“I feel like there’s an unspoken song that’s in the center of us. We’re kind of playing around with it, kindling this thing. It feels like we’re dancing,” says Josh Weinstein, stand-up bass player of the Vernacular String Trio. “Not to sound dumb, but it feels like there’s something really there that we’re all aware of. Like it allows us to start, stop, change the flow.”
While Weinstein waxes poetic, both band mates nod and agree while making jabs or quips to lighten the vibe. Yet for him the group offers a sum of parts that can’t be found elsewhere—its improvised songs are made through the cycle of encoding and decoding a dialect known only by the trio itself.
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“I don’t think of genre distinctions in how we’re playing. It’s more just three people looking for a language in themselves,” says violinist Alex Cunningham. “You can get pigeonholed just because of the instruments we’re using, like Avant-garde or Classical.”
Cunningham prefers the blanket term of free-improvisation while, in his own analytic fashion, Weinstein calls the output spontaneous composition. “Not to sound pretentious, but when I’ve listened back to shows or recordings, it sounds like that to me,” he adds.
To wit, the group sidesteps sounding like a full on free-jazz assault or a jam band incarnate with strings. Vernacular String Trio elects to work within the confines of a venue and audience, building songs that make sense for the space while still sculpting a sonorous voice.
“I think there’s something about the nature of three acoustic string instruments that even though we can do really ‘out’ stuff, people have something to latch onto more so than with drums or sax or something like that,” says cellist Tracy Andreotti. Rather than muse about the sound, she prefers to layout the group’s link in simple terms.
“The combination of personalities just really works,” she adds. “I think we’re reacting to each other because we are coming from three such different places.”
Andreotti herself has worked with the Metropolitan Orchestra of Saint Louis, the St. Louis Philharmonic, the Illinois Chamber Orchestra, and Union Avenue Opera among many organizations throughout the Midwest. She has played in a number of smaller ensembles, including Synchronia, Autumn’s Child, and the Trinity Piano Trio, of which she is a founding member. When asked about her classical background, she laughs and waves it off, showing just how irrelevant a resume or accolades are to her role in the group.
Since his first show in 2014, Cunningham has amassed a rap sheet of solo performances and collaborations with Kevin Harris, Ghost Ice, and Dave Stone among other outsider musicians throughout the Midwest. He takes on the role of promoter, booking acts that might not otherwise come through St. Louis. In addition, he was awarded “Best Concert Poster Designer” by The Riverfront Times in 2015, and even has a piece titled “Keepings” featured in bus stops around the city as part of Metro’s MetroScapes project.
Since 2000, Weinstein has hosted All Soul, No Borders, a late night jazz show on 88.1 KDHX programmed with experimental and free forms in mind. Like his bandmates, his own work as a player spans a wide spectrum, but he prefers to highlight open jams on his porch in the Tower Grove East neighborhood. For years, Vernacular String Trio was just the kind of group he always wanted to be in, and in 2014, he finally found the right people.
Weinstein and Cunningham first met when the pair was asked play in a trio with Dave Stone for a fundraising event. When Stone couldn’t make the show, the two carried on without him. Around the same time, Cunningham would drop in on open jams happening at the Tavern of Fine Arts—of which Andreotti was a regular.
“We were a house band and people could come in. And it was always my dream that someone like Alex would come in, and he did,” she says.
“Tracy does hold the distinction, I’m serious, of playing at the Tavern more than anyone ever,” Weinstein adds. And since Cunningham had played with both separately, the trio eventually came together in the summer of 2014.
Following just three months of weekly rehearsals, Vernacular String Trio debuted at the Tavern with the next few shows spaced out, occurring every other month. In the two years since, the three have performed venues such as the Central Branch of the St. Louis Public Library and the Kerr Foundation, among many others. A recent event at Foam on Cherokee Street had the group open for the duo of Tatsuya Nakatani and Kawabata Makoto (of Acid Mothers Temple).
Parlance, the debut album released through the Iowa-based Personal Archives, offers an audible study of the trio’s neural link. The album functions as a document of the group to date and is entirely improvised with consideration given only to song lengths for the purpose of flow.
While the pieces are not restrained to a beat, the band coalesces and exudes a grinding style of rhythmic sense. The three tend to balance tone around a warbling epicenter and to them, the songs are more about density and flow than notes and bars. Even the members can’t pick themselves out from the recording.
“Aurally, just the way the instruments go together, when I’m listening to our stuff I’m like ‘is that Josh, is that me?’ I can’t tell,” Andreotti says.
“I think it feels good to not be able to recognize myself. It feels great,” Cunningham adds.
“Listening is more important than thinking about what I’m about to do next. If I try to think about it, the moment is already gone by the time I try to execute it,” Weinstein says.
We met with Vernacular String Trio ahead of the release show on April 6 to talk more about Parlance and how the three captured their distinct sound.
How does Vernacular String Trio prepare to make a record?
Tracy Andreotti: There was no special preparation for the recording. Since all of the music on the recording was done in one session, all tracks are live without editing. One shot. We just went in and played like we would at a show or rehearsal.
Josh Weinstein: As far as preparation, we rehearsed as we always do, with or without a gig, keeping the flow of communication going. We had to find the right engineer, which we certainly did in Adam Long. He was a real pro with an extremely open ear and has everything pretty much ready to go when you arrive. Our recording setup was very similar to our living room rehearsal set-up.
Can you talk about where you recorded Parlance and any quirks or challenges that happened during the session?
Alex Cunningham: No quirks or challenges. We recorded at Adam Long’s studio in Soulard. Adam has a ton of recording experience, and does an amazing job recording strings. The session was just like any of our rehearsals in that we showed up and improvised. We played several different improvised pieces, listened back to these pieces, and then figured out what we wanted on the album.
JW: The dude is a multi—like 7-time—Grammy nominated recording/mixing engineer for his work with Broadway cast recordings for shows like Fela, the Johnny Cash one I think, and a bunch of others. Our session with him was very smooth. He does an hour of setup before you even arrive, so it really stays about the creation of your music and not the technical aspects of recording. I have worked professionally with Adam before. I knew he was the guy we needed.
Is there anything you were able to do on the new album that could not be done at a live show or vice versa?
TA: One thing that we were able to do in the recording, that doesn’t always happen in a show, is that we were able to do some really quiet moments to offset the raunchy, intense moments. As opposed to most of our live shows, there are more stretches of solo and duo playing on the recording.
JW: We were able to play extremely subtle passages on the new recording that we can rarely do in live shows. We could intertwine harmonics, rub the strings with hands and brushes, stroke the wood—you can hear that on “Alma.” For me personally, I felt like we could explore those areas for as long as we needed where in a show we have rarely been able to yet.
Given the improvisational nature of the music, how does the band go about naming the songs? To that end, how did you land on Parlance as the title?
AC: They’re all literary references. I took lines or names from what I was reading at the time that I found particularly striking. There are two works in particular that I referenced across the track titles of Parlance, but it’s more fun if the listener figures them out.
We see ourselves exploring and expanding our musical language as a group. Parlance is a reflection of that process.
Parlance comes in a dense and visually striking CD package. Can you talk more about the imagery involved and how it came together?
AC: I didn’t have imagery in mind going in. I played with different artwork until I made something I thought fit the music.
The album was released via Personal Archives, an independent label based out of Dubuque, Iowa. How did you end up working with them?
AC: Bob Bucko, Jr. is an excellent musician from Dubuque, Iowa who runs Personal Archives. I met Bob in 2014 when he played a solo set in St. Louis. Bob is constantly touring—I’ve booked him six times in St. Louis as a solo act or with his other projects. We had been talking about working on something for a Personal Archives release for quite some time. Bob had seen Vernacular String Trio perform, and this was a project he really connected with. If you look at Personal Archives’ creative output, I think this is a great fit for the album.
TA: Alex had the Bob Bucko contact, though we’ve done a few shows with Bob when he comes through town, so we all know him pretty well at this point.
Is there anything you would have liked to do with this release that you weren’t able to?
AC: No. I’m extremely happy with the album. It’s a great snapshot of this group.
JW: I love this release. It’s a great document of where VST was at that day.
Following the release of Parlance, what does the future hold for Vernacular String Trio?
TA: We’re interested in collaboration with other musicians, visual artists, poets, etc. As far as formal training, or other groups that we play with or have played with, I’d say the bottom line is that the three of us come from different backgrounds and influences, and we obviously play what’s in our ears and hands at the moment. We come together with a unique sound that reflects those influences. Or something like that.
AC: Like Tracy said, we hope to collaborate with more musicians and visual artists. We also want to continue recording. We are playing a cool out of town fest in the fall (that I can’t name until the lineup is out) that we are all excited about.
Foam Coffee & Beer (3359 South Jefferson Avenue) hosts the release show for Vernacular String Trio’s new album, Parlance, on Thursday, April 6. The Dave Stone Trio, Lobster, and DJ Michael Williams are also on the bill. Admission is $5, and a $10 ticket includes a copy of the CD. Doors open at 8 p.m.; the show commences at 9 p.m. For more information check out the Facebook event page.
