Now that I've confirmed travel plans and such, I figure I can make a blog posting about it:
I've been accepted into the BMI Jazz Composer's Workshop led by Jim McNeely and Michael Abene, and will be commuting back and forth from Montreal to NYC to participate. It's a great honour and I'm thrilled to be involved with it -- and to have my butt royally kicked. Obviously, I see a lot of writing in my future.
The first meeting is next Tuesday, September 26th. I'm coming in Monday evening and leaving Wednesday morning. Ideally, I'll be hitting the Smoke jam session on Monday, and going to see the Sirius String Quartet at The Stone on Tuesday night at 8. Plans, however, are subject to change.
On Wednesday night, even though I'm leaving, there are two great gigs featurning many friends of mine: guitarist/composer Lily Maase premieres her reDisconnect project at the new Roulette Performance Space on Greene between Canal and Grand, with a whole host of musicians (including fellow McGillians Adam Kinner and Evan Smith on reeds, and Banff colleagues Ryan Kotler on bass and Fred Kennedy on drums); and after Lily's 8:30 show, trek over to Barbes and check out the Peter van Huffel Quintet at 10.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Friday, September 15, 2006
Do away with the nonsense
I picked up The Roots' Game Theory earlier in the week, and it may well be their strongest effort to date, and definitely their best work of this century. They've tightened the beats up, and provided some melodic and otherwise memorable hooks - compared to The Tipping Point's choruses which were led by a tripped-out Sly Stone, Martin Luther lamenting "Why?" ad nauseam, and BT's rhythmic mumbling on "Don't Say Nuthin'."
?uestlove's beats encompass not only the history of hip-hop but also his well-known omnivorous musical appetite - "Atonement" jacks Radiohead's "You and Whose Army?," and "Livin' In a New World" would not sound out of place on a Beck album. The most impressive developments come courtesy of Black Thought: he takes the wordplay wizardry he's mined on previous tracks like "Thought @ Work" and "Web" and actually puts them to the service of commentary and observation on "False Media," "Don't Feel Right," "Take It There" and "Clock With No Hands." He seems to have outgrown the self-referential posturing that run throughout so many Roots albums (and plague other MCs, as well). This step forward for Black Thought takes the wind out of what would otherwise be a momentous occasion in hip-hop: the return of co-MC Malik B. Whereas on Things Fall Apart, the two MCs were equal, Malik's efforts on Game Theory pale in comparison to Thought and even other guest MCs like Dice Raw. Malik resorts to gangsta stream-of-consciousness rants that lack cohesion either as individual verses or with the other MCs on the track. I will admit that Malik's syncopated flow provides more surprises than Thought's more straight up-and-down delivery.
There are some weak spots on this record - the pacing of the back end of Game Theory is heavy on the slow tunes ("Clock With No Hands" --> "Atonement" --> the Dilla memorial "Can't Stop This") and kills the forward momentum of the disc. "In The Music"'s only redeeming quality is BT's opening verse; the hook (delivered by a new-to-me MC with the moniker Porn) is a throwaway; and then Malik steps up with lines about "bitches in Bonnevilles" and addressing some adversary named "Och." Conspicuously absent from the liner notes this time around are the in-depth ?uestlove annotations and diaries. Much like Tipping Point, the lyrics seem to have been transcribed by a clueless intern, and run without proofing by the MCs.
Even with these shortcomings, the Roots have finally delivered on record the promise of their live shows - killer beats, lacerating insights, and a handle on the history. They've raised the bar for hip-hop and Game Theory is easily in my top list for the year.
NB: This review is not affiliated with the Roots, Def Jam, Okayplayer, or any other publication. Portions appear as comments on The Roots' MySpace and as a comment to Brendan Murphy's review of Game Theory in Hour magazine.
In other news, music journalist and author Ann Powers has, apparently, relocated to L.A. (replacing Robert Hillburn at the Times) from Seattle and joined the blogosphere (well, she's been blogging for a year. I'm late on the uptake, I suppose.). Probably best known as the co-author of the Tori Amos autobiography, Piece by Piece, I met Ann at the McGill Joni Mitchell symposium a couple of years ago where she delivered a stunning paper about the importance of Blue. She joins the blog roll today.
?uestlove's beats encompass not only the history of hip-hop but also his well-known omnivorous musical appetite - "Atonement" jacks Radiohead's "You and Whose Army?," and "Livin' In a New World" would not sound out of place on a Beck album. The most impressive developments come courtesy of Black Thought: he takes the wordplay wizardry he's mined on previous tracks like "Thought @ Work" and "Web" and actually puts them to the service of commentary and observation on "False Media," "Don't Feel Right," "Take It There" and "Clock With No Hands." He seems to have outgrown the self-referential posturing that run throughout so many Roots albums (and plague other MCs, as well). This step forward for Black Thought takes the wind out of what would otherwise be a momentous occasion in hip-hop: the return of co-MC Malik B. Whereas on Things Fall Apart, the two MCs were equal, Malik's efforts on Game Theory pale in comparison to Thought and even other guest MCs like Dice Raw. Malik resorts to gangsta stream-of-consciousness rants that lack cohesion either as individual verses or with the other MCs on the track. I will admit that Malik's syncopated flow provides more surprises than Thought's more straight up-and-down delivery.
There are some weak spots on this record - the pacing of the back end of Game Theory is heavy on the slow tunes ("Clock With No Hands" --> "Atonement" --> the Dilla memorial "Can't Stop This") and kills the forward momentum of the disc. "In The Music"'s only redeeming quality is BT's opening verse; the hook (delivered by a new-to-me MC with the moniker Porn) is a throwaway; and then Malik steps up with lines about "bitches in Bonnevilles" and addressing some adversary named "Och." Conspicuously absent from the liner notes this time around are the in-depth ?uestlove annotations and diaries. Much like Tipping Point, the lyrics seem to have been transcribed by a clueless intern, and run without proofing by the MCs.
Even with these shortcomings, the Roots have finally delivered on record the promise of their live shows - killer beats, lacerating insights, and a handle on the history. They've raised the bar for hip-hop and Game Theory is easily in my top list for the year.
NB: This review is not affiliated with the Roots, Def Jam, Okayplayer, or any other publication. Portions appear as comments on The Roots' MySpace and as a comment to Brendan Murphy's review of Game Theory in Hour magazine.
***
In other news, music journalist and author Ann Powers has, apparently, relocated to L.A. (replacing Robert Hillburn at the Times) from Seattle and joined the blogosphere (well, she's been blogging for a year. I'm late on the uptake, I suppose.). Probably best known as the co-author of the Tori Amos autobiography, Piece by Piece, I met Ann at the McGill Joni Mitchell symposium a couple of years ago where she delivered a stunning paper about the importance of Blue. She joins the blog roll today.
Reflections on the Dawson College shooting
Ignorance is bliss. Consolation comes in the form of delusion - "it can't/won't happen here." How much harder the blow, then, when it does happen here.
My mother called me on my cell to notify me of the shooting. My entire family commutes through Atwater metro (the station Dawson is adjoined to). I had been on the train, on my way to a rehearsal, not a half-hour before the gunshots rang out. I proceeded to the Music Library where students were logged onto computers, rapidly refreshing CBC and CNN trying to find more details. Lack of information and crossed wires led to confusion about how many gunmen there may have been and if any were still at large. Speculation ran rampant - Drug dealers spilling over from Cabot Square into Dawson?
As we now know, there was no such motive - just another loner, ignored by his family and community, finding solace in dark imagery and weaponry. One promising student's life has been truncated, and at least one other victim remains in a coma.
The media's been quick to, once again, implicate the external factors: the video games, the Goth subculture he became attracted to, and the website he posted on. Thankfully, at least one broadcaster noted that "it's the player, not the game, that is the issue." Six years after Columbine, and seventeen after the Ecole Polytechnique massacre, and we still have trouble identifying warning signs and high-risk behaviour. It really does all come back to the parenting and attention: the gunman had quite the artillery, and I'm alternately surprised and saddened that it would go unnoticed by his parents - he still lived at home.
My thoughts are with all those affected by this tragedy. Luckily, my friend's father, who teaches at Dawson, is unharmed. That's my closest connection to this event.
My mother called me on my cell to notify me of the shooting. My entire family commutes through Atwater metro (the station Dawson is adjoined to). I had been on the train, on my way to a rehearsal, not a half-hour before the gunshots rang out. I proceeded to the Music Library where students were logged onto computers, rapidly refreshing CBC and CNN trying to find more details. Lack of information and crossed wires led to confusion about how many gunmen there may have been and if any were still at large. Speculation ran rampant - Drug dealers spilling over from Cabot Square into Dawson?
As we now know, there was no such motive - just another loner, ignored by his family and community, finding solace in dark imagery and weaponry. One promising student's life has been truncated, and at least one other victim remains in a coma.
The media's been quick to, once again, implicate the external factors: the video games, the Goth subculture he became attracted to, and the website he posted on. Thankfully, at least one broadcaster noted that "it's the player, not the game, that is the issue." Six years after Columbine, and seventeen after the Ecole Polytechnique massacre, and we still have trouble identifying warning signs and high-risk behaviour. It really does all come back to the parenting and attention: the gunman had quite the artillery, and I'm alternately surprised and saddened that it would go unnoticed by his parents - he still lived at home.
My thoughts are with all those affected by this tragedy. Luckily, my friend's father, who teaches at Dawson, is unharmed. That's my closest connection to this event.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Fallout
I've tried to keep this blog apolitical (especially due to my lapse in staying informed on various issues), but certain events permeate society and humanity so deeply that their political ramifications are an inextricable part of current environmental fabric. Of course, September 11th, 2001, was the date of one such event.
As I check my TV listings and flip through newscasts for the days preceding and following this "milestone" anniversary, there are countless memorials, more than one can possibly watch, even with the aid of TiVo. I'm sure they'll run the gamut from heartfelt and sincere to jingoistic chest-thumping (ABC's controversial mini-movie aside), but I honestly don't much care to find out. The cynical side of me wonders how much of this remembrance is really just a ploy of manipulation - not just to manoeuver the ratings, but the public's views itself: staying the course, and all that. Unlike the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the media bravado surrounding 9/11 is not just limited to its commemoration; it is uttered and debated, directly or indirectly, every day.
Five years later, the question every news anchor has asked is are we any safer, and the obvious answer is a categorical no. 9/11 manifests itself in every war-mongering diatribe, every speculation about the upcoming elections, every meandering yet flawed security check, every confiscated toiletry. And what's to show for it? Ravaged nations, more fledgling cells than before, an Al-Qaeda and Taliban renaissance, deeply rooted Western partisan divides -- oh yeah, and everything in Iraq. As Jon Stewart noted, Thomas Ricks' book Fiasco might well be an understatement.
Nearly everyone remembers where they were that day -- I was in high school, with the most brilliant professor I've ever had sitting at his desk dumbfounded, listening to CBC. But I'd rather that we be able to pursue our remembrances in peace, than be bludgeoned with the gawdy replays of the harrowing images that I'm sure will ensue.
As I check my TV listings and flip through newscasts for the days preceding and following this "milestone" anniversary, there are countless memorials, more than one can possibly watch, even with the aid of TiVo. I'm sure they'll run the gamut from heartfelt and sincere to jingoistic chest-thumping (ABC's controversial mini-movie aside), but I honestly don't much care to find out. The cynical side of me wonders how much of this remembrance is really just a ploy of manipulation - not just to manoeuver the ratings, but the public's views itself: staying the course, and all that. Unlike the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the media bravado surrounding 9/11 is not just limited to its commemoration; it is uttered and debated, directly or indirectly, every day.
Five years later, the question every news anchor has asked is are we any safer, and the obvious answer is a categorical no. 9/11 manifests itself in every war-mongering diatribe, every speculation about the upcoming elections, every meandering yet flawed security check, every confiscated toiletry. And what's to show for it? Ravaged nations, more fledgling cells than before, an Al-Qaeda and Taliban renaissance, deeply rooted Western partisan divides -- oh yeah, and everything in Iraq. As Jon Stewart noted, Thomas Ricks' book Fiasco might well be an understatement.
Nearly everyone remembers where they were that day -- I was in high school, with the most brilliant professor I've ever had sitting at his desk dumbfounded, listening to CBC. But I'd rather that we be able to pursue our remembrances in peace, than be bludgeoned with the gawdy replays of the harrowing images that I'm sure will ensue.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Playing catchup, part 2
As promised, here are my blog musings of what's been going on the past few weeks:
August 18 - Matt Haimovitz (cello) and Patrick Wedd (organ) celebrated the life and music of György Ligeti as part of the Jusqu'aux Oreilles festival here. Due to circumstances, I walked in late, just at the end of a new piece written as an homage to Ligeti (I don't remember the composer's name). Whether Matt commissioned it or not, I do not know, but the end section seemed tailor-made for his strength: expressive, dynamic, and utilizing the harmonics of the cello. Also on the program were the sonata for solo cello, a spoken eulogy to Ligeti (author unfortunately forgotten, as well), Harmonies & Coulée (the two études for organ), Volumina (for organ), and Artikulation (a tape piece, created while Ligeti was studying and living with Stockhausen). Prior to my arrival, they had already performed Ricercare: Omaggio a Frescobaldi, as well as Frescobaldi's original theme. My lasting impression is how the electronic music influenced the acoustic music (especially the organ pieces), and how Artikulation, created mid-century with tape and razor splices, sounds as modern, if not more so, than current pieces being created by advanced software capabilities. Ligeti had classical piano training but never felt himself capable enough on the instrument to perform on it, and thus dedicated himself to composition. In doing so, it seems like he spent his time learning the functionalities of every instrument he wrote for, and figured out ways to challenge the performer without writing anything technically "unplayable."
As I attended the concert and read Richard Steinitz's book on Ligeti, Music of the Imagination, it struck me that as much as I appreciate and enjoy Ligeti's work, I'm in doubt as to whether he's an influence on my music or whether I even want him to. I admire his precision and calculation, and it serves his music well, but such structures (and his adamant stance against programmatic music) don't play into what I wish to achieve at this point. Give me ten years and I may have changed my mind.
August 20 - another installment of Dan Thouin's improvisation night at Divan Orange, entitled Sprung. The lineup: Thouin (Rhodes/fx), Martin Lizotte (synthesizers/fx), François Lafontaine (organ), Robbie Kuster (drums), Jean-François Lemieux (electric bass) and Stéphane Boucher (trumpet/spoken word/sampler). My immediate impression was "Three keyboardists! Let the games begin!" My second impression was "Holy shit, this is loud!" It got pretty wacky - the loudest, outest moments of Live/Evil Miles, with a little bit of Prime Time, post-rock, and bilingual slam poetry courtesy of Boucher. It was a great little party, and getting to see three of the best keyboardists around town whose main gigs don't allow THAT much improv: Dan, though a great improvising keyboardist, has become first-call among the Francophone art-pop circuit, playing with Ariane Moffatt and Fred Fortin; François plays in Karkwa, a band that I caught by pure chance at Francofolies a couple of years ago and that has become one of my favourite bands in the city; and Martin plays with world-skipping percussionists/chanteuses Dobacaracol.
August 30 - The premiere of Jon Day's Exhibit A. Now, like most, I know Jon as a fantastic pianist and composer. I also knew he had sung in Effusion before (and was actually a founding member), and had told me a little about this project in conversation. Therefore, I had an inkling of what was bubbling here, but had no idea of the scope or skill of this project. Six singers, including Jon, and five musicians, creating this jazz-gospel-nouveau-Broadway sound. Utterly huge textures, and Jon is a surprisingly good singer, with a very spastic, almost Scott Weiland-esque stage presence. I look forward to what he does with this project.
Grande Bibliotheque acquisitions:
Books: Haruki Murakami - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World; Phil Lesh - Searching for the Sound; Ian McEwan - Saturday (in progress).
Music: Osvaldo Golijov/Kronos Quartet - The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind; Fela Kuti - Expensive Shit; Wilco - I Am Trying to Break Your Heart DVD; Henry Threadgill - When Was That?; John Adams - On The Transmigration of Souls.
Note: I'm hosting Jazz Euphorium again this Wednesday (September 6), tag-teaming with the wonderful Andy Williams, whose record collection may just stand up to Ethan Iverson's for battle.
August 18 - Matt Haimovitz (cello) and Patrick Wedd (organ) celebrated the life and music of György Ligeti as part of the Jusqu'aux Oreilles festival here. Due to circumstances, I walked in late, just at the end of a new piece written as an homage to Ligeti (I don't remember the composer's name). Whether Matt commissioned it or not, I do not know, but the end section seemed tailor-made for his strength: expressive, dynamic, and utilizing the harmonics of the cello. Also on the program were the sonata for solo cello, a spoken eulogy to Ligeti (author unfortunately forgotten, as well), Harmonies & Coulée (the two études for organ), Volumina (for organ), and Artikulation (a tape piece, created while Ligeti was studying and living with Stockhausen). Prior to my arrival, they had already performed Ricercare: Omaggio a Frescobaldi, as well as Frescobaldi's original theme. My lasting impression is how the electronic music influenced the acoustic music (especially the organ pieces), and how Artikulation, created mid-century with tape and razor splices, sounds as modern, if not more so, than current pieces being created by advanced software capabilities. Ligeti had classical piano training but never felt himself capable enough on the instrument to perform on it, and thus dedicated himself to composition. In doing so, it seems like he spent his time learning the functionalities of every instrument he wrote for, and figured out ways to challenge the performer without writing anything technically "unplayable."
As I attended the concert and read Richard Steinitz's book on Ligeti, Music of the Imagination, it struck me that as much as I appreciate and enjoy Ligeti's work, I'm in doubt as to whether he's an influence on my music or whether I even want him to. I admire his precision and calculation, and it serves his music well, but such structures (and his adamant stance against programmatic music) don't play into what I wish to achieve at this point. Give me ten years and I may have changed my mind.
August 20 - another installment of Dan Thouin's improvisation night at Divan Orange, entitled Sprung. The lineup: Thouin (Rhodes/fx), Martin Lizotte (synthesizers/fx), François Lafontaine (organ), Robbie Kuster (drums), Jean-François Lemieux (electric bass) and Stéphane Boucher (trumpet/spoken word/sampler). My immediate impression was "Three keyboardists! Let the games begin!" My second impression was "Holy shit, this is loud!" It got pretty wacky - the loudest, outest moments of Live/Evil Miles, with a little bit of Prime Time, post-rock, and bilingual slam poetry courtesy of Boucher. It was a great little party, and getting to see three of the best keyboardists around town whose main gigs don't allow THAT much improv: Dan, though a great improvising keyboardist, has become first-call among the Francophone art-pop circuit, playing with Ariane Moffatt and Fred Fortin; François plays in Karkwa, a band that I caught by pure chance at Francofolies a couple of years ago and that has become one of my favourite bands in the city; and Martin plays with world-skipping percussionists/chanteuses Dobacaracol.
August 30 - The premiere of Jon Day's Exhibit A. Now, like most, I know Jon as a fantastic pianist and composer. I also knew he had sung in Effusion before (and was actually a founding member), and had told me a little about this project in conversation. Therefore, I had an inkling of what was bubbling here, but had no idea of the scope or skill of this project. Six singers, including Jon, and five musicians, creating this jazz-gospel-nouveau-Broadway sound. Utterly huge textures, and Jon is a surprisingly good singer, with a very spastic, almost Scott Weiland-esque stage presence. I look forward to what he does with this project.
Grande Bibliotheque acquisitions:
Books: Haruki Murakami - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World; Phil Lesh - Searching for the Sound; Ian McEwan - Saturday (in progress).
Music: Osvaldo Golijov/Kronos Quartet - The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind; Fela Kuti - Expensive Shit; Wilco - I Am Trying to Break Your Heart DVD; Henry Threadgill - When Was That?; John Adams - On The Transmigration of Souls.
Note: I'm hosting Jazz Euphorium again this Wednesday (September 6), tag-teaming with the wonderful Andy Williams, whose record collection may just stand up to Ethan Iverson's for battle.
RIP Dewey Redman
Opening up my blog feeds just now, I see three entries: Dewey in memoriam. I'm sitting here somewhat stunned. Contrary to what Pat writes, I didn't see this one coming. Dewey played at the Jazz Fest a couple of years ago, and by all reports was in decent health and more than decent sound.
The three entries above have covered all I could write about Dewey. I had heard of him peripherally up until Momentum Space came out - an intriguing record, featuring Cecil Taylor and Elvin Jones (upon typing this I realize Cecil's the sole living member of that group now...), which may not be any of their strongest recordings but still a solid outing, and may have been the record that started the gradual opening of my ears to avant-garde sounds. I remember putting on New York Is Now! for the first time, and Dewey's howling entry on "The Garden of Souls," foreshadowed in the liner notes and highly esteemed by the Bad Plus, knocked me on my ass.
The three entries above have covered all I could write about Dewey. I had heard of him peripherally up until Momentum Space came out - an intriguing record, featuring Cecil Taylor and Elvin Jones (upon typing this I realize Cecil's the sole living member of that group now...), which may not be any of their strongest recordings but still a solid outing, and may have been the record that started the gradual opening of my ears to avant-garde sounds. I remember putting on New York Is Now! for the first time, and Dewey's howling entry on "The Garden of Souls," foreshadowed in the liner notes and highly esteemed by the Bad Plus, knocked me on my ass.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Playing catchup
I haven't exactly been blogging at the speed of life lately - I've been immersed in writing new music for the Indigone Trio + Strings project. Last week I saw Matt Haimovitz and Patrick Wedd play the music of Ligeti as part of Jusqu'aux Oreilles (Up To Your Ears), followed within a couple of days by Dan Thouin's improv project, Sprung. More detailed posts on those to follow.
Ethan Iverson responds to the post-Vietnam War jazz history discussion with a fantastic list. Most of his list are records I have not yet heard, or have not listened to in a long while. I would add the following entries:
1974 - Keith Jarrett: Belonging (the first record by the European quartet, alternating between his dual lexicons of driving melodic vamps and ethereal open space).
Herbie Hancock: Thrust (though Headhunters was the shot heard 'round the world, I find Thrust grooves harder and hangs together better as a full record).
1976 - Anthony Braxton: Creative Orchestra Music 1976 (as Darcy commented in an earlier post mentioning this album, it's "fucking amazing," and still stands as the weirdest group of personnel I've ever seen on paper).
Jaco Pastorius: s/t (versatility, virtuosity, and the juxtaposition of Bird with Sam & Dave in the first two tracks).
1981 - Chick Corea: Trio Music (Now He Sings, Now He Sobs group revisited with free improv and Monk tunes).
1988 - Motian/Frisell/Lovano: Monk in Motian (Monk music with proper irreverence, with guests Dewey Redman and Geri Allen).
1990 - Kenny Wheeler: Music for Large and Small Ensembles (I for some reason thought this was done sometime in the mid-'80s; "Gentle Piece" is stunning).
Pat Metheny: Question and Answer (Pat's trio records are always his strongest, I find).
Ethan Iverson responds to the post-Vietnam War jazz history discussion with a fantastic list. Most of his list are records I have not yet heard, or have not listened to in a long while. I would add the following entries:
1974 - Keith Jarrett: Belonging (the first record by the European quartet, alternating between his dual lexicons of driving melodic vamps and ethereal open space).
Herbie Hancock: Thrust (though Headhunters was the shot heard 'round the world, I find Thrust grooves harder and hangs together better as a full record).
1976 - Anthony Braxton: Creative Orchestra Music 1976 (as Darcy commented in an earlier post mentioning this album, it's "fucking amazing," and still stands as the weirdest group of personnel I've ever seen on paper).
Jaco Pastorius: s/t (versatility, virtuosity, and the juxtaposition of Bird with Sam & Dave in the first two tracks).
1981 - Chick Corea: Trio Music (Now He Sings, Now He Sobs group revisited with free improv and Monk tunes).
1988 - Motian/Frisell/Lovano: Monk in Motian (Monk music with proper irreverence, with guests Dewey Redman and Geri Allen).
1990 - Kenny Wheeler: Music for Large and Small Ensembles (I for some reason thought this was done sometime in the mid-'80s; "Gentle Piece" is stunning).
Pat Metheny: Question and Answer (Pat's trio records are always his strongest, I find).
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Pressure on people, people on streets
A couple of weeks ago was the 11th edition of Under Pressure, a weekend-long celebration of graffiti, primarily, but all facets of hip-hop culture, culminating in a day-long block party behind Foufounes Electriques. There was the usual b-boy/b-girl battle (and I second Scott's request for better sightlines somehow) and the skateboard competition (which I missed out on - it ran simultaneously against the breaking, on the other side of the parking lot), two DJ tents, and a hell of a lot of paint. The highlight for me (and many others, I'm sure) came post-battle, when DJ Kool Herc got behind the turntables, and actually extended the honor of WeFunk's own Professor Groove to split the decks in a sure-shot selection battle. Kool Herc, for a large part of his set, played the original songs fabled hip-hop breaks and samples come from; another highlight was hearing him spin a Mary J. Blige album track.
Like so many other events in Montreal, Under Pressure has this communal vibe and energy that amplifies the enjoyment of the music. It was only disrupted once, with one b-boy talking a little too much trash, I think - I couldn't see what was going on, I just heard the MC calling him out and telling him to chill. I can only imagine that Under Pressure is close to the old-school block parties (and with Kool Herc's presence, I would think that comparison is more than apt). It's fulfilling to see the history of this culture appreciated and continued, and to hear how it grows out of all the African-American music that came before it. There were some little kids getting down to James Brown, and in some small way that gave me hope for the future.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Points of business
RIP to Duke Jordan (an underrated and versatile pianist; much like Mwanji, I didn't realize he was still around) and Anga Diaz (a far too premature loss, whose only work I know is his participation in Roy Hargrove's Habana).
Pitchfork has an interview with Thom Yorke up, including some passages that neatly tie into this whole idea of "Who needs record labels?" Yorke raises the point that the internet isn't necessarily as universal as we'd like to believe, but it's becoming clear that the balance of power is being placed into the hands of technology-savvy artists and inventive independent labels. I can count on two limbs the record labels I would actually desire to be associated with.
Pitchfork has an interview with Thom Yorke up, including some passages that neatly tie into this whole idea of "Who needs record labels?" Yorke raises the point that the internet isn't necessarily as universal as we'd like to believe, but it's becoming clear that the balance of power is being placed into the hands of technology-savvy artists and inventive independent labels. I can count on two limbs the record labels I would actually desire to be associated with.
Monday, August 07, 2006
World Skip The Beat playlist
*Autorickshaw - "Purvi Tillana" (Four Higher)
Tabla Beat Science - "Palmistry" (Tala Matrix)
Mystère des voix bulgares - "Erghen Diado" (Le mystère des voix bulgares)
Septeto Roberto Rodriguez - "Hadida" (Baila! Gitano Baila!)
Ivo Papasov & His Bulgarian Wedding Band - "Marika Duma Pro Duma" (Orpheus Ascending)
Babatunde Olatunji - "Gin-Go-Lo-Ba" (Drums of Passion)
Fela Ransome-Kuti and the Africa '70 - "Egbe Mi O" (With Ginger Baker - Live!)
Angélique Kidjo - "Voodoo Child" (Oremi)
Konono No. 1 - "Kule Kule" (Congotronics)
*Chango Family - "La Cocaracha" (Babylon Bypass)
Toots and the Maytals - "We Shall Overcome" (54-46 That's My Number: Anthology 1964-2000)
*Luck Mervil - "Piwouli" (Ti Peyi A)
Bebo Valdes - "El guajeo de Rickard" (Bebo de Cuba)
Susana Baca - "Guillermina" (Travesías)
*Eliana Cuevas - "Luna Llena" (Ventura)
Caetano Veloso - "Na Baixa da Sapateiro" (Best Of)
Curumin - "Samba Japa" (Achados e Perdidos)
Bill Laswell - "Chaos In The Heat (Last Transmission)" (Imaginary Cuba)
Marc Ribot - "Aqui Como Alla" (Y Los Cubanos Postizos)
Maria Bethania & Gal Costa - "Sonho Meu" (Beleza Tropical 1: Brazil Classics)
Gilberto Gil - "Eu Só Quero Um Xodó" (Beleza Tropical 1: Brazil Classics)
Manu Chao - "Clandestino" (Radio Bemba Sound System)
Marc Ribot - "La Vida Es Un Sueño" (Y Los Cubanos Postizos)
Tabla Beat Science - "Palmistry" (Tala Matrix)
Mystère des voix bulgares - "Erghen Diado" (Le mystère des voix bulgares)
Septeto Roberto Rodriguez - "Hadida" (Baila! Gitano Baila!)
Ivo Papasov & His Bulgarian Wedding Band - "Marika Duma Pro Duma" (Orpheus Ascending)
Babatunde Olatunji - "Gin-Go-Lo-Ba" (Drums of Passion)
Fela Ransome-Kuti and the Africa '70 - "Egbe Mi O" (With Ginger Baker - Live!)
Angélique Kidjo - "Voodoo Child" (Oremi)
Konono No. 1 - "Kule Kule" (Congotronics)
*Chango Family - "La Cocaracha" (Babylon Bypass)
Toots and the Maytals - "We Shall Overcome" (54-46 That's My Number: Anthology 1964-2000)
*Luck Mervil - "Piwouli" (Ti Peyi A)
Bebo Valdes - "El guajeo de Rickard" (Bebo de Cuba)
Susana Baca - "Guillermina" (Travesías)
*Eliana Cuevas - "Luna Llena" (Ventura)
Caetano Veloso - "Na Baixa da Sapateiro" (Best Of)
Curumin - "Samba Japa" (Achados e Perdidos)
Bill Laswell - "Chaos In The Heat (Last Transmission)" (Imaginary Cuba)
Marc Ribot - "Aqui Como Alla" (Y Los Cubanos Postizos)
Maria Bethania & Gal Costa - "Sonho Meu" (Beleza Tropical 1: Brazil Classics)
Gilberto Gil - "Eu Só Quero Um Xodó" (Beleza Tropical 1: Brazil Classics)
Manu Chao - "Clandestino" (Radio Bemba Sound System)
Marc Ribot - "La Vida Es Un Sueño" (Y Los Cubanos Postizos)
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Both sides of the station
The now contentious era of jazz history, post-1967, is one that fascinates and eludes me. As my cameo on the Greenleaf blog has made clear, my knowledge of that period is quite limited. What I do know of it comes at the hands of my experience at CKUT, my time at the Banff Centre, subsequent discussions with my piano teacher, Jeff Johnston, and the unexpected finding of Gary Giddins' Rhythm-a-Ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation in the '80s (discovered used in Key West on the Cruise Ship X run). Giddins' book is revelatory not only for the reasons I mention in the Greenleaf e-mail, but also because its columns end in 1984 - the year before I was born.
My relationship with the avant-garde has been a slowly developing one. I had cultivated the idea somehow (probably through my young interpretations of DownBeat articles) that avant-garde = free = anarchy. This conclusion was mightily shattered over the course of high school and university. When the high school band trip invaded Symphony Center in Chicago for Medeski Martin & Wood, nobody knew who the opening act was - a Chicago group called 8 Bold Souls. In their bio, I saw the letters "AACM" - an acronym I had seen in the magazines, but never fully explained, and always used in conjunction with those dreaded "free" groups. But Ed Wilkerson and company lured me into their music, a blend I'd never heard before, and with instrumentation that perfectly suited the quirkiness of the compositions. It may have been avant-garde, but there was certainly a lot of structure to it. MMW were more chaotic - and sailed over my early adolescent ears. Of course now, their acoustic album Tonic has high standing with me, after a rather epiphanic listen in my first year of university; I wish I had a tape of that concert to go back to.
Maturity is relative; and with my ears and self having been developed over the intervening years (and having actually listened to the music), I no longer fear the avant-garde. However, the old adage comes into play here: we fear what we do not know. In my high school music classes, the "classical history" section of the course treated 20th-century music - twice. Ravel's Chansons madécasses, Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, Berg's Wözzeck, George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children - not light fare, by any means. Our jazz history went from ragtime to Blakey, and maybe a little bit of fusion. University was not much better: two semesters of classical history, from Gregorian chant through Joan Tower. Jazz history was crammed into one, and much like the Ken Burns' series, we ran out of time to properly address the various factions of the music that sprout after 1960. And as much as I detested being subjected to Sprechstimme at 9 am, I appreciate the sentiment of the classical history and analysis classes I took: you may not like Berio or Boulez or Messiaen, but they are important, and this is why. To our jazz history professor's credit, he put on a lot of earlier jazz that gets written off as well, and is as equally important as the post-1960s music, and it legitimately was a time factor that prevented our treatment of modern subject matter. Yet even still, the post-60's stuff was the standard scenario: Ornette goes free; Miles, Wayne and Herbie go electric. My arranging and composition classes were open forums, and we were allowed and encouraged to do whatever we liked; but the models we looked at were, again, the usual suspects: Brookmeyer, Kenny Wheeler, Thad Jones, Maria Schneider, Wayne, Sammy Nestico. Not to disparage the contributions of the above, nor to disparage my education entirely, but it's obvious that there's a large section of the history missing here.
Then again, it seems like many music schools are divided, in both classical and jazz - you either have to be forward-looking at the expense of acknowledging the past; or learn the tradition without jumping into new water. Some of my classical composition colleagues report that it's anathema to even so much as hint at tonality. Bebop, swing, and the blues are either the Holy Trinity, or dusty relics that are relegated to their time in history. I prefer to subscribe to the cliche that you have to know where you've been to know where you're going. It's one thing to willingly choose not to swing, or to be atonal, or (insert artistic aesthetic here); it's entirely another to shut out those worlds completely. I was fortunate enough to have Jeff as a teacher and mentor, and we often talked about avant-garde/free music; I got a balanced education that way.
Luckily, I got involved with CKUT my second year of university, and their library houses a whole world of improvised music not much discussed in the faculty: Ken Vandermark, Anthony Braxton, David Murray, William Parker, Tim Berne, Wadada Leo Smith. (To be fair, the music library holds gems such as the out-of-print '70s Braxton quartet sessions on Arista, and other like-minded albums from the period, most of Jimmy Giuffre's catalog, as well as a good amount of modern jazz based on student and faculty requests.) Through CKUT, I had (and have) the opportunity to hear music I otherwise wouldn't find, either because of availability issues or personal taste. Jazz Euphorium is a collective show, and the hosts' tastes run the gamut of the jazz & improvised music spectrum. By co-hosting with my colleagues, I've been hipped to music to which I normally wouldn't give the time of day. And I'm grateful for that.
And this treasure trove at CKUT has led me to identify with the"European attitude" I mentioned here: "...it's all music, and as musicians we should be able to play tunes (both originals and standards) and to improvise freely with equal conviction, if not capacity." The more we know about music - any music, all music, all manners of creation and performance - the more compelling our own work will be.
My relationship with the avant-garde has been a slowly developing one. I had cultivated the idea somehow (probably through my young interpretations of DownBeat articles) that avant-garde = free = anarchy. This conclusion was mightily shattered over the course of high school and university. When the high school band trip invaded Symphony Center in Chicago for Medeski Martin & Wood, nobody knew who the opening act was - a Chicago group called 8 Bold Souls. In their bio, I saw the letters "AACM" - an acronym I had seen in the magazines, but never fully explained, and always used in conjunction with those dreaded "free" groups. But Ed Wilkerson and company lured me into their music, a blend I'd never heard before, and with instrumentation that perfectly suited the quirkiness of the compositions. It may have been avant-garde, but there was certainly a lot of structure to it. MMW were more chaotic - and sailed over my early adolescent ears. Of course now, their acoustic album Tonic has high standing with me, after a rather epiphanic listen in my first year of university; I wish I had a tape of that concert to go back to.
Maturity is relative; and with my ears and self having been developed over the intervening years (and having actually listened to the music), I no longer fear the avant-garde. However, the old adage comes into play here: we fear what we do not know. In my high school music classes, the "classical history" section of the course treated 20th-century music - twice. Ravel's Chansons madécasses, Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, Berg's Wözzeck, George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children - not light fare, by any means. Our jazz history went from ragtime to Blakey, and maybe a little bit of fusion. University was not much better: two semesters of classical history, from Gregorian chant through Joan Tower. Jazz history was crammed into one, and much like the Ken Burns' series, we ran out of time to properly address the various factions of the music that sprout after 1960. And as much as I detested being subjected to Sprechstimme at 9 am, I appreciate the sentiment of the classical history and analysis classes I took: you may not like Berio or Boulez or Messiaen, but they are important, and this is why. To our jazz history professor's credit, he put on a lot of earlier jazz that gets written off as well, and is as equally important as the post-1960s music, and it legitimately was a time factor that prevented our treatment of modern subject matter. Yet even still, the post-60's stuff was the standard scenario: Ornette goes free; Miles, Wayne and Herbie go electric. My arranging and composition classes were open forums, and we were allowed and encouraged to do whatever we liked; but the models we looked at were, again, the usual suspects: Brookmeyer, Kenny Wheeler, Thad Jones, Maria Schneider, Wayne, Sammy Nestico. Not to disparage the contributions of the above, nor to disparage my education entirely, but it's obvious that there's a large section of the history missing here.
Then again, it seems like many music schools are divided, in both classical and jazz - you either have to be forward-looking at the expense of acknowledging the past; or learn the tradition without jumping into new water. Some of my classical composition colleagues report that it's anathema to even so much as hint at tonality. Bebop, swing, and the blues are either the Holy Trinity, or dusty relics that are relegated to their time in history. I prefer to subscribe to the cliche that you have to know where you've been to know where you're going. It's one thing to willingly choose not to swing, or to be atonal, or (insert artistic aesthetic here); it's entirely another to shut out those worlds completely. I was fortunate enough to have Jeff as a teacher and mentor, and we often talked about avant-garde/free music; I got a balanced education that way.
Luckily, I got involved with CKUT my second year of university, and their library houses a whole world of improvised music not much discussed in the faculty: Ken Vandermark, Anthony Braxton, David Murray, William Parker, Tim Berne, Wadada Leo Smith. (To be fair, the music library holds gems such as the out-of-print '70s Braxton quartet sessions on Arista, and other like-minded albums from the period, most of Jimmy Giuffre's catalog, as well as a good amount of modern jazz based on student and faculty requests.) Through CKUT, I had (and have) the opportunity to hear music I otherwise wouldn't find, either because of availability issues or personal taste. Jazz Euphorium is a collective show, and the hosts' tastes run the gamut of the jazz & improvised music spectrum. By co-hosting with my colleagues, I've been hipped to music to which I normally wouldn't give the time of day. And I'm grateful for that.
And this treasure trove at CKUT has led me to identify with the
Broadband PSA
I'll be hosting two vastly different radio shows on CKUT (90.3 FM) in the space of three days:
Monday, August 7, 12:00-14:00 EST - World Skip the Beat. "Imaginative international music" is the tagline, and I'll go on a truly globetrotting journey.
Wednesday, August 9, 20:00-22:00 EST - Jazz Euphorium. My usual haunt on the airwaves, with a mix of old and new, in and out.
Also, later in the month, on August 27, I'll be filling in for Agent Munkyhed and his cohorts on The Hearing Trumpet - a freeform, cross-genre extravaganza. Playlists will be posted here after the fact, and you can tune in online by clicking above. If you miss it, archives are up for about a week in high-quality, longer in lower quality.
Monday, August 7, 12:00-14:00 EST - World Skip the Beat. "Imaginative international music" is the tagline, and I'll go on a truly globetrotting journey.
Wednesday, August 9, 20:00-22:00 EST - Jazz Euphorium. My usual haunt on the airwaves, with a mix of old and new, in and out.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
The perils of sloppy filekeeping
You know it's bad when you're going through your Sibelius scores folder and you come across fragments you don't remember writing. I discovered a rather long-winded overwritten melody I (apparently) concocted while in high school that I'd long forgotten. There's some promise in there, I think... but I don't remember its inspiration or context at all. Very strange.
I made a new run to the CD section of the Grande Bibliotheque again. The selections on this occasion:
Billy Preston: The Ultimate Collection. I knew various songs on this anthology, but not Billy's versions of them ("Will It Go Round In Circles?," "You Are So Beautiful"). His cover of "Blackbird" might be the best of them all.
Gil Evans: & Ten; The Individualism of Gil Evans. I heard some of these pieces when Christine Jensen did her Master's composition colloquium on Gil's music, but not the full records. Both records feature Steve Lacy, but Individualism features a host of fantastic bassists (PC, Gary Peacock, Ron, Richard Davis), a rotating reed section with Wayne Shorter, Eric Dolphy, and Phil Woods (among others), and Elvin Jones in a much different atmosphere than his usual 1964 surroundings.
Anthony Braxton Quartet (Dortmund) 1976. Haven't listened yet.
Art Ensemble of Chicago: A Jackson In Your House/Message to Our Folks. Interesting to hear how they function in their earliest incarnation without Don Moye, but I'm not impressed by it. The out-and-out racial politics of "Get In Line" (from Jackson) are supremely dated. Message to Our Folks fares better, with a rollicking take on "Dexterity."
I made a new run to the CD section of the Grande Bibliotheque again. The selections on this occasion:
Billy Preston: The Ultimate Collection. I knew various songs on this anthology, but not Billy's versions of them ("Will It Go Round In Circles?," "You Are So Beautiful"). His cover of "Blackbird" might be the best of them all.
Gil Evans: & Ten; The Individualism of Gil Evans. I heard some of these pieces when Christine Jensen did her Master's composition colloquium on Gil's music, but not the full records. Both records feature Steve Lacy, but Individualism features a host of fantastic bassists (PC, Gary Peacock, Ron, Richard Davis), a rotating reed section with Wayne Shorter, Eric Dolphy, and Phil Woods (among others), and Elvin Jones in a much different atmosphere than his usual 1964 surroundings.
Anthony Braxton Quartet (Dortmund) 1976. Haven't listened yet.
Art Ensemble of Chicago: A Jackson In Your House/Message to Our Folks. Interesting to hear how they function in their earliest incarnation without Don Moye, but I'm not impressed by it. The out-and-out racial politics of "Get In Line" (from Jackson) are supremely dated. Message to Our Folks fares better, with a rollicking take on "Dexterity."
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Your mind has turned to applesauce
Fagen and Becker never cease to impress: Don & Walt's open letter to Luke (and by extension, Owen) Wilson. Kudos to the Dan for eloquently (in a faux-Californian slacker kind of way) tearing the Hollywood establishment a new one.
Edited to note that this is intended to be humourous, not an actual calling-out of the Wilson clan.
Edited to note that this is intended to be humourous, not an actual calling-out of the Wilson clan.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
It seems the hot topic of jazz journalism, circa 2006, is the "invasion" (as DownBeat labelled it a couple of months ago) of young European upstarts into the North American jazz consciousness. Francis Davis has launched a recent volley through hijacking his own review of a new ECM release, and Mwanji responds quite eloquently here.
As I've seen it, the contentious issue regarding the acceptance of European approaches to jazz music is the non-linearity with which many European musicians regard the jazz tradition. Much like Westerners have incorporated various ethnic musics into jazz or rock, Europeans take what they like out of the jazz tradition and use it accordingly. Their distance (both geographically and figuratively) allows them the freedom to operate outside the jazz history as espoused by [insert highly-touted American traditionalist writers here]. This brings up the two recurring themes of the America-vs.-Europe diatribes:
As I've seen it, the contentious issue regarding the acceptance of European approaches to jazz music is the non-linearity with which many European musicians regard the jazz tradition. Much like Westerners have incorporated various ethnic musics into jazz or rock, Europeans take what they like out of the jazz tradition and use it accordingly. Their distance (both geographically and figuratively) allows them the freedom to operate outside the jazz history as espoused by [insert highly-touted American traditionalist writers here]. This brings up the two recurring themes of the America-vs.-Europe diatribes:
- It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. Europeans are either regarded as inherently incapable of swinging, or of willingly ignoring it as an essential part of jazzdom.
- Europeans, by virtue of their non-American status, do not understand the jazz tradition at all. According to certain critics, it is impossible to gloss over the bebop section of the history, and equate the early jazz and Dixieland with the avant-garde rumblings of the late '60s. (Edited for clarity after Mwanji's post here.)
I must take issue with this. As always, it's those who stubbornly cling to the status quo that are insular. Exhibit A: The Trondheim Jazz Orchestra with Chick Corea at the IAJE in New York this past January. Erlend Skomsvoll and company trot out quite imaginative arrangements of Corea classics like "Crystal Silence," "Windows" and "Matrix," with the master at the keyboard. Scripts are flipped entirely: Reich-esque sax ostinatos as backgrounds, high brass comping for the tuba, free interludes alternating with exquisitely intricate composed passages. And how they swung when they wished to! What was liberating to me as a North American musician and listener was that they didn't try to imitate Corea's classic renditions of these pieces and fall short. They put their own distinct fingerprint on each piece. As well, the aforementioned free interludes were not mere wanking, but attuned communication on a rather high level. The American conservatory/music school mindset, which even seems to plague the professional scene, is that if you play tunes you cannot play free, and vice-versa. How quickly we have forgotten Keith, Paul Bley, Derek Bailey, and even Corea himself. The "European" attitude (which I first refreshingly experienced at the Banff Centre last year) is that it's all music, and as musicians we should be able to play tunes (both originals and standards) and to improvise freely with equal conviction, if not capacity. EDIT (08/06/2006): after an e-mail exchange with Dave Douglas, he makes the very valid point that there are North American artists who practice this as well. I refer to it as a "European" attitude mostly for the purposes of the dichotomy being treated here, and partially for the fact that I've seen this more consistently manifest in European conservatories.
Europeans are not alone in drawing from the wellspring of non-jazz music, and this has been going on for the past century. I'm surprised that critics and some musicians alike still regard the treatment of repertoire from artists like Bjork, Paul Simon, Radiohead or Nick Drake (to cite only the people I've covered in my own groups) as mere novelty, and that the inevitable next step - to write music evocative of these artists - is considered as some sort of jazz heresy. I recall what Vijay Iyer said about his use of Indian music, explaining that his concern is not whether said influence is apparent in the end product but how it functions in the generation of pieces. My added interpretation of that statement is that it's yet another piece of his personal musical puzzle, as important as Monk, Andrew Hill, Coltrane and the AACM. For my part (and for many others), I'm a gringo looking to Brazil and other parts of Latin America for inspiration. I don't claim to play the various folkloric music from that region authoritatively or authentically, but I do know I've been motivated and impressed by modern music from there and that it serves as impetus for my own progression. And who's to dispute the validity of the music that henceforth flows?
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Return to the radiowaves
Just a quick note for the handful that follow this blog: I'll be hosting CKUT (90.3 FM)'s Jazz Euphorium show (for the first time in a long while) tomorrow (Wednesday, July 19) evening at 8-10 pm EDT. For those not in the Montreal area, you can tune in by clicking the link above.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
The night the lights went out sur avenue du parc
This is what I get for not checking my Hour newsletters. I am stunned that Cinéma du Parc is going under. It's been a cornerstone of my life in Montreal, and more than that, it's usually been packed. Located right beside the New Residence of McGill University, and a very short walk away from the rest of the campus, it's in a central location of the city, easily accessible by metro and/or bus.
According to the press release on their site, it seems like it's yet another case of the multinational Goliaths devouring the hipper, trendier, smaller Davids. Never mind that AMC is a bigger business with comfier chairs, I've never really dug the atmosphere there. It's a legendary hockey stadium converted into a mall, complete with glaring fluorescent lights. There was always at least one movie that overlapped between AMC and du Parc, but I'd choose du Parc any day - it was more conducive to a student budget, for one, and it felt like you were sitting in your movie geek buddy's basement.
This doesn't rid Montreal of its rep cinemas, despite with the Hour article and the comments imply - it does rid Montreal of its Anglo rep cinema. It appears that CdP's sister theatre, Ex-Centris, will continue to be alive and well, and there's also le Parisien on Ste. Catherine.
The final screening at du Parc is scheduled for August 3. Fittingly, the film scheduled to be shown is The Corporation (which I never saw during its first run, anyway). I will do my damnedest to be there... for old times' sake.
According to the press release on their site, it seems like it's yet another case of the multinational Goliaths devouring the hipper, trendier, smaller Davids. Never mind that AMC is a bigger business with comfier chairs, I've never really dug the atmosphere there. It's a legendary hockey stadium converted into a mall, complete with glaring fluorescent lights. There was always at least one movie that overlapped between AMC and du Parc, but I'd choose du Parc any day - it was more conducive to a student budget, for one, and it felt like you were sitting in your movie geek buddy's basement.
This doesn't rid Montreal of its rep cinemas, despite with the Hour article and the comments imply - it does rid Montreal of its Anglo rep cinema. It appears that CdP's sister theatre, Ex-Centris, will continue to be alive and well, and there's also le Parisien on Ste. Catherine.
The final screening at du Parc is scheduled for August 3. Fittingly, the film scheduled to be shown is The Corporation (which I never saw during its first run, anyway). I will do my damnedest to be there... for old times' sake.
Back to terra firma
My Cruise Ship X experience is behind me, and it has been populated by a spectrum of events that span from sheer misery to pure ecstacy. The last couple of weeks of my contract left me rather ambivalent about my departure - we had some personnel changes that raised the calibre of the band rather drastically, and I wish I was given more than two weeks to work with these colleagues.
Instead of discrediting the entire journey, I will say it has illuminated what I need out of music. I cannot abide by anything musical becoming merely a paycheque or a "job" - I'd rather take a day job and work on my personal endeavours on the side. I need to know who I'm performing with, especially when it's a nightly gig, and the unfortunate reality of pick-up bands is that the mystery is only revealed upon embarkation - which is a little late to back out. I have been spoiled by the music school opportunities of having colleagues consistently interested and capable of performing new music. And I have learned what it is to be a mentor to people, which was a very strange transition for me. I've always been the mentoree, the kid receiving and gleaning advice from my peers. To accept that I am now out of school and possibly have valid information to disseminate to other musicians is a very new concept to me.
Despite the realization of what I want out of music, I'm now staring down the crossroads of exactly how I wish to achieve it. Jazz is my primary love and the lens through which I view all other music (even those that I discovered before jazz), yet jamming out the R&B and funk with one of the mid-lounge bands was as thrilling as improvised music for me. And while I could never totally leave playing behind, composition is increasingly moving to the foreground of my interests. I don't believe I could follow all these paths and do each of them justice - there's just not enough hours in the day - so a choice must soon be made.
My last port before sign-off was Jamaica, and eleven of us made the pilgrimage out to Bob Marley's house in St. Ann. I'm not a rabid Marley devotee, but I felt very strongly that his house is vital to the history of music and of Jamaican culture and I would never forgive myself if I had missed the opportunity to pay respect. The drive was roughly an hour, through the hills of Jamaica, filled with both some gorgeous scenery and harrowing snapshots of the unfortunate reality of the Caribbean regions that are not the beneficiaries of the tourist dollar. Living in North America, we are often sheltered from the extreme economic stratifications that affect most of the planet. The excess of luxury vacation, and the sheer luck of being able to have any sort of decent employment (never mind whether it's what one loves to do) stood in stark contrast.
The first room one enters in the Marley complex is an open and bare one, with only a plaque commemorating the Legend compilation hanging from the wall, and his Witameyer upright piano sitting against another wall. My roommate had taken video on his first visit to Marley's place, and one clip showed a tourist plinking on the piano. I was unsure of whether I actually wanted to play that day, but between my own irresistible urge and the egging on of my friends, I sat down and played "Redemption Song." The piano was seemingly guarded by two Rastafarian men, but as I started playing, they started singing along, as did some of the other tourists. After the tour was over, a bunch of us hung around the bottom of the complex and listened to a guy playing "Three Little Birds" on banjo. I heard more piano tinkling from that same room, and went back to see what was going on. Those same two Rastas were still there, and they asked me to play again. After muddling through a little bit of "Lively Up Yourself," I started into "No Woman, No Cry." I immediately had goosebumps as everyone started singing along. The last time I had a similar experience was playing tunes at Banff that had any association with my friend Chris. As cheesy as this sounds, one can still feel Marley's energy emanating from that room.
Instead of discrediting the entire journey, I will say it has illuminated what I need out of music. I cannot abide by anything musical becoming merely a paycheque or a "job" - I'd rather take a day job and work on my personal endeavours on the side. I need to know who I'm performing with, especially when it's a nightly gig, and the unfortunate reality of pick-up bands is that the mystery is only revealed upon embarkation - which is a little late to back out. I have been spoiled by the music school opportunities of having colleagues consistently interested and capable of performing new music. And I have learned what it is to be a mentor to people, which was a very strange transition for me. I've always been the mentoree, the kid receiving and gleaning advice from my peers. To accept that I am now out of school and possibly have valid information to disseminate to other musicians is a very new concept to me.
Despite the realization of what I want out of music, I'm now staring down the crossroads of exactly how I wish to achieve it. Jazz is my primary love and the lens through which I view all other music (even those that I discovered before jazz), yet jamming out the R&B and funk with one of the mid-lounge bands was as thrilling as improvised music for me. And while I could never totally leave playing behind, composition is increasingly moving to the foreground of my interests. I don't believe I could follow all these paths and do each of them justice - there's just not enough hours in the day - so a choice must soon be made.
My last port before sign-off was Jamaica, and eleven of us made the pilgrimage out to Bob Marley's house in St. Ann. I'm not a rabid Marley devotee, but I felt very strongly that his house is vital to the history of music and of Jamaican culture and I would never forgive myself if I had missed the opportunity to pay respect. The drive was roughly an hour, through the hills of Jamaica, filled with both some gorgeous scenery and harrowing snapshots of the unfortunate reality of the Caribbean regions that are not the beneficiaries of the tourist dollar. Living in North America, we are often sheltered from the extreme economic stratifications that affect most of the planet. The excess of luxury vacation, and the sheer luck of being able to have any sort of decent employment (never mind whether it's what one loves to do) stood in stark contrast.
The first room one enters in the Marley complex is an open and bare one, with only a plaque commemorating the Legend compilation hanging from the wall, and his Witameyer upright piano sitting against another wall. My roommate had taken video on his first visit to Marley's place, and one clip showed a tourist plinking on the piano. I was unsure of whether I actually wanted to play that day, but between my own irresistible urge and the egging on of my friends, I sat down and played "Redemption Song." The piano was seemingly guarded by two Rastafarian men, but as I started playing, they started singing along, as did some of the other tourists. After the tour was over, a bunch of us hung around the bottom of the complex and listened to a guy playing "Three Little Birds" on banjo. I heard more piano tinkling from that same room, and went back to see what was going on. Those same two Rastas were still there, and they asked me to play again. After muddling through a little bit of "Lively Up Yourself," I started into "No Woman, No Cry." I immediately had goosebumps as everyone started singing along. The last time I had a similar experience was playing tunes at Banff that had any association with my friend Chris. As cheesy as this sounds, one can still feel Marley's energy emanating from that room.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Memorials and remembrances
Due to the limited resources for connectivity on the cruise ships, I feel sorely out of touch with the world around me. I get the CBC and NPR blog feeds but rarely have enough time to investigate them past the headlines.
The last time I called home, I asked my parents what was going on in the world aside from the murder of al-Zarqawi, the ongoing saga of Israel/Palestine and World Cup. The first thing they told me was that Billy Preston had passed on. I'm no authority on his work, but I remember watching his playing on Eric Clapton's recent One More Car, One More Rider DVD and seeing him revel in the joy of music, and the way he interacted with David Sancious without stepping on any toes, and being mightily impressed. Of course, his classic contributions to the Beatles, Stones, Aretha, Ray Charles and many others are not to be ignored.
And as I check my blogs today, I see that Ligeti has died. The best tribute is here, courtesy of Ethan Iverson. Again, I am no expert in Ligeti (and certainly not to the extent that Iverson and Alex Ross are), but my introduction to his music remains vivid in my memory. At the beginning of my dalliance with 20th-century classical music in high school (which, incidentally, lay dormant until I got to university), I asked my band director for some of the weirdest stuff he could give me that he'd still think I'd like. In the pile was the Sony recording of Ligeti's Horn Trio, Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet, Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet, and Sonata for Solo Viola. At the time, I didn't understand what was going on musically (and to this day I haven't investigated the scores enough to make that claim), but it was immediately affecting. Now I additionally admire Ligeti's struggle to find new forms of expression, his references to folkloric material without parroting or cheapening it (in the line of Stravinsky and Bartok) and his attention to instrumental detail (the French horn instructions in the wind quintets are maddeningly specific), but the emotional connection still remains strong.
It's unfortunate that my further investigation of Ligeti's music (and to a certain extent, Billy Preston's as well) will be catalysed by his passing.
The last time I called home, I asked my parents what was going on in the world aside from the murder of al-Zarqawi, the ongoing saga of Israel/Palestine and World Cup. The first thing they told me was that Billy Preston had passed on. I'm no authority on his work, but I remember watching his playing on Eric Clapton's recent One More Car, One More Rider DVD and seeing him revel in the joy of music, and the way he interacted with David Sancious without stepping on any toes, and being mightily impressed. Of course, his classic contributions to the Beatles, Stones, Aretha, Ray Charles and many others are not to be ignored.
And as I check my blogs today, I see that Ligeti has died. The best tribute is here, courtesy of Ethan Iverson. Again, I am no expert in Ligeti (and certainly not to the extent that Iverson and Alex Ross are), but my introduction to his music remains vivid in my memory. At the beginning of my dalliance with 20th-century classical music in high school (which, incidentally, lay dormant until I got to university), I asked my band director for some of the weirdest stuff he could give me that he'd still think I'd like. In the pile was the Sony recording of Ligeti's Horn Trio, Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet, Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet, and Sonata for Solo Viola. At the time, I didn't understand what was going on musically (and to this day I haven't investigated the scores enough to make that claim), but it was immediately affecting. Now I additionally admire Ligeti's struggle to find new forms of expression, his references to folkloric material without parroting or cheapening it (in the line of Stravinsky and Bartok) and his attention to instrumental detail (the French horn instructions in the wind quintets are maddeningly specific), but the emotional connection still remains strong.
It's unfortunate that my further investigation of Ligeti's music (and to a certain extent, Billy Preston's as well) will be catalysed by his passing.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Retail therapy
Half the band went out to Spec's yesterday, and we each dropped significant portions of our pay. My rewards:
Frederic Rzewski - Rzewski Plays Rzewski: Works for Solo Piano (the big Nonesuch box; fantastic. Thanks to Darcy for hipping me to him.)
Stevie Wonder - Fulfillingness' First Finale
The Roots - The Roots Come Alive
Miles Davis - Water Babies
Duke Ellington - ...and His Mother Called Him Bill
I listened to excerpts of the new Paul Simon/Brian Eno collaboration, and the jury's still out. Obviously, one cannot judge the work of either of those masters by 30-second sound bites, but by the same token nothing convincing enough to make me keep it in the pile jumped out at me.
Frederic Rzewski - Rzewski Plays Rzewski: Works for Solo Piano (the big Nonesuch box; fantastic. Thanks to Darcy for hipping me to him.)
Stevie Wonder - Fulfillingness' First Finale
The Roots - The Roots Come Alive
Miles Davis - Water Babies
Duke Ellington - ...and His Mother Called Him Bill
I listened to excerpts of the new Paul Simon/Brian Eno collaboration, and the jury's still out. Obviously, one cannot judge the work of either of those masters by 30-second sound bites, but by the same token nothing convincing enough to make me keep it in the pile jumped out at me.
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