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Tuesday, June 05, 2001

By Ed Masley, Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

Watershed guitarist Daryl Fleming is back with a supergroup of sorts whose sound he describes as quietly frenetic, acoustic and "not really jazz."

They're not even using "the j-word," he says.

In fact, "If you played blues or jazz licks over this music, it wouldn't even sound right."

The group, Blackwater Draw (which also features Watershed's Ben Opie on soprano sax and clarinet; Jim DiSpirito of Rusted Root on tabla, percussion and drums; and New York transplant Lindsey Horner on acoustic bass), is focusing for now on compositions by Ralph Towner and a handful of originals in the Towner style.

"It's kind of a mixture, very eclectic, a little bit chamber music-sounding but weirder with a lot of this frenetic kind of energy but at low volumes," Fleming says.

"It's kind of intense but quiet. And at the same time, the writing is really melodic. But it gets free sometimes, you know?"

The group was almost launched 10 years ago by Opie, Fleming and DiSpirito.

Then, Rusted Root took off and things just fell apart until the arrival of Horner, who's played with avant-gardist John Zorn and for whom "the j-word," says Fleming, "is a four-letter word."

The guitarist and bassist bonded on their love of Towner and the band he helped found, Oregon.

As Fleming says, "He's just a great composer. And he invented an approach to acoustic guitar that I don't think anybody else really messes with. It's not like Leo Kottke or anything, but it's really a progressive acoustic-guitar style. He was really a pianist who didn't take up the guitar until his 20s but then managed to make a definitive statement."

The band is making its debut tonight at 9 at Club Cafe in the South Side with Horner and Lou Stellute as openers.

Saturday at 7, Fleming's week of presenting new projects continues at The Andy Warhol Museum on the North Side with "Ten Guitars," part of the opening of the Popular Cultures exhibition.

Artist Michael Parekowhai join guitarists Fleming, Horner, Evan Knauer, Alexei Plotnikov, Dave Brown, John Purse, Bill Purse, Korel Tunador, Jesse Prentiss and Eli Slate playing "a really weird mixture of songs," from "Walk, Don't Run" to "Ten Guitars," an Engelbert Humperdinck single.

"I have no idea how this whole thing's gonna sound," says Fleming.

"I'm just as curious as anyone."