Ned Rorem/Leon Kirchner-DAY MUSIC/SONATA CONCERTANTE (Desto) 1973

Ned Rorem/Leon Kirchner-Day Music/Sonata Concertante (Played by Jaime and Ruth Laredo) (Desto) 1973
From the back cover notes (enclosed):

Day Music (1971) is only my third work to feature solo violin (the others are an early Sonata, 1948, and Water Music in 1966), for I feel less at home with it than with the other strings. As chance would have it, the night I finished Day Music I received another commission for a violin & Piano piece. I eventually composed it on a similar pattern, and, naturally, called it Night Music.

Night Music and Day Music are complementary only in their names; actually one goes on where the other leaves off. Though each is an autonomous set of eight etudes, the sixteen pieces may be played together in sequence (a 50 minute proposition), or separately, according to a program's need.
As in classical sonatas, the piano should be no less evident than the violin. These are duets of unified contrast, like grand opera duets.

The titles of Day Music's eight sections are:

Wedges and Doubles (referring to the expanding opening violin figure, and to the variations thereon)
Pearls
Extreme Leisure (subtitled "The Gallows Revisited" which, like Ravel's Le Gibet, exploits an endlessly reiterated note)
Bats (they would be appropriate for Night Music too, wouldn't they?)
Billet Doux
Another Ground (actually an ostinato)
Yellows (...are flashes of sharp hurting light)
A Game of Chess Four Centuries Ago (so called because the two instruments play against each other: the piano introspective and careful, the violin impulsive and nervous. They are affectionate rivals whose game ultimately resolves into thin air.)
-Ned Rorem

Leon Kirchner's Sonata Concertante For Violin and Piano, commissioned by the Fromm Foundation, was first performed by Tossy Spivakovsky, violinist, with the composer at the piano on November 30, 1952, at Carnegie Hall.
The work is in one movement with all the material closely interrelated, in fact, the end is almost identical to the opening. It is in four principal sections: a rapid ALLECRO and PRESTO, then an ADAGIO molto, in which a variant of the lyrical melody from the first is played quietly by the muted violin, a section follows called GRAZIOSO which leads into a MARCATO finale of strong rhythmic impact.

Kirchner uses some 12-tone devices, but never strictly- the harmonic texture remains tonal despite all the apparent dissonance and atonality. The principal tonalities are D and E with the latter emphasized several times in a passage of rising triads, and, at the close, which is in D, the note E is significantly added.
-author uncredited

Side R:

Ned Rorem-Day Music (1971)

a1- Wedges and Doubles (3:59)
a2- Pearls (1:39)
a3- Extreme Leisure (subtitled "The Gallows Revisited") (4:50)
a4- Bats (1:44)
a5- Billet Doux (:56)
a6- Another Ground (3:08)
a7- Yellows (1:03)
a8- A Game of Chess Four Centuries Ago (7:22)

Side K:

b1- Leon Kirchner-Sonata Concertante (ca.1952) (19:49)

Jaime Laredo-Violin
Ruth Laredo-Piano






















(1) or (1)

George Antheil/Henry Cowell/Leo Ornstein - THE BAD BOYS! (Hat Now) 1994

The Bad Boys! George Antheil, Henry Cowell, Leo Ornstein - Steffen Schleiermacher, piano
Hat Now 1994

Today is the 10th anniversary of the passing away of Leo Ornstein at the astonishing age of 109 years.

Notes from the booklet (enclosed):


It is Antheil- Futurist, Vorticist, self-made enfant terrible of the 1920's avant-garde who provides a name for this collection of piano works by three independently minded American composers. Indeed, Antheil wrote an autobiography at the age of 35, Bad Boy Of Music, that stands as the classical music world's equivalent to Charles Mingus's Beneath The Underdog, for sheer audacity and self-mythologization. "...I reached in under my left armpit in approved American gangster fashion," he writes of an early Eastern European performance, "and produced my ugly little automatic. Without a further word I placed it on the front desk of my Steinway and proceeded with my concert. Every note was heard, and, in a sense, I suppose I opened up the way in Hungary for modern music of a non-Bartok-Kodaly variety."
Antheil's most important work, both as a self-promoter and as a composer took shape in Europe (Berlin and Paris, especially) during the early 1920's. Travelling there in search of a lost blonde love named Anne Williams, he started playing piano professionally and soon became one of the first American students of Nadia Boulanger. Like much of the French avant-garde - Jean Cocteau, Darius Milhaud, Igor Stravinsky, Antheil's music fell under the influence of jazz, and the works presented here (both composed in 1922 or 1923) explicitly refer to that preoccupation. In 1927, impressed by the rhythmic complexity of Antheil's music, Pound wrote Antheil and the Treatise on Harmony, a book that harmony should be thought of primarily as a rhythmic, rather than a tonal, concern.
Back in the U.S in the 1930s, Antheil turned his attention to opera and Hollywood film music, but these solo piano works and his performances of them had polarized and galvanized fans. "Riots came to be the order of the day at my concerts," he recounts in Bad Boy Of Music, "because I was one of the few pianists of that period always to end a concert with a modern group, preferably of the most 'ultra' order. In fact, I invariably closed with a piece of my own, the "Mechanisms,' the 'Jazz Sonata,' 'Fireworks and the Profane Waltzers,' "Sonata Sauvage,' or something equally cacophonous. I also played works of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Milhaud, Auric, Honegger, Ornstein."

The fiery ultramodern pianist Leo Ornstein was born in Russia, , in 1892, and came to the States at age nine. Better-known to many as a player than a composer (converse of Antheil), Ornstein too loved bombastic, mechanistic rhythms and was was also influenced by jazz. His own reportedly wild and outlandish performances of "Danse Sauvage," written in 1915, earned him intense notoriety, as did a 1914 London recital of his own work that he announced as "futuristic music." Hailed by some as the leading Futurist musician, Ornstein's piano music predates Antheil's by a decade- "Suicide in an Airplane" was composed in 1913; " Impressions de Notre-Dame" in 1914- and is contemporaneous with the earliest works represented here by that other piano ultramodernist, Henry Cowell.

The centerpiece of this collection is a set of short, brilliant studies by thai baddest boy- if also the most genteel- of the three, Henry Cowell. Born in 1897, raised in San Francisco, and always a West Coaster at heart, Cowell began his influential reconsideration of the piano as an instrument when he was literally but a boy. At age 13 he composed "Adventures in Harmony," which used his newly-coined term, "tone clusters." Later Bela Bartok would write to him asking for permission for the use of his "clusters.") This piece, like many of his later works, also made use of innovative techniques such as striking the keyboard with fists, forearms, and elbows, and in 1914 he demonstrated his new technique of placing objects directly onto the strings of a piano for what must have been a completely bemused Aan Francisco Musical Society.
(...) The compilation of Cowell's piano on Bad Boys, selected and stunningly rendered by Steffen Schleiermacher, ranges in date from the early 1910's ("The Tides of Manaunaun," "Anger Dance,") to the late 1920s ("The Banshee," "Tiger"). On one hand, these compositions set a course for composers such as Cage and Nancarrow (whose piano-roll pieces bring to fruition the call for mechanization of the Futurists, first heard in Ornstein and Antheil). On the other they predict many piano developments specific to improvised music, from the energetic deployment of clusters characteristic of Cecil Taylor to the internal surgery carried out on pianos by Nick Couldry, Carlo Inderhees, and Denman Maroney. In fact, Cowell clearly had improvisation in mind with many of his extended techniques. For instance, instructions at the top of the score for "Aeolian Harp" (1923) read: "Lento.In improvisatory style."
(...) Taken together with these historically important and musically rewarding pieces by Antheil and Ornstein, Cowell's piano music looks to the future we currently occupy,. A crucial link between Scriabin and Sun Ra, his wide-eared musical mind drew on music from all over the world, particularly classical musics of China, India, and Japan, which he is said to have known far better than he did the standard Western classical repertoire.
(...) these early piano pieces are startling reminders of his singular and motivational place in the front ranks of the avant-garde.
John Corbett, Chicago, June 1994 (thanks to David Grubbs for historical assistance).

The Bad Boys! Henry Cowell, George Antheil, Leo Ornstein

Henry Cowell (1897-1965):

Three Irish Legends:
1-The Tides Of Manaunaun 1912
2-The Hero Sun 1922
3-The Voice Of Lir 1920

4-Aeolian Harp 1923
5-Banshee 1925
6-Anger Dance 1914
7-Dynamic Motion 1913

Five Encores To Dynamic Motion:
8-What's This 1913
8-Amiable Conversation 1917
10-Advertisement 1914/59
11-Antimony 1914
12-Time Table 1914/15

13-Tiger 1928

George Antheil (1900-1959):

Second Sonata ("The Airplane Sonata") 1922
14-First Movement
15-Second Movement

Sonata Sauvage 1922/23
16-First Movement
17-Second Movement
18-Third Movement

19-Jazz Sonata 1922

Leo Ornstein (1892-2002):

20-Suicide In An Airplane ca.1915
21-Impressions De Notre-Dame (Op.16 No.1 ca.1915)
22-Impressions De Notre-Dame (Op.16 No.2 ca.1815)
23-Wild Men's Dance (Op.13 No.2 ca.1914)

Steffen Schleiermacher - Piano























(1) or (1)

Toru Takemitsu- KEYBOARD WORKS PLAYED BY ROGER WOODWARD (Decca/Head) 1974

Toru Takemitsu-VARIOUS KEYBOARD WORKS (Decca/Head) 1974

Today is the 16th anniversary of the passing of Toru Takemitsu at the age of 65 years,4 months.

notes excerpted from the insert (enclosed):
"In a positive sense, for me the activity of composing consists in creating an environment where sounds can meet dramatically". To the listener educated in western music, this statement may not seem ti apply to many of his works: such an aura of quiet concentration and almost motionless development does not easily strike us as dramatic. Takemitsu's concept of drama is different from outs- nearer perhaps to that of the Japanese classical Noh theatre than to any western form. Sounds in his music are not pitted against one another: they flow freely, creating new relationships at every instant, each one individually alive. The dramatic movement is interior,: a search inside each sound for new relationships, new currents, new freedoms-Dominic Gill

Some words from the composer:

"To make the void of silence live is to make live the infinity of sounds. Sound and silence are equal. But this conception cannot work without extracting to the fullest the expressive potential of a musical sound or phrase which then will become an abstract, anonymous entity, freely offered to the executant. The virtuoso of the shakuhachi dreams of a perfect, sublime sound. Like that of the wind in the bamboos, and in that is the full expression of a belief in Japanese music. The inner complexities of a natural sound are akin tho nothingness."

"The heart of the many processes in composition is, in my view, only the first stage. I don't want to resolve this fruitful contradiction. on the contrary, I want to make the two blocks fight each other. In this way I avoid isolating myself from the tradition while advancing into the future with each new work. I would like to achieve a sound as intense as silence"...
The Works:

Corona (London Version) is the realization made by Roger Woodward in London of Takemitsu's graphic score Corona for pianist(s) (1962). Corona is the most freely conceived of all Takemitsu's keyboard works. The score is not traditionally notated, but consists of five differently colored circles containing instructions and symbols which may be fitted together or overlapped into any combination to provide the basis of the composition, which is then elaborated by the performer. Each of the five circles concerns a different aspect (or parameter) of the music: articulation, vibration, intonation, expression, conversation. The realization may be worked out (as here) in detail before the performance, or it may be improvised, but whatever the method chosen, each realization, and thus each performance, will be unique. The result is music of great freedom and individuality, whose basic aspects are nonetheless prescribed by the composer with precision and clarity.
Any number of pianists may, in theory, take part. In this realization, Woodward has combined the sound of three keyboard instruments: piano, harpsichord and organ, by means of over-dubbing techniques, and has borrowed pitch-material from other Takemitsu works.

For Away (1973) is a "personal gift" to Roger Woodward, and at the same time an "expression of extolment and offering to the Galaxy of Life- a galaxy that is not the sole domain of mankind". The predominant mood, brought about by a subtle combination of percussive and free-flowing, liquid gesture, ifs one of quiet elation.

Piano Distance (1961) is a sharp-edged, highly contrasted study in piano sonority. The "title has no particular meaning".

The trio of lyrical compositions based on a poem by Shuzo Takiguchi, Undisturbed Rest (1952) is the earliest of the Takemitsu works on this record- "....a dream of western music", haunted by echoes of Scriabin, Debussy and Ravel.

























Toru Takemitsu- VARIOUS KEYBOARD WORKS (Decca/Head) 1974

Side One:

a1- Corona (London Version)

Side Two:

b1- For Away
b2- Piano Distance
b3- Undisturbed Rest
I- Slowly sadly as if to converse
II- Quietly and with cruel reverberation
III- A song of love

(1)

David Murray-INTERBOOGIEOLOGY (Black Saint) 1978

Today is David Murray's 57th Birthday.

This album was recorded in 1978, when he was only 23 years old. It has all the qualities of his early work- The adventurous soloing, the compositions falling somewhere between the smoke-and-grit "down-home"ness of Charles Mingus and the abstract, seemingly familiar folkyness of Albert Ayler.
Murray's solos easily slip back and forth between bluesy lyricism and rhythm and blues gutbucket honks and more abstract multiphonic growls and squeals. Murray has never had trouble jumping from one register to another with great authority ( thus the many comparisons with Eric Dolphy and Albert Ayler in these early years), and most of his solos are made of contrasts of these varied elements, rather than on any kind of dramatic continuity or building of structures based on motivic materials, whether melodic, harmonic, timbral, or any other kind of "systematic" approach. He seems to simply play what sounds good to him.
The compositions are varied, from the Dark-hued 60's-style swing of Butch Morris' Namthini's Shadow through the laid-back ballad Home to the straight ahead bop of Morris' Blues For David and ending with the Bossa Nova of (the only song on the album) Interboogieology.
Once the heads have been played, The approach is evidently one of almost complete freedom throughout, with all of the musicians permitted to contribute as and when they wish. Though there is generally delineation of a primary soloist at any given moment, everybody solos pretty much all the time- or more precisely- whenever they want; commenting on and clarifying or re-directing the thrust of one another's ideas.
Oliver Johnson always sounds great no matter who he plays with and his loose, swinging style is nicely supported here by Johnny Dyani's low, driving pedal tones and strummed chords, and contrasted by his short, ataccato outbursts of flurries of high notes. (The similarities between Dyani's and Murrays multi-faceted approach to register and timbre can be heard especially clearly in the duet "Home".)
Butch Morris has a vocal tone which blends well with Marta Contreras' vocals in the lower registers and his exploration of small motifs and their timbral permutations (Morris uses his mutes to excellent effect) punctuates the music nicely, and induces the other musicians to frequent comments. In the higher register, Contreras vocals are inextricably melded with Murrays upper register squeals, and she uses her voice purely as an instrument, preferring to blend with the horns rather than to contrast them. Her reedy, almost nasal tone is unique and adds unexpected color to the two pieces on which she appears.
-Dr I
























David Murray - Interboogieology

Side One:

1- Namthini's Shadow (Morris)
2- Home (duet) (Murray)

Side Two:

3- Blues For David (Morris)
4- Interboogieology (Murray)

David Murray- Tenor Saxophone
Lawrence "Butch" Morris- Cornet
Johnny Dyani- Bass
Oliver Johnson- Drums
Marta Contreras- Voice (tracks 1 and 4)

Listen to this record LOUD! If you can't hear the 'count-in' to "Blues For David" you should turn it up.

(1) or (1)

Massacre-KILLING TIME (OAO-Celluloid) 1981

Massacre - Killing Time (OAO/Celluloid) 1981

Today is Fred Frith's 63rd Birthday.

Album cover has no notes to speak of. This info from wiki:

Guitarist Fred Frith, who was a co-founder of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow, moved to New York City in 1979 after Henry Cow split up. There he met and began performing with bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Fred Maher, both of the jazz ensemble Material. In 1980, when Peter Blegvad was looking for an opening band for his Valentine’s day concert at Soundscape in New York, Frith volunteered and invited Laswell and Maher to join him as a power trio they called Massacre. The band was well received and soon began performing at venues all over New York City.

Massacre was a high-energy experimental rock band, manipulating rhythm and timbre freely. They intended to recapture the raw energy of early rock and roll, adding elements of improvisational jazz. Frith told Down Beat magazine in 1982 (after Massacre had split up):
“Massacre was formed to play the kind of loud and energetic racket that you hear in clubs. The group was a direct response to New York. [It was] a very aggressive group, kind of my reaction to the whole New York rock club scene.”

In 1981 (This, The first formation of Massacre) released their only album, comprising studio recordings made at Martin Bisi's studio in Brooklyn, New York City in June 1981, and live recordings from their Paris concerts in April 1981. They also featured on one side of Frith's 1981 solo album Speechless. Massacre's farewell performances took place at Manhattan's Inroads performance space over the course of a July 4 weekend in 1981 (July 2–4), after which Maher left and the band split up.

In 1983 what was left of Massacre joined The Golden Palominos, founded by drummer Anton Fier.

In 1998 The band reformed with Charles Hayward on drums and recorded three more c.d.'s.over the next few years.

Massacre-KILLING TIME:

Side One:

1- Legs
2- Aging With Dignity
3- Subway Heart/
Killing Time
5- Corridor/
Lost Causes/
Not The Person We Knew

Side Two:

8- Bones
9- Tourism/
Surfing
11- As Is
12- After/
Gate





























Fred Frith – guitar, Casio, radio, voice, WWII pilot's throat microphone
Bill Laswell – 4 and 6 string bass guitars, pocket trumpet
Fred Maher – drums, percussion
(1) or (1)

George Antheil-BALLET MECANIQUE/A JAZZ SYMPHONY/VIOLIN SONATAS (Philips 6514 254) 1982?

Today is the 53rd anniversary of the passing away of George Antheil, at the age of 58 years.
He was born July 8, 1900.

Here are the cover notes in their entirety:

























Having heard some, but by no means all, of Antheil's later work, I have to strongly disagree with the beginning of the closing paragraph above. These works are, while perhaps simpler in their structure and expression,nonetheless very powerful, iconoclastic, and exciting works which have proven to have an undiminished relevance- as acknowledged later in the same paragraph- and power which many of his other, later works would seem to lack.
-Dr I

George Antheil- BALLET MECANIQUE / A JAZZ SYMPHONY / VIOLIN SONATAS

Side One:

1- Ballet Mecanique

Side Two:
2- A Jazz Symphony
Netherlands Wind Ensemble
conducted by Reinbert De Leeuw

3- Finale from Sonata No. 1 For Violin and Piano
4- Sonata No. 2 For Violin and Piano
Vera Beths- Violin
Reinbert De Leeuw- Piano
File repaired
(1)
or
(1)

A Walk in the Forest

The Sounds of Nature: A Walk in the Forest

released on CD in 1993

It's been a bit long between nature sounds posts. I hope to do this weekly again sometime soon. Enjoy a nice stroll in the forest.

From the liner notes:

Our walk begins serenely, with the soothing melodies of Sparrows and Mourning Doves, Robins and Blackbirds. Listen carefully, and soon you'll hear the lonely cry of a Hawk circling overhead, the "caw caw" of a Crow, and the repetitive, whistle-like song of a Whippoorwill.

Around the bend, we come upon a cool, bubbling country stream, where we are greeted by a throaty Bullfrog and a Clark's Nutcracker.

Minutes later we resume our journey, as we walk into an open field abuzz with Day Crickets and other insects. Better watch out for that Bee! There's the playful chatter of Red Squirrels and Chipmunks, and from above, the songs of Robins, Rufous-sided Towhees, and the Macgillivray's Warbler.

Back among the trees, we come to another babbling brook, the cool water dancing over pebbles and rocks. A Hawk glides overhead and chipmunks scout for food. A Woodpecker offers a song, while another drums against a tree. We follow the brook to a nearby waterfall, which empties into a gently lapping lake - the safe haven of ducks, geese and other water fowl.

As evening descends, a wind blows through the leaves and the lake is enveloped by a soft mist and a haunting cacophony of bullfrogs, loons and herons. Soon it is night - and we are serenaded by Tree Frogs and a Woodthrush; Cicadas and Crickets; the nocturnal Great Horned Owl and Barred Owl.

In the distance, we hear the baying and bark of a Wolf and, further away, a pack of Wolves howling in chorus with Screech Owls and a Red-Winged Blackbird. Listen closely, and be treated to Blackbirds, cooing Doves, Bobolinks and the repetitious phrases of a Song Thrush. And, as we soon hear, this is also Bear country.

Finally, we cross a small rivulet, where a Cardinal, then an Orange-Crowned Warbler, serenade us. Soon we are home and ready to begin our walk through the forest again.

Tracklisting:

1. A Walk in the Forest {59:05}

(1)

Syrinx-SYRINX (True North 1970)

Syrinx-SYRINX (True North) 1970

The birth pangs of electronic music within pop were often tentative affairs. Bands like the Fifty Foot Hose and the Silver Apples had to absorb such obtuse luminaries as Karlheinz Stockhausen or Morton Subotnick and then attempt to incorporate their complex ideas into the rather simple guitar/bass/drum rock idiom. By the seventies the more portable and affordable mini-moog would become a vehicle for that post-Hendrix obsession with virtuosity, replacing the guitar in extended, self-indulgent wankfests - think ELP, Edgar Winter or Head East. Still others, such as Walter Carlos, reworked classical themes, thus establishing a veneer of respectability for the instrument. Often ignored are those Germans - Popol Vuh or Cluster come to mind - who were unencumbered by the rockist protocol of rhythm/chords/solo, coaxing spacy meandering "head music" from their synths. The overlooked Syrinx falls somewhat into this camp.

Syrinx is essentially the brainchild of songwriter/multi-instrumentalist John Mills-Cockell, who had previously helped found the Mind Excursion Centre in Montreal, a sort of free-form art space existent at the end of the 1960s. A resultant LP soundtrack to an installation there, the privately pressed Free Psychedelic Poster Inside, was released under the name Intersystems (a precursor it would appear to Stereolab's Music for the Amorphous Body Centre, the accompanying music for a Charles Long exhibit at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York in 1995.).

On their eponymous debut here - only the second release on the indie True North label - the trio of Mills-Cockell on moog, piano and organ, along with Doug Pringle on electric saxophones and Alan Wells on hand drums and gongs, meld the artificial textures of synthetic sound with placid, pastoral themes, especially on extended tracks like 'Appalosa-Pegasus' (11:34) and 'Chant for Your Dragon King' (10:22). After a short opening track, the eerie, pulsating moog of 'Melina's Torch', the record moves to a decidedly more cosmic tone. The aforementioned 'Appalosa-Pegasus', with Mills-Cockell weaving whirling synths around the subtle staccato rhythms of Wells' hand drums, soars to the interstellar regions in an almost nostalgic sort of way, and 'Chant for Your Dragon King' is loopy and meandering, predating Tangerine Dream's trippy pieces by several years. The ultimate effect on Syrinx is like a less edgy, more bucolic Music for Films.

Mills-Cockell and Syrinx pushed on throughout the seventies, with a minor hit on their follow-up LP Long Lost Relatives (True North), the pithy 'Tillicum', better known as the theme to the CTV series Here Come the Seventies. Mills-Cockell would ultimately find success writing scores for the theatre, dance, radio and TV before finally decamping to quieter pastures on that hoary hippie resting place, Vancouver Island. Doug Pringle, locks shorn and attitude sharpened, would eventually team up with future wife Michaele Jordana in Toronto new wave/punk act the Poles, who scored locally in 1977 with their ode to T.O.'s famous phallus, 'CN Tower'
Michael Panontin














Syrinx-SYRINX (True North) 1970

Side One:

1-Melina's Torch (2:59)
2-Journey Tree (4:48)
3-Chant For Your Dragon King (10:22)
4-Field Hymn (1:46)

Side Two:

5-Hollywood Dream Trip (5:15)
6-Father Of Light (2:14)
7-Appalosa - Pegasus (11:34)

Composed By – John Mills-Cockell
Synthesizer [Moog], Piano, Organ – John Mills-Cockell
Saxophone [Electric] – Doug Pringle
Drums [Hand], Gong – Alan Wells

Recorded at Baroka Studios (Vancouver) and Bay Recording in Toronto.
Mixed at RCA, Toronto.
All selections Windfall Music Inc., BMI.

























Engineer – Frank Bertin, Rollin Newton
Engineer [Mix] – George Simkew
Painting [Front Cover] – Gerald Zeldin
Photography – Bart
Producer [For Windfall Music Enterprises Incorporated] – John Mills-Cockell

file repaired

(1)

Sun Ra and his Arkestra-HORIZON (Saturn 121771) 1972

Sun Ra and his Arkestra - HORIZON (Saturn Records 1972)

Sometime in the mid-late 1980's I was lucky to be in attendance for a talk and performance
by Sun Ra and his Arkestra in front of a small audience.After the talk I went along to a private
party for the Arkestra, where I was fortunate to sit (literally) at the feet of the Master.
At one point during this heady day, I reached into my napsack and pulled out 3 original Saturn l.p.'s and asked him to sign them- as soon as he saw them he said "These are meant to be looked at under different colored lights" while I was in the process of gettingout a handful of different colored hi-lighters. So I said "Then please choose the right colors".
I then pulled out a postcard of Saturn (from where he had claimed to have been borne) and asked-
"Can you send me a message from space?"
He replied- "That's beautiful- No one wants messages from space anymore." And he signed the postcard.
Ungrateful wretch that I was, I was a tad disappointed that he hadn't given me something more profound - a Message, that is...



A Dream (ca. June 1, 1993)

I have been dropped off by a flying machine of unknown origin on to the top of a high-rise building. I don't remember if it was daytime or nighttime.
I am in the city of Philadelphia.
I want to see Sun Ra's house. As I remember from a documentary, his address is 5626 Morton St.
I notice suddenly that I am not alone up here-there is a woman, dressed in Black, with a black hood almost entirely covering her face. She is facing away from me, and seems to have no interest in me at all.
I ask her if she knows where Morton Street is. Though it is dark, I am shielding my eyes, trying to look out into the distance as I ask her. She either says "no" or shakes her head
to indicate "no"- I forget which.
I then ask her if she knows which way is East, not that I know in which direction Morton Street lies.
She says "no" in some fashion, and the scene
fades away to...

Upon waking, I went into the kitchen, where my father, who is visiting me, is reading
the newspaper. He looks up and says:
"Sun Ra died."
...

So- It seems I got my message from space after all.


Horizon: Sun Ra and his Astro-Intergalactic-Infinity Arkestra, forming part of the documentation of their first visit to Egypt.

Recorded at the Ballon Theatre, Cairo.

In various editions, the record has sometimes been known by the other title of "Starwatchers"














Side One:

1- Starwatchers/Theme of the Stargazers
Discipline 2
Shadow World

Side Two:

2- Third Planet
Space is the Place
Horizon
Discipline 8























Personnel

John Gilmore - tenor saxophone
Danny Davis - alto saxophone, flute
Marshall Allen - alto saxophone, flute, oboe
Kwame Hadi - trumpet, conga drums
Pat Patrick - baritone saxophone
Elo Omoe - bass clarinet
Tommy Hunter - percussion
Danny Thompson - baritone saxophone, flute
June Tyson - vocal
Larry Narthington - alto saxophone, conga drum
Lex Humphries - percussion
Clifford Jarvis - percussion
Hakim Rahim - alto saxophone, flute
Sun Ra - organ, Mini Moog, piano

Tam Fiofori - Engineer
Live album by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
Released 1972
Recorded December 17, 1971









5626 Morton St, Philadelphia-Sun's House

file repaired

(1)

Marius Constant/Karlheinz Stockhausen-14 STATIONS/ZYKLUS (Erato 1972?)

Marius Constant / Karlheinz Stockhausen-14 STATIONS / ZYKLUS
(Erato STU 70603) 1972?

Today would have been Marius Constant's 87th Birthday.
He died 15th May, 2004, aged 79.


The (rather spare) cover notes are in French, and I dare not risk the translating of technical terms.Since I couldn't find anything much online, you're stuck with my two bits worth.

Here is another Marius Constant record which has similar features to the other one I've posted:
Intelligent and creative use of unique instrumentation; primarily percussion, but including prepared electric guitar (either this or maybe the cello through a wah-pedal at one point), harpsichord, trombone, violin and viola.
The percussion batterie is enormous- the cover photos (enclosed) show images presumably taken at the recording session- Many gongs, 2 octaves of temple blocks, all the mallet instruments, loads of cowbells, tympani, and so forth.
The writing is primarily timbral and dramatic use is made of dynamic contrasts, space, and surprising color combinations. The piece has a ritual flavour (in it's theme,of course -The crucifixion, but also) in it's sound and the somewhat distinct division of Stations - (still not distinct enough for me to risk separating them) with the pitched instruments acting as spectators or commentators to the action.

Karlheinz Stockhausen's Zyklus is a (partially) graphic score which allows the percussionist to choose the order of the 12 parts, and thus the music unfolds differently in each performance, adding the extra element of risk if the performer decides not to choose the order until the moment of playing.
I have no idea what approach Gualda used, but the result is a strident, confident reading which seems more rhythmic and dramatic than the other versions I've heard. The playing is virtuosic and sounds multi-tracked at times; If it isn't, Gualda is an octopus.


Side One:
Marius Constant-14 Stations Pour Percussion Et Six Instruments

1-La Condamnation
2-La Croix
3-Première Chute
4-La Mère
5-Simon
6-Véronique
7-Deuxième Chute
8-Exhortation Aux Femmes
9-Troisième Chute
10-Vétements Arrachés

Side Two:

11-Crucifixion
12-La Mort
13-Descente
14-Ensevelissement
Percussion – Sylvio Gualda
Leader – Marius Constant
with:
Guitar [Prepared Electric Guitar] – Pierre Urbain
Harpsichord – Elisabeth Chojnacka
Cello – Jacques Wiederker
Trombone – Camille Verdier
Viola – Paul Hadjaje
Violin – Jacques Ghestem

15-Karlheinz Stockhausen-Zyklus Pour Percussion

Percussion – Sylvio Gualda






















Photography By – Jean-Pierre Leloir
Engineer – Guy Laporte
Mixed By – Bernard Leroux
Soloists on 1 to 14 from Ars Nova Ensemble.
file repaired

(1)

Alice Cooper-PRETTIES FOR YOU (1969 Straight Records)

Today is Alice Cooper's 64th Birthday.

First, A True Story:
When I was a youngster in 1975 or so, I used to have to go to church on Sunday mornings. Mostly it was just Sunday-School; United Church style- which is to say; a pretty loose affair.
I used to enjoy exploring the innards and hidden places in the Church: The teeny hallways, small doors, and windey staircases.
One day, I found a turntable in a little closet: no speakers, but lots of albums I'd never seen before, with very plain covers.
The next week I brought in an l.p. (My first and favorite) to play.
When the right moment arrived, I snuck away from the common room, went into the innards of the church, and went to that cupboard.
I took out my favorite record, and I put it on the turntable, turning up the volume knob a bit from whatever it was set at, and put the needle on the record.

The effect was instantaneous, but hard to grasp for my 11 year old mind: The music seemed to be coming at me from a distance, but from everywhere at once.
It seemed both loud and not-loud at the same time.
It was at about the 15 second mark that I realized what I had done, and, ripping the l.p. off of the turntable I ran to get back to the common room as quickly as possible, to try to blend in.
AND SO: The point to all this is that I played Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy" from the l.p. "Billion Dollar Babies" through the bell tower of my neighborhood church for the local residents at 10:00 on a Sunday morning in lieu of the traditional Carrillion music.

Call it payback for the Reverend Smithee's punch in the nose.
Happy Birthday, Alice.

And Now, The Music:
This is the Alice Cooper group's first album.
In this debut,(and in the band's second album- "Easy Action") the "Alice Cooper as Villain/Monster" concept has not yet been thoroughly developed.Ambiguity is the theme here.Even the name of Alice Cooper identified both the band and the singer, all of whom were confrontationally androgynous.
Wiki- "One night after an unsuccessful gig at the Cheetah club in Venice, California, where the band emptied the entire room of patrons after playing just ten minutes, they were approached and enlisted by music manager Shep Gordon, who ironically saw the band's negative impact that night as a force that could be turned in a more productive direction. Shep then arranged an audition for the band with composer and renowned record producer, Frank Zappa, who was looking to sign bizarre music acts to his new record label, Straight Records. For the audition Zappa told them to come to his house "at 7 o'clock." The band mistakenly assumed he meant 7 o'clock in the morning. Being woken up by a band willing to play that particular brand of psychedelic rock at seven in the morning impressed Zappa enough to sign them to a three-album deal. Another Zappa-signed act, the all-female GTOs, who liked to "dress the Cooper boys up like full size barbie dolls," played a major role in developing the band's early onstage look."

The identity of the protagonist in virtually all of the songs is entirely unidentifiable, and often contradictory, as are the lyrics. The violence of the later albums' horror narratives is here mostly absent and the lyrics are more "stream of consciousness" and nonsensical; the Words are often used primarily for their sound, or their ability to confound the listener and their expectations: Time and again, the lyric being sung at any moment is cancelled out by the lyric sung at the next moment- through wordplay, surrealism and other poetic devices: enjambment,metonymy and synedoche (No- I didn't know these terms; I had to look them up).
(I have included lyrics, sourced from the web-I corrected the mistakes which I could).
The guitar work is decidedly angular and interwoven- each guitarist, taken singly, often plays lines and figures which are,in themselves, irrational and often atonal.
(sort of like a slightly less capable and more accessible Magic Band. This band also seems to have been as well-rehearsed as the Magic Band: Check out "Live at the Whiskey 1969" and you'll hear many of these songs played identically to this record- with minor lyric differences).
The bass is played like a third guitar and not as a member of a "rhythm section"- the drums are sometimes played more like a percussionist's batterie than a traditional rock drum kit, Smith often playing 'lines' rather than 'beats', (Cooper later said that Bob Ezrin, who produced their "breakthrough" third album re-taught the group how to play their instruments, helping to create their more popular 'signature sound')

The music is, nonetheless, often melodic and even rather psychedelic.
Wiki: The band have later claimed that this period was highly influenced by Pink Floyd, and especially the album Piper at the Gates of Dawn. the late Glen Buxton could listen to Syd Barrett's guitar for hours at a time.

This album and the one which followed it are unique in that they are usually ignored or disliked by fans and met with critical indifference and commercial failure.
























Alice Cooper-PRETTIES FOR YOU (1969) Straight

Side One:

1- Titanic Overture (1:13)
2- 10 Minutes Before The Worm (1:38)
3- Sing Low, Sweet Cheerio (5:43)
4- Today Mueller (1:47)
5- Living (2:55)
6- Fields Of Regret (5:47)

Side Two:

7- No Longer Umpire (1:59)
8- Levity Ball (Live At The Cheetah) (4:37)
9- B.B. On Mars (1:13)
10- Reflected (3:14)
11- Apple Bush (3:07)
12- Earwigs To Eternity (1:18)
13- Changing Arranging (3:04)












Music,Lyrics,and Arrangements by Alice Cooper
Produced by Alice Cooper
Engineered by Dick Kunc
Bizarre Business by Herb Cohen

(1) or (1)

Iannis Xenakis=TERRETEKTORH/NOMOS GAMMA (ca1972 Erato STU 70529)

Today is the 11th anniversary of the passing of Iannis Xenakis at 78 years 8 months.
He was born May 29 1922.

Cover notes in French-These notes are from an external source.

After the initial impact of his first orchestral scores (Metastaseis and Pithoprakta), which turned the modern music world on its ear in the mid-1950s, Iannis Xenakis turned to other concerns. He worked on developing a theoretical basis for his mathematical approach to composition, worked in the electroacoustic studio at Radio-France, and wrote some chamber and stage works. In 1966, however, his attention was drawn back to the orchestra and he penned a second set of pretty remarkable scores. Terretektorh, the first of these, was commissioned for the new contemporary music festival in Royan, a picturesque French town on the Atlantic just north of Bordeaux. Those were heady days, when festival organizers were not shy of allowing a composer like Xenakis take the orchestra and scatter all the players around and throughout the audience. In his words, he wanted to create a "Sonotron: an accelerator of sonorous particles." Indeed, the opening three minutes of the piece centers on a single note, passing it around the musicians to create a swirling effect that is impossible to achieve electronically (unless you have 88 channels of sound, perhaps!). Terretektorh shows more concern for harmonic organization than the earlier, iconoclastic Pithoprakta, with its scatterings of knocking sounds and massed effects. Still, the concentration is decidedly on texture and movement, with narrow lines being bundled with a number of others in the same register to create a rawer sonic intensity that still has some basis in melody. Xenakis concentrates on the high and low registers, as did Varèse before him, and adds some unusual sound effects into the mix as well. Each player of the orchestra, in addition to his or her own instrument, is required at various times to play from an arsenal of percussion instruments, including woodblocks, whips, maracas, and siren-whistles. These sounds are spread around the orchestra, creating "flames" of sound (sirens), or "clouds" of noise-like textures. For perhaps the first time, members of the audience could hear the orchestra from the "inside;" it may not always have been comfortable (imagine being seated directly in front of a trombone!), but it certainly would have been exhilarating!
Nomos Gamma is a large, ambitious work for orchestra that follows on from Terretektorh (1966), both of them commissioned for the newly established Royan Festival. Both pieces distribute the members of the orchestra throughout the audience, inviting the listener right inside the ensemble. Nomos Gamma also follows on from Nomos Alpha, for solo cello, again from 1966, in the composer's application of certain new mathematical principles to the compositional process. After spending several years implementing probabilities into his formal procedures, Xenakis turned to deterministic, combinatorial tools. In essence, sequences of different combinations of a range of musical elements or parameters are combined to form the compositional design. Nomos Alpha was the first result of this new approach to musical architecture, and Nomos Gamma was the next (there are sketches for a Nomos Beta, but the piece never saw the light beyond the composer's papers). As a follow-up to Terretektorh, which had caused such a sensation at its 1966 premiere in Royan, Nomos Gamma is both more careful in its construction and more audacious in expression. Whereas the earlier piece focused almost entirely on texture and the effect of sonic motion, the later piece includes straightforwardly melodic elements and a more block-like construction. The effect of hearing a three-part, microtonal melodic texture from within the middle of the instruments is still, of course, an entirely different, and much more visceral, experience than hearing it from afar. Xenakis makes great use, too, of teemingly dense string textures, which many layers of different kinds of sonorities occurring simultaneously. These are intercut with other, more compressed textures, with all the strings playing glassy, sustained harmonics, for example. The brass and woodwinds are, perhaps for the first time in his output, treated as equal to the strings, with dense clusters battling against plaintive melodic passages. Each of the five main sections of the piece is dominated by one of the orchestral instrumental groups: I. woodwinds; II. brass; III. woodwinds; IV. strings; V. percussion. The final section would be positively dizzying to hear in concert. The eight percussionists, placed around the perimeter of the orchestral-audience space, pass drum rolls around, one to another, at an incredible clip. Where Terretektorh wound the musical energy up at the beginning by passing a sustained unison pitch around the orchestra, Nomos Gamma cranks itself up at the end, spinning off like a crazed top, ending with a final outburst by all of the percussionists together. The experience must have been inspiring; Xenakis would try it again the following year in Persephassa, for six percussionists, also directed to encircle the audience (and wind them up!).
~ James Harley, Rovi























Iannis Xenakis-TERRETEKTORH/NOMOS GAMMA

Side One-

1- Terretektorh (1965-66) for 88 musicians scattered throughout the audience playing 4 percussion instruments in addition to their own.

Recorded Live 24 January 1968, Drancy.

Side Two:

2- Nomos Gamma (1967-68) for 98 musicians scattered throughout the audience.

Recorded Live at the Festival De Royan, April 1969

file repaired

(1)

James Blood Ulmer-ARE YOU GLAD TO BE IN AMERICA? 1980 Rough Trade Records

James Blood Ulmer- ARE YOU GLAD TO BE IN AMERICA? Rough Trade 1980

Today is James Blood Ulmer's 70th birthday:
He was born in St.Matthew's, South Carolina in 1942.

This is another Ulmer l.p. from around the same period as my previous post.
That is- from early in his recording career as a leader.
This record features the same line-up as the Music Revelation Ensemble's first l.p,(1981) with the addition of a second drummer- G.Calvin Weston (from Ornette Coleman's Prime Time),
alto sax player Oliver Lake, Trumpeter Olu Dara and a rhythm guitarist-William Patterson (on track 4 only).
This record fits the "jazz-funk" designation better than does the Music Revelation Ensemble l.p, and at times (especially on track one) sounds very much like Prime Time, with Calvin Weston's funk rhythms having a lot to do with that. Otherwise, it's a typical Ulmer "pedal to the metal" straight-ahead free jazz-inflected improvising session. Solid stuff.

This is a strange recording, however. The sound is dry and lacks a certain definition.(Especially in the horns).
Some of the tracks fade out at odd moments or are cut off abruptly. One can only guess as to the reasons- too many solos? Solos too long? A desire to have more compositions represented? Disintegration in performance? Since Ulmer has production and mixing credits, one can only presume the result satisfied him. In any case- "Rough 16" is an apt catalogue number. Especially when compared with "Freelancing", from the same period, which is very similar, but- to my memory- more polished.























Side One:

1- Layout
2- Pressure
3- Interview
4- Jazz Is The Teacher (Funk Is The Preacher)
5- See-Through

Side Two:

6- Time Out/
7- T.V. Blues
8- Light Eyed/
9- Revelation March/
10- Are You Glad To Be In America?

James Blood Ulmer- Guitar, Vocals
David Murray- Tenor Saxophone
Oliver Lake- Alto saxophone
Olu Dara- Trumpet
Amin Ali- Bass
Ronald Shannon Jackson- Drums
G. Calvin Weston- Drums
William Patterson- Rhythm Guitar (track 4 only)

Recorded 17th January, 1980, R.C.A. Studios, NYC.

I have had to leave certain tracks linked together (/) as separating them would add an ugly pause to the music.

(1) or (1)

Harrison,Weber,Foss,Dahl-CHAMBER MUSIC BY (1976 New World Records)

Harrison, Weber, Foss, Dahl- CHAMBER MUSIC OF: New World Records 1976

Today is the 9th anniversary of the passing away of Lou Harrison. He was 85 years,8 months old.

Excerpted from the extensive gatefold notes (enclosed):

Lou Harrison was born in Portland, Oregon, on May 14, 1917. He studied with Henry Cowell and with Schoenberg, and has earned his living by teaching (at Mills College 1937-40), copying music, writing (critic for the New York Herald Tribune 1945-48), and performing. At various times he has been associated with Charles Ives (some of whose music he edited for publication), Harry Partch, and John Cage, and his free, open approach to composition shows their influence.
Harrison's interest in Asian music and his use of exotic tunings, unusual instruments, and medieval compositional techniques suggest the range of his mind, which has extended to designing and constructing new instruments, inventing musical systems, writing plays, and constructing mobiles.(...)
The present Suite For Cello and Harp is an excellent example of Harrison's economy.
The Suite was assembled especially for the performers on this recording, Seymour Barab and Lucile Lawrence, and performed by them at New York's Town Hall in the fall of 1949.

Ben Weber, born in St.Louis on July 23, 1916, first studied medicine at the University of Illinois, then turned to music at DePauw University. He had little formal training in composition, but was encouraged by the pianist Artur Schnabel (who also composed in a twelve-tone idiom) and then by Schoenberg.
Weber's synthesis of twelve-tone techniques with traditional thematic and structural elements produced a distinctive style that brought him wide recognition.
The Sonata de Camera was completed on October 25, 1950, and is dedicated to the violinist Anahid Ajemian. (Also hear him in the Harrison / Cowell post of January 4 )
The first movement is a Saraband, the second a modified Passacaglia, and the Finale a rondo; all three are based on a single tone row.

Lukas Foss: The Capriccio for cello and piano was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in 1945 and was published in 1946. The piece offers an appealing blend of European balance and craftsmanship with American enthusiasm and unpredictability. Its single lyrical movement is comfortingly Classical in structure, but the melodies are neither completely symmetrical nor completely predictable. The unabashedly tradition accompaniment figures are frequently cross-accented or otherwise short-circuited to amusing effect- and, indeed, mush of the Capriccio's high spirits consist of unexpected twists on familiar routines.
In the 1950's Foss became interested in improvisational techniques, and in recent years he has he has presented works employing these and other ideas of confrontation and game structure.

Ingolf Dahl was born in Hamburg, of Swedish parents on June 9, 1912, emigrating to the United States in 1935. Dahl was conductor of the Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, one of the nation's leading contemporary-music series...He was close to Igor Stravinsky (whose works in the teens are heard as an influence here, especially in the rhythms and orchestration).
Dahl's catalogue comprises music for a wide variety of instruments and combinations. His early music, in line with his European training, is marked by complex, dissonant polyphony. In America the textures became more open, the rhythms broader, the emphasis harmonic rather than contrapuntal.
The Concertino a Tre (1946) is one of the most attractive and elegant examples of Neoclassicism.
Dahl elicits from the clarinet, violin, and cello a fullness of texture that is little short of astonishing. Although the idiom is firmly based in traditional harmony, the chords are refreshed by added notes, and the rhythms have a neobaroque drive (the neoclassic style was in fact "neo-eighteenth-century", drawing its inspiration as much from Bach as from Haydn and Mozart).
The work's three major divisions are paced along traditional lines- fast, slow, fast- and the development techniques are those of the classical period. The slow movement resembles an extended song. In the finale a lyrical cello threnody is set off by jagged accompaniment figures, and then the movement bounces into successive jig, jazz, and gallop rhythms.





















Side One:

1- Lou Harrison- Suite For Cello And Harp (ca 1946)

a- Chorale
b- Pastorale
c- Interlude
d- Aria
e- Chorale
Seymour Barab- Cello, Lucile Lawrence- Harp
recorded in 1951 (Originally issued on Columbia 3 ML-4491)
2- Ben Weber- Sonata Da Camera

a- Lento, con gran eleganza
b- Moderato
c- Allegro con spirito
Alexander Schneider- Violin, Mieczyslaw Horszowski- Piano
recorded in 1954 for Epic Records, but never released.

Side Two:

3- Lukas Foss- Capriccio For Cello And Piano
Gregor Piatagorsky- Cello. Lukas Foss- Piano
Recorded in 1958. (Originally issued on RCA LSC 2293)4- Ingolf Dahl- Concertino A Tre
Mitchell Lurie- Clarinet, Eudice Shapiro- Violin, Victor Gottlieb- Cello
Recorded in 1950 (Originally issued on Columbia 3 ML-4493)
file repaired

(1) or (1)