Archive: August, 2007

j.a. deane | conducts

Sunday, August 26th, 2007

An Interview with J.A.Deane by R D Armstrong

Armstrong: Which came first, the interest in exploring sound & tone, or the love of music ? Describe the evolution from one to the other.

Deane: The love of music came first in my life, ever since I was in grade school. My father was a musician, and had a “dance band” before he went into the service. When I was a kid, he taught me drumming, and got me very interested in New Orleans style jazz as well as big band music. He was the person who got me interested in playing the trombone as my main instrument. I had a very traditional music education, but from the beginning there was an awareness and an interest in improvisation as an important component in the creation of music.

The first experience that I can remember that really had a profound effect on my concept of music and started me on the journey into the exploration of sound and tone happened when I was maybe in the 6th or 7th grade. For some reason, one year at Disneyland in Los Angeles, they had a big band week, and all the bands played - Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Harry James, Buddy Rich - and most of them were playing in “tomorrowland” (perfect really), in open-air settings. Well, my father took me to see the bands (on a school night even), and I remember walking from where Buddy Rich was playing, over to hear Count Basie, and at a certain distance I was able to hear the music coming from all of the bands. I just stopped in my tracks and listened. Something about the sound of all of these ensembles mixing together in the air really had an effect on what the definition of “music” was to my ears. That experience has stayed with me to this day.

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welcome to the future | J.A.DEANE | Rod Harrison - voices [13:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

artist portrait | Comments (3) | 600 Views

todd moore | the rat’s blood had glued my hand shut

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

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poetry | Comments (0) | 266 Views

todd moore | outlaw

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

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poetry | Comments (1) | 1,099 Views

dorothy terry | anthracite night

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

Today’s Poetry Dispatch is about mining–appropriately enough, given that old truism about poetry as daily news. Today’s poem is also about mining poetry, about the persistence of some poets given the bedrock reality of just who gets a good poem published these days, not to mention how and where. My point being, today’s dispatch is about a lot more than the poem itself–as excellent a poem as “Anthracite Night” is.

If there were any justice in this publishing world, “Anthracite Night” would appear in any number of major literary magazines—including Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, or any of the distinguished publications coming out of the South. But there is no justice, as anyone who’s been in this game long enough knows. There’s talent, there’s connections, and there’s just plain luck. And for many who spend a lifetime writing, honing their art, submitting their work to all the right publications only to be ignored or dismissed …well, as Dorothy says: “I do not have that much time left…”

Dorothy in some ways qualifies as “a poet’s poet.” Her work does not always come easy at first sight. You have to be drawn into her poems. Live there a while. Savor her lines, her choice of words, the bright glitter of the living thing demanding the heart and mind’s attention .

I was proud to include her great tribute and ‘study’ (in poems) of T.S. Eliot (THE FANTASTICAL TRAVELS OF TSE) which appears in the new Cross+Roads Press anthology of works in progress, OTHER VOICES. It was a bold venture/adventure that few practicing (determined) poets would make—recreate a time and a poet in one’s own vision. But Dorothy Terry continues to do this, the unexpected—risk everything for the sake of her art. And these are the writers who matter, sometimes pounding on doors to be heard till the silence is so overwhelming they set the poem free to land wherever it may. –Norbert Blei

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poetry | Comments (0) | 313 Views

todd moore | road testing the kid

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

DREAMING OF BILLY THE KID is one of those things that just happened. It was an unplanned book, a dream aberration, a wild adoration, a fire in the ice that hypnotized me all the way to the veins. It began as an essay. Then it morphed into a hyper essay. Then it went from there to super discussion with my alternative self. And, finally it just became something I couldn’t resist.

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poetry | Comments (0) | 432 Views

henry kuntz | on music critism

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

On Music Criticism
[Henry Kuntz photo made by his brother Paul]

In this interview with writer and radio impresario Bob Ness, I had the opportunity to reflect on the publishing of BELLS and on the nature of music criticism. The interview took place in Berkeley, California in November 1976.

BOB NESS: WHY WAS “BELLS” STARTED?

Henry Kuntz: BELLS was started in 1973 out of a frustration with what was being written about, because it seemed to me that most of what was being focused on in the Seventies was music that was already pretty old, and that most people writing about it were writing as if it were still ten years ago. So there was little recognition of what were current developments in the music.

Part of the reason for this, I guess, was that in the Sixties there was a great deal of consciousness developed about the music being black music, and that was all well and good and as it should have been, but it didn’t prepare people for what started to happen in the Seventies, which was that white European musicians started to make contributions to the music and in some cases to go beyond what was being done in America. And so a lot of the reason BELLS was started was to deal with that music and with any music that was important that other people weren’t dealing with.

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bells | Comments (0) | 337 Views

an open-ended review/overview by henry kuntz

Monday, August 20th, 2007

THE ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO
PERFORMANCE OF JUNE 14, 1976 AT KEYSTONE KORNER, SAN FRANCISCO and JUNE 19, 1976 AT THE RAINBOW SIGN, BERKELEY (SET ONE)

Roscoe Mitchell / reeds, flute, etc., Lester Bowie / trumpet, flugelhorn, Joseph Jarman / reeds, vibraphone, percussion, Malachi Favors / bass, percussion, Don Moye / drums, percussion.

THE FRANK LOWE QUARTET

PERFORMANCE OF JUNE 13, 1976 AT THE SOUTH BERKELEY COMMUNITY CHURCH, BERKELEY

Frank Lowe/tenor saxophone,Butch Morris/cornet, Wilbur Morris/bass, and drummer (name unknown).

ANTHONY BRAXTON
CREATIVE ORCHESTRA MUSIC 1976 Arista 4080
Anthony Braxton/reeds, flute, compositions, Orchestra/Leo Smith, Dave Holland, Phillip Wilson, Kenny Wheeler, Barry Altschul, Karl Berger, George Lewis, Richard Abrams, Frederick Rzewski, Roscoe Mitchell, Richard Teitelbaum.

DEREK BAILEY - EVAN PARKER

THE LONDON CONCERT Incus 16

Derek Bailey / guitar, Evan Parker / tenor and soprano saxophones.
Recorded: February 14, 1975.

BALANCE

Incus 11

Ian Brighton / guitar, Radu Malfatti / trombone, Phillip Wachsman / violin, Frank Perry / percussion, Colin Wood / cello (two tracks).
Recorded: September 10, 11, 1973.

TEATIME

Incus 15

Gary Todd / tenor saxophone (side 2 only), Dave Soloman / percussion, John Russell / guitars, Nigel Coombes / violin and low-grade electronics, Steve Beresford / piano and toys. Recorded: August 1974, April 1975.

HANS REICHEL

WICHLINGHAUSER BLUES

FMP 0150

Hans Reichel / homemade 11-string guitar (with 3 pick-ups).
Recorded: April till June 1973.

BONOBO

FMP 0280

Hans Reichel / 12-string electric stick guitar.
Recorded: October 1975.

EUGENE CHADBOURNE:

VOLUME ONE: SOLO ACOUSTIC GUITAR

Parachute P-OOl

Eugene Chadbourne / 6 & 12-string guitars, prepared fretless 12-string guitar.
Recorded: November 12, 13, 1975.

Through its short history, jazz has been a music based more on exploration within prevailing forms than on formal exploration as such. Certain forms (bop, swing, “New Orleans” style) define whole periods of the music; and although the linear view of jazz history that stems from this type of categorization is not entirely correct, it seems true to say that the majority of musicians playing at any particular time worked within generally acknowledged and accepted structural frameworks. How else explain, for example, the widespread resistance to bop which was nothing other than a formal differentiation and advance?

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bells | Comments (0) | 455 Views