Archive: March, 2007

akisakila

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

AKISAKILA (Japan PA 3004-5)

Cecil Taylor / piano, Jimmy Lyons / alto saxophone, Andrew Cyrille / drums.
Recorded: May 22, 1973 in concert in Tokyo.

Akisakila is the only currently available recording by the Cecil Taylor Unit that captures something of the essence of the trio’s music as it is now being performed live. The essence, it seems to me, is this: Taylor’s music has less to do with the presentation of a particular piece of music (though there are certainly identifiable compositional interests) than it does with the total re-creation/transformation of the sound environment of the listener.

(more…)

bells | Comments (0) | 331 Views

cecil taylor | performance of october 1 - 13, 1974 at keystone korner, san francisco

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

PERFORMANCE OF OCTOBER 1 – 13, 1974 at Keystone Korner, San Francisco

Cecil Taylor / piano, voice, Jimmy Lyons / alto saxophone, Andrew Cyrille / drums.

“It’s not about notes anymore. It’s about feelings!” - Albert Ayler *3)

ART an attempt to unlearn what has been learned, to release the Spirit from un reasoned/un “known” social restraints. What is called “voluntary”. Fixed time/rhythm/harmony/melody as the least suspect agents of internal (SELF) control. Emotion. Cultural Repression Of The West. Taylor’s music a conscious transcendent force - return the mind to the body (“Creating Music as sound within the whole body”).

(more…)

bells | Comments (0) | 276 Views

cecil taylor in paris

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

CECIL TAYLOR (Japan BYG YX 4003-4)

Cecil Taylor / piano, Jimmy Lyons / alto saxophone, Alan Silva / bass, Andrew Cyrille / drums.

Side One: “Student Studies” (part 1) (15′56″), Side Two: “Student Studies” (part 2) (10′54″), Side Three: “Amplitude” (19′49″). Side Four: “Niggll Feuiglu” (11′58″).

Recorded: November 30, 1966 in performance, Paris.

Recorded nearly two months later than Conquistador (Blue Note 84237), almost six months later than Unit Structures (Blue Note 84260), this is both an extension and fuller realisation of the convergence of Taylor’s compositional and improvisational concerns. “Student Studies” and “Amplitude” (which were most likely played together, without interruption) are highly organized pieces, maybe more so than any of the Blue Note tracks, but are looser in execution. In addition, the organization, such as it is, is an all-pervading one rather than (as on the Blue Note LP’s) mainly “sectional” in conception.

(more…)

bells | Comments (0) | 363 Views

in transition

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

IN TRANSITION (Blue Note LA 458 H2)

Sides 1 & 2: Cecil Taylor / piano, Steve Lacy / soprano saxophone, Buell Neidlinger / bass, Dennis Charles / drums.
Recorded: December 10, 1955, Boston.

Sides 3 & 4: Cecil Taylor / piano, Ted Curson / trumpet, Bill Barron / tenor saxophone, Chris White / bass, Rudy Collins / drums.
Recorded: April 15, 1959, New York City.

New releases by Cecil Taylor, recorded a month ago or, as one of these recordings was, twenty years ago, are always events of great musical significance. This 1955 session is a particularly important one. It is Taylor’s first recording date and, perhaps more than on any other of his early LP’s, he defines the vocabulary, shape, and direction of his music. If his roots are clearly Monkish, he is already well beyond Monk, adding to the latter’s range of expression a greater density, darker tone colors and, above all, a greater rhythmic/harmonic flexibility; Easy to see how an early critic of this music, Gunther Schuller, might have focused particularly on the music’s expanded harmonic horizons, seeing it “as working primarily with the outer reaches of tonality” and even bordering on “atonality.”

(more…)

bells | Comments (0) | 283 Views

code carnival

Monday, March 19th, 2007

Artistically speaking, Norbert Stein has found a place in the sun: he is one of the happy few in German jazz to have created a sonically distinctive concept of his own. Whether or not the style called “Patamusic” hails from Alfred Jary’s “Pataphysik” (as Stein himself will jokingly concede), or from any other school, is immaterial. The name attached to sound-driven art is always arbitrary, a useful analogy upon which musical logic cannot be built.

Tags such as “hymn-melody” or “narrative melody” may do greater justice to the essence of the form, but sound long-winded and are no match for the pithy “Patamusic”. The same applies to the sound itself: Patamusic, played by a trio, as here in an octet, or by a big band, is instantly recognizable, unshakeable in its identity and never hampered by format.

A few years ago, in a quartet line-up, Norbert Stein brought the jazziest rendition of Patamusic to the provincial stage. Its studio production remains eagerly awaited. Which encourages me to go one further: Patamusic is Norbert Stein and Nobert Stein is Patamusic, if only because its repertory is out of bounds to its exponents, who are called upon to interpret, and not to compose. Patamusic stays the same, what changes is presentation, or, more plainly speaking, the line-up. “Liquid Bird”, for example, appears here for the fourth time since 1993, and still sounds different. “Monks” is here for the second time, leaving us wondering about the absence of the much-loved “Atonal Citizen”.

(more…)

Monks ( saxsolo ) [1:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
Monks ( theme ) [1:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
Bersten in Rot ( bursting in red ) [1:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
Ballade von/of Zounds ! und/and Pox ! [1:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
Raga vom einfachen Leben ( raga of an ordinary life ) [1:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

reviews | Comments (0) | 342 Views

pata java

Monday, March 19th, 2007

PATA JAVA the CD documents the unique collaboration which evolved between Norbert Stein’s Pata Masters from Cologne and “Kua Etnika”, a group of Gamelan musicians from Yogyakarta, led by Djaduk Ferianto. PATA JAVA is a successful experiment in connecting different musical personalities, forms and sounds. In their head-on encounter, Pata Masters and Kua Etnika go beyond simply exchanging or synthesising forms to achieve innovative compositions in which two modes of musical expression meet and interact, sometimes exchanging roles, but always finding themselves again. This is a meeting of cultures which is immediate, intense and sincere.

(more…)

Sing a pure song ( theme ) [0:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
Sing a pure song ( gamelan ) [0:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
Jiwa ( intro ) [0:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
Jiwa ( flute soloing ) [0:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
Speak yomm ( saxophone soloing & vocals ) [1:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
Sound Theartre of Tukang Pijat [1:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

reviews | Comments (0) | 423 Views

graffiti suite

Monday, March 19th, 2007

Graffiti Suite - Norbert Stein Pata Music, played by NDR Bigband. A technique partially employed by Norbert Stein in his various hybrid productions, notably those with Brazilian bands and Indonesian Gamelan ensembles, is applied in Graffiti Suite in its purest form: graphic pata-compositions for improvising orchestra.

This new approach to Pata music, which uses elaborate graphic symbols to generate orchestral events and guide complex musical sequences, was developed by Stein in his many years of work with improvising ensembles.

(more…)

reviews | Comments (0) | 452 Views

pharoah sanders | performance of march 26, 1974 at keystone korner, san francisco

Sunday, March 18th, 2007

PERFORMANCE OF MARCH 26, 1974 at Keystone Korner, San Francisco

Pharoah Sanders / tenor saxophone, percussion, Leon Thomas /vocals, percussion, Joseph Bonner / piano, percussion, Juney Booth / bass, percussion, Michael “Thabo” Carvin / drums, Babatunde / conga drums, and an additional percussionist added for second set.

Pharoah Sanders brought his partly interesting and increasingly predictable music to San Francisco’s Keystone Korner for a two-week engagement in late March and early April. The impression conveyed on opening night - more than ever before - was that Pharoah’s music is at a real aesthetic crossroads. His music must either expand its source of energy and direction or cease to be a real aesthetic force at all.

(more…)

naima [7:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

bells | Comments (0) | 458 Views