It has two trombonists, Ray Anderson and Wycliffe Gordon; both are expressive, obsessed with texture and from different backgrounds.
In a waxed paper negative of the Taj Mahal made by John Murray in the 1860's, photographic chemicals suggest the expressive, stroked-on texture of India ink.
One possible source for his sharp-edged, implicitly geometric figures is weather vanes, although his silhouettes are considerably enlivened with distinctive textures, expressive button eyes, a sense of fluid movement and bright color.
He distresses, deconstructs and recontextualizes vintage clothing and unconventional textiles, literally tearing found fashions apart and recombining them into expressive, unexpected profiles, textures and wearable sculptures.
These include fine line drawing, dotting techniques and loose expressive brushwork for surface texture.
Heartfelt in effect and fascinating in detail, "One Red Rose" showed Mr. Mackey's expert grasp of the string quartet idiom: not only the timbres, textures and expressive effects of its component instruments, but also the genre's distinctive capacities for parity, transparency and discernible impact of disparate, simultaneous threads.
The expressive mixing of rough textures with sleek smoothness that is visible in "Black Moonscape" can also be seen in another hanging work, "Figure" (2004), which is made of a wafer-thin slice of green granite in the outline of a human figure, one side polished, the other roughly hewn.
The results can be exhilarating, notably when the effects of light and texture are subtly expressive of the chosen subject, but he soon tired of the technique.
His guitar sound is rich, ambiguous and orchestral, full of expressive shadings of harmony and texture, and quite different from standard folkie chuggings.
