (L. to R.) Yeah No’s Cuong Vu, Chris Speed, Skuli Sverrisson and Jim Black.

Chris Speed, leader of Yeah No, is happily frantic.

by Nate Chinen

"I can’t really differentiate sometimes between what is me and what is just us as a band," Chris Speed muses, describing the ever-evolving aesthetic of his group Yeah No. The tenor saxophonist and clarinetist half-shrugs, a gesture that’s almost imperceptible under his winter coat. We’re sitting in the coldest corner of a poorly heated café on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. "I’m totally dependent on the band," Speed explains. "I need their input and I need them to crank it out, and that gives me strength to be more definitive with the concepts."

In its earliest incarnation, Yeah No was an improvised product in every sense of the term. Speed brought no music to their first recording session, preferring to let the band find its own way. "I sat with those tapes for a long time," Speed recalls, "transcribing them. I was really interested as to what it looked like on paper when we improvised." Eventually, patterns emerged, and Speed utilized them. "I would bring in sketches that captured certain flavors. And then later I wrote music that was inspired by the band."

Given this emphasis on the process of group interaction, it should be no surprise that Yeah No’s sound is easier to identify than it is to define. Speed’s full, dry tenor is only one pigment on a vivid canvas — along with throbbing electric bass, atmospheric trumpet and precarious percussive textures. On Deviantics (Songlines), the band seems to be everywhere at once, overlapping the chromatic melodies of Eastern European folk music with, say, ambient layers of drum ’n’ bass. Since that recording, Speed says, there’s been another shift. "I’m hearing it more like a rock band sometimes," he says, citing My Bloody Valentine and Aphex Twin as subliminal influences. "That whole wash; that intense, overloaded, crackling sound I’m into. And I’ve never listened to that music thinking, ‘I could use this and that.’ But I’m attracted to it."

Speed, along with drummer Jim Black and bassist Skuli Sverrisson, not only form a substantial part of Yeah No, but also three-fourths of PAcHORA — a dynamic Balkan-influenced group also under Speed’s leadership. The only personnel difference between the two is that PAcHORA includes the guitar, saz and tambura playing of Brad Shepik, while Yeah No features the darker tonal colors of trumpeter Cuong Vu.

A few minutes after leaving Speed, I happen to run into Vu, who’s playing a gig in the neighborhood. Within Yeah No, Vu’s open horn conveys warmth, but it’s almost eerie in its sense of unresolved tension. He describes his contribution to the group as a sort of oppositional counterpoint: "always striving for the differences, for the other side of the coin." This works so well, he adds, because Yeah No "is freer than most groups.… I can bring a lot more into the band than I can with other groups."

Within a week of our interview, I catch Speed perform with three different ensembles. As a sideman with the Ben Perowsky Trio, his saxophone references a straight-ahead jazz tradition that’s deep but diffuse. Later, during a set celebrating PAcHORA’s new CD Ast (Knitting Factory), Speed’s clarinet flutters above a churning ensemble, navigating intricate rhythmic passages with aplomb. A few days afterwards, at a gig for Jim Black’s new band Alas No Axis (which also features Sverrisson and guitarist Hilmar Jensson), Speed applies his tenor as an additional texture, rather than a lead voice.

All this activity seems to fuel, rather than hinder, Speed’s creative momentum. In addition to Yeah No and PAcHORA, he fronts a group called Skaros, which performs "standard folk tunes from Greece, Macedonia and Turkey with traditional instruments." His playing as a sideman is featured on Ben Perowsky’s recent self-titled debut (JazzKey Music) and Dave Douglas’ new sextet disc Soul on Soul (RCA Victor). In addition, he just completed his own trio recording (with Perowsky and organist Jamie Saft), which will be released on Knitting Factory Records in April. All of these crucial details and experiences, however, evaporate when Speed walks onto a stage. "I’m really into being focused," he asserts. "I want to have whatever I’m doing hitting like it’s my only band."

Yeah No, Wed., March 8, 9 p.m., Plays & Players Theatre Club, 1714 Delancey St., $12, 215-665-1170.