Archive: August, 2007

john gruntfest

Sunday, August 19th, 2007

John Gruntfest Photo: Mark Weber

PERFORMANCE OF MARCH 24, 1979 AT THE METROPOLITAN ARTS CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO

The Free Music Festival Orchestra under the direction of John Gruntfest/conductor, composer, alto saxophone; plus 23 saxophones, 4 clarinets, 4 trombones, 3 trumpets, 2 flutes, 1 oboe, sackbut, and tuba.

PERFORMANCE OF AUGUST 10, 11, 1979 AT WOODY WOODMAN’S FINGER PALACE, BERKELEY

John Gruntfest / solo alto saxophone, voice, dance, percussion, etc., and in combination with various other musicians (mentioned below).

I AM THE MONSTER OF GOD
I AM THE BEAST WITH TWO HEARTS

There was a natural elegance and a ritual eloquence that marked these events, a breadth and clarity of vision, and a simultaneous grandeur and simplicity. The performances were a summation of sorts for John Gruntfest, the musical and spiritual essence of the direction his work has been moving in for any number of years now and each, in its own way, a completely definitive statement of that.

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bells | Comments (0) | 385 Views

todd moore | gary goude | blood on blood

Sunday, August 19th, 2007

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Todd Moore - Resurrection - Dillinger - CD One [12:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
Todd Moore - Resurrection - Dillinger - CD Two [12:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

podcast, poetry | Comments (0) | 509 Views

greg goodman | evan parker

Saturday, August 18th, 2007

A SIMILAR REVIEW The Beak Doctor 1

Greg Goodman / piano.
Recorded: August 6, 1973 at Woody Woodman’s Finger Palace, Berkeley.

ABRACADABRA The Beak Doctor 2

Greg Goodman / piano, Evan Parker / tenor saxophone.
Recorded: November 1 & 2, 1978 at Woody Woodman’s Finger Palace, Berkeley.

Goodman’s approach stems rather clearly from the directions laid down by Cecil Taylor. But his own voice, or the outlines of same, are likewise distinguishable on these two LPs. From Taylor comes the percussiveness, the tendency toward a certain forward thrust, and an already full-blown harmonic language. But the way Goodman uses these is somewhat different and, in truth, there is a pull, an inner tugging, that wants to propel the music somewhere else (someplace it has moved in the time since these recordings), and to allow more in, so that the whole can be more jagged, more wide-ranging - rhythmically, timbrally, harmonically - and thus more discontinuous overall. You can hear this in Greg’s use of the pedal, which seems constantly to want to suspend everything, yet not so much to round it off as to (possibly) cancel it out, and in the way his hands want to pull apart from each other. There’s similarly his work inside and extraneous to the piano, which clearly suggests his wanting to transcend that inherently tempered and distinctly western sound of his instrument.

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bells | Comments (0) | 1 Views

the rova saxophone quartet

Friday, August 17th, 2007

CINEMA ROVATE Metalanguage 101

THE REMOVAL OF SECRECY Metalanguage 106

DAREDEVILS Metalanguage 105

John Raskin, Larry Ochs Andrew Voigt, Bruce Ackley / various saxophones, clarinets, flute, Daredevils only: Henry Kaiser / electric and acoustic guitars.
Recorded: 101: July 25 & August 2, 1978; 106: February 12, 1979; 105: March 11, 1979.

ROVA’s playing has been treated favorably in a number of publications, and the praise is well deserved. Their richness of sound, unique compositional stylings, and generally just their success in dealing with the saxophone quartet genre are self-evident on hearing them. Yet the group’s importance may mainly be the extent to which it has been able to synthesize various technical and conceptual options. So it’s considerably less involved with the extensions of language as such than with the integration of language already formed into workable formal wholes.

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bells | Comments (0) | 271 Views

toshinori kondo

Thursday, August 16th, 2007

FUIGO FROM A DIFFERENT DIMENSION Bellows 001

Toshinori Kondo / trumpet, alto horn (and mutes).
Recorded: March 15, 16, & 25, and May 24, 1979.

Kondo has recorded previously with Milford Graves, Derek Bailey, Henry Kaiser, and with a Japanese group that he co-led, Evolution Ensemble Unity, but this is his most impressive recording yet. His playing, however, would seem to owe more to the work of certain trombonists - Paul Rutherford comes to mind – than to other trumpet players. His almost sole connection to the trumpet tradition (in jazz) is that he too, like Armstrong and all of the best players after him, makes use of any number of unorthodox blowing and breathing techniques to advance his aesthetic conception.

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bells | Comments (0) | 250 Views

henry kaiser

Thursday, August 16th, 2007

PROTOCOL Metalanguage 102
Henry Kaiser / electric guitar, Andrea Centazzo / percussion (side 2), Toshinori Kondo / trumpet and alto horn (side 1).
Recorded: November 27 & December 11, 1978.

This is Henry Kaiser’s third album under his own name, and his playing continues to expand and unfold in ways suggested before - that is, texturally interwoven and highly elastic lines laced with a heavy out-of-phase vibrato and a generally dry percussiveness. His work has a good deal to do with Derek Bailey’s, but the feeling, rhythm, and sound are different (that heavy metal quality of his tone, for example), and he takes Bailey’s vocabulary and concept as already given. As evidenced by the side with Centazzo, his playing can be particularly dense, erupting into larger, more electronically dominant sound areas (different from Bailey’s work which has tended to be shaped by more strictly acoustical considerations). Kaiser’s playing and presence dominate both sides of this LP, simply because his conception is larger than either of his colleagues (and can be) because it is bounded by fewer technical restrictions - which is to say that he is capable of playing more across a wider range of options.

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bells | Comments (1) | 268 Views

mark weber | bygone tumbleweeds, tarnation of smoke

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

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walking the rails [1:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
of electric guitars and guns and wildwood flower [6:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
John Fahey's last bottle [3:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup
autumn going away [3:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

podcast, poetry | Comments (0) | 299 Views

interview with members of “trans”

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

TRANS | Davey Williams and LaDonna Smith. Photo by Alice Faye Love

This interview took place in Berkeley on August 3, 1978. It was conducted, transcribed and edited by Henry Kuntz, with final alterations made by “Trans.”

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bells | Comments (0) | 224 Views