HurdAudio Rotation: Letting Go

Interplay: Apology to the Atonists/Tritone Suite. 1990, 2006. Porter Records: 4009.

Elliott Levin: poetry, flutes, saxophones

Rick Iannacone: guitars, electronics

Keno Speller: flute, vocals, percussion

Ron Howerton: cuica, percussion

Ed Watkins: percussion

The extended, improvisation driven Tritone Suite is the focus of this collection. Taking up all but the opening five minute Apology to the Atonists. The two performances separated by sixteen years retain a remarkable continuity. With Levin's poetry drifting well out of the foreground it occupied in the shorter work and allowing for the free form materials to evolve along more abstract lines. The longer movements of the Tritone Suite develop along remarkable lines and are the most interesting of the set. While the percussion heavy sound does meander a little bit, the performance as a whole holds together even as it drifts into some decidedly psychedelic territory. This disc did not leave a particularly deep impression on its first time through the rotation. But on this return listen I'm finding plenty to like about this music.

Mark Helias' Open Loose: Atomic Clock. 2006. Radio Legs Music: RL 012.

Tom Rainey: drums, percussion

Tony Malaby: tenor saxophone

Mark Helias: bass

guest Ellery Eskelin: tenor saxophone

There's a lot going on with this incredibly solid free jazz outing from Mark Helias' Open Loose. First off, it's a saxophone trio with the bassist leading the group. Giving this music a slightly different focus even as Tony Malaby's chops and improvisations are focal points at many times along this recording. But the pulse and compositional force of this trio is clearly with the bassist. There is also the often remarked upon (in this blog) "Tom Rainey effect." The two laws of the "Tom Rainey effect" are 1) there are no bad recordings with Tom Rainey, and 2) Tom Rainey makes every group exceed expectations (which are already high, it is Tom Rainey in the group after all). The Tom Rainey effect is in full force on this set. The fact that the guest tenor saxophone for one of these tracks is Ellery Eskelin (one of the best, in my opinion) indicates what kind of talent pool Mark Helias is swimming in. All of this quality shows up on Atomic Clock. But the real gem of this listening experience is the original compositions that Helias brings to the set. Many of these pieces practically beg to be interpreted many different ways. Leaving me wondering of any attentive ears have caught on to a track like "Chavez" or "Momentum Interrupted" and felt the tug to realize their own performance of this music. I'm contemplating working up a piano interpretation of "Chavez" myself.

John Cage: In a Landscape. 1994. Catalyst: 09026-61980-2.

Stephen Drury: piano, toy piano, prepared piano, electronics, organ

In a Landscape (1948)

Music for Marcel Duchamp (1947)

Souvenir (1983)

A Valentine Out of Season (1944)

Suite for Toy Piano (1948)

Bacchanale (1938)

Prelude for Meditation (1944)

Dream (1948)

At some point the music of In a Landscape entered into my bloodstream. It became a deeply familiar piano work from an earlier Cage obsession. Stephen Drury gives this tranquil work an exquisite interpretation. One that reaches the through the veins and arteries to find the pulsating heart of the music. A similar quality found in all of the performances on this disc. Some of them are familiar works. Some of them are revelations. I was less familiar with Souvenir - a solo organ piece of haunting, introspective beauty that traces a continuous line between the serene pieces of John Cage in the 1930s and 1940s and into the 1980s. Also remarkable is how the temporal distance between the Bacchanale and Prelude for Meditation is surprisingly small. That the alluded act of wild abandon and meditative contemplation both reference the same qualities of letting one's self go. All told, this is a fantastic set of keyboard works given just the right balance of discipline, dedication and love that allows this music to resonate.

HurdAudio Rotation: Resonant Spirits

Albert Ayler: Holy Ghost [disc 2]. 2004. Revenant Records: 213.

Albert Ayler Trio, June 14, 1964 @ The Cellar Cafe, New York City
Albert Ayler: tenor saxophone
Gary Peacock: bass
Sunny Murray: drums

Albert Ayler Quartet, September 3, 1964 @ Cafe Montmartre, Copenhagen, Denmark
Albert Ayler: tenor saxophone
Don Cherry: cornet
Gary Peacock: bass
Sunny Murray: drums

Burton Greene Quintet, February 1966 @ Slugs', New York City
Burton Greene: piano
Albert Ayler: tenor saxophone
Frank Smith: tenor saxohpone
Steve Tintweiss: bass
Rashid Ali: drums

This disc appeals to both the archivist and the mind hungry to hear how these musicians played together back at a time when Albert Ayler was still birthing his music. The multiple takes on "Spirits" and "Children" gives an invaluable glimpse into how these tunes evolved in his personal repertoire while the roughness of the recordings leave equal traces of regret that the session wasn't better engineered and gratitude that this documentation exists at all.

Arnold Dreyblatt: Resonant Relations. 2008. Cantaloupe Music: CA 21046.

Resonant Relations
performed by the Crash Ensemble
Susan Doyle: flutes
Roderick O'Keeffe: trombone
Deirdre Moynihan: violin
Lisa Grosman: viola
Kate Ellis: cello
Malachy Robinson: bass
David Adams: harpsichord, keyboards
Steve Kelly: percussion

Twentyfive Chords In Twentyfive In Ninety Four Variations
Arnold Dreyblatt: miniature princess pianoforte, excited strings bass
Konrad Sprenger: sinewaves

A welcome chance to revisit one of the highlights of the Bang on a Can marathon concert a couple of years back as the Crash Ensemble delivers a crisp interpretation of the obsessively driven Resonant Relations. Blocks of repetitive textures spun from an ensemble that has been re-tuned to realize this work. There is little to no transition as parts follow one another in a succession of episodic moments. The ear is invited into its teaming sonic undercurrent but not forcefully so. Twentyfive Chords In Twentyfive In Ninety Four Variations steps back into sparse textures that expose an even further methodical obsession. Music that is both exquisitely beautiful and painfully sterile at the same time. Irresistible and cold. Familiar and alien.

John Cage: The Freeman Etudes. 1995. Newport Classic: 85616/2.

Janos Negyesy: violin

Solo violin writing that stretches the boundaries of what is possible - both through notation and virtuosic playing. Occupying more than two hours without recourse to narrative form. Each moment falling within an even tapestry of indeterminately generated fragility. Layered over the top of this singular instrument scratching and plucking my ears begin to impose human cries and expressive gestures of solitude. The sound of honesty within a seemingly rigid aesthetic of a music free from want and desire. The interpretation offered by Negyesy is polished and relaxed despite the prolonged (and often severe) demands the score places upon the performer.

Indestructible Frailty

Modern Masters @ An Die Musik, Baltimore, MD
Friday, March 6, 2009

Carrie Rose: flute, movement, voice
Christie Finn: soprano voice
Sylvia Smith: percussion, piano, voice

In Hours Like These by Stuart Saunders Smith
Books of Flutes by Stuart Saunders Smith
Family Portraits: Delbert by Stuart Saunders Smith
Rose: by Stuart Saunders Smith
The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs by John Cage
Nowth Upon Nacht by John Cage
A Flower by John Cage
The Year Begins To Be Ripe by John Cage
High Flyer by Robert Erickson
Mureau by John Cage

Through exposed words - often teetering between meaning and sound - and the unassuming expression of humanity in the music of Smith, Cage and Erickson unfolded through a sequence of quiet pieces that hovered within an imagined stillness. A stillness that the city of Baltimore appeared determined to bend toward its own character through an unusually intense barrage of urban noise filtering into the isolated space of An Die Musik. Persistent pounding, guttural engines bereft of mufflers, wailing sirens and passing helicopters attempted to intrude into these unassuming soundscapes. And each was in turn absorbed into the stillness and Cage-like acceptance of all sounds regardless of intent. Expression of honest frailty at ease within a world of forces and powers.

In Hours Like These began the evening with a soft setting of Vladimir Mayakovsky's suicide note. A poem of painful solitude set to voice and orchestral bells that expresses loss and peace through subtle intensity. From this opening the evening took turns toward and away from voice and instrument as a carriers of concrete meaning.

The four John Cage songs were performed as a single set for voice and piano as percussion instrument. Sylvia Smith lightly tapping the closed instrument - or violently slamming it shut at the onset of Nowth Upon Nacht - as Cage's witty settings of James Joyce and Henry David Thoreau drew sounds and ideas from the voice with light recourse to extended technique. Chirstie Finn's intonation was remarkable through these pieces.

Carrie Rose presented passionate interpretations of solo flute compositions. Book of Flutes featured carefully selected excerpts from a larger set of writings by Stuart Smith Smith while Robert Erickson's High Flyer deftly worked in spoken and whipsered consonants and vowel sounds as a ripple of voice-like sounds within the flute textures.

HurdAudio Rotation: Filing Under not THERE

John Cage: Freeman Etudes. 1995. Newport Classic: 85616/2.

Janos Negyesy: violin

Nothing compliments a warm evening with the windows open like solo violin music mingling with the calm breeze. With John Cage the music often resembles nature itself as he plumbs a beauty of wild, abandoned spaces. The first two books of the Freeman Etudes are performed on this double-CD as Janos Negyesy deftly navigates a work that is both difficult and tranquil. The aleatoric details of this music are subsumed by a larger frame of time and soloist. The allure of this sound is found in actively listening without preconceptions about form and melody in much the same way one admires the stark horizons in an unpopulated and unfamiliar landscape, or the star-filled night sky that was in fact the generative source material for this piece.

Tim Berne/Science Friction: Mind Over Friction (collection, the): A re-issue of the classic Science Friction Live and Studio Recordings. 2006. Screwgun Records: SC 700018.

Tim Berne: alto saxophone
Tom Rainey: drums
Craig Taborn: rhodes electric piano, laptop, virtual organ
Marc Ducret: electric guitar, acoustic guitar

Expansive, free-wheeling music that could almost be described as "progressive jazz" if it didn't completely blur the unsteady lines that divide (and conquer) genres. Even the text in the packaging includes a "file under: not THERE" as a self-aware comment on the music found on these three discs. And this is music to submerge one's ears with the generous helpings of Science Friction's rough edges and twisting forms. This excellent quartet sustains long periods of intense creative playing into something defiantly consistent and beautiful through washes of odd transitions, angular melodic lines and mixed meters. It's a good place to start for the ear not yet initiated to the Berne sound.

Brian Auger: Planet Earth Calling. 1981 - re-released in 1987. Garland: GRZ010.

Studio recording with various combinations of the following:
Brian Auger: hammond organ, yamaha CP 70B, electric grand piano, prophet 5 synthesizer, rhodes electric piano, acoustic piano, miniMoog, cabasa, gogo bells, freeman string dymphoniser, tambourine, vocals, cowbell
Ho Young Kim: guitar
George Doering: guitar
Dave McDaniels: electric bass
Dave Crigger: drums
Steve Evans: electric bass
Tom Donlinger: drums
Terry Baker: drums
Michael Barsimanto: drums
Alex Ligertwood: vocals

This is the third spin through the rotation for this disc and I've expressed disappointment each time. There is some good in this music. The band is excellent. And a number of the Brian Auger solos do in fact "rock." The sadness comes as the whole thing careens into the nausea of something between smooth jazz and disco. Too gentle and unchallenging on the ears to allow the rockin' musicianship to redeem the experience.

Variously Indeterminate

Relache with special guests The Zs @ the Sanctuary in the Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA
Sunday, September 23, 2007

Living Room Music by John Cage
December 1952 by Earle Brown
Ryoanji by John Cage
Grete by Christian Wolff
-intermission-
4 Systems by Earle Brown (performed by The Zs)
December 1952 by Earle Brown (performed by Relache with The Zs)

Relache opened up their 2007/2008 season with a program featuring three-quarters of the "New York School" as sonic arguments for compositional indeterminacy unfolded beautifully before the frescoes, saints and virgin Mary found within the old Church of the Evangelist sanctuary within the Fleisher Art Memorial. The faithful, focused interpretations of this music found a receptive congregation within the narrow sanctuary space that proved to be an ideal acoustic match for the warm, detached sonorities of this strain of American music.

Living Room Music is a pulsating work that makes use of found objects, voices and flute to create an inviting, playful sound. The soft texture of slapped knees, newspapers, plastic containers over whistles and spoken variations upon the phrase "once upon a time" shimmered with an unpretentious joy that set the tone for the afternoon concert.

December 1952 is one of the great graphic scores by Earle Brown that blurs the line between improvisation and indeterminacy as the wide range of interpretive freedoms extended toward the performers is counterbalanced by the singular shared focus upon the visual elements of the score. The spirited interpretation offered by Relache was a tantalizingly brief glimpse of the sonic beauty such an ensemble can coax from the sparse dashes and lines found upon a sheet of paper. The second performance of this same piece - this time augmented by the Zs - was an even more stunning sonic postcard.

Ryoanji was performed by Lloyd Shorter on oboe, Chris Hanning on percussion and three recordings of oboe with the playback controlled by other members of the Relache ensemble. Shorter performed his part from the back of the sanctuary while the other parts emanated from the front. The spatial elements of this piece offset the narrow timbral range of this haunting work. John Cage is such an endless source of amazing, beautiful music. I'm stunned at how often I'm struck by his ideas and how deeply his music affects me. This is a particularly beautiful piece that I was not yet familiar with.

Grete is a new work by Christian Wolff that was specifically commissioned by the Relache ensemble. As the final surviving member of the "New York School," Wolff is still composing new works that make use of indeterminacy. This particular performance was the highlight of the afternoon as Relache took advantage of the range of choices left to them by the composer to fashion a varied, multi-movement interpretation from the raw compositional materials as they applied a refined sense of balance and form. They also made good use of their ears as they reinforced the interdependence of the individual parts. This was a beautiful, joyous sonority that blossomed from the seeds of Living Room Music.

The Zs are a cross-over oddity with boundless potential. It's rare when a single ensemble can offer a credible conduit between chamber music and rock. The four members perform while facing each other within a tight square formation. Ben Greenberg's unamplified electric guitar was a particularly nice touch for their quiet interpretation of 4 Systems. The photocopies of the altered Earle Brown score left on the seats during intermission was suggestive of the band art found on fliers and posters stapled to telephone poles. This meshed well with the overall theme of unpretentious regard for art and found objects.