tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91934723594996128092024-02-07T01:08:10.665-08:00Music in the BubbleFreshly sophomoric perspectives from a junior-grade music hipsterKevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-36583554172813968982012-06-22T13:11:00.001-07:002012-06-22T13:11:32.416-07:00We've MovedCome one, come all to my new website/blog/clearinghouse for all musical activities, <a href="http://klaskeymusic.wordpress.com/">http://klaskeymusic.wordpress.com</a>!<br />
<br />
I've had a blast writing here at "Music and the Bubble," but as I begin my journey out of the Orange Bubble, I feel it's time to move out of my old digital digs as well.<br />
<br />
On the new site, you can listen to my compositions, read my writings, and check out when I'm performing next. I'll even link to some favorite old "Music in the Bubble" posts.<br />
<br />
Hope to catch you in the new place. Over and out.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-70128335294878027172012-04-11T14:16:00.001-07:002012-04-11T14:16:10.362-07:00Herbielicious<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Herbie Hancock is both the most
lovable and the most inscrutable of Miles Davis’ still-active pianist-protégés.
He’s less commercially cloying than Chick Corea, who hasn’t found a lucrative
tribute band or reunion tour he didn’t like. He’s not an excruciating
perfectionist like Keith Jarrett, who still yells at audience members for
coughing. Hancock is quick to strike up a good rapport with the audience
without making it seem that he likes to hear himself talk. You actually seem to
know the guy. He’s not some guarded, frizzy-haired genius, or someone who
hasn’t done anything new in fifteen years.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.austin360.com/multimedia/dynamic/01430/NYET339_1430480e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://www.austin360.com/multimedia/dynamic/01430/NYET339_1430480e.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
But once Hancock sits down to
play, all bets are off. You really have no idea which Herbie you’re going to
hear until he touches that first key. Hancock has traversed wide swaths of
aesthetic ground throughout his five-decade career – from abstract,
harmonically-complex acoustic jazz in the ‘60s, to electrified fusions of the
‘70s, to proto-Hip Hop, to recent pop crossovers, with dabblings in classical
along the way – and everyone has a favorite period. During his solo performance
at McCarter Theater a few Mondays ago, Hancock seemed hell-bent on both
pleasing and pissing off everyone at some point, conforming to no one’s
narrative but his own.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
Since Hancock has been recently
touring with a full quartet, this solo performance promised to showcase Hancock
at his most elemental, stripped of rehearsed tendencies. This promise was met
from the start when Hancock opened with an abstract exploration of harmony and
color on his grand piano. He hit dense, rolling chords, using copious sustain
pedal, letting the audience live in each sonority. There was an intense purity
to this introduction, no stylistic hallmarks, just searching. Gradually, a
recognizable melody slipped into the painting – that of “Footprints,” a tune by
Hancock’s Miles Davis band mate Wayne Shorter. But even with this introduction
of a sonic anchor, the explorations continued, unhampered. The piece became a
more classical theme and variations, rather than a traditional jazz theme and
jam. The melody was ever present, the harmonies, rhythms, and forms floating
around it. Every so often, Hancock would hold a chord for extended moment and
bring his left hand up to his chin, actively pondering where to go next. It was
as if you were waiting on a musical precipice with him, not knowing what would
happen once he made the jump.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
After a similar exploration on
his own classic tune “Dolphin Dance,” Hancock plugged himself in. Apparently
missing his band, Hancock used an array of computers and synthesizers to
conjure a virtual orchestra that played a moody, new-agey arrangement of
Hancock’s composition “Sonrisa.” As the orchestra cycled through programmed
riffs, Hancock added solo filigree on the piano. The piece developed into a
concerto for improvising piano and orchestra, more interesting in concept than
in execution.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEA7uYAYM1Ol-w-MvCvbRk9GQU5ySccWuCjKtkBsSFHKmJTlP0n-SqKQBFECmOTt56qXx7l7CvuNEs1zMDUmt9wZOybjFAd957pXy5EuPW_F9TVe8w-SMx9iFo6NlKX4MnJcQrEnesaOHm/s400/HerbieHancock-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEA7uYAYM1Ol-w-MvCvbRk9GQU5ySccWuCjKtkBsSFHKmJTlP0n-SqKQBFECmOTt56qXx7l7CvuNEs1zMDUmt9wZOybjFAd957pXy5EuPW_F9TVe8w-SMx9iFo6NlKX4MnJcQrEnesaOHm/s320/HerbieHancock-1.jpeg" width="212" /></a>What followed was for some a
devolution, for others the highlight of the evening. Without waiting even a
beat for the applause to fade, Hancock booted up a funky drum groove from his
beat box, followed quickly by the instantly recognizable bass line of “Canteloupe
Island,” a funk chestnut, since appropriated by many a television commercial. Backed
by his band-in-a-box, Hancock slid from piano to synthesizer, letting his
different personas take a unique solo. Then he picked up the much-maligned
keytar, an instrument that most people believe died a timely death in 1989. As
I tried to hold back laughter and listen beyond the oh-so-cheesy patch Hancock
was using, I noticed that he takes this instrument very seriously. While his
right hand flew around the keyboard’s upper range, his left hand stayed put on
the neck, pushing buttons to bend and stretch the notes – lingua franca for
horn players and guitarists, but impossible with the distinctly quantized notes
of a piano. It was as if Hancock was challenging the audience members to drop
their preconceptions of the instrument and its sounds and hear the inherent
substance of each note. For a brief moment, we all got a glimpse into the
reason for one of Hancock’s most maddening tendencies – to hide his immaculate
touch behind a wall of electronics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
While Herbie Hancock may draw
the ire of many a jazz traditionalist with this penchant for unnatural sounds
(I’ll even admit that his patch of assorted grunts, “oh yeahs,” and “come ons”
was a bit much), he’s no pop-savvy sellout. No matter the style, Hancock’s
music is always about finding something new – a new sound, a new harmony, a new
way of playing an old song. Just because a particular sound seems silly upon
first hearing it doesn’t mean it’s not worth serious exploration. Hancock seems
just find with remaining an enigma to listeners everywhere. He’ll just keep
asserting his musical freedom, challenging us to throw off our own shackles of
listening prejudices. As Hancock takes on his new role as UN Goodwill
Ambassador, I can’t think of a more appropriate advocate for free musical
expression, no matter the sound or style.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-90474814949321023882012-04-06T21:17:00.000-07:002012-04-06T21:17:04.495-07:00Let's Go PrommingNPR's been doing a series of stories about high school proms this week, including this <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/04/05/150074778/occupy-prom-night-six-prom-themes-you-wish-youd-had">little ditty from the All Songs Considered folks about alternate prom anthems.</a><div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This got me thinking about what songs I wish I had at my high school prom. So in flash of post-thesis (more on this big thing later) procrastination, I have compiled an ideal playlist of prom awesomeness, or at least idiosyncratic-ness.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you are a Spotify user, <a href="http://open.spotify.com/user/1221915870/playlist/2vn9FpFuF1USUJ0Vz6dXk3">you can listen to the whole playlist here.</a> Or just check out the youtube links.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anyways, here's the list with pithy commentary.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-TQKTDVmi8">M'Lady - Steven Bernstein's Millenial Territory Orchestra</a></b></div>
<div>
Gotta start strong, and some Sly Stone retrofitted with B3 organ, violin, and energy bursting at the seams fits the bill.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Roi7u6n8YQA">Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone - Ted Leo & the Pharmacists</a></b></div>
<div>
As per the rules for mixtapes set down by "High Fidelity," you gotta kick it up a notch on the 2nd track. This one's probably the catchiest punk anthem out there, with the right groove for those hilarious "Breakfast Club" dance moves.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJNN-YmaJ8I">Crazy Race - RH Factor</a></b></div>
<div>
To bring things back a bit, we spin this groovy neo-soul number, complete with sick horn battle. From my cover band experience, this baby keeps the bodies shaking, even at low temperatures.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ1LI-NTa2s&ob=av3e">Bizness - tUnE-yArDs</a></b></div>
<div>
Big voice? Deep grooves? Yes and yes. No brainer here.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Frere Monk - Duke Ellington</b></div>
<div>
Yeah, we kick it old school around here. This one swings rul hard.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLwj9GSD0bw">Show Me Your Backside - Kris Okotie</a></b></div>
<div>
We also kick it international. Nigerian boogie, circa 1979. Teens are about the most unsubtle people on the planet, so why not put on a song with a most unsubtle lyric?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oig8z4HvBL8">Making Time - The Creation</a></b></div>
<div>
A pitch-perfect teen anthem, via Wes Anderson's pitch-perfect teen movie, <i>Rushmore</i>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0UlRDMDjxM">Wayside (Back in Time) - Chris Thile</a></b></div>
<div>
Little known fact: mandolins can groove as hard as booming kick drums. This one's a case in point.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhBT0V5V5Fg">Jig Runrig/The Ramnee Ceilidh - Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas</a></b></div>
<div>
Same thing goes for fiddle and cello. These were probably played at high school proms through 1900, so why not bring them back?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Love and Anger - Theo Bleckmann</b></div>
<div>
Kate Bush's original is good too, but this one just has that organic bounce that so much dance music lacks. I don't care if the volume may be a little low. It just makes the groove experience warm and inviting, rather than cold and declarative (i.e. dance or else!)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCg1Sf-HYVI">I've Been Lonely for So Long - Hazmat Modine</a></b></div>
<div>
Another one with a big voice and a deep groove. Plus epic harmonica!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBBZ-2PzSgY">Superstition - SF Jazz Collective</a></b></div>
<div>
I love it when DJ's spin it because it grooves harder than anything else they play. I hate it when bands cover it because they can't match the groove. So these cats just do it their own way and make it a super-jam. Perfect for keeping everyone moving for a good 10 minutes straight.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6gsyWQHtN0">Work It Out - Uri Caine</a></b></div>
<div>
This is when the band/DJ fucks with the crowd a bit. Greasy half-time funk shuffle that then reveals itself to be in 9. Whoops.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHnEMdXN_FU">I'm the Man Who Loves You - Wilco</a></b></div>
<div>
The cheeky spurned love anthem with a hefty dose of soul. A great bit of ironic fun for this situation.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Dc1LEn4AM">Big Time Sensuality - Bjork</a></b></div>
<div>
Over the top, just like stereotypical teenage behavior. Except this song does it in all the right ways.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Prismatica - Craig Taborn</b></div>
<div>
We continue to venture in crazy electronic territory and begin the sonic overload. Also, the song gets 1000 bonus points for making the viola sound positively badass. Good job, Mat Maneri.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOBhrnOzwXw">Galang - Vijay Iyer</a></b></div>
<div>
Again, I'm really into this whole "organic groove" thing. Vijay, Stephen Crumb, and Marcus Gilmore have that in spades. And here they keep it to 4/4 to allow even the most uncoordinated of young people to join the fun.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1dOovoMlRs">Woof Woof - Dan Deacon</a></b></div>
<div>
Sonic overload complete.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GekMtAxxYjI">Why Do We Try - Robert Glasper</a></b></div>
<div>
Coming to the end of the night, gotta pull out all the stops. Chris Daddy Dave brings the fat groove and Stokley adds soaring vocals. The lyrics are simple, but really capture the messiness of this whole time in life.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rQoomNky2s">Feeling Yourself Disintegrate - The Bad Plus</a></b></div>
<div>
A little too depressing for a cathartic penultimate number? Not with the Bad Plus cover. Grooves in all the right ways, has these epic modulations, and orchestral chimes to boot. No better way to flush away one's high school life in song form.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRLSaBZV1Eo">The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned) - The Decemberists</a></b></div>
<div>
And now we end the evening with the slow dance. Similar in bombastic poignance to the Smith's classic "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out," (I'd rather die with you than live without you) but with a better tempo. Maybe it's all a bit excessive, but so is high school, and so especially are high school proms. The best possible ender.</div>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-88500525996587146862012-03-15T21:48:00.000-07:002012-03-15T21:48:37.078-07:00A Little UpdateSo I'm sitting in this very awkward, institutional-feeling cubicle at the San Francisco Airport while I write this.<br />
<br />
What is this devotee of all things New York music doing on the west coast, you ask?<br />
<br />
Actually, my journey is far from over. I'm about to board a flight for Sydney, Australia for a tour with the Princeton University Jazz Composers Collective.<br />
<br />
It certainly has been a while since I wore my "musician writing about music" hat, rather than the "wannabe critic" hat. So instead of dropping all kinds of snark on others' music, I'm going to talk about my own music-making over these next 10 days.<br />
<br />
Come back often for photos, funny anecdotes, and maybe some incisive analysis about cultural exchange in a wifi world.<br />
<br />
Until then, I have a plane to catch.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-28124610636770045922012-01-24T12:51:00.000-08:002012-01-24T12:51:39.913-08:00The Oscars and Musical PillagingThe Academy Award nominees were announced today. Cue fanfare!<br />
<br />
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For the few of you that have been dedicate readers of "Music in the Bubble" over the past two years, you may remember that I used to do a bit of film reviewing (see <a href="http://southofdowntown.blogspot.com/2010/02/yellow-handkerchief-journey-small-and.html">here</a>, <a href="http://southofdowntown.blogspot.com/2010/03/oscar-wrapup.html">here</a>, <a href="http://southofdowntown.blogspot.com/2010/05/painfully-real-without-3-d-daddy.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/03/04/25413/">here</a>). And like everyone, I am awards obsessed, even when I try to convince myself they don't mean anything, and always get it wrong (Crash? Over Brokeback? Really? REALLY?).<br />
<br />
So I can't help from commenting on today's nominee announcement in some way. First, the category of what I'm excited about:<br />
<br />
1. "Tree of Life" for best picture! And Terrence Malick for best director.<br />
<br />
This was definitely my favorite movie of the year, but I'll admit it can be a difficult viewing experience without the proper mindset. It certainly has won its share of accolades (Palme d'Or at Cannes), but I didn't think it would be acknowledged by the more middle-brow Academy. If nominees reflect what Hollywood thinks of itself, then I feel "Tree of Life" reflects their highest artistic aspirations.<br />
<br />
2. "The Muppets" get a nomination for best song.<br />
<br />
Most people are talking about the fact that there are only two songs nominated (I think it's because they changed the rules so that only songs that actually appear <i>in</i> the film can be nominated, and only one from a particular film). But I'm just excited thinking about Brett McKenzie/Jason Segal/Walter the Muppet getting to do ridiculous things on big-time TV. I disagree over their choice of song though. I would put my money on the opening "Life's a Happy Song," the most joyously upbeat, earnest song I've heard all year.<br />
<br />
3. "The Artist" did <i>not</i> get the most nominations (though it did get a lot).<br />
<br />
Ok, so I have some problems with this movie. There are a lot of neat tricks throughout, it's well-shot and such, but it never really coalesced for me into an affecting, singular product. The story and characters felt somewhat overshadowed by all the gimmickry. It still may walk away with the top prize, but without all the technical award nominations, there's a good-sized segment of the Academy voting bloc (the technicians/cinematographers) that will likely <i>not </i>be voting for it. If I had to put money on anything, it would be "The Descendants," (as a makeup for "Sideways" and the rest of Payne's career), or "The Help" (the closest thing nominated to a successful, middlebrow drama). The techies will probably split between "Hugo" and "Tree of Life," leaving these actor-driven dramas at the top.<br />
<br />
But anyway, my major complaint with the artist comes with its musical score (and its best score nomination of course, and it's win at the Golden Globes). This is my greatest concern going into the awards. Yes, I did just bury the lead again.<br />
<br />
Ludovic Bource's score for "The Artist" has generated about as much controversy as a musical score can. A little over two weeks ago, actress Kim Novak, co-star of the Hitchcock film "Vertigo," saw the much-buzzed "Artist." Soon after, she bought out a full page ad in the trade magazine <i>Variety</i> lambasting the film for using music from Bernard Herrmann's famous "Vertigo" score. She called the usage a "rape," feeling that her body of work "...has been violated by the movie." Novak strongly objected to the film's re-appropriation of the music as a way to score a cheap "in" with the audience, eliciting emotions that were a product of "Vertigo" rather than the new film itself.<br />
<br />
Bource was taken aback by this comment, and responded on the red carpet at the Golden Globes (and elsewhere, everyone asked him the same question) that the use of Herrmann's score was in tribute. Since "The Artist" is a love-letter to the art of making films, then it's only appropriate to reference famous bits of film history. Bernard Herrmann's widow Norma, then responded on BBC Radio 4, saying that although the producers of "The Artist" had never asked or even said that they were using Herrmann's cues, she said that he would have approved of their use in this context.<br />
<br />
I agree with Novak that the use of Herrmann's "Veritgo" cues was improper, but only because of the fact that I agree with Herrmann's widow that pre-existing film music would have been acceptable to use as a send-up. When I saw "The Artist," I had known of the musical controversy, and paid close attention to when the Herrmann music popped up. I was expecting to have it jump out at me, provide a substantial musical change of pace, and be evident that this was in fact a musical <i>reference</i>. Instead, the famous "Vertigo" love theme blended imperceptibly into the rest of the score. The movie used a re-recorded version, giving it the same timbre as the Bource's new music cues. Bource's own musical aesthetic is that of a normal, contemporary film composer - it's subtle, and more about the general atmosphere than tunes or intricate counterpoint. It certainly is far removed from the overstatement of classic composers like Herrmann, Korngold, and others whose scores demanded the attention of the viewer, and became a character themselves.<br />
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Because Bource uses the "Vertigo" themes in this way, reorchestrating them rather than playing them in their original, grainy atmosphere, he isn't as much sending up Herrmann's work as much as plagiarizing it. By altering Herrmann's music to fit his particular aesthetic, Bource is admitting that he can't write a great tune like Herrmann's "Vertigo" love theme, and so must steal it and record it in a way that divorces the theme from its original sound-context. A true send-up makes it clear that one is referencing or lampooning a particular style. It has to be obvious, like "Back in the USSR" - the Beatles sending up the Beach Boys. In his interviews, Bource is trying to make it seem that his use of Herrmann's music is in loving tribute. Bource may actually feel that way, but the way he actually uses the "Vertigo" cues feels like a robbery rather than a tribute. It would be same as if James Horner said that the reason he steals themes from Copland, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich is that they are in tribute to their great work.<br />
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<a href="http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/05/symphony_of_bra.html">Like music critic Alex Ross said</a>, it could be some complex meta-message about the borrowing of Art in a media-saturated world, or it could just be that Bource is a hack. A hack that's the odds-on favorite to win the biggest music award in Hollywood.<br />
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I'm not saying that I am against borrowing music for different movies. It's many times hugely effective. Kubrick was an expert (all that crazy Gyorgy Ligeti in 2001, all of Clockwork Orange), Wes Anderson is an expert (um, like everything), "Tree of Life" was made by its intense use of various classical themes. It can even be effective to recompose a theme into a new soundworld, what Bource tried to do in "The Artist." In my favorite film from last year - "The Social Network" - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross decided to arrange Edvard Grieg's famous "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from the first Peer Gynt Suite in a weird, electronic way to accompany the big regata a little over halfway through the film.<br />
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</div>This usage works because it plays on contradictions, like all good, clear references do. Reznor and Ross's score was eerie and ambient in the best way, and very un-classical. By appropriating a famous classical theme for the scene that symbolizes the Winkelvii's inability to be truly the best at anything, the score effectively satirizes the dying old world of aristocratic privilege they live in, a world being taken over by technology. Reznor and Ross were not trying to be Grieg, like Bource is trying to be Herrmann, but were using Grieg to make a specific point.<br />
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The ineffectiveness of Bource's appropriation of the music of "Vertigo" crystalizes for the me the problems of "The Artist" in general. "The Artist" is allegedly a tribute to the silent film era, but it doesn't embrace the sound world of silent films. Bource's score is an amalgam of Herrmann-ish and noir tropes. There aren't any notable mad-cap scenes with ridiculous percussion sound effects. The era that Bource seems to fetishize is not the silent era, but the Hollywood heyday of the '40s and '50s. In this way, "The Artist" feels like a tribute to a fictional past, an era that never actually existed. Having such nostalgia for a time that didn't actually occur is a very problematic idea - an idea central to the conservative and Tea Party mindset. While a film like "Singin' in the Rain" or a musical like "Follies" gets to the heart of bygone eras of entertainment through their embrace of contradiction and pastiche and clear references to famous films of that <i>actual</i> era, "The Artist" prefers to rewrite film history, and steal the good stuff to make it seem like a well-made movie.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-17908776686243263252012-01-21T11:39:00.000-08:002012-01-21T11:42:35.304-08:00Today Meets Yesterday on Latin Jazz Double BillIt's well known that t<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c5-MwrAKOo">oday meets yesterday in a museum</a>, but a concert hall is also a nice place for intergenerational communication. Sometimes its just musicians in tuxedos and audience members communing with a dead white guy. But it's nicer when there's a sense of dialogue between musicians themselves, like an old master and an up-and-comer.<br />
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The McCarter Theater here at Princeton had just this kind of concert on Friday evening, pairing Cuban piano wunderkind Alfredo Rodriguez with his legendary countryman (and rare US visitor), pianist Chucho Valdés. While both performances were standouts on their own, putting them together helped highlight how the two take their Cuban musical heritage into new places.<br />
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Some assorted observations from the evening are below the jump.<br />
<a name='more'></a>On the subject of Thursday's post, <b>there were no music stands to be found on stage!</b><br />
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Yup, these two groups get you, Mr. Chinen. Both Rodriguez's trio and Valdés' long-running Afro-Cuban Messengers are working bands and are pretty damn tight. Rodriguez and his mates - Peter Slavov on bass and Francisco Mela on drums - knew the tunes inside and out and so took them way out without losing the form. The Afro-Cuban Messengers have been playing this music around the world for a couple of years ago (though I think this is their first stop in the US with this material) and if they ever performed with charts, they've long been thrown away.<br />
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What's great about bands knowing music this well is that the players don't have to focus undue attention on just executing written lines or following the form. Everyone can take risks because they've all built up an intuition about how the sections fit together. This risk-taking is an essential ingredient for a tasty and vital jazz performance.<br />
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Back to Mr. Rodriguez, <b>what's with all these awesome young Cuban pianists?</b><br />
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Seriously. There's David Virelles who wowed Ben Ratliff at the Village Vanguard about this time last year, and is cutting his teeth in bands led by Chris Potter and Steve Coleman. There's Fabian Almazan, whose lush harmonies and refined touch have filled out the sound of Terrence Blanchard's groups over the past few years (getting to hear him up close while playing a concert of Blanchard's "A Tale of God's Will" was a revelation), and he's shown deep compositional ambition as well on his debut album in 2011.<br />
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And then there's Rodriguez with chops out the wazoo, a sonic creativity to match, and the maturity to use said chops judiciously. Throughout much of his set, Rodriguez would wow with keyboard-spanning runs, but without the glibness of an Eldar. After completing a musical 100-meter dash in two directions simultaneously, Rodriguez would pause for more than a pregnant moment, letting the air out of those pent up phrases before jumping on another one. In terms of his sonic creativity, Rodriguez had some urge in the last jam to prepare the piano, but didn't have anything to do it with. He called for a drum solo and ran over the drum set, seeming to rummage through a pile of percussion instruments. He pulled out a stack of papers, ran back over to the piano and laid them out over the strings. Voila, he had a vaguely middle-eastern sounding, plucky instrument.<br />
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So back the point about all these unbelievably talented and creative Cuban pianists. While their styles are all different, all three players share a common musical background in the fantastic system of Cuban public music schools. From the time they were about 7 or 8, they got lessons in both classical and Afro-Cuban music, developing prodigious chops and the important nuances of style throughout their youth. The emergence of these players shares a similarity with the emergence of a lot of now-influential Finnish composers - Esa Pekka Salonen, Kaija Saariaho & Magnus Lindberg - in the 1980s. They were a product of the music education system in Finland.<br />
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This begs the question why countries like Finland and Cuba find enough room in their national and local budgets to make good musical education available to anyone, but the United States does not. There's no secret to producing a generation of fantastic artists and musicians, it just takes a little political will. But that's a rant for another day.<br />
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Across the stage from Alfredo Rodriguez, <b>drummer Francisco Mela was using two snare drums.</b><br />
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Eric Harland's been doing that for a couple years now. I just thought it was his thing, possibly inspired by ?uestlove's old setup where he had like 3 snare drums to get all those different hip-hop sounds with the Roots. Then I saw Chris Dave do it. Maybe it was a Houston thing. Now Mela shows up with two snares.<br />
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It's sure getting to be a <i>thing</i>.<br />
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This trend is interesting to me because jazz musicians are traditionally very crotchety about changing instruments. Sax players still go for the Selmer Mark VI's that they don't make anymore (a jazz buddy of mine got really excited when he got one that was only like 1 serial number away from Rich Perry's, he of the Maria Schneider and Village Vanguard orchestras). Small group jazz drummers have generally kept the same setup since the 40s: a small bass drum, a hanging tom tom, a floor tom, and a snare drum. Granted, Mela never turned the snares on of the second snare and pretty much used it in lieu of a rack tom. But the point was he had that other option. Knowing how influential Harland, Dave and Mela are among young drummers, I feel we may be seeing the beginning of a sea change in jazz drum kit set-ups. (I feel the dual snare drum thing comes from a hip-hop sensibility - you want one with a tight crack and one with fat plop, and it's not like you're loosing a tom sound altogether).<br />
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Moving onto the second set, Chucho Valdés' opener showed that <b>blending Cuban forms with bop language can be a bit tricky.</b><br />
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The first tune of the set began with a rubato melody over a flurry of minor modal chords in the early 60s Trane vein. Once the groove locked in, the drummer plus 2 percussionist attack had already pushed the musical intensity to a very high level. In post-bop small group jazz, the soloist is the hero-leader, spontaneously creating a fully formed composition through dynamic and density shifts. With the intense rhythmic activity of Cuban dance music, there's not much room to grow in these ways - the music by its nature is pretty loud and dense. The soloists on this first tune - Carlos Hernandez on tenor sax and Reinaldo Álvarez on flugelhorn - were pretty much overwhelmed by the dense thicket of drums flying around them.<br />
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Luckily, the momentum picked up from there and didn't flag the rest of the generous 90-minute set. The best blends of Cuban rhythms and bop-style improvisation came during the wide-open vamps. Without being restricted to a form with complex changes, the soloists were able to concentrate more on arc and development, and the drummers were able to back off more and let the groove breathe. "Zawinul's Mambo," a sorta reconstruction of "Birdland," was particularly effective in how drummer Juan Carlos Castro was able to lay Birdland's famous rock groove over a mambo cascara pattern, uniting diverse styles under one rhythmic roof. Valdés' solo was particularly inspired, beginning with a humble melodic statement, then adding cheeky quotes ("Blue Rondo a la Turk"), then finally reaching a piano-shaking fever pitch, the instrument cowering under his large frame and monster hands.<br />
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I would be remiss if I did not say that <b>Batá drums are awesome.</b><br />
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They're awesomely-shaped, and have two different sized heads, so they're like two drums and one. And percussionist Dreiser Bambolé had three of them. That he played at once. While singing.<br />
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Batá drums are traditionally used in Yoruba religious ceremonies, but Bambolé blended these drums' traditions into the jazz-oriented band environment. Coltrane would have approved.<br />
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But the biggest takeaway from the evening was this. <b>While they may come from different generations, both Valdés and Rodriguez know a hell of a lot of different music.</b><br />
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Rodriguez's tunes were certainly based in Latin dance forms like his bolero take on "Veinte Años," but he's certainly learned a lot about the power of harmonic and melodic abstraction. And there's was a ton of rhythmic playfulness that went against the grain of the grooves, in the vein of Vijay Iyer. Plus, you can tell that Rodriguez is classically-trained with his equally-athletic left hand.<br />
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Valdés set was a study in diversity, with takes on fusion ("Zawinul's Mambo"), the American Songbook ("Stella By Starlight"), and Duke Ellington (An encore medley of Satin Doll, In A Sentimental Mood, Caravan and C Jam Blues). But before that encore, Valdés played a gentle trio version of the famous theme from Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherezade." You could tell Valdés loved the tune, savoring its every harmonic twist. After the playing the theme, Valdés brought it into the barrelhouse, taking it through its paces over an "All Blues"-type groove.<br />
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By hearing Alfredo Rodriguez and Chucho Valdés play on the same stage, one got a fascinating glimpse into vastly different musical visions - abstract and adventurous vs. tuneful and showy - and the musical heritage that lies at the core of both.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-44049800133418370152012-01-19T11:51:00.000-08:002012-01-19T11:51:55.212-08:00To Read (Music) is to Not Know?Late yesterday evening, jazz critic Nate Chinen posted a rather innocuous tweet. He wrote, "Sometimes I think jazz musicians underestimate the appeal of a band performing without music stands."<br />
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Cue firestorm.<br />
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I'm not going to report on everyone who said what, just that it touched a lot of nerves across various musical communities. Drummer Matt Wilson chimed in with remembrances of Dewey Redman. Sara Kirkland Snider and Judd Greenstein spoke from experience in the world of alt-classical. And of course the prodigious tweeter-cum-trumpeter Nicholas Payton had to get in on the action this morning ("It ain't the tool, it's the fool using it," he said).<br />
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So I responded as well with the following tweet. "[I]s it that there's less tune-learning by ear now & jazz people refer to selves as composers not songwriters?"<br />
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Chinen responded by noting that this is definitely a factor, but then noting the impressiveness of working bands that play complex music without charts - Vijay Iyer's trio and the Bad Plus.<br />
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So now I will try to answer why this set off such a firestorm, what I really meant in my tweet, and what I think about Chinen's response.<br />
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<b>What's the big deal?</b><br />
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Jazz people always love a negative opinion. The oft-repeated jazz is dead meme, Kurt Rosenwinkel's modern jazz sucks rant, Nicholas Payton's post-modern New Orleans-jazz as a word has no meaning thing. Stuff like that catches on. Chinen's tweet certainly has enough snark to catch on with jazz folk, and it gets an entire idea across within the 140 character limit, so all the easier to respond to.<br />
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But it can't just be the negativity thing. There were those classical people getting in on the threat too. The great thing about Chinen's tweet is that it gets at a fundamental issue of how to teach and learn music. If a small jazz group is reading music on the bandstand, it probably hasn't rehearsed the music much. The group hasn't had time to internalize it. Written music allows for quicker uptake of more music, but the problem is that there is so much more to a piece of music than what is on the page. Chinen seemed to be speaking to an apparent epidemic in jazz where bands use seemingly use gigs as rehearsal time (<a href="http://www.examiner.com/jazz-music-in-chicago/ravi-coltrane-s-disapppointing-chicago-sojourn">even affects the best of us, like Ravi Coltrane</a>) and aren't putting forth a strong, fully-baked product.<br />
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<b>Which leads me to my tweet</b><br />
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I remember hearing guitarist Mark Stewart of the Bang On a Can All Stars (and Paul Simon's music director) talk about rehearsing a piece for the group by Ornette Coleman. Stewart said that Coleman said something to effect of, "We've had notation for hundreds of years and all it does is give us more problems." Coleman has a point in that notation as we know it isn't the best way of communicating many kinds of musical gestures. Transcribing jazz solos (especially Coleman's) can many times be an exercise in futility because everything that makes the solo great - the particular character of the rhythmic feel, the pitch bends, the tone quality of particular notes - are impossible to completely encapsulate on paper.<br />
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When one is truly "reading" a piece of music, one's focus is devoted to playing the correct notes at the correct time, and maybe getting the correct articulations and dynamics too, if the notes and rhythms aren't too hard. Any of the "music" that actually comes out is the result of the pre-programmed instincts physically encoded into the muscle memory of the player. The performer doesn't really have time to think about musical character and inflection. Seeing a group of musicians read music they're not particularly familiar with in front of an audience is like seeing a show where all the actors carry their scripts around. The latter happens, but it's definitely not standard operating procedure.<br />
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If a musician learns a particular piece of music aurally, he or she has to learn the notes and rhythms in small chunks (based on the whole 7 +/- 2 bits of information that one can hold in short term memory at a given time), but doesn't just learn the notes and rhythms in abstract. The musician learns the qualities of each note, and how they're supposed to go from one note to the next in the phrase. By the time the musician finishes learning the piece, they have already gotten inside it, internalized all of the nuances.<br />
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However, this process is time consuming and so usually only works for short pieces, i.e. songs and tunes. Which finally brings me to the point of my tweet. (Prepare for un-backed sweeping statement). Until the mid-1960s or so, jazz was primarily a tune-based idiom. Jazz bands would play versions of pop tunes of the day, having learned them from ubiquitous radio-play or what not. When jazz musicians would write their own tunes, they would be based on pop forms (sometimes explicitly, stringing a new melody on a popular tune's chord progression) or traditional forms like the blues. (Digression: big bands needed notation to coordinate many instrumentalists, but that leads to another part of the argument). When beboppers came together for a jam session, there was never a need for charts. The players just picked out tunes they all knew.<br />
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Most jazz musicians have gotten away from this mindset. Young players trying to "get with the tradition" play songbook standards out of fake book and lose all the nuance that makes a tune good. The impulse to art-ify the jazz led most musicians to write more and more complex charts with shifting meters and through-composed solo sections. There's a shift from an aural, vernacular idiom to a written, art-oriented one (America's classical music anyone?).<br />
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It's no surprise then that jazz people refer to themselves as composers rather than songwriters. To me, I feel that a lot of post-bop falls for a fetish of complexity that only a few musicians (David Binney as the prime exception that proves the rule) can pull off. My guess is that Chinen was at a gig with one of these kinds of bands when he unloaded his tweet.<br />
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There are still a few jazz musicians that work in a no-notation, tune-oriented environment. Lee Konitz comes to mind, with his pick an arbitrary standard and hope the band catches on game. Then there's Bill Frisell and his trio, who have a unique shared vocabulary of tunes across generations and genres. And then there's the whole folk/traditional/fiddle circuit where written charts would be even more out of place. It makes sense then that a lot of the bands I've been getting into lately that seem less reliant on charts come from this folk-ish sense of tune (Jeremy Udden's Plainville, Jenny Scheinman's Mischief and Mayhem).<br />
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<b>Chinen's Response and Complexity Without Charts</b><br />
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I definitely agree with Chinen in terms of the impressiveness of groups like the Bad Plus and Vijay Iyer trio that can pull off tricky pieces with hardly a piece of paper music in sight. That's true with groups that play highly-complex classical music too. It's nuts seeing So Percussion rock John Cage's epic<i> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_849721354">Third Construction</a></i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j27UIdYJZ0o"> completely memorized</a>. And then there's Steve Reich's original group that read pieces like <i>Music for 18 Musicians</i> off little cheat sheets that hardly got in the way of anything.<br />
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When I perform any solo percussion piece, I always have to do it without music, just from a practical standpoint - I have to watch where my sticks are flying in order to hit the right marimba bar, or the right part of drum. Having to memorize pieces also helps me really internalize all aspects of the complex music. Having a written chart to read from may help the learning process at first, but by the time I memorize it, it's in the same performance state it would be if I learned it aurally bit by bit.<br />
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In this regard, I don't feel that the Bad Plus and Vijay Iyer playing without charts is any more special than a folk group playing a series of traditional tunes they learned by ear. The concept of "tunes" being "simple" is definitely blown up by this album by Crooked Still's Brittany Haas and composer-fiddler-laptop maven Dan Trueman (Go to track 5 for prime example). It's certainly possible to learn a lot of Vijay's and the Bad Plus's music in this way (I've done it with "Prehensile Dream" on piano). And Vijay's complexities are rhythmic rather than form or harmony-based. If Norwegian Fiddlers can learn the uneven springar meter (see the last track "Hangdog" below) by ear, it's possible to learn Vijay's crazy rhythms that way as well.<br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="100" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=1460916387/size=venti/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 100px; position: relative; width: 400px;" width="400">&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://brittanddanband.bandcamp.com/album/crisscross"&amp;amp;gt;CrissCross by The Brittany Haas and Dan Trueman Band&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</iframe><br />
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In the end, I feel performing without written music and music stands is the result of knowing music in a deep, subconscious, programmed-into-the-muscles way. One can get to this deep knowledge by learning music aurally and capturing the entire essence of each short phrase, or by memorizing a written work over a long period of time, and gradually adding more and more nuance through practice. In a performance context, it becomes more than just showing the audience you know the music so deeply, it takes on a sense of performance art. Without worrying about the mechanics of reading music, the players have the opportunity to actually look at each other and interact, move more freely and expressively, and translate the essence of the music in a more unadulterated way. It takes on a more ritualistic bent, and a greater sense of humanity. Watching someone read is boring. Watching someone speak well is fascinating. (Maybe they can make musical teleprompters?)<br />
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I'm now led back to the first part of my entry - why this tweet set off such a firestorm. Based on the amount of word vomit here, Chinen's tweet touches on huge issues that are very central to what makes a piece of music good - the what (the notes) or the how (the character). Pretty impressive for something less than 140 characters long.<br />
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Either way, I do think we can all agree on that if you're going to get up in front of an audience to play music, you better know that music damn well, music stand or no music stand.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-40386396868015675512012-01-02T21:45:00.000-08:002012-01-02T21:45:07.334-08:00Best Downtown Music of the Year - Even More Intriguing Instrumentals<b>5. Ben Allison - <a href="http://www.palmetto-records.com/album.php?album=174">Action Refraction</a></b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.redwoodjazzalliance.org/images/thumbnails/allisonaction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.redwoodjazzalliance.org/images/thumbnails/allisonaction.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>"Jazz musicians are often their own worst enemy," bassist and composer Ben Allison says. "The classic trap is trying to add interest to a piece by making it more complex."<br />
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So when Allison sits down to compose, he keeps his "jazz" instincts in check by keeping things simple. Allison's compositions, like on his terrific 2009 album "Think Free," are quirky but tuneful, expressively direct but filled with little hidden surprises.<br />
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Because of his interest in tunes over pyrotechnics, one would think that Allison would be an expert at the art of the cover. In reality, Allison is deathly afraid of taking on well-known tunes, whether songbook standards or the rock hits he grew up with. On his first nine albums as a leader, Allison performed only two covers total.<br />
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That has all changed with "Action-Refraction."<br />
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While a jazz album with tunes by PJ Harvey and the Carpenters may appear to the cynical as a self-conscious grab for younger audiences, in Allison's case it is a great risk, and one that pays off fantastically for both performer and listener.<br />
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Even on a jazz classic like Theolonius Monk's "Jackie-ing" and classical composer Samuel Barber's "St. Ita's Vision," Allison imbues the entire album with a strong rock vibe. Drummer Rudy Royston tunes his kit dry and low, grounding the tracks in that kind of time-feel that makes you clench your lips in approval. Pianist Jason Lindner sticks mostly to keyboards of the electronic variety, including the Prophet synth that seems to pop up on every hit today. And to complete the package, guitarists Steve Cardenas and Brandon Seabrook unleash scurrying lines and thrashing dissonances that could even make Nels Cline a bit jealous.<br />
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What's most impressive about "Action-Refraction" though is how thoroughly Allison reinvents each tune without losing its essential personality. “We’ve Only Just Begun” is retrofitted with a hyperactive breakbeat from Royston as guitarist Cardenas emits full-bodied downstrums. Saxophonist Michael Blake lofts a languorous interpretation of the melody on top, capturing the casual innocence of Karen Carpenter’s vocal. All together, the cover elicits the feeling of someone caught in a crazy urban pace of life, using this song of their youth to ground them. <o:p></o:p><br />
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But the cover that sticks in the mind longest is of Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll All Be Free.” Trying to duplicate Hathaway’s greasy, moving vocal from the original is an unwinnable battle, so Allison instead attempted to translate the cathartic feeling of the song into an instrumental gesture. After a subtle statement of the melody from Lindner, the band launches into a simple, two-chord slow build. Little by little, Steve Cardenas’ lines become more churlish and Brandon Seabrook gradually threatens to down the vessel with unholy noises coming from a Walkman plugged into his guitar pickup. After four and a half minutes of building tension, it all explodes in a cathartic release at the return of the main hook. Ohmygod. Dry mouth. Chills. You turn the album off for a minute just to make sense of it all.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<b>4. NOW Ensemble - Awake</b><br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="100" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=3361243335/size=venti/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 100px; position: relative; width: 400px;" width="400">&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://nowensemble.bandcamp.com/album/awake-2"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Awake by NOW Ensemble&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</iframe><br />
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A band name like "NOW Ensemble" makes a big statement. Capitalization is confrontation in typeset. It's really like having one of those exclamation points-within-parenthesis, but without the ridiculousness. So this band name asserts hipness, newness, all-around now-ness with such force that it would be an utterly pretentious name if the music didn't encapsulate what's going on in classical music today, which it does.<br />
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If the record label New Amsterdam (see the Jefferson Friedman/Chiara Quartet album too) is the face of the alt or indie classical movement in New York, and NOW Ensemble - which is co-led by New Amsterdam co-director Judd Greenstein - is the flagship group of New Amsterdam, then by syllogism NOW Ensemble is the face of New York indie-classical. On their sophomore album "Awake," this chamber presents a set of 6 distinctive compositions that articulate the indie-classical values of textural novelty, cross-genre engagement, and a mindset of "We care if you listen!"*<br />
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There is much to like in all of these pieces. There's the spine-tingling pins & needles texture in Prix de Rome winner Sean Friar's "Velvet Hammer." There are the moody, eye-liner black harmonies of Missy Mazzoli's "Magic With Everyday Objects." There's Bon Iver-like lyricism in David Crowell's "Waiting in the Rain for Snow" and darting Afro-pop guitar lines in Mark Dancigers' "Burst."<br />
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But you may not even get to those tracks for a while after falling in love with Greenstein's own "Change." It starts with a solitary flute fragment and over the course of 13 minutes blossoms into a full-on dance party. With halting phrases and bouncy rhythms borrowed from Hip-Hop and an inviting modal harmonic palette, it goes down as easy as a pop tune but with intricacies that demand repeated listens. Your culturally-aware non-listener friends will exclaim "I can't believe it's classical!" It certainly doesn't pander to fans of the National and Dirty Projectors, it just articulates a belief that classical music can be enjoyed by anyone willing to tune in.<br />
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*<i>"Change," "Velvet Hammer" and "Burst" are by Princeton University grad students and premiered at the University, a far cry from the Babbitisms of eras past.</i><br />
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<b>3. Gerald Cleaver & Uncle June - Be It As I See It</b><br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="100" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=3905949711/size=venti/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 100px; position: relative; width: 400px;" width="400">&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://geraldcleaver.bandcamp.com/album/be-it-as-i-see-it"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Be It As I See It by Gerald Cleaver - Uncle June&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</iframe><br />
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Like its counterpart on the vocal list (The Roots' "undun"), drummer Gerald Cleaver's "Be It As I See It" is an ambitious concept album. It translates into musical form the Great Migration of African-Americans in the early 20th century - and the move of Cleaver's own family from the rural South to Detroit, Michigan in particular. Just as no family's story, or no person's retelling of the family story, is the same, each track here has a different mood, a different soundworld, a different sense of narrative and pacing. All in all, it's quite the messy affair, but held together by the indefatigable drummer-leader and his killer band featuring the likes of Mat Maneri on viola (he of the Paul Motian strings album), Craig Taborn on piano (he of the prodigious solo piano album), and Tony Malaby on saxophone (wait, how's he not on my list this year?).<br />
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Much of the album is dense and abstract, sometimes Beefhearty on "To Love," sometimes AACM/chamber jazzy on "Fence & Post: Lee/Mae." But there's a intense warmth that permeates every inch of the music, probably stemming from Cleaver's old world, trashy cymbals. It's familiar free jazz, a story told over dinner, or a fire in the living room.<br />
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You feel the sense of history most intently on "Fence & Post: Statues/UmBra." It starts with a calm broken eighth-note feel, Taborn adding an array of lush keyboard harmonies on top. Visions fly through the darkening mind - open fields seen from a train, tall buildings far off. Then it all disintegrates under a wall of indecipherable voices, distorted guitar, and phosphorescent keyboard splotches. Cleaver and co. have just transported you to a time you didn't think you knew.<br />
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<b>2. Jeremy Udden's Plainville - If the Past Seems So Bright</b><br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="100" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=4225124424/size=venti/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 100px; position: relative; width: 400px;" width="400">&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://sunnysidezone.com/album/if-the-past-seems-so-bright"&amp;amp;gt;If the Past Seems So Bright by Jeremy Udden's Plainville&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</iframe><br />
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You've probably found a couple of commonalities in what I liked this year and since we're getting near the end, I'll freely admit them.<br />
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I love messy music.<br />
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I love music that sustains a wonderful mood for a long time.<br />
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"If the Past Seems So Bright" is both messy and leisurely, and got me right from the start, <a href="http://southofdowntown.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-jazz-for-you-gerald-clayton-adam.html">as my review from May certifies.</a><br />
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But what makes it hold up against all the other great music I've heard this year is how it pushes those long sustains to extremes. It is the most patient music I've heard all year.<br />
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The opening track "Bright Eyes" is the prime example of the album's patience. The tempo is in the ballpark of 40 beats per minute, about 66% slower than a big hit from the likes of Gaga or LMFAO, literally at the far end of the metronome. Drummer RJ Miller rarely deviates from this dirge-like boom-chick the entire tune, maybe adding a sizzle-cymbal accent once a minute. Keyboardist Pete Rende, guitarist Brandon Seabrook (yep, him again), and the leader-saxophonist Jeremy Udden each take long, spacious solos, upwards of 2 minutes each. They aren't laden with vocabulary, but emphasize and explore the individual sounds their instruments make. It may not "go anywhere," but it sure doesn't need to.<br />
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Maybe "If the Past Seems So Bright" can be a part of 2012 resolution: take an analog break from this crazy digital world once each day.<br />
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<b>1. David Binney - Graylen Epicenter </b><br />
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The nebulous genre of "post-bop" is a real hard one to navigate for musicians. First to describe post-bop. It's um, like, gosh. Maybe the best way to describe is just any music descended from the tradition of Charlie Parker & John Coltrane (and others of course). There's an emphasis on vocabulary & harmony, playing changes. Actually, it's really the style of jazz that's taught in American conservatories. And herein lies the dual rub of this style.<br />
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First, with everyone being taught the same scales and ways of improvising, how is one going to forge and individual voice. And second, why waste your breath when Miles & Trane have already played it all?<br />
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This looks like a pretty bleak picture of post-bop, and for jazz in general, considering that it's the dominant style. But some players and composers have found their way out. Tenor Sax player Mark Turner embraced the woody sound of pre-Coltrane cool players like Warne Marsh. Trumpeter Terrence Blanchard embraces cinematic harmony and pacing (he does do a lot of film scores for Spike Lee), a moody style picked up by acolytes like pianists Aaron Parks & Fabian Almazan and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. Then there's the whole crew of musicians that embraced different strains of Afro-Latin music, a list that would stretch far too long.<br />
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And then there's alto saxophonist David Binney.<br />
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In the two decades since his move to New York City, Binney has done pretty much everything a saxophonist can do. He's formed collaborative bands, some funky, some Latin-tinged. He's been a first call sideman for jazzpersons of all stripes, from Joel Harrison (see no. 9) to garrulous saxmaster Donny McCaslin. He's held a regular gig at Greenwich Village's 55 Bar for a decade now. He's even spent some time backing up the likes of Maceo Parker and Aretha Franklin. Out of all these experiences, Binney has formed a unique musical vision, combining post-bop's reputation for uncompromising angularity with a punkish sense that Binney might die if those notes don't come out of his horn.<br />
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Binney's style has reached a new apotheosis with his uncompromisingly-titled "Graylen Epicenter." And it sure does start with bang.<br />
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The beginning of the opener "All of Time" feels you're being shot out on one of those 500-foot-tall phallic roller coasters at Six Flags or Cedar Point. But instead of being over in 30 seconds, it goes on for 3 minutes without letting up. The second 2 are occupied by a thrashing and altogether astonishing dual drum solo by Brian Blade and Dan Weiss over an unrelenting ra-ta-tat tat vamp (since when is it ok to start a tune with a drum solo? Oh well, I'm not gonna argue here). Just to make sure you don't die from an adrenaline-induced heart attack, the solo subsides into a lightly swinging piano solo by Craig Taborn (see what I said about the sideman thing?). But Taborn builds it all back up before too long, unleashing a typically wild and passionate solo from Binney. Then unexpectedly at the 8:30 mark, a voice pops up in the mix. No, it's not that of Gretchen Parlato, who's been wordlessly vocalizing the melody throughout, but that of Binney himself. "If I only could only see you," Binney intones like a lost backup track for Brian Wilson's "Smile" record, "then all of time would stand still for you and I." With all the thrash and edge leading up to it, it's a disarming and vulnerable moment and it somehow feels like the just the thing the piece needed to send it out into the stratosphere.<br />
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Ok, now it is time for you to listen to this face-meltage.<br />
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Good. Now that's taken care of.<br />
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Even after a transcendent performance such as this, the rest of the album doesn't disappoint. There's still plenty of drum dueling on the quirky free-funk jams "Terrorists and Movie Stars" and "Any Years Costume." There are dynamic, exploratory solos on the title track and the chipper vamp-based "Equality At Low Levels." And there's tenderness too on the slow-build pop ballad "Everglow" and the tropic lullaby "From This Far."<br />
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On "Graylen Epicenter," David Binney takes a defibrillator to post-bop, cutting through all the irregular chaotic beats, showing that there is a pulse there, and still many new adventures to be had.<br />
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For all of time, you ask? I can't say for sure, but I wouldn't count anything out with Mr. Binney around.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-15141454186782454252011-12-31T12:34:00.000-08:002011-12-31T12:34:41.761-08:00Downtown Music of the Year - Vocal Edition, part DeuxWithout further ado, I count down the 5 best vocal albums of the year starting with...<br />
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<b>5. Abigail Washburn - City of Refuge</b><br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="100" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=1144481824/size=venti/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 100px; position: relative; width: 400px;" width="400">&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://abigailwashburn.bandcamp.com/album/city-of-refuge"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;City of Refuge by Abigail Washburn&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</iframe><br />
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The title track on Abigail Washburn's "City of Refuge" begins quite humbly. It's just an Appalachian Old-Time clawhammer banjo tune, dry and unadorned. The lyrics begin simply enough too. "I got a mother, I got a father," Washburn intones in her clear, cracker-barrel voice, seeming as an extension of the banjo sound itself. As the song continues, more sounds are added little by little. A droning accordion, crescendo, a second voice, fiddle, and before you know it, the world of Appalachian Old-Time music has been transformed. It has the sense of U2's castles-in-the-air aesthetic, but more tied to the land, organic.<br />
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The rest of the album explores this concept further, marrying American folk traditions with the grand gestures of arena rock, the quirky orchestrations of indie, and even some flavors from the Far East (Washburn has spent quite a bit of time in China. Ask her about the time she got thrown out of cab in Bejing for not doing a traditional Chinese song right). The fact that all these disparate sounds are wholly integrated is a result of healthy collaboration. Washburn's main songwriting partner Kai Welch brings along his piano and guitar chops and his rock-hewn instincts. The band is then filled out with great hired guns like Chris Funk of the Decemberists and guitarist Bill Frisell. And it's all guided by the steady hand of crack producer Tucker Martine.<br />
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The production values are a throwback just like the music itself - to a time when big studios were playgrounds for experimentation in addition to hit factories. With the marriage of tradition and experimentation, Washburn and co. have created an album with strong roots that allow it to grow into a lush, flowering tree. It's not a "some<i>thing</i> for everyone" kind of album, but a singular work that anyone can embrace.<br />
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<b>4. Hazmat Modine - Cicada</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7V9nSIlD3BP3_uOh_Wvi3tk1_F7aMcpLVmKY1epL8W6o8QCbJaOnmS7BE_dAALBaS1vv_l9nYs05XV3O9a7NyV3-12uqFjcdV9euycnf_a2zoBrrM0y83jGUti6C-scQWVhKjSR-LkV9c/s640/Hazmat+Modine..2011+Cicada...folder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7V9nSIlD3BP3_uOh_Wvi3tk1_F7aMcpLVmKY1epL8W6o8QCbJaOnmS7BE_dAALBaS1vv_l9nYs05XV3O9a7NyV3-12uqFjcdV9euycnf_a2zoBrrM0y83jGUti6C-scQWVhKjSR-LkV9c/s320/Hazmat+Modine..2011+Cicada...folder.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Back in the days before amps and microphones, the way to get a roomful of people moving was to have a big band of loud instruments - trumpets, trombones, tuba, and plenty of drums - and set 'em loose. Singer/harmonicat Wade Schuman's Hazmat Modine (a hazardous central heater - they do blow some dangerously hot air) certainly harkens back to those days, but with an ear for diverse world styles that can only be of the moment.<br />
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The tunes on "Cicada" are an encyclopedic collection of old-school brass-band styles, from down-home blues and New Orleans second-line to calypso, ska, and even a bit of tango. The band of New York studio and theater virtuosos swings through each style with equal aplomb, creating arrangements with tight unison figures and unfettered, improvisatory joy. The seemingly-lost Stax records hit "I've Been Lonely For So Long" is positively booty shaking, especially on that killer outro (let go longer please!).<br />
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But the real stunner on this album is Schuman's voice. It's infinitely versatile, with a bluesman's gravel, a falsetto in the stratosphere, and anything in between. You spend the album's full runtime in slack-jawed amazement, good feeling piled upon good feeling. If we do actually suffer an apocalypse in 2012, thank goodness there will still be good music to make us happy that doesn't need to be plugged in.<br />
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<b>3. The Roots - undun</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://hiphop-n-more.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/the-roots-undun-HHNM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://hiphop-n-more.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/the-roots-undun-HHNM.png" width="320" /></a></div>People like to talk about the many different sides of The Roots. There's the greatest band in late nite side with Jimmy Fallon. There's the funky jam band side when they perform live. There's the crack studio band that backs up the likes of John Legend. And then there's the group that has made worldly, thoughtful hip-hop albums of their own for 20 years. Well I'd like to argue that there's only one side to The Roots. Or better yet, they make the case themselves on their terribly ambitious Hip-Hop concept album (or maybe an opera, or a film), "undun."<br />
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"undun" tells the story of one Redford Stephens in reverse, starting with his death and recounting the choices and events that brought him there. The album is both political and philosophical, dealing with issues of fate and free will, especially how these concepts relate to issues of urban poverty. A rotating cast of singers and rappers (Bilal, Big K.R.I.T, Phonte, and more) alongside Roots MC Black Thought illuminate the many different sides of Stephens' mind in a highly personal way. Stephens is everyman and no man, not a fully-drawn character, but a loose archetype brought to life by the personal experience of each vocalist.<br />
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The music that backs up these dark and potent ruminations shows just how much music is inside the head of de facto music director/drummer ?uestlove. The album runs the gauntlet of music styles from lush neo-soul to evocative film score to free-jazz freakout. Questo leads the band through all these varied styles with aplomb, breathing life into quantized grooves and synthesized soundscapes. In fact, the album's musical seed is the short piano prelude "Redford" from inscrutable indie darling Sufjan Stevens' "Michigan" album. Just the variety of music explored and appropriated on "undun" shows that The Roots don't see any walls between their personalities, it's all part of their huge and playful aesthetic.<br />
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"undun" is as much a true Hip-Hop album as "Sergeant Peppers'" was a true rock album. By embracing such disparate styles and even abstraction, these two albums push their respective genres into art music territory. It's clear that both are transcendent classics of their time and place. But as the last plaintive string chords ring out at the end of "undun," the question remains: what's next?<br />
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<b>2. Donnacha Dennehy/Crash Ensemble - Grá Agus Bás</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ak.buy.com/PI/0/500/220639830.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://ak.buy.com/PI/0/500/220639830.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>When I loaded this album onto my computer, for some reason iTunes decided to import the second half first, a setting of W.B. Yeats poems for the soprano Dawn Upshaw, called "That The Night Come." So when I pushed play after it finished, this was the first piece I heard.<br />
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And I got one of those ohmygod-massive-chills-I-don't-know-what-to-do moments.<br />
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I'm someone who believes that if you come up with a heavenly sound, there's no reason to move away from that. In that first part of the song cycle - "He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead" - Dennehy magically concocts one of those heavenly soundworlds and sits there blissfully for four minutes (that I wish would go on for just a bit more!). The combination of string harmonics, high piano notes, electric guitar, bowed vibraphone, and smatterings of woodwinds congeals into one perfectly homogenous but ever-shifting mass. You feel as if you're suspended in a light-blue crystal, with little flashes of northern lights skipping across your gaze. This accompaniment doesn't feel like fancy dressing for the vocal line, but instead reverses the relationship. Upshaw must navigate her way through the texture carefully, not to disturb the delicate crystalline arrangement. She passes this treacherous test with flying colors, her warm voice becoming a true part within the gorgeous texture.<br />
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Dennehy is a true master of texture and orchestration and throughout this album, he creates many fascinating soundworlds to accompany the diverse moods of the text and diverse styles of singing. In contrast to Upshaw's clear operatic soprano on "That The Night Come," Iarla Ó Lionáird shows off his laser-beam, Sean-nos style voice on the album's title piece. To bring the music closer to its traditional origins, Dennehy experiments with more natural "just intonation" rather than the 12-note equal tempered tuning we're accustomed to. The piece is a 25-minute journey to the past and back, a luminous vision of a world we know only from memory.<br />
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<b>1. tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://devonrecordclub.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/tuneyards-album-hi-res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://devonrecordclub.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/tuneyards-album-hi-res.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>So far on this list we've seen styles from around the world, unheard-of voices, kicking it old-school, embracing technology, party music, ponder music. They're all special, satisfying listening experiences, but there's a reason why they occupy spots 2 to 10.<br />
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Because tUnE-yArDs has it all. Merrill Garbus' sophomore album delivers on all the promise of her lo-lo-fi debut and then some. Her voice, from vulnerable whisper to terrifying scream, seems to come from some West African country who's name you forget, or may not actually exist. Armed with an array of loop pedals, she multiplies this powerful, acidic voice into a choir, or really a sonic army. Then there are the gut-busting drum beats, the enveloping bass lines of partner-in-jazz-crimes Nate Brenner, and some meaty dual-sax hooks that stir this mystic brew to a fever pitch. It's got the energy and let's-play-together vibe of a drum circle, but without the haphazard sonic construction. "w h o k i l l" is a party, whether it comes blasting out of a DJ sound system or your earbuds.<br />
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Garbus certainly has her way with words as well. The opening "My Country" is the official anthem of a partly-cloudy patriot, while "Gangsta" takes on the issues of cultural-musical appropriation present in Garbus' music itself. The infectious hooks and near-manic energy of all these songs make you want to listen again right after they've finished, and they reward you for it. Each time, you'll hear the composite riffs and beats a bit differently, realizing their gloriously human imperfections. It isn't music that's trying to be simply likable. It's so very human and puts itself out there without apology. And when music is this real and natural, you have to love it.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YQ1LI-NTa2s" width="560"></iframe>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-8728138179610000502011-12-29T20:08:00.000-08:002011-12-29T20:08:28.303-08:00Best Downtown Music of the Year - Instrumental Intrigue2011 is ending fast, and there's still 15 more great albums to talk about! So onto my best instrumental albums of the year list, numbers 10 to 6.<br />
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<b>10. Tim Berne/Jim Black/Nels Cline - The Veil</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://platform.u4prez.com/image///folder,UPC_44/src,671860014423.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="http://platform.u4prez.com/image///folder,UPC_44/src,671860014423.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>What happens when you put three avant-improv masters in a sweltering storefront in the East Village, let in a standing room audience of 80, and turn off the fans?<br />
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Some real hot music, that's what.<br />
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Ok, ok, haha, I'll stop with the puns. But this music is truly burning.<br />
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Black drives the bus with a manic energy. Cline splatters the canvas with torrid sheets of guitar-paint. Berne somehow wiggles a sense of narrative through this dense sonic thicket. It's a real head-trip and a massive adrenaline rush; a thinking-person's rock, and a rockin' person's jazz.<br />
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It's lightning in a bottle.<br />
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<i>That should be enough to get you to check it out, but if you want a bit more play-by-play, <a href="http://southofdowntown.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-jazz-for-you-tim-bernejim-blacknels.html">I have some here.</a></i><br />
<br />
<b>9. Joel Harrison String Choir - The Music of Paul Motian</b><br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="100" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=860432465/size=venti/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 100px; position: relative; width: 400px;" width="400">&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://sunnysidezone.com/album/the-music-of-paul-motian"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;The Music Of Paul Motian by Joel Harrison String Choir&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</iframe><br />
<br />
You've heard me go on about <a href="http://southofdowntown.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-i-learned-from-paul-motian.html">the uniqueness and vitality Paul Motian's drumming.</a> But one can't have a three-decade career as a bandleader in jazz without having some compositional voice. Motian's compositional acumen tends to be overshadowed by his inimitable drumming, or his drumming is at least understood as a necessary ingredient for the success of his compositions.<br />
<br />
Guitarist Joel Harrison disagrees with that critical appraisal and makes a compelling case for the strength and beauty of Motian's output through his rearrangements for an ensemble of 2 violins, 2 violas, cello, and 2 guitars.<br />
<br />
That's right. No drummers here.<br />
<br />
Motian certainly had a soft spot for the sounds of string instruments. He worked with soundscaping guitarist Bill Frisell for thirty years, then put together bands with 2 or 3 guitarists, and later embraced the wily microtonal sounds of Mat Maneri's viola (which also appears on Mr. Harrison's album). While Motian composed at the piano (having learned from Keith Jarrett in the 1970s), he probably never had the chops to compose multiple lines at once. Instead, he'd keep the sustain pedal down, letting rich chords ring out while lacing folk-like melodies above.<br />
<br />
Harrison has serious classical-composing chops of his own, and dresses up Motian's tunes with ornate counterpoint. Yet these arrangements play to the strengths of these improv-ready musicians, never weighed down in filigree, always putting the tunes first. Just the sound of the string choir emphasizes the rustic feeling of Motian's tunes, strengthening his style's identity as surreal Americana, like a mystical landscape of Andrew Wyeth. "It Should Have Happened A Long Time Ago" is utterly transporting, unfolding like a rough-hewn cartoon flight over grain-colored hills.<br />
<br />
Although the album came out 11 months before Motian's death at the age of 80, it proves both a fitting tribute and a convincing bit of advocacy. Here's to hoping that Harrison's tribute inspires others to explore and perform Motian's miraculous music.<br />
<br />
<b>8. Tyshawn Sorey - Oblique - I</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/media/medium/4/5/6/939e6ded81ff38106ccfdb6766982.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/media/medium/4/5/6/939e6ded81ff38106ccfdb6766982.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Barrels through the knottiest mixed-meters with the greatest of ease. Has hands faster than Buddy Rich's and softer than Shelly Manne's.<br />
<br />
<i>And</i> he plays trombone?<br />
<br />
Yes, Tyshawn Sorey is a drumming superhero. He's been a vital sidekick for math-jazz innovators Steve Coleman, Steve Lehman, and Vijay Iyer for nearly a decade, but more recently has staked out his own unique compositional space. 2009's "Koan" was a gorgeously sparse affair, and a real surprise to those (myself included) that only knew his hyperprecise prog drumming. "Oblique I" splits the difference, featuring a set of compositions that are somehow both cerebral and inviting.<br />
<br />
Sorey's never afraid of odd group combinations (trombone and acoustic guitar anyone?), but on "Oblique I" opts for a seemingly traditional jazz instrumentation - alto sax (the firecracker Loren Stillman), guitar (the bracing Todd Neufield), piano (the triple-armed John Escreet), bass (the rock-solid Chris Tordini), & drums. Yet this doesn't mean the results are any less novel and adventurous.<br />
<br />
In terms of both titles (just numbers) and syntax, Sorey's compositions echo those of his teacher Anthony Braxton. There are just the vaguest hints of tonality and tunefulness, but a huge dynamic range that nary another record can match. The pieces' through-lines are built from these dynamic and textural contrasts, yielding moments of catharsis and heartbreaking vulnerability. Sorey himself guides the proceedings with his peerless drumming. He tunes his drums low for jazz, enveloping the band in a warm halo. And even though he has chops out the wazoo, he never flaunts them in a Buddy Rich-type way, instead electing to develop his own melodies around the toms and cymbals.<br />
<br />
"Oblique" describes the music quite perceptively. It's rich and mysterious, never coming straight at the listener. One who decides to follow these circuitous routes will be very much rewarded.<br />
<br />
<b>7. The Chiara String Quartet & Matmos - Jefferson Friedman: Quartets</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
</div><br />
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="100" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=1090876473/size=venti/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 100px; position: relative; width: 400px;" width="400">&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://chiarastringquartet.bandcamp.com/album/jefferson-friedman-quartets"&amp;amp;gt;Jefferson Friedman: Quartets by Chiara String Quartet&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</iframe><br />
<br />
I'd love to imagine Franz Josef Haydn, the proverbial godfather of the string quartet, taking a trip to the present day to hear what music is like. He comes to New York, hearing that there are some really great string quartets doing cool things there. He stops in at the place these cool string quartets like to play most, Le Poussin Rouge on Bleecker Street. One of the said cool quartets - the Chiara String Quartet - walks out on stage to play their friend Jefferson Friedman's String Quartet no. 2. They start and Haydn's head asplodes.<br />
<br />
Cuz the sounds that just came out of the ensemble he thought he knew so well are so far beyond his wildest imagination.<br />
<br />
Friedman's 2nd String Quartet was written for his friends of the Chiara Quartet in 1999, and it's almost criminal that it has taken so long to make its way to disk. The head-sploding intro is a string quartet gone death metal, all full-bowed sixteenth notes and gnarly dissonance. If anyone tells you classical music is boring, just play them that intro. But the piece isn't just shredding. There are these time-stopping long tones, which sound as if you're staring across an cold, undisturbed lake at sunset. There are burbling pizzicato grooves that slink and tremble underneath wry, undulating melodies.<br />
<br />
Friedman is a master at exploring all of the new possibilities these old instruments can offer. In order to make a violin growl like an electric guitar, Friedman has violinist Rebecca Fisher (actually, everyone does this at some point) dig into the strings very close to the bridge, an eerie effect called <i>sul ponticello</i>. But it's not just specific techniques. Friedman seems to know what each member does well and the players know what Friedman likes to write. With composer and ensemble working together so closely, the piece takes on a life beyond the notes. There's a reason why the opening daga-daga-daga seems to jump out of the speakers and grab your throat.<br />
<br />
To further the spirit of collaboration, Friedman asked his friends in the electronics duo Matmos to put together some remixes of his string quartets. It's a testament to the strength and imagination of the pieces that they sound just fine overlaid with quantized electro grooves and glitchy effects.<br />
<br />
<b>6. Craig Taborn - Avenging Angel</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.jpc.de/image/w600/front/0/0602527636375.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="http://www.jpc.de/image/w600/front/0/0602527636375.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I had meant to review this album when it came out in June. But after listening to it once, I felt I didn't get it enough to be able to translate it. It definitely hit me like a sack of bricks that "Avenging Angel" was a monumental statement by a real deep musician. But what were all of those ideas that Craig Taborn was throwing around? Where did they come from?<br />
<br />
Six months later, "Avenging Angel" is still as astounding and inscrutable as ever; astounding and inscrutable as why the world's best (for my money) improvising pianist has the proclivity to only put out an album of his own every several years.<br />
<br />
In many ways, "Avenging Angel" is a very self-conscious ECM solo piano record in the tradition of Keith Jarrett and Paul Bley. The opening "The Broad Day King" is Jarrett-like in its lightly-bobbing groove and effortless lyricism, while "Diamond Turning Dream" shares Bley's penchant for pointillism. And of course its recorded in high ECM style, with that crystal piano sweeping through a reverberant hall. Yet all these influences - and tons more from classical impressionism to metal-ish dissonances - are distilled by Taborn's well-pondered aesthetic.<br />
<br />
From a technical standpoint, Taborn is primarily concerned with two main ideas - developing musical ideas simultaneously with both hands (gleaned from the multi-keyboard work of Weather Report's Joe Zawinul) and exploring every possible color and articulation that a piano can express. "Neverland" is a tour de force in both departments. Each hand plays its own melody, rarely more than one note at a time each. While the two lines relate to each other harmonically, they don't line up in a way that makes one subservient to the other. Taborn achieves this remarkable independence through attacking notes in different ways, ping-ponging the listener's attention from one line to the other. The time isn't as relaxed as a simpler improvisation like "Broad Day King," but it shows just how hard it is to do what Taborn is attempting. Many players with this kind of technique tend to coast too much (see Corea, Chick), always doing what they do best. It's great to see someone like Taborn overload his CPU and see what unexpected things come out.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-89612486641293435442011-12-24T19:28:00.000-08:002011-12-29T20:12:46.600-08:00Best Downtown Music of the Year - Vocal Edition<div class="MsoNormal">Merry Christmas Even and Happy 5<sup>th</sup> night of Hanukkah! It is during this time of year when we all wax nostalgic upon seeing cousins and old friends home from college. And considering my propensity to shift the subject of conversation to what my father calls “Les Grandes Topiques Musicales,” I wax nostalgic about all the great music I heard for the first time this year.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Since working at NPR gave me access to a huge swath of this year’s recorded output, I heard a lot more great albums this year than last. So in a spirit of inclusion, I have not just one but two best-of-2011 lists – one for vocal albums and one for instrumentals. As last year, the official downtown music rules apply. All of these albums don’t fit super-comfortably into any one genre, and that’s why they sounded different than most else I heard this year.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Today we’ll start with the vocal list, counting down from number 10 to number 6.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>10. Crooked Still – <a href="http://soundcloud.com/emilee-1-1/sets/crooked-still-friends-of-fall">Friends of Fall EP</a></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000012077421-uswp2w-original.jpg?4b4bd6e" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="http://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000012077421-uswp2w-original.jpg?4b4bd6e" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">This quintet of Boston-based newgrass virtuosos has sadly just gone on hiatus (er’body’s got other projects, like singer Aoife O’Donovan touring around with Yo-Yo Ma and Chris Thile), but not before they put together this valedictory EP. Each member took on the role of bandleader for a day, bringing in a new tune or a favorite cover. The results, at just under 23 minutes, show just how wide their concept of folk is.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s a frisky cover of the Beatles’ “We Can Work it Out,” and a heartbreakingly spare one of Paul Simon’s Bachian “American Tune.” And then there are originals like banjoist Greg Liszt’s (who has a Ph.D in Biology from MIT btw) “It’ll End Too Soon,” and singer O’Donovan’s “The Peace of Wild Things” that meld pop chord progressions and poetic lyrics, while still rooted in the American Old Time style. But the highlight may be fiddler Brittany Haas’ arrangement of the traditional “When Sorrows Encompass Me ‘Round,” a driving update that makes the tune as fresh as any of the originals. Lines fly between Haas and cellist Tristan Clarridge. Bassist Corey DiMario grounds the activity with a deep time-feel. And over top of it all, O’Donovan intones the tune with a quiet intensity, as if she is screaming through a whisper.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>9. Becca Stevens Band – Weightless</b><br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="100" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/album=1725268015/size=venti/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" style="display: block; height: 100px; position: relative; width: 400px;" width="400">&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://sunnysidezone.com/album/weightless"&amp;amp;gt;Weightless by Becca Stevens Band&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;</iframe><br />
<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Becca Stevens' "Weightless" opens with a gentle <a href="http://sunnysidezone.com/track/weightless">pep talk of a title track</a>. "I know this is hard but by holding on you only make it harder," she sings. "So let go, embrace what you are." This broken, vulnerable character is a near-constant presence on the album, sometimes lamenting (<a href="http://sunnysidezone.com/track/no-more">"No More"</a>), sometimes fighting (<a href="http://sunnysidezone.com/track/canyon-dust">"Canyon Dust"</a>). Combined with some choice covers, including a wonderful folksy reinvention of the Smiths' <a href="http://sunnysidezone.com/track/there-is-a-light-that-never-goes-out">"There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,"</a>, Stevens seems to have curated a typical set of confessional, singer-songwriter-y songs.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p>But what makes this album special is the "band" part. Stevens' assertive, passionate vocals are backed by an array of her exotic guitars (like the South American charango on the cover), Liam Robinson's accordion, and a rocking rhythm team of Chris Tordini on bass and Jordan Perlson on drums. The arrangements are rich and intricate, like the 3-part vocal canon on the title track. It's totally hip and worldly, an organically-grown fusion of folk, jazz, and pop. The energy and bounce of the Becca Stevens Band makes this a uniquely irresistible confession. You'll want to start it again the moment it ends.</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>8. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000004505455-u23ggy-original.jpg?a073db2" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000004505455-u23ggy-original.jpg?a073db2" width="320" /></a><span id="goog_798008052"></span><span id="goog_798008053"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a>In an era where reinvention rules music, the greatest risk can be sticking with what you know. It's a risk that 2008's biggest breakout band Fleet Foxes took for their sophomore album and it has paid massive dividends. Their Blue Ridge-via-Seattle sound struck a major chord with digital world-weary fans, particularly in Great Britain, where their debut album went gold. But because of the Pitchfork-induced obsession with an indie band's schtick, another album of homey vocal harmonies may have landed with a thud among cognoscenti.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But Fleet Foxes proved that they were more than up to the challenge with the release of "Helplessness Blues." Instead of abandoning a core band sound and self-consciously experimenting with other forms, lead singer Robin Pecknold and co dove deeper into what they do best, finding new unexplored avenues within the well-hashed over realm of folk rock. Instead of relying on the wall-of-sound harmonies, Pecknold stepped closer to center stage, revealing new expressive shades of his voice. The band expanded simple songs into mini-symphonies with multiple sections, leading listeners through narratives rather than relying on hooks and images. And no band seemed to be more in step with the millennial generation zeitgeist of heading into an unforgiving world after a childhood in Lake Woebegone than the Fleet Foxes on the record's title track.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Pecknold's voice, direct-yet-mysterious lyrics, and the band's rich arrangements come together in full on "The Shrine/An Argument." A first person narrative of jilted love and yearning for peace, the song goes from burbling guitar arpeggios, to thrashing downstrumming, to an angelic a capella chorale, to a free-jazz freakout, ending with a series of plaintive string chords, revealing the many complicated emotions of the song's narrator. Pecknold is at his most affecting here, as his yelping, "Sunshine over me no matter what I do," is positively chill-inducing. "Helplessness Blues" is no rehash of their first album, but an even richer listening experience.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>7. The Claudia Quintet + 1 – What is the Beautiful</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://f0.bcbits.com/z/32/55/3255103574-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://f0.bcbits.com/z/32/55/3255103574-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Beat poetry accompanied by jazz has a much-maligned reputation. It seems terribly self-indulgent for someone to go up on a stage and say whatever and then some musicians play whatever and somehow insist that it's profoundly meaningful and if you don't get it, it's your own fault. There is a bit of truth to this stereotype, but what it really reveals is how hard it is to marry poetry - with its own internal rhythms and sounds - to music, which attempts to impose new rhythms and sounds on top of it. When it works though, it can be really special, like on pianist Fred Hersch's magnum opus jazz oratorio, <i>Leaves of Grass</i>, based on Walt Whitman's poetry.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Drummer John Hollenbeck and vocalist Kurt Elling were on that record, and the two have again teamed up with Mr. Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet (the + 1 being pianist Matt Mitchell) for another successful marriage of poetry and jazz, featuring the work of the under-known Beat forerunner Kenneth Patchen. Elling's garrulous spoken-word baritone shares the vocal duties with the wistful falsetto of Theo Bleckmann. Unavailable for a recording session with the rest of the band, Mr. Elling recorded his readings separately, and Hollenbeck then composed music around it, dressing the alternating jocular and poignant words in lush textures of accordion and bowed vibraphone. Bleckmann performs a more tradition role, singing Hollenbeck's musical settings of Patchen's poetry with pinpoint intonation and aching understatement - the setting of "The Snow is Deep on the Ground" feels so natural as to suggest an otherworldly collaboration between the living composer and deceased poet.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The album's title track features Elling spilling incantations, telling the band to "Pause./And begin again." As the members of band spin layers of lines around Elling, he intones lines of simple idealism:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It would take little to be free.<br />
That no man hate another man,<br />
Because he is black;<br />
Because he is yellow;<br />
Because he is white;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because we are everyman.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The music here is simple, yet unfamiliar. It perks up your attention, but forces you to concentrate on the clear words, making them hit home in new, powerful way.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>6. Wilco – The Whole Love</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVVLbh80HgpSaTFymhrP2KGCD3lF0_ZHTlbDtXn82AvOjGCrcAMMOZkychYLZEcPa7bUqW16TxHfi1D1YRCwWVyGw1ezFrBaBp1Qd_z_dAa0mdna__HjJcXpoKVNCA8Pzhjfxi6lIg310/s1600/cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVVLbh80HgpSaTFymhrP2KGCD3lF0_ZHTlbDtXn82AvOjGCrcAMMOZkychYLZEcPa7bUqW16TxHfi1D1YRCwWVyGw1ezFrBaBp1Qd_z_dAa0mdna__HjJcXpoKVNCA8Pzhjfxi6lIg310/s320/cover.jpg" width="319" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">It's weird that America's consistently-best live rock band is so inscrutable when it heads into the studio. Wilco's art music experimentalists one day, Stax Records nostalgists the next. In their live shows, they somehow make it all work together, but have yet to translate that experience to the studio.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Until now.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At the moment the torrid groove and burbling distortion kick in at the top of "Art of Almost," you know "The Whole Love" isn't a nice little Dad Rock record. The song is all wall of sound and cryptic lyrics, the most "out" Wilco has gone since "Less Than You Think" on 2004's "A Ghost is Born." Even more straight-ahead songs, like the following track "I Might," are filled with edgy and unpredictable sonic touches, creating a sense of nervous vitality.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The album's capstone is the gorgeously languorous final track, "One Sunday Morning." It's a 12-minute meditation on the complicated relationship of a father and son, punctuated by Mikael Jorgenson's liquid piano and a luminous glockenspiel hook. It's that kind of miraculous song that speaks to the darkest parts of the soul and yet seems to pass in an instant. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">"The Whole Love" may not be an epoch-defining record like "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," but it certainly is the first of theirs to encapsulate the whole Wilco.</div>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-34467531913219262512011-12-01T23:21:00.000-08:002011-12-01T23:21:10.379-08:00What I Learned from Paul Motian<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://downbeat.com/images/PaulMotian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="205" src="http://downbeat.com/images/PaulMotian.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul Motian at his favorite spot - the Village Vanguard</td></tr>
</tbody></table>In the weeks since jazz drummer Paul Motian's death on November 22, the response from the online music community has been large, warm and beautiful. On the day of his passing, Motian was trending on twitter in New York. Peter Hum of the Ottawa Citizen compiled a <a href="http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/tag/paul-motian/">comprehensive list</a> of remembrances by fellow musicians. Photographer John Rogers revealed Motian's generous spirit off the bandstand <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2011/11/23/142680423/dinners-and-drum-music-a-friendship-with-paul-motian">in a moving piece at NPR's A Blog Supreme.</a> Nate Chinen's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/arts/music/jazz-records-inspired-by-paul-motian.html?src=tp">New York Times playlist</a> this weekend features all new music that calls Motian to mind. And today, Ethan Iverson has blessed his readers with his own <a href="http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/the-paradox-of-continuity.html">critical-personal appreciation.</a><br />
<br />
So what does that leave me to say you ask?<br />
<br />
Well just that delving into Paul Motian's music my freshman year fundamentally altered how I think about and play the drums.<br />
<br />
You see, up until about December 2008, I was a Drummer. Yes, capital D Drummer. My first drumming inspiration was Buddy Rich. My first instructional video was Dave Weckl's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48_sqifCMeM&feature=related">"Back to Basics"</a> (or, look at that hair!). I was obsessed with technique, spending many hours trying to master the mysterious "secret weapons" of drumming, like the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yNb-kUPwMI">Moeller whip</a> and the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXgSkYsM-d4">push-pull</a>. Speed was the name of the game. My technique intoxication was sort of the drumming equivalent of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ltD21rYWVw">"chicks dig the longball."</a> And when I entered college, let's just say I thought I had some real pop in my sticks.<br />
<br />
I got some real wake-up calls during my first semester of big band rehearsals. I was able to play blazing single stroke rolls around the kit, and so filled up every little space I could with them. Listening back to recordings of myself from that autumn, my drumming sounds leaden and artless (let's not even talk about my time-feel issues). But I couldn't hear that at the time, so when my director told me to dial down the density, I got both angry (why is he getting in my way) and terribly nervous (what <i>is </i>it that I'm doing wrong). My instincts for fixing my problems brought me back to those technique videos and method books, thinking that I just needed more control. Didn't Dave Weckl and Buddy Rich play super dense all the time? Why couldn't I?<br />
<br />
In the end, it wasn't more chops that I needed. It was bigger ears and a new aesthetic. No more Drummer with a capital D. No more secret weapons. Just doing a helluva lot more with a lot less.<br />
<br />
Luckily I had gotten friendly with a junior trumpet player in the band named Harrison. Harrison convinced me to check out my first-ever Free Jazz show, and then started giving me CD recommendations. First: ditch all that Brad Mehldau and Aaron Parks moody piano stuff. Second: DAVE DOUGLAS! Third: did you know that Paul Motian has a ton of sick solo albums?<br />
<br />
I certainly knew who Motian was at that time. I had all the classic Bill Evans recordings from the late '50s and early '60s and had eaten them up when I was learning jazz piano in high school. There was a nice big picture of him in my favorite method book, John Riley's <i>Beyond Bop Drumming</i>. I even had his Bill Evans tribute album, with Bill Frisell, Marc Johnson, and Joe Lovano. Can't say I had listened to it much though. It didn't have all those purdy piano lines that I liked in the Evans originals.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I took Harrison's advice and on the afternoon of December 2, 2008, I checked out three Motian CDs from the music library on campus - the Electric Bebop Band playing <i>Monk and Powell</i>, <i>On Broadway vol. 1</i>, and <i>Story of Maryam</i>. I surreptitiously uploaded them onto my computer that night.<br />
<br />
<i>Story of Maryam</i> was first on my listening list, due to its 4 1/2-star rating, plus editor's pick, on All Music Guide (this was before I had musical opinions, ok?). I finally got around to it that Saturday afternoon, December 6. It was one of the cold, dry December days, the ones of chapped lips and hoodies worn indoors. I put on the album to accompany my Religion class reading.<br />
<br />
I then stopped my Religion class reading.<br />
<br />
The opening track "9x9" shot out of my headphones in a blaze of dual saxophones, shrouded by clouds of distorted guitar, and churned about by the stuttering rumble of shadowy drums and the sky-streaking clash of laser-bright cymbals. The music was deeply mysterious, but not incomprehensible. There was a folkish simplicity to the melody, though abstracted by the free-floating tempo. The rest of the album continued in this mode, bringing me into a reverie of early winters in New England. Which is saying something because I've never experienced them before.<br />
<br />
What shocked me so much about <i>Story of Maryam</i> was how the first regular, insistent groove only arrived 5 minutes from the end of the record. I had just began to experiment with free-tempo playing with Harrison and thought it was just about playing whatever you wanted at any time. Naturally, I found listening to our stuff a bit boring and saw this free-time thing as a brief contrast to more groove-oriented sections. Motian's playing totally changed my preconceptions. Even without regular tempos, the album was full of momentum and expressive contrast. While Motian's playing on "9x9" was aggressively defined, his playing on the ensuing ballad "5 Miles to Wrentham" was spacious and intently patient, drawing attention to the subtlest shadings on his cymbals. Whatever the mood of the piece, Motian's drumming was totally efficient, which is surprising considering how loose it was. The strokes were seemingly random, but by the end, I could tell that they were meticulously placed.<br />
<br />
Meticulous chaos: that's what I learned from Motian that winter, and it's just what I needed to hear at that time.<br />
<br />
As I continued to eat up Motian's discography, I began to incorporate his approach into my playing. I cut down on snare drum chatter, started using fatter sticks, tried to strip down each performance to its bare essentials. After 3 years of this (and the addition of 14 more hours of his music on my hard drive), my drumming is fundamentally changed, yet still far removed from Motian's mysterious meticulousness and sound-so-distinctive-you-can-recognize-him-with-one-stroke.<br />
<br />
Motian's influence on me probably comes through most clearly on a piece and I wrote and recorded this past spring called "Illyria Suite." The opening and concluding sections feature pointillistic, free-time drumming over a folkish tune. Ok, my drum & cymbal sounds are totally different than his, and the piece heads to some very un-Motian places in the middle, but I would not have even been able to conceptually imagine a piece like this before hearing Motian's music.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~klaskey/Spring%20JP/05%20Illyria%20Suite___%20(Take%202).mp3">[Go listen to "Illyria Suite" here!]</a><br />
<br />
Even after his passing, Motian will never cease to inspire my playing. There are always more layers to peal away from each performance. I'm now going to check back on <i>Song of Maryam </i>and see what else I can dig out tonight.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/2gVtHRsFbsE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
See you over the rainbow, Paul.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-83971078767174818412011-10-29T22:26:00.000-07:002011-10-29T22:26:38.932-07:00You Can See That Hot MarimbaNow some visually incriminating evidence of my marimba performance at Princeton last weekend.<div><br />
</div><div>Enjoy the hilarious corrupted tape edits and the stick toss in the last movement.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Thanks to Mike & Katie Laskey for their videotaping and their whoops.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/p7C2y-DQLJY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ma82MLYpws4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/pID4P1CC5Lk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/JDU6g9PibGI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/KehSxiP9fSk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-77433102913873494962011-10-24T21:51:00.000-07:002011-10-24T22:01:42.015-07:00Can't You Hear That Hot MarimbaThe Princeton University Orchestra really let itself go for its first concert this year.<br />
<br />
They programmed a marimba concerto for the <a href="http://www.puorchestra.org/about_repertory.php">first time in its history</a>.<br />
<br />
They had performed a concerto for <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/2005/jun/13/">cello and pizza delivery guy</a>, a concerto for Norwegian Hardanger Fiddle, a concerto for electric guitar, and, for chrissakes, <i>three</i> viola concertos. But never the lowly, schlocky, beautiful marimba.<br />
<br />
I had the pleasure of changing that this past weekend when I performed Ney Rosauro's Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra on Friday and Saturday. For those of you who sadly missed out, you can find compressed, incriminating evidence <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~klaskey/MarimbaFiles/">here.</a><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglw-kTQEBeG1lgA3suMJzTC9XrSFsNVrHqG5ZtKbnq5i0ofDMEPd3SBiDO_93Zd_zbavqe819dfbvTGFtkK5myWmEISnLSwc80HzKVMmBvI4muotI0So68djVYHc892_J-EqwNoJTnOxIt/s1600/marimbasticks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglw-kTQEBeG1lgA3suMJzTC9XrSFsNVrHqG5ZtKbnq5i0ofDMEPd3SBiDO_93Zd_zbavqe819dfbvTGFtkK5myWmEISnLSwc80HzKVMmBvI4muotI0So68djVYHc892_J-EqwNoJTnOxIt/s320/marimbasticks.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before going on, I make the obligatory sign of the<br />
Society of Free Marimbists. Photo by Kaki Elgin.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>It's been a long road for the marimba from novel exotica to concert hall respectability. In fact, the concept of a marimba concerto was nearly killed before anyone heard a note of one.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">“A concertino for marimba and orchestra--at first blush, that might read like a manifestation of the silly season,” wrote New York Times critic Howard Taubman in April 1940. Taubman had just seen the premiere of a marimba concertino by composer Paul Creston, the first major solo work for the instrument. At the time, the marimba was a mere novelty instrument. Taubman’s readers were accustomed to hearing marimbas in vaudevillian acts or from Clair Omar Musser’s 100-person marimba orchestra. The concert hall was hardly a place for such shenanigans.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/uc4yoIwGqOc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But instead of unleashing a barrage of snark, Taubman took Creston’s work seriously. He noted that the marimba “has its limitations as a solo instrument,” but said that the piece may not be the last of its kind, as Creston used the instrument as an effective vehicle for his ideas. With that lukewarm appraisal, the marimba began its slow invasion of the concert hall.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Seven decades later, marimba concertos hardly connote “silly season” when they show up on orchestra programs. There’s still a sense of novelty, but it comes from the newness of the repertoire rather than the instrument’s former associations. While Taubman was right in that Creston’s concertino was not the beginning and<i> </i>end of serious marimba repertoire, it did take quite a few decades for composers to really hear the instrument in a solo capacity.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Taubman was also right about the peculiar limitations of the instrument. Lacking breath or bow, a marimba note’s sustain is limited to reverb of the hall. Planks of wood don’t vibrate particular evenly either, leading to some gnarly overtones when notes are played together. And a performer can only change timbre significantly by picking up a whole new set of mallets. The leading modernist composers that came after Creston prized timbral variety over continuity. The marimba just sounded bland and dopey to them. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the end, marimbists themselves built a repertoire from scratch. In Japan, Keiko Abe commissioned a series of ferocious solo pieces from her composer peers, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kFoFrecFWE">wrote her own aswell</a>. In the United States, an amateur percussionist and aspiring composer Steve Reich got a few marimbas into his downtown New York City loft, and they became a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1AmqzTmKI&feature=related">signature part of his sound world</a>. And in Germany, a transplanted Brazilian percussion student named Ney Rosauro worked through a piece of his own to play on his 1986 masters recital, at least if his broken wrist healed in time.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Rosauro’s wrist did heal, and he premiered the piece with the Manitowoc (base of Wisconsin’s thumb) Symphony in November 1986. Within just a few years, the piece became the marimba’s international calling card. In 1989, Rosauro received a letter from an up and coming Scottish percussion soloist named Evelyn Glennie. Glennie mentioned that she would be coming to Brazil on tour and was looking to play music by Brazilian composers. Rosauro sent her a copy of his marimba concerto and a year later received a letter from the BBC saying that they were planning to record a video of Glennie playing the piece in Brazil. That performance and a later studio recording with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1992 proved to be major hits. The concerto’s catchy melodies and infectious rhythmic drive proved irresistible to audiences around the world. With the Rosauro concerto in hand, Glennie took the music world (including Sesame Street) by storm.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/jVw5KawqUIg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Since 1991, Ney Rosauro’s marimba concerto has been performed well over 1,000 times by students and seasoned pros alike. A YouTube search for “Rosauro Marimba Concerto” nets over 400 videos, 50 more than for “Berg Violin Concerto” or “Philip Glass Violin Concerto,” for comparison. But more importantly, the piece’s success helped convince previously cynical composers of the unique capabilities of the instrument, and also symphony programmers of a marimba concerto’s appeal. The marimba figured heavily in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oPuJu02D4c">Joseph Schwantner’s 1995 percussion concerto</a>, written for the New York Philharmonic’s 150<sup>th</sup> Anniversary. Not to be outdone, the BBC Symphony commissioned a marimba-heavy <i>duo</i> percussion concerto from Stephen McNeff in 2010 for its 80<sup>th</sup> Anniversary.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As ever flashier and more difficult marimba concertos come out each year, one might think that Rosauro’s concerto will lose its place in the percussion repertory. But while styles have changed and techniques have advanced, the concerto’s musical directness presents substantial musical challenges. The rhythm is unrelenting – there are no breaks from grooving hard. The harmonies are unabashedly tonal – it’s impossible to hide missed notes. In the end, the piece asks the performer to do one of the most challenging things of all – play something simple. The soloist has to make the melodies sing without breath, make instrument-spanning runs sound like no effort was involved, and make the audience forget their preconceptions of the concert hall and want to dance.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So the audience at Richardson Auditorium this weekend didn't quite get their groove on, but I would still count this weekend as a great success for the marimba. I got numerous comments from friends and strangers alike, saying how thrilling it was and that they had never heard anything like it before. My hope is that these folks will help fill up Avery Fisher Hall or the Kimmel Center next time a percussion concerto rolls in, making programmers want to add another the year after, and then commission a new one from a badass composer...</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And the world becomes a happier place.</div>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-82032936013060393242011-10-06T08:42:00.000-07:002011-10-06T08:42:10.611-07:00Reich at 75: 18 Takes Off<!--[if !mso]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Perhaps <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i> would have stayed in its oral form if not for the piece’s instant popularity.<span> </span>Its premiere at Town Hall in New York on April 24, 1976 created a critical stir.<span> </span>New York Times critic John Rockwell called it a “remarkable piece of work” and hoped that the premiere recording would the win the piece a larger audience.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn1" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span> </span>Even the so-called “Dean of American Rock Critics,” Robert Christgau, gave the piece a very favorable review, speaking to its genre-transcending potency.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn2" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> While <i>Eighteen</i> was recorded formally in the studio soon after the premiere, Reich’s label at the time, Deutsch Gramophone, sat on the recording and eventually declined to release it.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn3" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> However, Reich eventually got a letter from the German jazz label ECM (who at the time was producing best-selling albums by the likes of Keith Jarrett and Pat Metheny) saying that they wanted to pick up the recording.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn4" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Upon release of the album in 1978, <i>Eighteen</i> received airplay on college and public radio stations alongside avant-rock artists like David Bowie and Brian Eno.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn5" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Within 2 years of release, ECM sold over 100,000 copies of the record.<span> </span>Reich’s music was busting out of downtown New York art galleries and capturing the attention of listeners and fellow musicians throughout the world.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">In the wake of the popular success of <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i>, Reich came across the predicament of other musicians wanting to play his pieces.<span> </span>Because of the particular manner in which <i>Eighteen</i> was written down and learned, the existing parts would make very little sense to any musician who had not learned the piece in Reich’s group.<span> </span>If other musicians wished to perform <i>Eighteen</i>, they had to learn it from scratch by listening to the recording numerous times and then using the familiarity of the piece to decipher the shorthand directions on the written parts.<span> </span>Because the task of learning and rehearsing the piece would take months and was rather unfeasible economically for most professional musicians, only two outside groups took the piece on within the two decades after the original album’s release.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn6" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[6]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> One of the performances, organized by the Amadinda percussion group in Hungary, was recorded live on May 18, 1990 and later released on CD in 2004.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn7" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[7]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Because the group virtually learned the piece by rote over the course of several months, they play it as convincingly as Reich’s band.<span> </span>The performance is louder and more insistent than the original recording.<span> </span>The tempo is a couple of metronome ticks faster and stays ruthlessly consistent throughout the piece, compared to the slight tempo fluctuations that the Reich ensemble settled into.<span> </span>It is clear that the performers in the 1990 recording have physically internalized the piece much in the same way Reich’s musicians did.<span> </span>The subtle differences in performance are due to idiosyncrasies in personal time feel rather than overall familiarity with the piece.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because of the difficulties associated with performing <i>Eighteen</i> as such, a new decipherable score and parts set was necessary in order for the piece to have a life of its own outside the original recording and periodic performances.<span> </span>Luckily, this development would eventually become a reality due to the enduring success of both <i>Eighteen</i> and Reich’s subsequent works.<span> </span>Though <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i> was Reich’s most popular piece to date, it did not turn him into a one-hit wonder.<span> </span>Later pieces like <i>Music for Large Ensemble</i> and <i>Tehillim </i>were also critical successes and helped cement Reich as one of the most well regarded American composers – he was soon receiving many commissions from major performers throughout the United States.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn8" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[8]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span> </span>At that time, Reich’s music was growing more conventional in that it could be (and in some cases had to be) expressed in traditional western notation.<span> </span><i>Tehillim</i>, for instance, features a regular pulse, but near constant time signature shifts.<span> </span>Because of this rhythmic complexity, it could not be taught by rote in the same way as <i>Eighteen</i> and so was written down in a more complete fashion.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn9" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[9]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> In the middle of these developments in the mid-1980s, the British publishing house Boosey and Hawkes began to publish Reich’s music.<span> </span>With its worldwide distribution, Boosey was able to bring Reich’s music to new places and allow different ensembles to learn and perform it.<span> </span>However, even with the backing of one of the world’s largest music publishing firms, it would take the enthusiasm of American PhD student to create a usable score for <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i>. </div><div><br />
</div><div><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->***<i>Next, hear about how Marc Mellits put '18' on paper and how the score changes performances***</i><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <!--[endif]--> <div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> John Rockwell, “The Pop Life,” <i>The New York Times</i>, 17 November 1978, page C12.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Robert Christgau, “American Consumer Guide Reviews: Steve Reich,” http://www.robertchristgau.com/ get_artist.php?name=steve+reich<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Zuckerman Interview with Reich.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[6]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Zuckerman interview with Reich.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[7]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Amadinda & Musicians, <i>Steve Reich: Music for Eighteen Musicians</i>, http://www.amadinda.com/ html/Afelv_10.html<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[8]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The San Francisco Symphony soon commissioned <i>Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards</i>, and Reich later composed popular pieces for the Kronos Quartet (<i>Different Trains</i>) and guitarist Pat Metheny (<i>Electric Counterpoint</i>).<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[9]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Steve Reich, <i>Tehillim</i>, London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1981.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div><!--EndFragment-->Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-32325908468944390652011-10-04T10:01:00.000-07:002011-10-04T10:01:24.528-07:00Reich at 75: People-Programming the Score<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>640</o:Words> <o:Characters>3648</o:Characters> <o:Company>Princeton University</o:Company> <o:Lines>30</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>7</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>4480</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">After completing <i>Music for Mallet Instruments</i>, Reich began work on what would become <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i>, a piece which would consume his compositional energies for the better part of the next three years.<span> </span>In an interview with the British composer Michael Nyman around the time of <i>Eighteen</i>’s premiere in 1976, Reich speaks about how the piece reflects changes in his musical personality.<span> </span>While Reich’s pieces from around the time of “Music as a Gradual Process” were built on impersonal processes (in contrast to the emphasis on personal expression and free improvisation in the downtown New York music of the time), <i>Eighteen </i>is more concerned with expressive effect.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn1" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span>[1]</span></span></a><span> </span>Reich is no longer opposed to using his musical biases to shape the direction of a piece and is less concerned with whether the audience hears the strict processes in it.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn2" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span>[2]</span></span></a> <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i> opens and closes with a series of eleven chords, played in fast quaver pulses by the full ensemble, while the middle sections expand each of the chords into different mini-pieces featuring some of the same rhythmic techniques from <i>Drumming</i> and <i>Music for Mallet Instruments</i>.<span> </span>However, while these processes are simple and certainly audible to a relatively informed listener, they do not draw attention to themselves.<span> </span>The listener is much more drawn in by the hyper-rich instrumental textures and the infectious, nearly tropical, groove.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In order for <i>Eighteen</i> to totally envelop the listener, it must be played with a machine-like consistency.<span> </span>For example, two marimbas play an alternating quaver pulse underneath nearly the entire piece.<span> </span>If one of the players flubs just one beat, the trance-like groove is broken and the piece instantly looses momentum. <span> </span>Despite the performance difficulties, Reich could ensure the piece’s performance quality because he had over the past several years assembled a dedicated group of musicians to play his music with him.<span> </span>While composing <i>Drumming</i> in 1970, soon after a trip to study drumming in Ghana, Reich was introduced to a percussionist named Russell Hartenberger who was also interested in travelling to Africa.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn3" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span>[3]</span></span></a><span> </span>Through his conversations with Reich, Hartenberger was invited to rehearse the incubating <i>Drumming</i> and became the first full-time percussionist in Reich’s ensemble.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn4" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span>[4]</span></span></a><span> </span>To meet the eventual playing demands of <i>Drumming</i> (it requires 9 percussionists), Reich brought in other percussionists, many through James Preiss, a teacher at the Manhattan School of Music.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn5" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span>[5]</span></span></a> As Reich’s reputation grew within the underground New York contemporary music scene, he was able to draft even more players into <i>Steve Reich & Musicians</i>, eventually reaching the core of 17 (plus himself) in the mid 1970s.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn6" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span>[6]</span></span></a><span> </span>Reich notes in a 2002 interview that most the musicians he was working with at the time of <i>Eighteen</i> were still finishing up graduate school, so it was not difficult to bring everyone in for a rehearsal every 2-3 weeks.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn7" name="_ftnref" title="">[7]</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Reich’s working band not only allowed the composer to more tightly control the performance quality of his pieces, it also had a profound effect on Reich’s compositional process as well. <span> </span>In <i>Drumming</i>, for instance, the human phasing techniques had never been employed in any piece of music before and so it required that Reich learn how to do it himself (phasing against a tape loop) and then teach the technique to his players.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn8" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[8]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Notation alone would not have been able to adequately express the sound of the piece.<span> </span>This rote method of learning <i>Drumming</i> carried over to <i>Eighteen</i> as well.<span> </span>Throughout 1974-1976, Reich would work on a particular segment of the piece in his manuscript notebook (see the “pulses” example below), and then would transcribe it out in a shorthand notation on small slips of paper for each player.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn9" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[9]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Most of the details of the piece were worked out during the rehearsals themselves.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn10" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[10]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Russell Hartenberger notes that each part was like a cliffnotes version of the piece, with very personalized directions (i.e. “wait for Jay to sing that pattern, cue Steve.”).<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn11" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[11]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> At each rehearsal, Reich would bring in corrections and take suggestions from the players.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn12" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[12]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> In this way, the composition of the piece and the learning of the piece were one process, much more akin to the members of a rock band composing and learning a song together.<span> </span>In both instances, the piece or song is composed into the muscle memory of the players, making a written score unnecessary.<span> </span></span> <div><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <!--[endif]--> <div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Michael Nyman, “Steve Reich: Interview by Michael Nyman,” <i>Studio International</i>, 1976, no. 192 (November / December): pp. 300-307.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Interview with Russell Hartenberger by Daniel Tones.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[6]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Gabrielle Zuckerman, Interview with Steve Reich, July 2002, http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/ features/interview_reich.html.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[7]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[8]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Hartenberger Interview.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[9]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Steve Reich, <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i>, performance note, London: Boosey & Hawkes, 2000.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[10]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[11]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Hartenberger Interview.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[12]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div><!--EndFragment-->Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-70964310980975343412011-10-03T07:05:00.000-07:002011-10-03T07:05:48.659-07:00Party with SteveSteve Reich is 75 today! (Why is there no Google doodle?) It seems his birthday has been celebrated for a whole year at this point, but why not celebrate for so long if it's an excuse to listen to his music?<br />
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My Reich nerdiness has been well-established on this blog. So it should come as no surprise that there will be much celebration here this week too. Last year, I wrote a paper on <i>Music for 18 Musicians</i> at the Royal College of Music. I talked about the evolution of the piece from its original conception to eventual score to later recordings and how using the score affects performance.<br />
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I'll be posting bits of the essay here each day, so come back to here the story behind this monumental piece of music.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">The music of Steve Reich is simple only in that it can be played in one of two ways: it can be either played well, or, to put it lightly, not so well.<span> </span>The reason for this stark dichotomy in performance quality is due to the peculiar facets of Reich’s music such as the importance of pulse and the relative harmonic stasis.<span> </span>The insistence of his music, particularly in works like <i>Drumming</i> and <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i>, leave almost no room for a performer’s (re)interpretation, resulting in the one good way to play the piece and the many poor ways.<span> </span>What is ironic about this dichotomy is that one would expect that a piece with little room for interpretation to have very detailed written directions about how to perform it: a thick score filled with articulations on each note, and many text directions above the articulations.<span> </span>Instead, many of Reich’s pieces were conceived and first performed without a formal written score.<span> </span>In the case of <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i>, Reich worked on the piece for the better part of three years and little by little taught the piece to the musicians in, for the lack of a better word, his band.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn1" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span> </span>Though the composition was premiered in 1976 and recorded two years later, no full score existed until the year 1997.<span> </span>Instead, Reich’s musicians would perform the piece with maybe a couple of pages of hand-written, taped-up cheat sheets.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn2" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Indeed, the original 1978 recording of <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i> on the ECM label was the piece’s score, as the musicians on it had internalized the music through rote rehearsal and presented what the piece should sound like.<span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal">Now that a full score exists, does using the score to learn the piece affect the performance?<span> </span>And considering the piece was written for a particular group of musicians of particular talents, why would someone go through the trouble of making a formal score?<span> </span>The score for <i>Music for Eighteen Musicians</i> is a product of the piece’s power and success, as many musicians who would want to perform the piece would have previously been unable to unless they learned it from Steve Reich himself or from a devoted regimen of listening to the work. In that way, the score is not all that different than a transcription of a Duke Ellington big band chart: it provides a framework for new musicians to learn the piece, but a faithful and successful recreation must refer to the nuances of the original recorded performances that cannot be adequately expressed with notation. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Much of Steve Reich’s oeuvre can be described as <i>process music</i>, a term he coined in a 1968 manifesto of sorts titled “Music as a Gradual Process.”<span> </span>For Reich, process music is not just about using an impersonal method of determining pitches, rhythms, and other salient musical features, but creating a piece in which the compositional method is actually audible to the listener.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn3" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span> </span>While J.S. Bach’s crab canon in “A Musical Offering,” Milton Babbit’s manipulation of a tone row, and John Cage’s I Ching coin-flipping are all impersonal compositional processes where particular rules dictate the written music rather than composerly taste, no listener can actually recognize these processes while listening to the music.<span> </span>From a cognitive standpoint, these patterns require more computing power to understand than the human brain has.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn4" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Reich’s own music from this time satisfies these stringent requirements, resulting in austere, yet stimulating pieces.<span> </span>Reich’s early tape pieces like <i>It’s Gonna’ Rain</i> and <i>Come Out</i> feature the same short audio clip played at different speeds, creating a spine-tingling build in rhythmic tension.<span> </span><i>Four Organs</i> on the other hand is made up of a single dominant chord played repeatedly for gradually longer amounts of time over a simple maraca pulse.<span> </span>The listening experience can be sublimely trance-inducing or viscerally painful, depending on the listener.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn5" name="_ftnref" title="">[5]<!--[endif]--></a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal">However, Reich’s early music is both potent and memorable, not because the listener recognizes the inner processes in real time, rather because those processes yield novel and arresting sound worlds.<span> </span>In an interview with Jonathan Cott, Reich notes that the first time he created phase shifting (by accident while working on the tape for <i>It’s Gonna’ Rain</i>), he had an intense emotional reaction to the ensuing sound.</div><blockquote>The sensation I had in my head was that the sound moved over to my left ear, moved down to my left shoulder, down my left arm, down my leg, out across the floor to the left, and finally began to reverberate and shake.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn6" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[6]<!--[endif]--></span></span></a></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftn6" name="_ftnref" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Reich’s compositions after “Music as a Gradual Process” were still driven by the development of simple processes, like phase shifting and augmentation, but were much richer sonically.<span> </span>Reich’s phasing magnum opus <i>Drumming</i> from 1971 ends with bongos, marimbas, glockenspiels, piccolo, and voices playing thickly-layered rhythmic canons.<span> </span>1973’s <i>Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ</i> expanded on the sonic palette of <i>Drumming</i>’s finale, replacing the earlier piece’s total harmonic stasis with a series of lush chord sequences that changed at specific points throughout the piece. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>***Next, hear about Reich's compositional process and 18's first performance***</i></div><div><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <!--[endif]--> <div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">K. Robert Schwarz, “Steve Reich: Music as a Gradual Process Part II,” </span><a href="http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublication?journalCode=persnewmusi"><i><span style="font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;">Perspectives of New Music</span></i></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Vol. 20, No. 1/2 (Autumn, 1981 - Summer, 1982), pp. 225-286.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Interview with Russell Hartenberger by Daniel Tones.<span> </span>Percussive Notes August 2007. </span><a href="http://www.danieltones.com/Publications.html"><span style="font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;">http://www.danieltones.com/Publications.html</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><br />
</div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Steve Reich, “Music as a Gradual Process,” in <i>Writings on Music: 1965-2000</i>, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> For example, humans can only carry 7+/- 2 bits of information in their short term memory at a given time.<span> </span>Because a tone row has 12 notes in it, it is impossible for a listener to keep track of all the notes at a given time, and therefore cannot recognize when the pattern is inverted or played around with. In terms of Cage’s processes, a simple experiment regarding predictions of coin flipping performed by Benjamin Cosman illustrates that humans are not good at predicting the behavior of a random event – humans predict more heads and tails run than what actually occur.<span> </span>See <cite><span style="font-style: normal;">www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2006/Projects/J0305.pdf.</span></cite><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> After a performance of the piece with the Boston Symphony in 1971, the divided audience responded with “loud cheers, loud boos, and whistles.”<span> </span>The audience at a later Carnegie Hall performance reacted even more violently, booing during the piece. <span class="citationbook">Strickland, Edward (1993). <i>Minimalism: Origins</i>. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 221.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div id="ftn"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=9193472359499612809#_ftnref" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[6]<!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Interview with Steve Reich by Jonathan Cott, http://www.stevereich.com/articles/ Jonathan_Cott_interview.html<o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div><!--EndFragment--><br />
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</div><div><div id="ftn"> </div></div><!--EndFragment-->Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-8666881141272044552011-08-21T16:02:00.000-07:002011-08-21T17:00:50.816-07:00Music Metadata: Does a Critic Need to Play?<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_987692190">NPR's Patrick </a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/">Jarenwattananon</a> just tweeted out an interesting blog post from Roanna Forman's Boston Jazz Blog. In <a href="http://www.bostonjazzblog.com/2011/08/21/do-jazz-critics-need-to-know-how-to-play-jazz/">this post</a>, she asks an age-old question: does a good music critic <i>need</i> to play music? What's cool about this post though is how she assembles answers from many tip-top jazz critics from <a href="http://thegig.typepad.com/">Nate Chinen</a> of the New York Times to estimable Irish bassist-blogger<a href="http://ronanguil.blogspot.com/"> Ronan Guilfoyle</a> to the ever-acerbic Stanley Crouch (get this man a jazz blog!). There was an array of views on a critic's musical chops, all the way from unnecessary to vital. Yet most of the respondents felt that skill with a musical instrument isn't necessary but can be very helpful. Crouch and Guilfoyle say that it allows the critic to hear more of what's going in real time, while Chinen says that musicians certainly trust critics with a modicum of playing experience more.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I find myself in this middle category as well, with the qualification that being a good musician doesn't </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">mean</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> that one will be a good critic. A good critic of any art form is someone who can make the experience of that art come alive in a tactile way. In the case of a music critic, it's about vividly describing what the music sounds like, </span>chronicling<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> the emotional ups and downs, pulling some semantic meaning out of the experience. A good musician may concentrate so much on the technical aspects of the music that the piece of criticism doesn't really translate any of the actual experience.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I feel this idea of translation is the real crux of a criticism, especially music criticism. Certainly every piece of criticism is going to have a judgment call. But a judgment call alone isn't going to make someone want to go out and hear music or see a play. Instead, it's the promise of a memorable experience. If the only thing the jazz critic could think of was how the sax player did these 4ths-based licks over a tri-tone substitution on the bridge, then it probably wasn't an emotionally powerful experience, which would have shut down the analytical side to his or her brain. An overly-technical piece of criticism is what I would call "Lost in Translation," where the critic certainly an aesthetic experience of a sort, but does not have the command of language to translate that experience to a non-expert.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">[Short Digression: You can see this problem at work a lot in interviews with musicians, regardless of genre. Some great players and singers have a limited vocabulary of expressing their musical views semantically and give stock answers that don't really illuminate anything. <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111712776">Van Morrison is an especially good example</a>.]</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There are problems with too little musical knowledge as well though. The most noticeable aspects of a piece of music are its overall texture and rhythm. A critic who may write well but doesn't know the ins and outs of the music tends to concentrate exclusively on those aspects. With ears like these, Pat Metheny and Kenny G drift into the same category with Yanni and Vangelis. Even if the writing is clever and articulate, this kind of critic isn't much more than a glorified Pandora app.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In the end, a good critic needs to know both sides of the divide - the musician and the listener - and be able to translate so that the listener can really understand what the musicians are getting at, with all its nuance (not to short shrift the musicians' specificity of intent). One certainly does not need to be as good a musician as those playing to comment authoritatively, but one must know what to listen for and playing experience certainly helps in that department. I feel its more about how music the critic has </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">listened</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">to</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> (and of course you listen a lot when you play). Listening to lots of different music teaches one to appreciate tightness of form, novelty of sound, technical mastery, and deftness of touch. The critic needs to know what makes a piece of music great or memorable, which most of the time does not</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> have to do with the technical aspects. It's about recognizing some of the abstract blissfulness of a particular moment and describing it in a way to elicit that same sense of bliss in the reader.</span></span><br />
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You do see a lot of good critics with at least some musical experience. Nate Chinen played drums through college (apparently with my future high school band director at least once). Alex Ross was a dutiful piano student and took music theory with Peter Lieberson at Harvard (Lieberson called Ross's final sonatina project "most interesting and slightly peculiar."). Stanley Crouch is also a drummer, <a href="http://www.randysandke.com/">Randy Sandke</a> is as much a trumpeter as a critic, and<a href="http://jeremydenk.net/blog/"> pianist Jeremy Denk</a> even takes some time out from his busy touring schedule to give the internet some fine and funny insights into the music he plays. I don't think that this musical experience has made these critics insightful and successful (correlation doesn't always mean causation, my dear), but it's this experience that has made these people want to become writers/critics. If you're going to spend a great deal of energy writing about something, you really must love that something (which is likely why you seen so many memoirs on bookshelves). In my experience, I have found that my love for music has come from both listening and performing experiences, a love built of visual, audial, and tactile memory. Reading Alex Ross and listening to <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1953195">Felix Contreras</a> may have made me want to write about art and music in a serious way, but I wouldn't have even gotten to that point if I hadn't fallen in love with music in the first place. In order to love something at that magnitude, you have to spend a lot of time with it and its easy to log a lot of hours in the school band or on the living room piano.<br />
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But while playing takes a back seat for most critics (just think of the time crunch), I still play more than I write. My perspective as a performer has affected my critical occupations in that I am wont to get at the psychology of the performer. I am sensitive to how my state of mind can affect my playing. Pulling up certain images can pull into the musical moment and make me swing harder behind the drum set. When I'm freely improvising, I try to hold one basic musical idea in my head and come back to it at different points, while my subconscious handles the movements from one drum to another. I try to get at this same insight when writing about other musicians. I can usually get a decent idea just by how the musician plays, what decisions he or she makes. For an improvisor, it's the vocabulary and use of space (the motor-mouthed Pat Metheny vs. the restrained and intuitive Bill Frisell). For a classical musician, it's the touch and character of the performance (how much of the performance is practice-room autopilot vs. in the moment risk-taking).<br />
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A good piece of criticism doesn't need to hit on this level, especially from the listener's perspective. But I feel this kind of insight is much appreciated from the musician's standpoint. It doesn't trust translate the music for a lay listener, but brings the listener inside the musician's very world. If the listener can understand the musician, they're much more likely to feel like they understand the music.<br />
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<i>It has been duly noted that this is post is heavy on the masculinity. See Lara Pellegrinelli for many smart words on <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2010/10/29/130915265/the-mosaic-project">gender in jazz.</a></i>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-35074248894066973472011-07-30T20:35:00.000-07:002011-07-30T20:35:55.703-07:00Subterranean Home[sick] VenueI first heard of the club Subterranean A this past January when Darcy James Argue brought his merry band of co-conspirators to Washington DC. It certainly sounded like a hip place. It booked Darcy James Argue for Pete's sake!<br />
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Speaking of Pete, I was out for dinner my first day in DC with my uncle Pete and Aunt Julie when I saw an ad for a jazz show at Subterranean A - the JD Allen trio. JD's a perennial favorite of Patrick J up on the fifth floor, suggesting that this Subterranean A place was really plugged into the NPR tastes. I imagined it being some stone-walled room in a warehouse basement, something like Cafe Oto in London, or the Bell House in Brooklyn. A sort of clean, NPR-style DIY venue with lots of folding chairs. But in the end, Subterranean A was much more plugged into NPR than I realized.<br />
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Sami Yenigun was temping with WATC during my first 3 weeks on the show. That first Saturday, he told the staff that he was having a concert at his house that night. Sounded cool, but I already had those JD Allen tickets. Then Sami said the concert was of a jazz saxophonist named JD Allen. <br />
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So Subterranean A was really just another name for Sami's basement apartment. It suddenly gained a new romanticism. It was close to the chest like a punk rock house party, but with an ethic that put music first, rather than a particular social vibe. How else would you explain JD Allen in June followed by dubstep in July?<br />
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Because Sub A was such a cool place, unique in DC, I decided to sit down with Sami and talk about how he got the idea to host shows at his place and how he actually goes about doing it. You can read the full interview at NPR's intern blog <a href="http://www.npr.org/internedition/sum11/blogs/?p=999">In Addition.</a>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-46312440820249688152011-07-21T21:09:00.000-07:002011-07-22T17:46:05.450-07:00Run From Cover<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sequenza21.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/STEVE-REICH-WTC-9-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="http://www.sequenza21.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/STEVE-REICH-WTC-9-11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This photo has caused more than a dull uproar since its posting Wednesday afternoon. It's a bit of a surprise considering Steve Reich isn't a name that really inspires anger and shame among contemporary music types. It's been 28 years since an audience member reacted to Reich's "Four Organs" with "Stop. Stop. I confess." He's won a Pulitzer, gets birthday concerts at Carnegie Hall, and has become his own adjective (see reviews of Sufjan Stevens and Darcy James Argue for a taste of "Reichian").<br />
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But that didn't stop the torrent of comments, especially from the New York downtown intelligentsia. Composer Phil Kline (whose political music I talked about <a href="http://southofdowntown.blogspot.com/2010/09/musical-dumpster-diving.html">here</a>) lambasted it as "the first truly despicable album cover I've ever seen." Composer Timo Andres didn't pile on the vitriol, but put together a slap-dash <a href="http://www.andres.com/2011/07/21/cover-matters/">alternative cover</a>. Seth Colter Walls of the Village Voice, Huffington Post, et al has a <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2299787/">detailed criticism of the cover on <i>Slate</i>.</a><br />
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It's just all about the cover.<br />
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Call it provocative, exploitative, too soon, disrespectful, what have you. It certainly is all those things to different people. That's the nature of an image that has for better or worse been etched into the American psyche.<br />
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But just to keep things straight, we are talking about an album <i>cover</i>. Not the music. Granted, Walls heard the New York premiere and his criticisms regard the relationship between a powerful, multifaceted, and nuanced piece and a blunt cover that seems to exploit the terrorist attacks of September 11th for monetary gain, or at least for buzz.<br />
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Reich and Nonesuch had to know that this would be the kind of response. Almost 10 years out, 9/11 still seems too soon for reflection or an artistic response beyond mourning. The US is still fighting two wars because of it. And Steve Reich's listeners aren't the Rage Against the Machine types that are used to such visual provocation. I actually feel that Nonesuch execs would likely have preferred something more abstract, or at least something that wasn't as unsubtle as Will Ferrell's dubya impersonations.<br />
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In interviews and press releases about the piece, Reich talks a lot about the personal experience of the day - talking to his daughter and son in law for 6 hours, hoping the phone line in their lower Manhattan apartment wouldn't die. He says 9/11 was not a media day for him and his family. They couldn't get back to their lower Manhattan apartment for several weeks. Certainly the image brings those memories flooding back big time. And that's true for just about every American - we all remember where we were when we heard of the attack.<br />
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And that's the reason why this image is so problematic, and yet I feel it to be vital to the album's importance. Because of the emotional trauma of that day, we all feel we own a bit of that image. That's why we judge its use in this case, as if we took the photo. I'll admit I was a little taken aback when I first saw the image, doing the whole politically correct "Can they do that?" thing. But then I listened to the piece.<br />
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There are a lot of superficial similarities to Reich's class "Different Trains." The same string quartet, the use of prerecorded voices, the exploration of tragedy through the words of eyewitnesses. The piece begins with the pulse of a phone off the hook, joined by a violin, then a second a half step down. The dissonance is grating and makes your hair stand on end. The pulses are joined by the voices of NORAD operators, then police and firefighters on the scene - actual sounds time warped to the present. Like in "Different Trains," these voices become the piece's melodic material, doubled and imitated by the strings. The second movement moves into a more reflective zone, featuring the memories of Reich's friends and neighbors, recounted in 2010. In the third movement, the pulses dissolve into drones, recounting the women who recited psalms over the victims' bodies in tents on the lower east side.<br />
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By that point in the piece, I was a wreck, almost sobbing at my computer. Certainly it had a good deal to do with the images that flashed across the back of my closed eyes - the media images, yes, but also the church service I went to that night, the congregation of candles. I was responding to my memories, yes, but when the music is off, I can pull up those images and keep my composure.<br />
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For me, the most powerful musical experiences are ones that touch on more than basic emotions. But I also believe that sound itself can only communicate so much and it's the listener that brings the powerful meaning to a musical experience. My Dad says that he wells up when he listens to the last movement of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, knowing that this bright and perfect fugue was the end of his symphonic output. I love the piece too, but I don't have the same thought or the same emotional reaction. The inherent abstraction of the symphony allows for a wondrous array of interpretations, but also some emotional experiences that are more potent than others.<br />
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Reich's use of recorded voices, particularly of the first responders, is a blunt expressive gesture. And while the piece ends up exploring other sides of the event, it still boils down to the attack itself and how that instant changed everything. Because the piece's impact is fueled by the specificity of memory, the album cover should reflect that. John Adams' "On The Transmigration of Souls," for instance, was a requiem, and its solemn skyline reflected that. Reich's "WTC 9/11" is the day and its aftermath boiled down to its emotional essence, almost reporter-like in its presentation. The cover reports the pivotal action of the day.<br />
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The emotional directness of the piece and the cover steps close to the line of exploitation in how powerfully it plays with our memory and emotional. But to elicit these emotions is not exploitative in and of itself. It's exploitative when it's used to sell a war or a political campaign. Yeah, a cover is there to sell an album, but Reich has never been one to worry about selling albums (he ran a moving company with Phillip Glass to make ends meet). Instead, appropriating this indelible image for an album cover challenges our emotional and intellectual relationship with the image and with the events of 9/11. Our political correctness monitor responds and we feel that the move is tasteless. But if we recognize that reaction, and give it just a second of reflection, we begin to think about why we feel this way. We think about whether art about a specific event can communicate unaltered truth, or if it's just biased media sensationalism. Our thoughts and memories become more complicated, they keep coming back at different points for days afterward. We're moved to talk about it. Write about it. Argue.<br />
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And that brings us here. Just a simple album cover depicting a single event has made us consider what the meaning of art is in the most abstract sense. In the below video, Reich says that the piece will live on or fade away based on its musical merits alone. He's right.<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_249079003"><br />
</a><br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13318490">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13318490</a><br />
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In the end, the piece doesn't just bring back memories of September 11, 2001 and store them away once it leaves. The music demands that we examine our emotional reaction to it. We can't just get away with cheap catharsis. "WTC 9/11" is a pandora's box that releases our deepest thoughts about how to deal with history and what art means. A cover that has the power to do the same is the right match.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-84525544163416714262011-06-30T19:26:00.000-07:002011-06-30T19:26:30.767-07:00New Jazz in Brief - Ari Hoenig and John Escreet<b>Ari Hoenig - Lines of Oppression</b><br />
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<a href="http://cdn.hmvdigital.ca/static/img/sleeveart/00/011/549/0001154994_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://cdn.hmvdigital.ca/static/img/sleeveart/00/011/549/0001154994_500.jpg" width="200" /></a> At his regular gigs at New York's Smalls Jazz Club, hyperkinetic drummer Ari Hoenig rarely leaves a jaw undropped. His style is unusually intense and extroverted, overflowing with knotty complexity yet weirdly infectious. Over the course of his 15 years in New York, Hoenig has assembled a rotating core of like-minded musicians with a collective vocabulary of endless rhythmic permutations. Hoenig's new album "Lines of Oppression" features a band of young veterans that matches the leader's intensity minute by minute.<br />
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Hoenig's complex rhythmic trademarks jump out from the get go. The opening title track starts as if in a simple 4-4 feel until Hoenig barrels in, revealing that the opening hook was actually in 3. It's a moment both disconcerting and playful, sort of like an over-banked turn on an old wooden roller coaster. The rhythmic surprises only multiply on the following "Arrows and Loops," featuring a treacherous mixed-meter melody and some thrilling dialogue between Hoenig and pianist/beatboxer Tigran Hamasyan.<br />
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The band's uncanny precision in such rough rhythmic terrain certainly elicits more than a few dropped jaws. But the moment of most-sustained jaw droppage isn't in some crazy time signature at a blistering tempo. Midway through the album, Hoenig begins a drum solo with soft mallets on his tom-toms. His run sound eerily melodic, as if he's playing a set of high-pitched timpani. Gradually, Hoenig works his way into the bluesy Bobby Timmons classic "Moanin'," except the kicker here is that he plays the melody on his drums. The melody is unbelievably clear. Hoenig is somehow able to accurately alter the pitch of his toms with his off stick to make a full blues scale. It's so cheeky and slick. Don't even try suppressing a chuckle.<br />
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<b>John Escreet - The Age We Live In</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/coverart/2010/johnescreet_theagewelivein_mt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/coverart/2010/johnescreet_theagewelivein_mt.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a> So the Brits are supposed to use better grammar than Americans? Then why would their top new jazz export end his new album title with a preposition? For shame John Escreet.<br />
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Ok, I keed (and "The Age in Which We Live" is a much worse title). But I guess what I'm trying to say is that this album throws cultural stereotypes out the window.<br />
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The 27-year-old Escreet grew up in Doncaster, England, a pleasant ruralish area in the country's midsection, and studied jazz piano at London's Royal Academy of Music. He has the pedigree of one of those nice <a href="http://www.myspace.com/samcrowe">British jazz boys</a>, but an in-your-face aesthetic that sounds all hard-edge Manhattan.<br />
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Escreet moved to New York after graduating in 2006 and soon fell into the cadre of saxophonist David Binney, holding court at the 55 Bar. "The Age We Live In" is Escreet's second record for Binney's Mythology label and reveals a shared language rather than a master-padawan relationship. Like Binney, Escreet has a penchant for driving rock and funk-related rhythms, snake-like melodies, and the slow build. Binney even co-produced the record and is the lead horn voice throughout. Yet there's never a doubt that Escreet is the leader on this album.<br />
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Escreet's various electronic keyboards are pumped high in the mix and he attacks the keys with intensity in both hands. Compositions like the title track and "The Domino Effect" feed off his energy and his ability to fill space playing two keyboards at once. His chops and aggression can be reminiscent of Cecil Taylor, but Escreet knows the benefit of toning it down too, especially on the valedictory backbeat ballad "Another Life." Sticking mostly to an acoustic grand, Escreet underlays the tune with a patient pulse, letting Binney build his solo to a cathartic climax.<br />
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The rhythm team of drummer Marcus Gilmore and guitarist Wayne Krantz (another long-time Binney associate) lays a rhythmic backdrop that matches the music's edgy character without getting in the way of Escreet's pyrotechnics. Gilmore's drums snap, crackle and pop, driving the music to almost trance-like states. Without a bassist underneath him, Krantz adds biting lead lines, tangling the tunes in roving counterpoint.<br />
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John Escreet is a pianist with high energy and big ideas. But he's also a smart producer and arranger, adding in enough sonic tricks and unexpected detours to hold your attention for a full 54 and a half minutes. I do have a slight quibble with the short intro/interlude/outro tracks - they're cool vamps and all but don't sit long enough and break up the album's continuity. But hey, they only last 90 seconds total, leaving 52 minutes of really good, uncompromising jazz.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-3216169316073945642011-06-16T08:52:00.000-07:002011-06-16T17:36:03.638-07:00Only Human - Chris Dingman's "Waking Dreams"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://fullyaltered.com/fa/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/WakingDreamsCoverHiRes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="http://fullyaltered.com/fa/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/WakingDreamsCoverHiRes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>On the back of the CD case for his album "Waking Dreams," vibraphonist Chris Dingman places his name at the bottom of the personnel list. It's a small gesture, easily overlooked. The eye is instead drawn to this admonition: "Special care was put into making this album an experience. For best results, listen from beginning to end without pause."<br />
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In an age where Shuffle and 99 cent singles have made our ears crave musical variety with a voraciousness traditionally reserved for saturated fats, an album that feeds on sustained attention is anything but conformist. And in a culture where pop stardom is more about selling a personality than selling music, a self-effacing bandleader is downright heretical. Before "Waking Dreams" ever leaves its case, the album announces that its not interested in being cool or popular. It asks the listener to take it as it is and judge the whole self, not a 3 minute first impression. If one is patient and empathetic, one will encounter music that is filled with disarming humanity - messy yet lovable.<br />
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Dingman's humility is confirmed at the outset. There is no declamatory show of four-mallet virtuosity, but rather a plaintive prelude by pianist Fabian Almazan. As Almazan's final notes plink out like wind chimes, Dingman finally enters with bassist Joe Sanders, conjuring a mood of mystery and meditation. Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire soars above the mist in solitude, later joined by Loren Stillman on alto sax. The music floats as a raft lost at sea, occasionally buoyed by Justin Brown's tom-tom waves. When the raft appears to stall hopelessly in doldrums, Sanders and Brown set a new course with a groove funky and fleet. Sax, trumpet, and vibes snake through a slippery melody before launching into a series of solos, one building into the next. Brown's combustible drumming brings the energy to a fever pitch, yet the energy dies away under glacial chords from Dingman's vibes and Ryan Ferreira's guitar.<br />
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While Dingman can't quite escape the inherent coldness of the vibes, his playing reflects a search for new sounds and textures on the instrument. Through a variety of means, he is able to smooth over the vibraphone's jagged edge. He pushes for the illusion of vocalized sustain by striking with extra fat mallets, bowing as if it were a string instrument, setting the electric-vibrato fan on slow. Instead of flinging icicles, he showers a soft layer of snow. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/media/large/4/a/c/4818e0167afdf6272312d2f839dbe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/media/large/4/a/c/4818e0167afdf6272312d2f839dbe.jpg" width="291" /></a></div>Dingman's search for deeper sounds continue to play out over introspective compositions. Whether the rhythms are surging or placid, Dingman and pianist Almazan layer on harmonies that are dark, rich, and ambiguous. All the players are zoned in, relentless in the pursuit of deep questions. This intense focus gets the best of the tunes about two-thirds of the way through the album. The tracks begin to blend together, bogged down by the heavy harmonies. Yet this near-monotony plays an important part in the character of the music. It affirms the music's realness and the complexity of the emotions conveyed. The dullness is conscious, and in some ways audacious move on the part of the musicians. They choose emotional honesty over shallow likability.<br />
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"Waking Dreams," isn't a perfect debut, but it shows a jazz composer who's deeply engaged with the expressive side of his music. The notes on the back of the CD case are born out track by track. You trust Dingman's message, even if it's not always what you want to hear. You trust him enough that you'll certainly pay attention when he's got something new to say.<br />
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<i>Chris Dingman's "Waking Dreams" comes out on his own label, Between Worlds Music, on June 21. He has a CD release show at the Jazz Gallery in New York on Saturday June 18.</i>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-66210343909122932722011-06-02T21:16:00.000-07:002011-06-18T20:27:42.550-07:00New Jazz for You - Tim Berne/Jim Black/Nels Cline, or How to Listen to Free Jazz<div style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://files.myopera.com/mopti95/albums/723349/New%20Photos%20007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://files.myopera.com/mopti95/albums/723349/New%20Photos%20007.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Tim Berne, Jim Black, and Nels Cline are all behemoths of free improvisation. Well, Cline and Berne are at least, standing in 6'4" range. Jim Black is more of a mop-topped hobbit (see right).<br />
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But never mind that. Regardless of height, these three musicians have been true giants in their respective music scenes with instantly-recognizable voices. Multi-saxophonist Berne has been putting out edgy and varied records for almost thirty years, specializing in long form pieces where one is never sure what is composed and what is improvised. Jim Black's spiky-sounding drums propel New York-downtown music of all kinds, whether Berne, Balkan, or Punk-flavored. Cline is seemingly everywhere these days, spreading guitar mayhem with Wilco and his own projects. <br />
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Because the guys are so busy with project upon side-project, getting them together in one room requires nothing less than perfect syzygy. The three did manage to meet up the Stone in New York on July 30, 2009, spewing their improvisational magic over the 80 or so people that can uncomfortably fit into the former corner storefront. It seems a shame that so few would get to experience this gathering of musical titans (and a dwarf), but thankfully the Cryptogramophone label was present to catch it all on some stick of digital memory. The mystic brew was so potent that the label has kept it under wraps since that fateful night nearly two years ago.<br />
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But no longer. "The Veil" is lifted next Tuesday, June 7.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41SjhrBPLzL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41SjhrBPLzL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" /></a></div><br />
So how does it sound, you ask? Well, it sounds just like a Berne, Black or Cline fan would expect, which is just friggin' great. If you are a fan of any of these musicians, you should be anticipating this release like a Belieber on line for "Never Say Never." No need to review any more.<br />
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"But all I've heard of these guys is Nels in Wilco," you say. "What can I get out of this?"<br />
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I'll start by admitting that this album can be quite the head trip for the uninitiated. There are weird sounds, profound dissonances, and nary a repeating hook. But with a bit of direction, anyone new to free improvisation can make his or her way through "The Veil" and actually enjoy it.<br />
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The most important thing is to keep your mind on at all times. Music this abstract invites you to get creative with the sounds you hear. Luckily, the opening track "Railroaded" begins full throttle, giving your adrenaline levels a boost to keep you focused. Jim Black sets the tone with an unrelenting breakbeat while Cline and Berne layer on the noise. Cue in to what Cline is doing. What is that yodeling wah-wah thing? How does he change sounds so quick? Just trying to follow Cline's sound explorations can be a fun challenge.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nelscline.com/images/pedal05a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="136" src="http://www.nelscline.com/images/pedal05a.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nels' infamously powerful effects pedal board</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>After zoning in on the details, take a step back and try listening to how the players respond to each other. Not locked into a strict song form, Black is able to put on the breaks at any moment, and somehow Berne and Cline respond as if it were all planned. After the group has exhausted a particular idea, someone throws in a new sound or new groove or a new parcel of melody. The others' ears perk up and suddenly the trio goes careening into a totally new place. Sometimes an old idea is brought back, like Black's machine gun rim clicks at the end of "Railroaded." It rounds out the form and signals to everyone that we're done here moving on. The destination? The audience sure as hell doesn't know.<br />
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Such close listening can cause a bit of a brain burnout, so after a while, it's kind of nice to chill out a bit and just revel in the sound. After "Railroaded" and the equally rollicking "Impairment Posse," the character shifts into an eerie netherworld. Cline's guitar swells and swallows the space around it, soon followed by creepy digital noises from Black's laptop and screechy multiphonics from Berne's saxophone. This section is called "Momento," perhaps the soundtrack to a creepy thriller by Christopher Nolan in bizarro world. The sound overtakes you. Images flash across your semiconscious mind. A shadowy man surrounded by white light. Doors that open into nothingness. A faint voice emanates behind you. It comes closer. You turn around and...<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Jhx_Z99b0LgRTxecG_6hOxJLOZO400UFPDelG5Ur69CKoWDy-PRz1PGjy_dMXCDpdHHZOcU6MR1Q0tQ6Lw1UmPC5Vbr7RZ8eGiwlgOceX8oZ6ivmvaUj4Eziaxdx4zzFDHMTZVzXBes/s400/IMG_9825_090501.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Jhx_Z99b0LgRTxecG_6hOxJLOZO400UFPDelG5Ur69CKoWDy-PRz1PGjy_dMXCDpdHHZOcU6MR1Q0tQ6Lw1UmPC5Vbr7RZ8eGiwlgOceX8oZ6ivmvaUj4Eziaxdx4zzFDHMTZVzXBes/s320/IMG_9825_090501.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The trio at fever pitch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>A pile of drums falls down the stairs. This racket awakens you from your dream and you find yourself hearing Cline and Black locked in hand to hand rhythmic combat. After 100 seconds of fierce fighting, the two call a draw and lock into a knotty metal hook. Berne drives the ensuing "Barbarella Syndrome," coaxing Black and Cline to new levels of intensity with his abrasive tones. The trio boils over into a rhythmic morass, yet the temperature continues to rise. Black then lets loose a positively headbanging tribal beat. The music threatens to overflow the speakers, yet you want it to keep going, so locked into that groove.<br />
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Then suddenly Cline and Black stop short, throwing Berne off a cliff. The saxophonist is alone, attempting to fly just that much further to reach terra firma in the next section. Does he make it? Does the epic saga of improvisation continue? Well wouldn't you like to know.<br />
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Ok, ok, ok. So I know some of that description sounds a little bit ridiculous. I'm not trying to say that Berne, Black, and Cline have a definite narrative in their music, but rather that an engaged listener can bring a lot of cool experiences to abstract music that make it all come alive. Perhaps the creepy sounds of "Momento" make you think of an alien abduction rather than a surreal thriller. Perhaps Black's slippery drumming makes you think of collages by Kurt Schwitters in how he takes short snippets of different grooves and rearranges them in a nonsensical order.<br />
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Either way, I invite you to check out this brilliant and visceral music and find your own way through it. For those of you who can't wait until next Tuesday, check out the video from last fall's Angel City Jazz Fest in LA.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/fFXOiAUYyVk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-29479779719486126422011-05-17T12:29:00.000-07:002011-05-17T12:29:14.344-07:00More of my MusicIf you enjoyed "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child," check out my first orchestral piece, <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eklaskey/MUS%20323/Back%20Brook.mp3">"Back Brook."</a><br />
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It's <i>really</i> slow and full of gooey textures. The title comes from this little creek behind my elementary school whose actual name was Back Brook. Because, you know, it was out back. Behind the school. I have fond memories looking for bugs and plants and stuff there. It held a sort of mystical quality for me because even though it was very shallow, you were never allowed to cross it. I have yet to travel to the far bank, though I'm pretty sure it just leads to the soccer fields by the middle school.<br />
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Definitely leave comments on the piece below!Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193472359499612809.post-79654414756394057392011-05-13T22:24:00.000-07:002011-05-13T22:24:59.473-07:00Music at the Edge of Intellect - Eldar Djangirov and Vijay Iyer at the McCarter TheaterI just strolled back up campus from the aforementioned show in a pretty good mood. Vijay and his trio (with Tyshawn Sorey sitting in for Marcus Gilmore on drums) had a very satisfying set. It was full of rhythmic playfulness, the kind where you bob your head to some undiscernible underlying pulse. Moods swung from meditative and brooding to blissfully cathartic. Iyer, Sorey and bassist Stephen Crumb are on another plane musically. They privileged the audience with a brief look into their rhythmic wonderland.<br />
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So, um, what did I think of Eldar's opening set?<br />
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How can I put this lightly...<br />
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The old folks behind me seemed to enjoy it a lot :)<br />
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I on the other hand had a bit more difficulty. As a preface for what is to come, I was enamored by Eldar last time I saw him. I was sixteen going on seventeen. Naive, timid, and scared was I, though with budding jazz chops. He just played so fast and in 7 and I just thought, "Wow he's only 19! This is so nuts." I of course sheepishly got an autograph afterward and awkwardly commented on his stuff in 7.<br />
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<a href="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y95/pauldoyle/my%20album%202/EldarDjangirov-Eldar-2004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y95/pauldoyle/my%20album%202/EldarDjangirov-Eldar-2004.jpg" width="320" /></a>The first instinct that a lot of my friends and I have about Eldar is that his virtuosity is just a novelty. It's impressive, a good bit of showmanship, and the audience usually responds as such (tonight was no exception). But even as a stingy, artsy music snob, I usually react well to good showmanship. Jazz has been filled with expert showmen like Oscar Peterson, Buddy Rich, Dizzy Gillespie, and Papa Jo Jones (please comment with anyone I left out), dating all the way back to Louis Armstrong. The inimitable Roots (they're a jazz band in my book) continue this tradition every night on Jimmy Fallon's show. But tonight, I didn't get any feeling of showmanship from Eldar. His virtuosity is eerily unselfconscious. I feel that what he played tonight is his own honest music. Yet after all of his hyperactivity and machine gun phrasing, I was left cold, dozing off in the heat of battle.<br />
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As I walked back tonight, I thought about the reason for this disconnect. I'm not usually the one coming out of a concert thinking I just didn't get it. This was a really weird feeling. After a good ponder, I feel Eldar's music is something like jazz with Asperger's (ok, I did think of jaszperger's, but that seems like unfair cheap shot). The virtuosity and ease of his playing is savant-like, seemingly beyond what any other human can do. However, the music lacks the nuance that makes emotional expression and recognition possible. It all comes off as a rote exercise in musical recall.<br />
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Eldar's so-cerebral-it's-scary music is an interesting foil for Vijay and his trio. Iyer is potentially the sharpest guy in the jazz world, or at least the most over-educated (BA in physics and math from Yale, MS/PhD from Cal Berkeley. Really says a lot coming from me huh. Ba dum crash.) Annnnnnyway...<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/photos/2009/vijayiyer_4_jk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/photos/2009/vijayiyer_4_jk.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So what's going through Mr. Iyer's big brain? Does it really matter?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>I'm just saying that one would think Iyer's music would be the one that suffers from intellectual incomprehensibility, rather than Eldar's. His music can be pretty heady, like the third tune from tonight's show, called "Cardio." It starts off in this really fast 3+4 pattern that feels like it's in 2 but with beats of slightly different lengths. Then they layer groups of 5 and 6 beats on top of it. Sounds like a rhythmic morass, doesn't it?<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://jazztimes.com/images/content/articles/0001/3739/200803_078_span9.jpg?1230018675" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="http://jazztimes.com/images/content/articles/0001/3739/200803_078_span9.jpg?1230018675" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The big guy with the little drum set</td></tr>
</tbody></table>But to be totally honest, I wasn't really paying attention to all that rhythmic stuff. I only figured it out after talking to the trio in the lobby. In the moment, I was dialed into the slippery groove. The piece built up gradually, gathering tension as notes flew by in ever-denser clusters. And suddenly, Tyshawn burst the musical knot open with a thundering cymbal crash followed by a riveting drum solo. The piece's complex mathematical time signature wasn't what made it engaging. Instead I like to think the performance was great <i>despite</i> the complex clave. Vijay, Stephen, and Tyshawn are so secure in their rhythmic feel that they can play the piece with total commitment, nuance, and flexibility. In the end, "Cardio" and the rest of the trio's set brimmed with vital communicative power. Call it passion, call it soul, call it whatever you want. You just know it when you hear it and when you hear it, it feels pretty good.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09727703243946774420noreply@blogger.com1