Great things at UNO

It has been hard over the couple decades or more, since arriving in New Orleans, to find much if any dialogue about what is new and most up to date in contemporary music thinking, let alone having that dialogue opened up to the freshest minds around town.  It was invigorating this weekend to catch up on what Yotam Haber and Henry Griffin and others had been putting together for student composers at UNO.

Professor Yotam Haber is a very interesting composer who gets novel and beautiful compositions played all over the world.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcX1lfASmKc.  It is a great thing that UNO has a fellow of this capacity in its music program- which, especially on the jazz side has been excellent- but Yotam Haber offers things for a whole other musical direction to be available to a city that has not often seen the possibility of training or even exposure to things in these directions.  His enthusiasm and vitality for the subject is palpable, and clearly inspiring for the students whom he champions in a great way.

On Friday we played the film scores composed by Yotam Haber's students, live, along with silent movies selected by Henry Griffin and Laura Medina. Griffin is massively knowledgeable about film and had selected some of very wonderful key films from the silent era for the students to score.  A great deal of effort went in to getting these pieces played with a good degree of finesse, and that is a great opportunity for young composers- and essential if they are to keep developing  or gain confidence to keep writing.  It was clear that they had been given exposure to a plethora of interesting techniques and had made their own choices about what to use and, some of the results were quite interesting.

Saturday evening there was a concert of pieces by the students and also by Yotam Haber and another faculty member from Tulane.   

I was called in to play guitar with the Contemporaneous ensemble that Professor Haber had brought in from New York.  I have little experience or comfort in playing in such ensembles so it was humbling to be treated so well despite my own short comings, and I must add that the young players in contemporaneous, including their conductor, David Bloom, were also extremely generous in giving me pointers to help the event go off smoothly. Not to mention larger picture issues from my old friend, bassist Doug Therrion. It was all very interesting especially because I am usually in the composer's seat having a piece played, not usually doing the playing.  My strengths as a player are often in other directions, but it was nice to be given an opportunity try to find some way to contribute, given my limitations.  Fresh challenges in music are a good thing.

It seems that with all this going on we might see a healthy crop of fine composers develop out of New Orleans which is something that has been in short supply here, and something that could make a  fascinating musical town, even more so.

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Monday June 3rd at cafe Istanbul

Monday nights show at cafe Istanbul with James Singleton(bass), Tim Green(sax), and Mike Dillon(drums, vibes) was a vast pleasure. It was perhaps the fourth time playing on this configuration and each has been successful and completely different. One of the great factors was the quiet listening of the audience- so quiet that the miraculous happened- I was able to take an extended guitar solo on a flat body telecaster without amplification.
What a crowd! What a club!

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On leaving New Orleans again

This is being written from Holbrooke, AZ, which is really no place to be after New Orleans but we have to go through nowhere try to get somewhere, eh? or is it like Sun Ra said?- "If we came from nowhere here, why can't we go somewhere there?"

It's impossible to wrap up such a great Summer spent back home. I was so glad to hang and play with all my artist friends and partners (and non-affiliated), new and old:

James Singleton, Jeff Albert, Doug Garrison, Joe Cabral, Alex Mcmurray, Luke Allen, Rod Hodges, Helen Gillet, Aurora Nealand, Anthony Cuccia, Kourtney Keller, Goat and Angela, Mike Dillon, Carl LeBlanc, Cousin Dmitri, Michael Dominici, Sue Zemanick, Martin Krusche, Zack Smith, Chris Lane, Jeff Rains, Ben Ellman, Stanton Moore, Mark Bingham, King James and the Special Men, Scott Aiges, Adam Shipley, Matt Goldman, David Foster, Dr. Eric Whitfield, Derrick Freeman, Doug Belote, Chris Kohl, Jimbo Walsh, Dave Capello, Ray Moore, Johnny Vidacovich, Kate Mcnee, Tom McDermott, washboard Chaz, Andrew Wolf, Derek Douget, Michael Skinkus, Cassandra Faulconer, Marcello Bennetti, Brian Coogan, Bill Malchow, Dan Oestreicher, Tim Green, Rick Trolsen, Oliver Manhattan, Joan Long, John Swenson, Davis Rogan, Dave Bandrewski, David Rebeck...(I can't list everybody, dammit! Don't feel excluded!)

And, all the others who helped out and kept me on gigs from days of old...like the folks out at Bacchanal giving me my old Monday weekly back for the summer.

Thankfully, a good deal of "the best minds of my generation" haven't "been destroyed by madness" and aren't "starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix." Sometimes, though, it's been closer to that than you'd think.

New Orleans seems to be undergoing some severe personality alterations as a vast new wave of gentrification takes hold. Everyone is aware of the pros and cons but in New Orleans, if history is a guide, "improvements" usually entail vast cultural loss. It's still got a shocking music scene- let's hope it doesn't keep devolving into tourist music, where the payoffs are temporarily attractive enough that even the artists agree to lose their personality!

On the other hand some things seem to be thriving in mysterious directions; I can't wait to get back.

Los Angeles will just never understand its relative trailing position in the civilization racket.

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Old news about dead opera...

After writing and working on a couple of operas the things that I was seeking to overcome still remained an obstacle.  A production or any presentation is a single item that should be looked after as a whole by all involved no matter what their particular field of excellence.  The tendency for most is to just attempt to do their "job" and if there are things amiss they pass the buck in a few ways that undermine the coherence of a work--at least those that are produced by a multiple number of people.  Often, after they have done their "bit" (acting, singing, playing, directing, or lighting) they neglect other shortfalls they observe as if it wasn't their department.  The mistake is, that in a larger work, the final work, as a whole, is every contributor's department.  Otherwise the work remains in pieces and, the work of each contributor, is looked at as deficient regardless of skill level.

From different backgrounds and diverse training experiences or modes of apprenticeship come different ways of working.  Certain artforms make action in different ways- for example the inner workings of opera singers tends to be different than actors and others from more "straight" theater.  Where there would be benefit from both exchanging, learning, and translating each others methods the default is to recoil into what is easy, and then compete for dominant view in a production.  If dominance isn't obtained then variations of the line, "well...I've done my job." emerge, and a production is on the way to fragmented compromise and egotistical stagnation of he various artisans.

 

It is like Franklin's revolutionary observation- "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Most good theater has a certain air of revolution about it anyway, and this starts early in history.

(Note to hipsters and group musicians: when you perform it is a kind of theater ritual whether you like it or not.  The tendency is to imagine that you have a heady and less pretentious mode of performance...but you don't!  Audiences still respond as if it was a dramatic performance with another kind of content. Poor music performance often hangs on a lack of attention to this.  Muddy Waters's band had a look and a stance on stage where another could have been used, and a lot could be derived and realized from that stance.  So, he projected the real, or similar values even before any music was played.  Archie Shepp wrote for the theater and there is probably much underlying knowledge there that reveals itself in the power of his stance and presentation when he performs.  Arts separation is a bit deadly!)

Perusing Peter Brook's (wish I'd read it sooner) classic, The Empty Space,I came across this passage which even more articulately states the problem.

"Closely related to this is the conflict between theatre directors and musicians in opera productions where two totally different forms, drama and music, are treated as though they were one.  A musician is dealing with a fabric that is as near as man can get to an expression of the invisible.  His score notes this invisibility and his sound is made by instruments which hardly ever change. The player's personality is

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On Respectability

"To deny all morality is to be moral, for the accepted morality is the morality of respectability, and I'm afraid we all crave to be respected - which is to be recognised as good citizens in a rotten society. Respectability is very profitable and ensures you a good job and a steady income. The accepted morality of greed, envy and hate is the way of the establishment."

-J. Krishnamurti

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In Memory of Sam Rivers

 Jonathan Freilich, Sam Rivers, Jeff Albert, Zeitgeist theater, New Orleans  The great Sam Rivers has passed and what a big loss, what a human being, what an improvisor.  And really...what do I know?  I only got to see him a handful of times but each was better than a delight; it was actually transformative.

  The first couple of times that I saw him in person was when he came out to a couple of New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars shows in Orlando, FL.  At one of them he was dancing wildly and he made sure to come over and tell us how much he liked it.  He was one of my heroes and I felt like i'd been given a fresh, strong, backbone.

When we would go down to Orlando, we were sometimes lucky to see his Rivbea orchestra; a great band- check out some of those hot clips on youtube.  

The most important memory of Sam for me, and a number of my comrades in New Orleans, was when he came down to play with the Naked Orchestra.  He had some music prepared but there had been a mixup with his management who had incorrectly communicated the Naked Orchestra's instrumentation to him.  He felt badly about it and said that he had lots of music for such a project if he'd been told what kind of band it was.  He dissolved the rehearsal and said he would have new music for us right before the gig and he did just that; the following evening he had worked up a complete piece for the orchestra.  It was a very ear opening piece of music and I wish I had a recording of that evening.

Every time you saw Sam Rivers he exuded a shocking amount of energy and his multi instrumental trio of recent years was also something else to see.  

My old friend, David Kunian wrote a poem inspired by the show that night with the Naked Orchestra .  Here it is...

 

SAM RIVERS AND THE NAKED ORCHESTRA 3/8/02 ZEITGEIST THEATRE

 

Michael Ray is his own delay.

If he were going the speed of light, 

Would he hear his instrument in the mirror?

Yeah, Einstein, I’m hearing things, All Right!

Tim Green’s blowing breath through the bass sax

Powering the band like a B-2 bomber.

Sounds like Operation Anaconda creeping 

Through the mountains and then a big BOOM 

As Eric Lucero’s trumpet and Rob Wagner’s horn 

Drop the furious atonal BOMB.  Sam the Man Rivers

Writing a new piece like a snake

Sousaphone in the hills, saxophones in the grass.

Mikiel Williams fingering like a snake charmer.

Sam has Hart McKnee adding flute 

And interpretive dance stomps.

“Ooops, I brought music for an orchestra, 

but not this kind of Orchestra.”

Maybe an Arkestra?  A Dressed Orchestra?

Michael Skinkus is the tomato conga.

Matt Perrine on sousaphone is definitely pickles.

Doug Miller no offense slathers on tenor mayo.

Jonathan Froelich’s sharp guitar tones and crazy clusters

Shreds my lettuce.

Cacophony is beautiful

Chaos is beautiful!

It makes no sense, maybe not 

Nonsense, gimme more,

More more more more Naked Sense!

Top it with Sam Rivers hip reeds, wild chords,

Flowing charts, and toothy smile.

 

Written 3/8/02

Revised 3/15/02

Thanks Sam!

 

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A few words in favor of Norco Lapalco

The following was written after a show on the weekend of Nov.16,2011 in New Orleans.

Somewhere between 1991-2 I was living in an apartment in the house of Klezmer All-Stars accordionist, Glenn Hartman. One night my friend, Ben Ellman, called to say he wanted some help to work out some lines on a cassette tape by a band he was going to do a gig with. At that time, Ben was playing with the Little Rascals Brass band. We had been hanging around some other places besides the golden Treme hotspots of that time- Pepinas, and Lucky's are particularly memorable backdrops, but there were others.

The cassette had a band called Lump on it. I remember thinking immediately that they had come up with some really wild lines. They would play in unison, fast, and the drum sound was really energetic and all over the place, but kept the energy at a fantastically manic level. They would rapidly change into these odd time slow sections and then declaim some really strange sounding stuff that I hadn't worked out yet. Ben mentioned that they were into a lot of interesting creative funk and jazz players (style naming is such a drag) that I also had special affection for- James "Blood" Ulmer etc.

Lump is in the past, yet the excitement, and particular emotional and conscious oulook they portrayed, stick firmly in the heads of those of us that used to see them- often by accident. One of the main features was the singular lyrics that spanned subjects from Deuteronomy to Delfayo Marsalis. Usually the music would suddenly move from the aforementioned instrumental outbreaks into these wild declamations penned by Lou Thevenot.

Going on about Lump is missing the point for some, who feel that you are nowhere without solid experience of some previous work of that band's members...but, I wasn't there. Some of these old, wizened, folks were in the audience at the Mermaid reunion show at Hi-Ho where Norco Lapalco showed up and became the stimulus for this ramble. The band really put those discussions of the past- in the past pretty quickly. In fact, not showing up with Lump (and it was probably requested) was a solid statement in itself, since they had been an early Mermaid Lounge scene staple. Norco Lapalco wasn't even a fleck in a dry imagination at that point in history.

If you are in New Orleans- you need to go out and see this group. Their stuff is really together. It drips authentic experience and Lou has always been a safeguard against pandering bullshit...so you are out of danger...that one anyway. This is really original music and it gets you in a mysterious part of the pelvis that hasn't been much written of in the yards of writing on rhythmic music. It's exciting in as much as it changes direction frequently, rapidly,unexpectedly, and yet the lyrics hang there mysteriously, well heard. (Did I mention the hot lead singer?) These are songs about what is actually happening and that provides a relief from the endless proliferation of solipsistic, escapist, pop-allegoricism that people seem to endlessly want to hang their songwriting clevernesses on. These are, after all, viscerally, fragmenting times and it's sad to see most young musical folks around New Orleans regurgitating music so old that it has no relevance except as a way to pull dimes out of misguided tourists.

This, on the other hand, is a band speaking from their time and place with a writer who doesn't beat around the bush with any of those folksy, saccharine singer/songwriter clevernesses, or cliche rock heroics. He plays guitar in a real interesting way too- as does the other guitarist. These days too many people are trying to play in standardized ways that descend from whomever they think is legit. (Did I mention the singers?-very penetrating...) It's time for more emotional experience. Go get it at a Norco Lapalco show.

 

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To New Orleans- half open letter

Firstly, I'll be back.

Secondly, it definitely feels like the end of a chapter and it's caused some amount of reflexive pondering. There were a lot of warm send off parties and parting gigs, and I can't express what it I felt like to receive that sort of  attention from friends and colleagues.  Thank you for all those who sent me off so well and made me feel some sense of accomplishment.  It's nice to leave thinking that some musical efforts really have been understood. 

 ...Now I find myself here in California, on the precipice of the Pacific, thinking so hard and gratefully about the last 22 years in New Orleans.  I would always rather be there but I suppose musical exploration is driving me right now, more than location. New Orleans offers both in a way I love, but there are some directions that, artistically and, yes, even in music, that the city doesn't really foster at this juncture.  There are, of course, still other well known features where the city shows itself to have no ceiling.  I feel lucky to have benefitted a great deal from those limitless directions.

The music community that accepted me so easily when I first got to town is really composed of individuals.  I can't really say enough about these figures. On the outside we spend a lot of time talking about the groups.  And that is important from the outside, as music goes a long way in describing co-effort and harmony within groups.  Yet, from the inside, particularly while playing, one is really feeling the

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Collaboration, dictatorial ideology, Platonic philosophy hangovers, and other thoughts before starting work on an opera

In preparing to write larger, theatrically bound pieces of music, a voracious appetite for webs of information, culled from as many fields as possible seems to take hold.  (I'm speaking as a "newbie" here because I've only written one opera previously, Bang The Law.) Perhaps, it is because things like opera involve so many different features: poetry, acting, producing, directing, music, stage design, costume, psychology, history. Reasearch into everything possible seems to be called for. There is also the perennial fear of accidentally creating something too narrow or trivial. I get into a kind of trawling, sometimes directed, sometimes not, that leads to the right sort of mental and emotional fullness and wonder that overcomes stagnation, procrastination, and distraction.  Opera demands collaboration anyhow so mental flexibility derived from poring over related ideas seems paramount becuse there is a certain openness and general knowledge required in working well with others with specialized talents.

I'm involved in the writing of a semi-operatic work currently so this is the process that seems to be dominant again.  A couple of months back I was handed a libretto by writer, Adam Falik and agreed to collaborate on his libretto about a couple of early twentieth century art behemoths and a fictional encounter that drags them both down.  In perusing some of

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Reflections on Herbie Hancock's Imagine Project show- Flynn Theater, Friday June 3rd, 2011

It’s been over a week since the first concert I saw at the Discover Jazz festival (Burlington, VT) and, aside from being generally busy, there was so much new music and performance information that Hancock put out on that evening, that it seemed wiser to let the sensations percolate through thought and emotion for a while before sitting to reflect on the show in writing.

In fact, I only saw the second set but, on my way in to the theater I heard many on their way out exclaiming how amazing the show was, or seeming pleased that he had played so many old favorites. They were clearly leaving midway though, in droves.  

Something about this seemed strange since one of the reasons that folks attend his music is that he is a recognized musical “genius.”  That’s not really genius status by association or history, it comes from a track record of blowing peoples stodgy, musical perception, doors off the dirty hinges of their expectations.  His abilities to use music as a vast nuanced system of self expression, as well as it’s uses as a vehicle for voicing the  intentions or identities of cultural movements, seem beyond question at this point.  In fact, most who are looking for these “hits” can’t stop muttering on at the same time about...

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History repeats: further thoughts from reading an interesting article

Mark Twain said it doesn't repeat, it rhymes... 

    There is a preponderence of music in the clubs and on the streets played by young people (teens to late 20's) that seems festooned with an obsession about late 19th to early 20th century style.  I have been confused about where this is coming from.  Even the fashions of the players seems to hark back to that time but it comes out looking more like stretched out rags from the Bugsy Malone set.  Mostly they are playing rags, medicine show music, blues, and folk-songs. You see them carrying around banjos, accordions and euphoniums.  It's not new, it's already gone on long enough (at least five years here in New Orleans) that if it were the early 20th century they would already have come up with a new form of jazz and thrown themselves out of date.  They are, however, gripping tightly onto some set of imagery and I have been wondering why.  Perhaps, symbolically, it is showing what is in the following article...

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2011/05/14/1890s-america-a-peek-at-the-past-youre-repeating/

(For more on the idea in this post see this entry I wrote about the album by Aurora Nealand & the Royal Roses dedicated to Sidney Bechet (Sat. April 23). That piece was informed by similar ironies.)

     This article, "America: A Peek at the Past You're Repeating"  addresses more serious consequences of being unaware of social developments since the early 20th century.  It is clear that, at least locally, there is the very same lack of awareness about music development since those same times. The very subject of those music developments of the 20th century, both sonically and lyrically, were mostly about liberation, human and civil rights, and class problems.   Music is a mirror for what is going on in its culture, and it can't fail to be, although sometimes you have to be shrewd to see it clearly because the messages can be deeply masked (even from the performers.)  Right now, on all music fronts and genres there seem to be two main strains

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Aurora Nealand & The Royal Roses: A Tribute to Sidney Bechet

Aurora Nealand has a new recording out. GO BUY IT!...

[This is not a review. I will get to that in a different way shortly, hopefully in an audio interview with Aurora Nealand.]

 

I am never sure why people are doing re-creations but it does seem that at the moment many listeners like music dripping with nostalgia for a bygone time. It's almost as though they need to be able to envision others than themselves and add in a few extra-musical elements besides the presented sounds by the musicians in front of them; seemingly seeking information about what people wore; what they ate; how they danced; what they drank.  What is the necessity for the extra cultural baggage?

Perhaps, and this is just a thought, that to be with the unpredictability of what is in the present might have to mean that what any one person, listener, player, or group in a room might do is a little scary; it might require forming one's own opinion and coming up with a response.

Watching behavior in relation to the arts, music included, can be very indicative of the of shifting social dynamics in groups. It appears, looking into the preponderance of imitators of past style [and even businesses that promote it] that we may be going through a sort of regressive phase relative to those times of jazz creators such as Sidney Bechet. Both audiences and musicians now strike me as a little afraid of their own, unbridled self expression; as if it had less validity. In these times it's as though people are afraid of their own shadows where shadows are perhaps passions, impulses, desires, attractions; their own animal.  Can this be where we are at 100 years after Freud, vanguard art, jazz, and a whole world of stuff that seems like it was there to tear the very underwear off the Victorians.

Paradoxes jump up when making comparisons between the earlier 20th century artists that created those musical inventions that are known as jazz, and their modern worshippers. Bechet for instance, was a huge, bold, figure and you can still hear it in his sound from the recordings. He is New Orleans saxophonist number one and embodies all that goes with that; a trademark sound, innovation, critical and rebellious personality, excitement no matter what the cost. He was even the saxophonist and clarinet player that Ellington most wanted for his own orchestra but he was turned down, allegedly because Bechet felt he could do it just fine himself and, listening to Bechet's recording of The Mooche would not lead one to disagree. Bechet's refusal is how Ellington came to hire Johnny Hodges and, luckily, that refusal, in hindsight, wasn't harmful. In fact, it was a classic case of serendipity for Ellington and for

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Titling systems

Folks often ask about the titles I give to musical pieces and records.  The recent Naked orchestra record was called From Pandemonium to a View of Eidolons and, believe it or not, it was shortened from the song title, A dose of mer-c takes the fractured soul from pandemonium to a view of eidolons. There are a number of puns and references in there that mostly cover all of the sorts of things I was thinking of, reading, viewing etc. at the time of composition.

Here are some fun background bits about the record title:

Pandemonium

Eidolons

 

PANDEMONIUM 

From Paradise Lost by John Milton

 

Mean while the winged Haralds by command
Of Sovran power, with awful Ceremony
And Trumpets sound throughout the Host proclaim
A solemn Councel forthwith to be held [ 755 ]
At Pandæmonium, the high Capital
Of Satan and his Peers: thir summons call'd
From every Band and squared Regiment
By place or choice the worthiest; they anon
With hunderds and with thousands trooping came [ 760 ]

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