One can never know what to expect from progressive rock side projects. Sometimes you hit a golden era in music, such as Bill Bruford’s (King Crimson, Yes) sensational fusion band, “Bruford.” Sometimes, you get a project like Liquid Tension Experiment (Dream Theater, King Crimson) whose fan base is limited to the die-hard fans of the bands it spawned from. Sometimes you get just a halfway decent set of output from musicians you appreciate, as is the case with A Perfect Circle (Tool, Primus), or Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, which although decent, doesn’t match the excellence of Les’ beloved brainchild.
There is one thing we can count on. If Allan Holdsworth  gets hired, everyone gets excited.
Allan Holdsworth, one of the most underplayed guitar sensations in the world, has teamed up with Terry Bozzio (Frank Zappa), Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson, Mr. Mister), and Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel) for an improvisational tour which began last month.
“So you know, we were [on stage] completely unprepared, and just played whatever came to us. That’s why you probably didn’t get it.”
This sounds like a fancy way of saying “they have no idea what they’re doing,” which might be in the case of Tony Levin, which I’ll touch on later in this review, but any short look into Allan Holdsworth’s career will make it very clear that he is more than comfortable in highly advanced jazz settings, playing blistering lines through Coltrane’s “Countdown,” and writing his own tunes which consist of harmonies built from superimposed modal colors (think about George Russell and his ultimate aspirations realized), such as combining altered dominant 7th and major 7th harmonies. Theory buffs and traditionalists in music beware, these guys are not easily analyzed. These artists have worked out their own understanding of music theory, and it is nearly 100 percent incongruent with traditional practices.
It isn’t quite accessible music, especially since the only pitched contributions are being made by an extremely musically “over-sophisticated” artist (Holdsworth), and an artist who favors expressionist and dissonant sonorities (Levin). Bozzio, however, had his massive stage drum kit, filled with pitched percussion to the point of obscuring a good view of his playing. Dissonance aside, paying close attention, the deliberation from every musician onstage was absolutely clear. They meant what they were playing.
I was clearly going to this show to see Holdsworth play blasting lines the whole night, since I had waited roughly a decade to hear him live. Unfortunately most of the people in the audience were hoping that one of their heroes would shine on and on for the whole night, but none of us ever really received that treat.
Tony Levin played two roles tonight… bassist, and, for a lack of a better word, “texturalist.” His facility on both instruments is astounding, especially on the upright, which he played with such fluidity as Edgar Meyer. Much of what he played in this role as bassist seemed to be more rhythmically charged than musical. He played in typical Levin fashion, finding just the right amount of dissonance, turning it into a riff, and providing subtle but tasteful variations. Think Melvin Gibbs’ playing in the Power Tools project with Bill Frisell. After all, Tony Levin is an expert riff writer first, and improvising artist second. On the stick, he sounds as good as it gets, seeing as he set the standard for textural playing on the stick. His stick was equipped with several midi interfaces and looping effects, to help fill up space as Allan Holdsworth took the melodic role.
Allan Holdsworth was of course better than ever, as it seems his playing has taken a very sensitive side in the past 4-6 years. Especially in his soloing, Allan has become particularly expressive and melodic, playing less flourishing sheets of sound and more melodic material (think “In The Dead of Night” by UK). Nevertheless, most of Holdsworth’s output at this gig was harmonic; playing large chords harmonized at various intervals. His extensive effects unit seemed to have several intervallic settings for harmonization, and to hear him play these huge sonorities correctly shows not only how well he knows his fretboard, but also how well he knows his transpositions. Some of his voicings were harmonized on a Major 3rd. And not one of these chords sounded out of place or incorrectly voiced.
So while we have this strange Burnout-style improvising, the two percussionists are hard at work. Neither player necessarily took a solo, but were more concerned with preserving the time for Levin and Holdsworth to play over. A closer listen will reveal the necessity for two drummers, with lots of polyrhythmic concepts, to be expected from Bozzio, and hundreds of great percussive tones from Mastelotto.
The improvisation was unbroken, and there were two sets. The first set seemed to be more exciting for me, since it was more about the spontaneity than about creating good music. All of the great improvisational moments were in the first set, especially between Bozzio and Holdsworth, who have extensive experience as improvisers. Many times Holdsworth was rhythmically comping to  Bozzio’s  cymbal hits. And the two seemed to phrase off of each other pretty well.
One of my favorite moments was a short rubatic duet between Holdsworth and Levin. This showed both musicians’ true colors. As an expert improviser, Holdsworth seemed to let Levin take the lead and find harmonic material that would make Levin’s bass lines more musically interesting. Though the roles switched right towards the end of their duet, and Levin lucked out, ending on a wonderful inverted major 7 sharp 5 chord, eliciting a mesmerized response from the audience.
It is difficult to give a very cohesive idea of the musical content that happens at this show, since some of it is entirely experimental, and some of it is too sophisticated by my ears. For most, I think it would be difficult to tell which is which. A basic explanation is that the drummers laid down lots of syncopated 4/4 rhythms, reminiscent of Indian and eastern European music, while Holdsworth’s sensibilities gave the concert a Bartok solo violin concerto type of feel, while Levin really ushered in the dissonance that King Crimson is lauded for (think of their improvisational “Providence,” though Levin was not the bassist on that recording).
Would I recommend this show to a friend? Most definitely, but with the disclaimer that I can’t tell them what to expect at all. After all, this is improvisation. If you want to hear one of these other players really shine, then this is not the project you want to see. But expect short moments of artist profiling from each player, but mostly democratic music making for a very ambient, virtuosic but subdued, altogether exciting musical experience.

Listen to Allan’s Playing on “Looking Glass”