LEWISTON — Eagle Stick formed last year, five Bates College students by day, jazz musicians by night.
They had a regular gig at Marche over the winter.
Their sound? As hard to pin down as their schedules.
“More free-form jazz, atonal, music as sound, stream of consciousness, kind of,” said sophomore Divyamaan Sahoo.
Rocking along is encouraged and allowed, for peeps and musically inclined dogs.
Names: Divyamaan Sahoo (keyboard and vocals), 19, Calcutta, India, and Duncan Reehl (guitar), 20, Milford, N.J.
(Sam Mark from Pennsylvania, Becky Schwartz from Connecticut and Ian Clarkson from Ohio round out the band.)
How’d Eagle Stick get its name?
Reehl: It mostly started as a joke, actually. One of our band members has this stick with an eagle’s head carved on the end of it and he had lost it one night. Sahoo and I came across him, and upon asking what was up, he said that his eagle stick was taken by three gremlins. We thought that this was quite hilarious. When “auditioning” band names, we pretty much decided that Eagle Stick was the perfect balance of strange and funny.
Tough to balance music and college?
Reehl: We’re both full-time students with fairly rigorous schedules, so a lot of the time things get pretty stressful. Back when we had a weekly gig at Marche, for example, most of our members went most of the day with minimal breaks. Some of us would be going from 8 a.m. until we got back on campus around 10 p.m. moving from various classes and obligations. So, during this time, we’d try to play together on weekends, but a lot of our practicing time had to be allotted to our performance time in the restaurant due to our other work during the week.
One of the difficult things about working with the band is how busy and different peoples’ schedules are. It’s hard to find time when we’re all free. Sahoo and I live in the same dorm and have similar enough schedules, so we play a lot and bring ideas to Eagle Stick. All of our other members are heavily involved in other music activities too, so when we come together, we have many different influences and ideas, which we think is pretty cool.
We consider Eagle Stick to be a fairly fluid thing — we play around with different arrangements and heavily emphasize live improvisation, coupled with a selection of covers and standards which have been part of our repertoire. Because we’re all constantly thinking about music in a similar sort of improvisatory way, too, when we come together, we spontaneously make music that we think is pretty awesome and enjoyable, at least for us, and hope that others think so too. (hah)
One of your musical heroes?
Sahoo: Miles Davis. When Eagle Stick was at its peak of performing over the course of last year my notions of harmony and soloing strangely resonated with that of Miles. He seemed to have this air of cool that I liked — he did his thing and didn’t care what others thought about him. I couldn’t find a single record/recording of him that I wasn’t a fan of, and as my jazz study matured here I would track his musical journey and try and bring it to the group. I ended up playing along with many of his recordings in my free time and it’s been quite a journey.
Reehl: Marc Ribot is a big one for me. I really love the way that he uses the guitar in a variety of very different and non-conventional ways. He’s not afraid to liberate and make beautiful a lot of ugly sounds, which I think is really fascinating. I really aspire to that.
Artist we should all check out:
Reehl: This is a bit random, but I’d say Moondog. Specifically, his self-titled album from 1956, “Moondog.” I’ve been really into it lately. Alternatively, Don Cherry’s Organic Music Society. I feel like they’re really great combinations of sound, really, that I could listen to countless times.
Sahoo: There are a couple of musicians I stumbled upon over the past year: Beka Gochiashvili (pianist), Edmar Castaneda (harpist), both incredible young jazz musicians. I’ve started listening to a lot of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler. But definitely Alice Coltrane’s recording of “Journey in Satchidananda” resonates with my soul, modal drones tending toward Indian classical music, something that I wish to pursue after my time here at Bates.
Best thing an audience can do: We’ve played for a wide range of audiences, at restaurants, pubs, damp basements, a temple and even at a funeral. We never really expect much out of an audience. Honestly, even when we played down at Marche, we knew that the people came to the restaurant primarily to eat food and drink wine and not necessarily listen to a bunch of college kids play jazz. Keeping in mind that we were ambiance, we decided to have a good time playing there and we’d respond to the occasional foot taps and dancing and smiles with more soul. The best gigs we were a part of took place in the most commonplace venues, in tiny cramped rooms with others joining in as we played along.
Worst thing: We’re pretty much OK with anything, it’s a learning experience and that’s how we grow as performers. I mean, if they don’t like what they hear, then clearly something must be wrong so we try to use our intuition and switch up our sound to tailor the environment. We generally tend to be more ambitious when there’s a younger crowd, otherwise we would just play standards if that’s what they like.
A dream gig would be playing where? A major American festival like Bonnaroo or Coachella or SXSW, or alternatively, some strange dingy intimate basement with an audience that loves us.
Playing with:
Reehl: It would be pretty cool to play with John Zorn and lot of the musicians he works with at Tzadik — I don’t know if it’s the true Eagle Stick sound, but it would be pretty fun I think.
Sahoo: I’d love it if my dog Pico would be there for the gig. I think I’d put some percussion instrument on his collar, maybe a tambourine, or a cow bell. He’d probably get so excited jumping around, adding to the music — I’m pretty sure that’s the true Eagle Stick sound.
kskelton@sunjournal.com
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