CDOTD 4/30/2023

 Frank Zappa: Orchestral Favorites 40th Anniversary (Zappa)

I think I bought this at The Exchange

Orchestral Favorites was an album I bought in high school, which I later sold in a record dump, only to buy back a vinyl copy years afterwards. It was a cutout on original purchase, with almost no information on the cover besides work titles. I guess it was one of several albums dumped onto the market by Discreet Records, along with Sleep Dirt  and Studio Tan, though I might be getting my face mixed up. I forget all the facts, but I think Barry Miles's Zappa covers it thoroughly. I read somewhere that Frank referred to those releases as "bootlegs."

(Side note: it was also the first I remember seeing Gary Panter's work. I'd become more familiar with him when I started collecting Ralph Records, starting with the Ralph catalog #7 from 1981.)

If you're looking for a certain type of Zappa release, you're going to find this to be frustrating. No vocals, only one guitar feature, and some of the music is decidedly atonal and (for lack of a better term) abstract. The mix is sometimes odd, the bass and drums up front at times, the guitar on "Duke of Prunes" sounding like it's across the room on the melody. 

I listened to it in my teens, liked some of it, wasn't sold on other works. I knew "Duke of Prunes" from the original on Absolutely Free. I enjoyed the schmaltzy "Strictly Genteel" but hadn't heard the original 200 Motels version. I also liked the compact "Naval Aviation in Art?", a concise miniature work. The other pieces, I wasn't always so sure. Even now, while they maybe make more sense to me, still sound like ballet music waiting for choreography.

I'm trying to be careful about buying posthumous Zappa releases. The first ones released have been among the worst, definitely not adding to the existing catalog. Even some of the more recent issues, while better, haven't been essential. 

This one is better than most. Yes there's the reissue of the original LP (plus one bonus track), plus two discs of a live performance from the same ensemble and time. It's not all great (Frank mentioned being underrehearsed in the live show) but it's an interesting document of a particularly ambitious project.

Frank was a workaholic's workaholic. There's so much work, and so many things the general public hasn't heard. There's a lot of untangle with his legacy. I don't want the myth of Frank Zappa, the "outspoken modern genius," to get in the way of reasonable criticism of his work. I find many of his songs, themes, and lyrics after a certain time to be quite ugly. I mostly loathe Joe's Garage, for a variety of reasons. 

Which is partly my way of saying, I need to get back to my real work, get more music written and recorded. 

CDOTD 4/29/2023

 Miles Davis: Live at the Fillmore East (March 7, 1970): It's About That Time (Columbia) 

I don't recall where I bought this

I like vinyl as much as the next person. I've kept a couple of records since my high school days. 

Nobody likes CDs. Nobody has the romantic attachment to them the way they do vinyl records.

Here's the truth of the matter: maybe fewer people every year have CD players and buy discs, but if done properly, CD technology is great. Treat the disc properly, it will play ad infinitum. It holds up to about eighty minutes of audio, and a pretty degree of quality.

With a record, you are dragging a diamond across a piece of plastic. To play a record is to, little by little, degrade its quality. They scratch easily, to speak nothing of the lousy quality of many pressings. It used to be, if you wanted to cheap way to hear something, you sought out a used LP version instead of a CD. Now it's completely the opposite in most cases.

It was something of a find when this double CD was issued in 2001. A live document of pieces from Bitches Brew, with an otherwise little-documented band of Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, and Airto Moreiro. This was recorded when the Miles group played bills with Neil Young and Steve Miller, the sort of thing that could probably not happen now except maybe at a big festival. 

The music is aggressive and noisy, maybe in a way jazz needed. Even the recording is distorted from time to time, particularly during Wayne's first solo. It doesn't detract from the recording, if anything the opposite. It's also not murky/noisy the way that the 1974-75 live recordings usually are. 

So guess what? Third Man Records is reissuing this recording on a three LP set, colored vinyl, six side etched, with a bonus 7" of covers, a bumper sticker and patch, and who knows, maybe a hit of blow hidden inside too. 

(God I have to be careful. I AM kidding.)

There's a subscription to Third Man involved, and I don't want to think about how expensive the whole thing might be. Plus the CD gives you two complete sets uninterrupted. I'm sure it's going to be a handsome package, fun to hold, and way too expensive. 

So if you feel like shelling out and putting more money in Jack White's pockets, by all means do so. Yes that's judgy. It's also an interesting performance, very much worth hearing. I'll stuck with the CD though.

VOTD 4/29/2023

 Gnaw Their Tongues: All the Dread Magnificence of Perversity (Burning World)

Purchased at The Attic

I've been entering enough blog posts that I know I'm repeating myself from time to time. One thing I'll repeat here: I'm alone in the house, which always makes it a good time to pull out the more extreme recordings in my collection. 

Don't get me wrong. I can listen to whatever I want when my wife is around the house. In some cases, it's just easier not to have to explain things, especially when it's at a certain volume.

Gnaw Their Tongues was another name passed on to me from Adam MacGregor, when I asked for severe listening after the Trump presidential election. At least, I think it's one thing he suggested. There's a current bad named simply Gnaw with Alan Dubin, Khanate's harrowing vocalist, so it wouldn't surprise me if I got it wrong.

Severe it is, though. It's kind of metal I suppose, if you are broad in your definition of what metal is. And maybe the labeling doesn't matter particularly. GTT is consistently a huge wall of noise, with details emerging from the din: heavy bass, pounding drums, sometimes string-like synths, screeching vocals, often in a deep haze of heavy reverb. It's a single person studio project of Mories, AKA Maurice De Jong. (I've read that there have been live performances in more recent years.) He has other projects under other names, which I haven't yet checked out. Surely it can't be as noise-laden as this?

When I read titles such as "My Orifices Await Ravaging", "Rife With Deep Teeth Marks", or "Gazing at Me Through Tears of Urine" well, I just can't take it too seriously. At least the sonic destructiveness approaches living up to those titles. 

Between the house being empty except for me, a frustrating semester ending yesterday (with students still attempting to submit work more than a day past the hard-and-fast final due date), and taking in the sweetness of Dvorák yesterday, I needed a little noise. This is more than a little noise.

VOTD 4/28/2023

 Anton Dvorák: Requiem op. 89 (Deutsche Grammophon)

Purchased from Jerry's Records

Another piece from the Duquesne University collection. It sounds like it was unplayed.

I'm not a fan of long winded mid-to-late Romanticism. There are only so many 19th century European composers I even like, chiefly Chopin, before you start getting into those that crossed into the 20th century: Debussy, Satie, Scriabin. 

So why this? I have a current minor obsession with requiems. Any other Dvorák work and I would have passed on it. I've collected a few requiem recordings, sometimes from the Duquesne collection, and listened to more: Ockeghem, Mozart, Stravinsky, Ligeti, Penderecki, Aribert Reimann (I need to return to that one), B.A. Zimmermann. I have the Britten War Requiem on the docket. I see listings that Bruno Maderna and Hans Werner Henze also composed requiems, I'll seek those as well.

Why this interest? I have several reasons, some of it stemming from purchasing the Reimann Requiem out of the same Duquesne collection, and already being familiar with the Ligeti. 

How do these composers use the form? (Often there are similarly titled movements, i.e "Lacrymosa" "Introitus" "Dies Irae" "Lux Aeterna") Naturally the works are intended as pieces of both mourning and possibly hope in the end, how is that manifested in their different works? What does it mean to each composer to write a piece named a requiem? Are there elusive impressions that are common from one work to the next? Does Mozart look forward to Ligeti, does Penderecki look back to Ockeghem? Those  questions are somewhat rhetorical, but worth considering.

This is, and probably will always be, my only recording of Dvorák. (I don't know the keystroke to get that special r.) This work strikes me as very well constructed, pretty maybe, lush at times, but also a bit predictable. There's a somewhat chromatic opening melody played in unison strings, and frankly it's the part of the piece I liked the best. Nonetheless, maybe a side-by-side of different approaches to a "Lacrymosa" could be interesting. It's supposed to be a weeping, tearful work. That's a lot to live up to. The Mozart "Lacrymosa" is, to me, the best section of his Requiem. But then, he never actually completed the work himself; is it his own original work?

To go on a tangent: if you know the original Dario Argento Suspiria film, you'd know about the three mothers, one of which is Mater Lacrymorum. Mother of Tears. The cruelest of the three mothers.

I've watched his film Mother of Tears. Actually I watched it twice, just to see if it was as bad the second time as the first. It was. It's awful. And a shame, Suspiria is one of my absolute favorite horror films. I've also watched the recent Suspiria twice, just to decide whether I liked it or not. I acknowledge that it has its qualities, but I still am uncertain about it. Maybe I do, but why did they have to cast Dakota Johnson in the lead role? She doesn't look like a dancer.

I digress.

If I continue to write to this blog, no doubt the topic of requiems will surface again. This one will stay on the stacks, and may be used for comparison purposes.

VOTD 4/27/2023

Haydn, etc: Musical Clocks (Candide)

Purchased at Jerry's Records dollar sale

I hope anyone reading this has taken the opportunity to visit the Bayernhof Museum. If you haven't permit me a brief description:

The Bayernhof was a highly customized home built for a late wealthy local businessman. He never married (though had a long-term girlfriend), and it shows. The house itself could maybe be described mega-bachelor pad meets Pee-Wee's Playhouse. There are two secret passages, a cave for wine, secret board and game rooms, and an indoor pool. 

That in itself is interesting but not enough to pique my interest. Much of the appear of the museum and its tour is the world-class collection of mechanical (and related) instruments. There are of course player pianos (baby grands no less), but also self-playing violins, banjo, harp, music boxes of a variety of sizes and styles. There are a couple of mechanical band organs, and a large Edison cylinder jukebox. My favorite is among the smallest of these: a music box with a mechanical automaton bird, which moves and "sings" (using pipes) with the song. Charming.

What puts the Bayernhof over the top weird would be the other items in the collection of complete kitsch. A six figure valued instrument is not too far from a set of Franklin Mint "collectors" plates of The Sound of Music or The Andy Griffith Show, for example. No actual value. 

So much effort, and for that matter technology, was put into these devices that are curiosity pieces now. Maybe I enjoy the anachronism of them.

While I'm at it, I should should mentioned the DeBence Antique Music World museum in Franklin, PA. It's an even larger collection of self-playing instruments. Bayernhof just happens to be much closer to my location. 

I think Karlheinz Stockhausen credited himself as being the first composer to write specifically for music boxes. If I'm correct about that, it wouldn't be the first time he gave himself too much credit. The first side of this collection is a series of miniatures written by Haydn specifically for a musical clock, which sounds something like a cross between an ocarina and a calliope. 

There is some history of composers writing for mechanical players, including (though not on this collection) a work by Beethoven. I read elsewhere it's considered by some to be Beethoven's "worst" piece. But how do you even judge such a thing? What's interesting to me is that somebody, especially such significant composers, would compose original works for the medium.

The second side of this collection starts with more pipe-like sounds similar to the first side, but then plays through other antique music players: street organ, glass glockenspiel, bird clocks, and such.

I have a small collection of mechanical instrument records. Some are pretty easy to find, but the best ones are nice European pressings on Decca of mostly street organs. High fidelity recordings of sometimes egregiously out of tune instruments. But I love it. And the fact of this recording having original compositions for the medium gives it special interest.

https://www.bayernhofmuseum.com/

https://debencemusicworld.com/

CDOTD 4/26/2023

 Pierre Henry: Polyphonies (Decca) disc 12

Purchased at Half Price Books

If you dig back into this blog to last year, you'll see that I started writing about this collection disc-by-disc, but I let it go. Since I'm trying maintain the discipline of writing here again regular, time to start posting some thoughts about this again.

This twelve disc brick came at a ridiculously low price at Half Price Books in the North Hills. Luck favors the vigilant; it's why you look, right? I don't have empirical evidence, but I suspect Pierre Henry's name is eclipsed by his associate's, Pierre Schaeffer. That has largely to do with Schaeffer being there first, and for creating the term musique concrète. 

But what does that mean? The term has come to mean music created entirely sounds recorded from a microphone, edited/manipulated/assembled using recording techniques. Nothing is synthesized, instrumental and environmental sounds being equally valid.

However, I've read that Schaeffer's term referred to the corporeal natural of the recorded medium itself. Rather than the music existing as abstracted markings on a piece of paper to be interpreted by musicians, the music is physically part of the tape or disc medium used to both create and playback the music.

I might have written that previously, and maybe the distinction isn't that important. 

If I'm considering these discs, why skip from #3 to the end and work backwards? Curiously, the collection is in reverse chronological order, most to least recent. 

This disc begins with the Symphonie pour un Homme Seul (as you might guess, Symphony for a Single Man or similar). It's co-credited with Schaeffer, as are a few other early works for Henry. The piece is in twelve "movements,", sometimes drawing on classical titles: "Valse", "Scherzo", "Intermezzo", "Cadence" for example. It's fast moving and lively, doesn't look back on itself much but does repeat some sound sources, specifically human voice(s) and prepared piano. 

A point I make to students about works such as this is, we can't hear it the way someone might have heard it when it was first presented. It dates to 1950. It sounds strange now, and it must have sounded downright alien at the time. 

I can't help but notice the technical elements of the Symphonie, and the other works on this disc which date from the same year. The frequency response for the medium hasn't been perfected yet, and it's noticeably missing lower and (especially) higher frequencies. It all has a dulled sound to it. There are times when record surface noise it also noticeable. I'm certain, based on the techniques used to create the pieces, it wasn't cut disc-to-disc; it was realized on tape. But at some point, I'm guessing it had to be transferred to disc, and that's where the final glaze of noise was added. 

My understand is that the first set of musique concrète works, Schaeffer's Cinq Études de Bruits of 1948, was created by cutting disc-to-disc. It's primitive, and I can hear development in both the technology and musical ideas when compared to these works of a short time later.

The two other works on the disc, Musique Sans Titre and Concerto des Ambiguïtés, show more patience. The former in particular brings in more sampled materials, musical recordings that are manipulated in a variety of ways. It sometimes comes closer to a sort of plunderphonics precedent. The Concerto has an even less rapid turnover of ideas, focussing more on a particular texture and/or idea for each movement.

The music is interesting, bizarre, and probably more than a little obsessive. There's a lot of sweat that went into making these works, effort that is largely eliminated now. If anything, things have become so easy that I think it's necessary in some ways for current technology-based composers to make challenges for themselves. 

VOTD 2/24/2023

American Wind Symphony: Bicentennial Odyssey Vol. 2 (AWS)

Purchased at the Jerry's Records dollar sale

The program: Henry Brant, "An American Requiem"

Ivana Loudova, "Concerto for Percussion, Organ, and Wind Orchestra"

Jerzy Sapieyevski, "Morpheus"

Pittsburgh!

The American Wind Symphony was based out of the Pittsburgh area. They had their own barge, a floating performance stage, and could travel along the Ohio River to the Mississippi, through the Great Lakes, then east along the coast. 

I never saw them play, to my regret. I don't recall when they discontinued. What I do recall is that the barge sat, disused, rusting, moored on the banks of the Monongahela for many years before someone finally scrapped it.

What a pity. Of course I don't have the managerial or technical skills to maintain such a craft, but can you imagine owning a floating, portable performance stage?

The ensemble managed to premiere from works by some pretty notable (then) living composers: Krzysztof Penderecki, Henk Badings, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Toshiro Mayazumi, Lal Schifrin among them. 

This isn't pops concert music at all. Henry Brant's piece (another so-called requiem) is largely in two layers, with louder brass and percussion sitting on top of an underpinning of woodwinds. Was it all directed by a single conductor. It's possible the groups are in different tempi and meters. Several times all of that stops for a solo soprano singing a mournful song. 

I don't know about the other two composers at all, except that one is Polish, on Czech. "Morpheus" is the shortest, a sort of wind ensemble brief tone poem, similar to many wind ensemble pieces I've played before. If I had to draw comparisons, half John Adams and a bit of Stravinsky? But this was before Adams even came on the scene. 

The "Concerto" seems too brief. A work that's a virtuoso feature for two instrumentalists and ensemble should be given some space. There's a lot to explore there, especially given the timbral possibilities. 

If you're a weird record hawk like me, you might want to keep an eye out for a real AWS oddity: the 10" Pickle Suite released in 1969 for Heinz' centennial. It's one sided, has brief pieces for music and poetry, the text read by Sam Hazo. One of the composers was Oliver Nelson. Even discogs.com doesn't have a listing for it.

VOTD 4/23/2023

 Cut Hands: Festival of the Dead (Blackest Ever Black)

Purchased at The Attic

Feh, too much autobiography here, and enough piano music.

An impulse buy from the The Attic's used bins. My wife is listening (loudly) to one of the Rod Stewart great American songbook CDs. I never liked Rod Stewart, though I suppose he's better at singing those songs that I thought he might be. Anyone, I needed some antidote to that, sitting down here in my studio.

Cut Hands is the project of William Bennett, of Whitehouse infamy. I've written here before about being uncertain which noise artists were pro-fascist/Nazi, and which are putting up a front. Whitehouse could be abusive and awful, but in the end they were never a band that could live their hype. "Songs" about serial killers even from the killers's perspective, they're not really doing those things, are they?

Some time during the final years of Whitehouse, William became enamored of African percussion. So the pulseless din of Whitehouse gave way to the metered, sequenced Cut Hands. Most of the materials here are driving percussion, hard hitting, compressed, very in-your-face. There's some synth sounds too, but it's at least 80% percussive.

I certainly understand the point of the minimalism, and I do find this more interesting than the Thomas Brinkmann album from a few days back. Some tracks build up more materials, such as "Parataxic Distortion", which its echoey string/synth sounds and hard hitting synth bass line. It's not all just drum patterns. The more synth-oriented tracks to provide more balance, more contrast to the all-percussion pieces.

Even though Bennett is effective at building these instrumental ensembles, I think it would all be more interesting if people were playing these parts, and it wasn't all sequenced in Ableton Live (I'm just guessing his tools). The performances would have more dynamism, and the sound of beaters hitting skin or wood would be more interesting. 

I could see a track from this as being very exciting if slipped into the right slot of a hard hitting industrial dance club event. But....how about more of the synthscapes? They're pretty good.

VOTD 4/22/2023 #3

 Franz Joseph Haydn: Haydn's Complete Sonatas for Keyboard (Murray Hill) record one

Yet another Jerry's Records dollar sale buy

Yes, it's an unusual thing for me, buying and listening to this. There are two memories it elicits for me.

One is that as a kid, more towards my teen years, we'd occasionally get a catalog for discounted books and records. I'd be allowed to make an order now and then, or two or three of us would decide on something. One thing was a big book of Dick Tracy daily strip reproductions, others were Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Flash was far better drawn, but Buck's stories were more fun as I recall.

This catalog also carried Murray Hill Records releases. Among the things they'd release were "The Complete [ ] Music of..." box sets. I think I remember asking for the complete orchestral music of Debussy. Looking it up now, I see that it was seven LPs, and I'm certain I didn't get to all seven. But I did spend time with it, finding I liked the "Images" and "Nocturnes". 

So here's this twelve-LP box of Haydn, or as they put it, "12 magnificent long-playing records". To fit twelve LPs in a budget box, the pressings are just shy of being flexi discs. $2. I also bought, at $2 apiece, the complete solo piano music of Chopin (12 records), the complete keyboard music of Bach (18 records), the complete organ music of Bach (18 records) and the Beethoven complete piano music (21 records). Damn. 92 LPs, and I don't think one has been played before. I know I have a problem with accumulating things, I think I need to pull back after today.

The second memory: my father liked these Haydn sonatas. There was a series of recordings of them on Nonesuch records, so for a couple of years when I needed a Christmas gift for him, buy him one of those. I could walk to the downtown National Record Mart, which had a substantial classical section, with a large portion devoted to Nonesuch LPs. I'd look at them and think, "Well, I got him the one with the dark green cover, I'll get the one with the dark red cover this year." He said he always liked them.

This Murray Hill monster lists performances as being on harpsichord, clavichord, and piano. Disc one is harpsichord. It's fine, but I prefer the piano.

I'm going to be plowing through these boxes for months to come. I passed on the complete Mozart symphonies Murray Hill box, even I have my limits.

VOTD 4/22/2023 #2

 Arthur Honegger: Piano Music (Turnabout)

Purchased at Jerry's Records dollar sale

Some short passing thoughts....

I've considered writing some piano music, I've even sketched a few things out. I'm perfectly happy working largely in a jazz idiom, creating compositions in which the life of the work is in the improvisation, not on what's on the page. Sometimes I walk through the stacks at the library, and contemplate how much chamber music has been written that isn't getting played, and I wonder about why I would want to add to that.

Still, I may still take on the idea. Giving myself time, but not too much. I can be an awful procrastinator, and I could put it off until it never gets completed.

Honegger. His music is pushing up against the very idea of tonality. The music at times reminds me of Debussy. Speaking of which, I bought two box sets of Debussy piano music at the dollar sale too, so they'll be coming up.

I'm once again trying to pick up after myself as I have this on, and the time passes faster.

VOTD 4/22/2023

 Charles Eakin: Frames (Owl Recording)

Purchased at Jerry's Records dollar sale

Hoo boy. There's little question I have something of a hoarder tendency I have to fight against. You know that the lower the price, the more tempting it becomes to buy something. 

I could have bought a lot more things at the Jerry's dollar sale today. Box sets are $2. Murray Hill Records has cheap, thin pressings with huge quantities. "Complete Keyboard Music of Bach", 18 discs' worth, $2. 

Mostly I hunt down the 20th century works, and even then passed over many. When I looked at this record of solo piano music by a composer whose name was unfamiliar, one thing stood out: "six strings interwoven through adjacent piano wires."

That sounds like it was worth a dollar.

It was yet another Duquesne University collection buy, meaning it was probably never played, ever.

Here's a composer I don't know, an academic guy who taught out of University of Colorado, PhD from University of Minnesota. I've just read in his obit (died in 2020) that he received his master's degree from Carnegie Mellon, which I'm guessing was Carnegie Tech at the time. All the more reason to own this. 

I don't have anything against academic composers, there are a few I think are exceptionally good. But it's also rare that I find one who sets my hair on end. Eakin, as indicated here, sounds like he was reasonably good at what he did. The work itself is a a series of miniatures, played continuously. You can hear shifts in the music, but I often don't know where one ends and the next begins. 

The record is on Owl Recording Inc, a small composer's label that I also don't know. Discogs.com list the catalog numbers from 25 to 35, making me wonder how many there actually are on this label. I might seek out more, especially the electronic-oriented LPs.*

*Note: Owl Recording, Inc is not the same as Owl Records, who released Tod Dokstader's early music.

VOTD 4/21/2023

 Igor Stravinsky: The New Stravinsky (Columbia)

Purchased at the Jerry's Records dollar sale

Another Duquesne album bought up by Jerry's, now down to $1. For Stravinsky? It seems disrespectful.

A Stravinsky LP from 1970, with pieces dating from 1965-1966. Igor was in his early sixties at the time, so not young but hardly old either.

There's a question about how much Stravinsky really heard and felt his later music, because he started adopting twelve-tone techniques. The first work on this album, the brief "Orchestra Variations" is an example. I guess it doesn't sound like classic Stravinsky, but something about even these later works that still have a Stravinsky flavor. I'd still rather listen to them than his seriously neoclassical works. 

Most of the first side is taken up with "Abraham and Isaac (A Sacred Ballad for Baritone and Chamber Orchestra)". I've made this point before here, but I'm not a fan of the broad, heavy-vibrato operatic style used when singing 20th century works. I just can't hear it, in the sense of I just don't know where the pitch is.

Far preferable is the second side, taken up by "Requiem Canticles" for choir, vocal soloists, and orchestra. It sounds as though it could be more neoclassicism, but in fact comes closer in sound to me like more typical Stravinsky. Maybe there's some pitch and interval organization, I don't know, it just has more of that Stravinsky sound. Another requiem too, hmm...I might have to study this one more.

CDOTD 4/21/2023

 Friedrich Nietzsche: Volume 1 Compositions of his Youth 1857-63 (Albany)

Purchased at the Jerry's Records dollar sale

I returned to graduate school at Duquesne University in 2008, after having been out of school since 1987. I enjoyed the opportunity to be on the other side of the lectern, so to speak.

One of the final courses I took was a philosophy course offered by the music department, which had to do with topics by philosophers of interest to musicians. The first and longest topic was time, for example. 

I enjoyed being able to look over Duquesne's library materials. Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for some of us) many of those materials have been sold off, specifically their vinyl and CD collections. Foolish on their part, in my opinion.

I came across a collection there of minimalist piano music, and curiously the final track was Friedrich Nietzsche. This was the first I knew anything of him being a composer. He wouldn't have been a minimalist by the post-war 20th century definition, but perhaps similar to that of Satie. I ripped a copy. At her request I sent my professor a copy, who then shared it on the course web page. She was a good teacher (and I think my only instructor who was younger than me) but she did wholesale scanning and copying materials for class, so sharing that rip was nothing new. One of the texts for class was by Nietzsche.

If I remember correctly, I couldn't have disagreed with him more.

Forward to today, plundering through the Jerry's dollar sale in the lower floor. Mostly vinyl, but boxes of CDs too. This was unusually enough to warrant paying $1 for it. Apparently, someone previously tried to sell it for $19.97. Oh, the days when CDs were worth something!

What's on here? Mostly short individual piano works, some choral music, a few art songs. Some selections are so short (a "Presto" lasting half a minute) that I thought they sound fragmentary, or at least like they should have been pieces in a collection of works. 

Mid-19th century Romanticism is not generally what interests me, if you couldn't already tell that. Not being anything near an expert on that period, Nietzsche's piano music seems a bit Schumann-like, more introspective than boisterous, such as Liszt. Some of it maybe even recalls the piano sonatas of Haydn. 

With as many short works as there are here, I wonder what his ability might have been to start to tackle longer-form works had he stuck with being a composer exclusively. It's hard enough being a musician. Want a tough career path? Declare that you want to be a philosopher. But then, my old friend John MacFarlane did all right for himself in that field, but I'd say you have to be singularly amazing to support yourself on philosophy.

I guess he was a reasonably good composer, though I don't hear anything that really separates him from the pack, so to speak. Plus given my taste, I would have been fine with a collection of piano music only.

This release is conspicuously missing from discogs.com! That's been my source for cover images here. I don't know that I want to make the effort to post this CD release.

Vinyl mass dump 4/17-19/2023

 I'm hanging on here and continuing to write, though more and more I'm questioning exactly why I'm doing this. Rather than detailed comments on individual records, here's a number of things I've had on in the past two-three days:

Lenox Quartet plays Arnold Schoenberg (Desto)

I never claimed to be a big Schoenberg fan, but I have found myself buying a number of recordings of his works recently. This is due in no small part to the Duquesne University vinyl collection being sold to Jerry's, who have resold each mostly for $3 each. This one seemed like an oddity: the "Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (After the Concerto Gross Op. 6, No. 7 by G.F.. Handel)". It's a reorchestration of a Handel work, with the instrumentation not sounding Baroque at all. May I sound petty? There was a lot of hard downbowing on the part of the quartet, especially later in the piece, I found to be annoying after a while.

Second side is Schoenberg's "Trio", Op. 45. It's a more typical Schoenberg piece, not strictly twelve tone but still using some method of pitch organization. Not bad.

Peter Maxwell Davies: O Magnum Mysterium (Argo)

Another Duquesne buy. First side is the work, a series of pieces for youth choir and orchestra. Unsurprisingly, it has a vaguely Renaissance feel, though the harmonies (not to mention use of percussion) finds itself back in the 20th century. The second side is "Organ Fantasia on O Magnum Mysterium". It's more dramatically chromatic, it's an extension rather than simple rearrangement of the namesake work. Even in more modern lit, I find it difficult (and it may not have been the intention here) of the sound escaping the feeling of being churchy. 

Thomas Brinkmann: A 1000 Keys (Editions Mego)

This caught my attention in the used stacks at the Government Center reading that it was dedicated to Conlon Nancarrow. This piqued my interest. It also means, if you're going to reference Nancarrow, you better bring your A game. 

I hope it's unnecessary for me to explain who Nancarrow was in this forum, and if it is, that's what Wikipedia is for. What's sometimes miraculous about his player piano studies is how clear the pieces are to the ear. When there are canonical melodies playing at different tempi, you can hear it. There one piece where the top notes are played fast and the low slow, and the two voices both move in opposite directions and ritardando/accelerando. 

Because Nancarrow is referenced, it's impossible for me to think about this music without thinking of the dedicatee. And....I'm sorry, it falls flat for me. There are patterned sequenced pieces, first on drum sounds, later for piano clusters or electronic tones. What I find so much less interesting in Brinkmann's music is his uninteresting use of rhythm and tempo. Everything is very metrical and highly regular. There are different patterns, different groupings, but everything plays with a constant eighth note pulse. 

Darkthrone: A Blaze in the Northern Sky (Peaceville)

I've found this quarter of teaching to be very frustrating. I've never dealt with so much class skipping, students insisting they can do things on their own (their being foolish), students texting during class, and a general apathy and lack of any response to questions. After Wednesday's classes, I wanted to put on something loud and obnoxious and even depressing.

I've had some interest or even fascination with Norwegian Black Metal since reading Michael Moynihan's Lords of Chaos. Obviously I can't get behind the murders, racism, or even the church burnings. (I hope that is self-evident.) I am attracted to the idea of attempting to make the most evil sounding music ever. 

Some bands in the sub-sub-genre have their moments, much of this so-called evil music sounds fairly conventional to me. This popped up in the used bins at The Attic, and I thought, why not? For this type of metal, you probably won't find a better example. Hard fast constantly fast strumming trebly guitars, very little bass, driving drums, distant growled/screeched vocals, all the BM signatures. But apart from the qualities of this recording, I wasn't feeling it that day. Which leads me too...

Throbbing Gristle: Funeral in Berlin (Zensor)

I just finished reading Cosey Fanni Tutti's memoirs, Art Sex Music. It's a book that was written, in part, to "set the record straight" about claims made by her former lover Genesis P-Orridge. I think she makes a compelling case about the abuse that she suffered from him. The inequities in the relationship were even as basic as expecting her to do the laundry and cook the meals for them, despite speaking of the equality. 

On the positive side, I think there is little question the book is in her voice. It's even things as simple as "proper" grammar: she often writes things such as, "Me and Chris went down to..." where the proper English would have been "Chris and I." It is an insider's view of her life and mutual work with COUM and TG, I appreciate that.

On the negative side, it's entirely too long. A LOT of space is devoted to her youth, one of several sections that would have benefitted from a good chunk of editing. It also plays out as a dish book, a tell-all about her and Gen. There's a good deal of space devoted to her (still) beloved husband (? I don't remember if they technically ever got married) Chris Carter, but it's Gen and his shittiness that drives the much of the narrative. 

So...feeling tired and depressed, put on some TG. This sounds like it was an exciting show, playing at their best. It's still rather murky and at times truncated. The end of side two weirdly has a long edit of people applauding and whistling, and I don't understand it. 

I might have to put more on soon.

VOTD 4/16/2023

 Herbie Hancock: Mwandishi (Warner Bros.)

Purchased at The Attic

It would be an exaggeration to say that Herbie Hancock has always been a musical blind spot for me, but it took me some years to understand his importance. It was some time into adulthood before I really started to dig into the "second classic quintet" of Miles Davis (though was it really the second?) with Herbie, Wayne Shorter, etc. It's practically self-evident to say how important all five players were in that group. Wayne was the obvious star of the group, the way that Eric Dolphy was for the circa 1964 Charles Mingus Band. Herbie might sneakily be the "secret weapon" in the Miles group, pushing the harmonies further into ambiguities while not necessarily calling attention to himself. Similarly, my own opinion is that Jaki Byard did a great deal to drive that Mingus group, able to shift suddenly with the bandleader's whims, recalling much of the history of jazz with his fingers.

There's a some of Herbie's catalog that doesn't interest me. I actually admire that in a way. It means he didn't release the same record over and over. His interests take him in different directions, and I as a listener don't necessarily need to be along for the ride every time. In this respect I could draw a comparison to Willem de Kooning. There are periods of de Kooning's paintings that I don't particularly like, but I admire the fact that they don't all look alike. 

It's very easy to write this, but the shadow of both In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew hangs over this album. The sound is unquestionably similar: Fender Rhodes with delay, bass clarinet, trumpet, percussion (+ trombone and guitar). "You'll Know When You Get There" (written by Herbie) reminds me of some of the excised materials from the IASW sessions, available on the "complete" box set. So too does Julian Priester's "Wandering Spirit Song." The darker "Ostinato (Suite for Angela)" with its driving (if irregular), accelerando vamp takes on more of a Bitches Brew color.

I think this brings to question, how important are those two Miles albums? For that matter, what is "importance"? Is it the original artifact, the original statement, or the influence on others? And is part of historical importance of Bitches Brew be the reaction against it?

Mwandishi seems to me not to be commercial music, whatever that means. There's even a group squonking on the latter portion of the Priester piece. There's a great deal of reserve demonstrated here; you don't hear from some players for some longer stretches of time. It's a good session, but I wonder what it would be like if it was recorded during CD era? Not the content, that would have been different. I'm guessing there'd be more solos, more trading, more shifting, over longer performances.

VOTD 4/15/2023

 Ennio Morricone: Città Violenta (Dagored)

Purchased at The Attic

It was my birthday yesterday, something I don't normally advertise. I can be cranky about these things. I feel like it's a reminder of how much more I wish I had accomplished in the time. Unfortunately that doesn't necessarily spur me on to be more diligent in my work. 

Yesterday was different. It was my big 6-0. Especially in light of David Throckmorton making a big deal about his 50th a few months ago, I decided to go full steam and do it up.

Thursday: I played an all-Thelonious Monk show, with Throck, Paul Thompson, Patrick Breiner at Con Alma Downtown, 6-10pm. I played alto only, the instrument that tends to tire me out the most, compounded by playing my Grafton model. It just doesn't blow freely as my Selmer. I had to really keep myself together to make it to the end of the night. 

Friday: 6-9pm, same location, the same four players + Reggie Watkins playing Charles Mingus. Then, 10pm was Thoth Trio plus friends (Patrick, and George Jones) and then Bombici closing out the night until 1am.

Jeezuz. A 6pm-1am gig? File that under things I'll never do again. I've been exhausted all day, but I did get out to use one of my gifts: a gift certificate to The Attic from Throck. I told him I'd probably use it up today, and lived up to my word. 

I used it up on two vinyl albums: Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi, and this. 

I've probably already written about what a fan I am of Morricone's work in this general time period (this being 1970). This has all the things I'd expect: funky grooves, wah guitar, unexpected orchestrations, some brief atonal passages. I must admit that it's another soundtrack album for a film I've never seen. I've been meaning to take in more Italian films in general; I like the crime, giallo, and horror films from Italy, including some of the stinkers. Maybe part of what I like is that they're just different than American films, American sensibilities.

I have to admit, I have a lot of Morricone LPs that bear some passing resemblance to this one. Probably enough even especially considering the various collections I've also accumulated. But, one more couldn't hurt, right? Especially considering I went in with a gift certificate. Nothing else but the Herbie LP was stroking me, so there it is. 

I should probably use this blog to write more about the music and less about myself, but I am at a minimum maintaining the discipline, which is much of the point. 

VOTD 4/14/2023

 American Composers Orchestra with Dennis Russell Davies: Cage/Wuorinen (CRI)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

Another great find for $3 out of the Duquesne University collection. I recalled, when I picked this out of the box, that I saw a performance of the John Cage piece ("The Seasons") with the Pittsburgh Symphony many years ago. Then I recalled that I saw Cage give a talk about the piece pre-concert. And further then, I recalled that I'm pretty sure it was Dennis Russell Davies conducting.

The piece stems from Cage's experiences composing for the prepared piano, similarly to his String Quartet in Four Parts from approximately the same era. First of all, there's more structure given to units of time and rhythm than pitches. Cage quoted himself talking to his mentor Schoenberg, saying he had no feel for harmony. 

Given that units of time are structured, the other thing about composing for prepared piano is this: when you strike a single key, sometimes an aggregate of notes/pitches/sounds happens. You can't really define it as a chord in a traditional sense, if you're placing a penny between the three strings of a piano struck with one key. Larger events occur out of combinations of notes and sounds, one following another. 

During his talk, Cage mentioned that Lou Harrison helped him with the orchestration. After the performance, the piece seemed un-Cage like in its occasional lushness. Jason Gibbs, a doctoral composition student at the time, simply said, "I like that piece." And you know what? It is a good work. It fills a spot in the Cage body of work that is unique. 

The performance on record of that work, and the Wuorinen "Two Part Symphony", were from a single concert in December 1978. It's funny to see both names on a single release. Another recollection: the tributes came pouring in when John Cage died, mostly glowing. But Charles Wuorinen, ever the cranky serialist, was less than enthusiastic. I'd probably have to dig deep to find the exact quotes, but he was complaining how people said Cage taught them to listen, which he said was, I think the exact word was "bullshit." 

There's plenty to criticize in Cage's work. The timed number pieces, much of what he did in his later years, are intermittently interesting. His anti-jazz statements border on, if not cross over into racism. (This is not an original claim on my part, it is something Anthony Braxton said.) 

I like some of Wuorinen's music for its energy. But I have a basic criticism of his music that I think of most serialist music: it can be interesting moment-to-moment, but doesn't necessarily "go" anywhere. This work is very active, shifts constantly, is tightly orchestrated, moves swiftly. But does it add up to anything? Not especially. At least if Cage's work doesn't "move," it does so intentionally. And I don't mean to sound like I dislike the Wuorinen work. I just find his "high tower" attitude to border on comical. There's a point at which all his methods, his finely-honed techniques, are more essential than inspiration and "feeling" the music.

A friend of mine was working on a Wuorinen piece for oboe. He decided to give Charles a phone call to ask about some points on the work. The friend reached him, and found Wuorinen to be unfriendly and short with him. I'll give Wuorinen the benefit of the doubt, that anyone can have a shitty day and not want to be bothered by some college student bugging him about some old work of his. But does this influence the way I hear Wuorinen's work? Not really, but it does fill out a larger picture of what he was like. It adds up to, what makes you think you're so important?

Regarding Tracey Turner

I've been using this blog mostly to write about my recent listening. A few times I've written thoughts on a few people who had died, but nobody I knew personally. This will be an exception.

Tracey D. Turner, actor. I wasn't especially close to Tracey, but I have always considered her to be a friend. I can't tell you how we might have met, I think we knew each other "from around." 

I will specifically cite when we worked together though, back in my Water Shed 5tet days. It was a show at Luciano's, which probably places the date somewhere in the 1993-1996 range. I wanted to do some sort of special program for Halloween, so I asked Tracey if she would read a few short stories while we improvised music behind her. (In the interest of accuracy, I think I asked her, but it could have been someone else in the band.)

I looked over several short stories, and length was important. I remember we did at least one JG Ballard story, "The Smile." It's a horror story of sorts, maybe unlikely, but she thought it was creepy and was enthusiastic to recite it. 

She was great. Tracey had, for a woman, a rich and deep voice, a commanding presence. It was hard not to be in awe when around her. The show went well.

The other thing I remember was that I was terribly sick with the flu, and basically wasn't strong enough to stand while playing. I drank mint tea all night and tried to keep myself together. I shouldn't have been there, but then I wouldn't have that memory if I had cancelled. 

In the years since, I'd run into her randomly now and then, irregularly, and it was always friendly. I'm certain I've seen her on stage, but I can't recall specifically in what production. Tracey had charisma, I couldn't help but be impressed by her any time I met her. The most recent time I ran into her was in the lobby of Target, with her daughter. She introduced me in glowing terms, and I probably shrugged it off. Not out of disrespect, to me she was the impressive artist.

My last discussion with her was online about a year and a half ago. I guess I noticed her name in Facebook Messenger and said hello. She was preparing to return to the stage after having been away for over a year due to the lockdown. She had some trepidations of returning. I told her unironically that she was my hero, and to go out and slay.

Three days ago I saw a notice on Facebook of a GoFundMe page created in Tracey's honor, that she had very little time left to live. What? I wrote to the manager and asked what we going on. She directed me to the hospice where Tracey was staying, on Phillips Avenue two doors down from the first apartment I shared with my wife. 

I went to see her yesterday. It was tough. I didn't recognize her, she was so reduced in size (Tracey was always rather Amazonian), her signature locks gone, unable to speak or do much but move her hand a bit. I really don't know if she recognized me. I asked to sit with her, even though she was unable to respond. I talked about living down the block, how we lived in that apartment when my daughter was born. I stayed for a while, speaking occasionally, and said that I'd check if she needed anything for when I returned in the future.

I really don't want this to seem to be about me. I would have regretted not going, I hope it meant something to her to have a friendly visitor. 

I got word on during my gig tonight that Tracey had died. It was clear she didn't have long, and if she was suffering then I'm grateful it's over.

I've been pretty lucky to not have that many people I've known die. My parents and sisters are all still with us. But I am reaching the age (60 on April 14) that I'm going to see it happen more and more. 

But Tracey...damn. She couldn't have been that much younger than me. I know of nobody who has had anything bad to say about her: professional, talented, dedicated, a good mother, even queen and a force of nature. 

Life just isn't fair. It's the pessimist in me that says, Henry Kissinger is still alive. So are Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Vladimir Putin, Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk. I'm not saying I wish death on them, I just think we'd be better off without them. I know life is random and unfair, but we need more Tracey Turners, people who are positive, talented, do good by others. You left us too soon Tracey, through no fault of your own. I miss you. 

VOTD 4/13/2023

 The Golden Palominos: The Golden Palominos (OAO/Celluloid)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

I've written here before about the question, why and how do I make my choices for listening? Often it's an escape from the harsh realities of the so-called real world. Escape isn't quite the right word though, nor is relief. I want to be drawn into a sound world.

In my darkest moments, sometimes I want the darkest music. That doesn't sound like escape to me, more like another word I don't like, and that's expression. An outward expression of my inner world. 

I've also written that I think the idea of "expression" in music is overrated, that music doesn't need to be expressive. Music can be expressive of itself, not of our emotions. Emotions are fleeting; music can be timeless.

So what did I want to put on? I turn 60 in about twelve hours' time as I write this, something that doesn't particularly make me happy. Yes, it's an accomplishment, especially considering that I haven't exactly been diligent about taking care of my health. I also visited an old friend yesterday who is in hospice and is close to death. It was very difficult to see someone robust at one time, reduced to a shell of her former self.

I've gone more nostalgic in his choice. The first LP by The Golden Palominos. It seems appropriate that I bought the former WYEP copy from Jerry's for $2.83 + tax. (More recently they just fold the tax into the price.)

The year, 1983. A rather turbulent time in my life, I was figuring things out to a great extent. Thankfully I was at the start of my relationship with my future wife, who must be given credit for being as patient with me as she has over the years. 

Musically it was a time of great optimism, though. I was loving the boom in independent music, and followed OP magazine almost religiously. Not only were people releasing their own music their own way (often on cassette), but there was apparently enough of a budget from some labels to put together a studio project such as this. And it is specifically a studio creation, even if there were GP performances in later years. 

Although there's nobody claiming it was meant to be this, I thought of this record as being the third of a loose trilogy, the first being Memory Serves by Material, and Killing Time by Massacre. The important common factor in all three was Bill Laswell, though Fred Frith was involved with all three too. Laswell might dominate these sessions even more than bandleader Anton Fier on the drums. 

Memory Serves has more of a jazz flavor (vaguely) of the three; Killing Time is the strange punk-influenced prog power trio; this album is the funkiest. It's also the one that took me the longest to digest and appreciate. It's aggressive and weird much of the time, with improvisors working over hard hitting bass and drum grooves. It's never too long until the next time John Zorn adds game call shrieks, and David Moss plays some completely un-grooving percussion texture. Also prominent is Arto Lindsay's weird, improvised vocals and detuned guitar. And I haven't mentioned Jamaaladeen Tacuma, adding some funky high-end snap bass lines. 

My colleague and friend Paul Thompson has a very active Youtube channel, his topic often analyzing other bassists' playing and albums. I've suggested he should look into Laswell, but he hasn't bitten yet. This would be a good start.

Listening to this makes me happy. I won't say things were great in my life in 1983-4, but it was a time before Trump, fentynal, COVID, Spotify, before I had to manage my hypertension, before I saw friends dying of cancer. Permit me some nostalgia, some wistfulness, of walking around town listening to this on a Walkman on a cassette dub I made at WRCT. Sometimes I miss those days, other times not so much. Even if Anton Fier would quickly take a different direction after this LP, this music continues to live on. I'd even say it has more staying power than much of what he did later. It is so much a reflection of its time, but it also indeed timeless.

VOTD 4/12/2023

 Paul Zukofsky/Gilbert Kalish: Music for a 20th Century Violinist (Desto)

Purchased at Jerry's Records, from the Duquesne University collection

Another of my anecdotes.

During my first year at Carnegie Mellon, the music and computer science departments held a series of guest lectures on the topic of computers and music. Radical, right? Considering CMU was such an important computing center, they were a bit behind the curve. 

The first guest lecturer was Iannis Xenakis. He was demonstrating his work, and others, generated on his UPIC system. One of my professors stressed that this was a big deal, but I didn't understand how much until some years later.

Another of the lecturers that year was Max Mathews. I had even less of an idea of how important Max was; he and his research team basically invented what we now know to be D-A conversion. All digital audio stems from his work.

(If you're going to tell me that it's more complicated than that, I know. I'm giving the quick version.)

Max's lecture to the music department had to do with generating equal temperament vs. just intonation and other frequency systems. He played a recording of a computer-generated five note passage in one tuning, and then another, and challenged us to identify each. I got it wrong each time, indicating to me that I could hear the difference, I just got which was which mixed up.

The there's a detail that Roger Dannenberg recalled. Max said he had been working with a violinist concerning tuning systems. He said he wasn't at liberty to say who it was, but that he had the initials P.Z.

Everyone thought he meant Pinchas Zukerman. He actually meant Paul Zukofsky. 

If you see Zukofsky's name on a recording, you know it will be of the highest quality. He was not only a specialist in 20th violin literature, he clearly enjoyed playing these works.

I think I have previously mentioned the Duquesne collection that's being sold off at Jerry's. Most LPs are going for $3 each. I found this 3LP set in the Duquesne boxes, and thought, hot damn! Score! One of the nice things about buying albums from that collection, is that most things I want to buy have barely been played before, if at all. This sounds completely clean, I doubt any Duquesne student ever had it put on.

I was a student at Duquesne myself, and would often listen to things in their record room. Was this in the collection at the time? How could I have missed it?

I find that often these types of "Music of the 20th Century"-type collections don't have what I want. Not so here. Henry Brant! John Cage! Morton Feldman! George Crumb! Stefan Wolpe! I know I have at least one recording of the Cage piece elsewhere ("Nocturne") and probably the Feldman ("Vertical Thoughts 2"). Because it's three records of material, there are those composers I would normally pass on: Walter Piston, Wallingford Riegger, Arthur Berger. I don't dislike those composers, they just don't especially interest me in particular. It's probably good to be made to listen to them in between what are the marquee names for me. 

Oh, and Nicolas Slonimsky wrote the liner notes. Home run.

I didn't know of this collection's existence before seeing it in the Jerry's bins several hours ago. that seems shameful. We seem to be spewing out so much data, so many materials, and yet a vital document such as this can be lost to even someone such as me. 

There are things that have happened, are happening, that have recently made me think a lot about my own past and future. I may sound happy in the paragraphs above, but the truth is I'm very saddened by something in my personal life. For the one to three people who read this regularly, I'm fine. You don't need to worry. An old friend is very close to death, and that's all I'll mention for now. Music continues to be my solace, even if this particular music seems like a strange choice for grief. Maybe I appreciate the works' classicism, the attempts at timeless beauty. Isn't that one of the reasons we do what we do?

CDOTD 4/11/2023

 Frank Zappa: The Yellow Shark (Barking Pumpkin)

I don't remember where I bought this, probably Paul's CDs

Water Shed 5tet spent a week on the east coast in December 1993 that was tough and more than a little frustrating. We didn't travel for gigs often, and this was the first time we were away for more than three days. Some of it was definitely fun, but we had a gig in Boston canceled shortly before we left, and we played in a university room for no money.

The last gig was at the legendary Knitting Factory on Houston. It was at the time a hotbed of creative activity. The place itself was amazingly modest, a bar downstairs and a room upstairs to play, not very big at all.

If I remember correctly, we were staying in Long Island, a rather long drive from the gig. We were on a three band bill, and because we showed up last on site, we went on last. It was a Sunday, and we went on after midnight two possibly ten people. I don't remember the other groups, other than Tom Cora being in the group before us. The room sounded amazing, acoustically one of the best spaces I've ever played. 

I don't remember the gig being especially good, compounded by a lukewarm-at-best response. When we were stuck in traffic (at 1am on a Sunday?) the news came over the radio that Frank Zappa had died days before, his death unannounced publicly and that he had been buried that day.

As if we weren't all tired already, that cemented the feeling that we all just wanted to go home.

Here's the last disc Frank released prior to his passing. I think I bought it after returning from that trip east. I'd been unenthusiastic and skeptical of most of his recordings for the fifteen years that preceded this. I always liked the instrumentals and had the Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar box, even though even that can be tiresome after an LP's worth. 

I was sold on that this wasn't a project for one of his rock bands. I found them boring after the Napoleon Murphy Brock era, which ended in 1975 more-or-less. But I did like some of his orchestral music. 

Frank was not only a workaholic's workaholic, he demanded absolute perfection as much as humanly possible. In fact, even inhumanly possible, one of the things that attracted him to the Synclavier. "Why not have a perfect performance?" is something he was quoted as saying (or at least close to that).

For me, that's not necessarily where the music lives. Yes, I want a good performance, but I'll forgive smaller mistakes in favor of a kick-butt reading (which in my case always involves some degree of improvisation). 

Ensemble Modern took on Frank's very difficult music and plays with gusto. I'd say from the look of the photos included in the booklet, they were largely young and dedicated. Hungry. 

I thought of this because I read recently that Tom Waits considered it one of his favorite albums (from a list made in 2005). Yeah, maybe it was time to spin it again.

The program included both newer works and some familiar pieces, such as "Be-bop Tango" "Uncle Meat" and "Pound for a Brown". 

Unless I just haven't read the right sources, Frank was noticeably tight-lipped when it came to his methods. It's come increasingly to my attention the degree to which he used compositional methods, even if some of that methodology was of his own devising. It's more than I might have thought. 

He always spoke of his admiration for Varèse, though Stravinsky casts at least as wide a shadow over this music. I'm sure he would have both acknowledged Stravinsky's importance, but also admonished me for lazy descriptions and not giving him adequate credit as an original artist. But hey, I'm not a professional writer if you haven't already been able to tell. 

As with any music that is min-numbingly complex, I sometimes question if it needed to be as difficult as it is. Something that separates Frank from people such as the "new complexity" artists (whose works are by and large far more difficult to play properly) is Frank's adherence to melody. Not all of the time mind you, but melody is never too far off, if sometimes hidden or obscured.

There have been other Ensemble Modern recordings, but this is the best one, the most interesting, the most lively. 

When I consider the thirty (!!!) years since Frank's death, I sometimes wonder what he'd have to say. He could be pompous, but he always had strong opinions and was very good at articulating them. He used to occasionally appear on the Dick Cavett Show when I was a teenager, and my father thought Frank was every bit as smart and interesting as any other guest on the show.

JG Ballard is another person who's left us, another person whose opinion always interested me. When I think of Obama, Trump, QAnon, Facebook, Twitter, Elon Musk, I sometimes think, what would Zappa Say? What would Ballard say? I miss them for that.

CDOTD 4/10/2023

 Simeon Ten Holt: Canto Ostinato XL (Brilliant Classics) disc two: two pianos

Purchased at Half Price Books

What makes a good or great minimalist composition? For that matter, what makes a minimalist composition?

It seems to me that the moment a general style was established, the era from Terry Riley's "In C" through the early Steve Reich, the Farfisa-organ period Philip Glass, that those composers best known for so-called "minimalism" moved on and sought to distance themselves from the word.

This is a dramatic simplification of history, but I believe tends to be true. 

So what do those pieces share in common? One thing would be a return to tonalism that followed the post-war avant garde experimentalism. My friend Nizan argued that it wasn't really tonalism as modalism, that the focus was on a particular scale without necessarily having harmonic progression and tensions. 

Repetition is an important element, repetition that reveals gradual processes. Rhythms are usually simple, clearly defined.

Is Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" a minimalist composition? If so, it pushes up against the limitations of minimalism. I cite that work because I consider it one of the great achievements in composition of the last fifty years (that I know). 

I came across this 12 CD set at Half Price Books, and wondered, what is this? I was unfamiliar with the work and composer. The piece dates to 1976, putting it right in that era when minimalism as a style was being established. There are nine performances of the piece for different combinations of keyboards and mallets. 

One thing is certainly true, it repeats itself. A LOT. It has that in common with minimalism proper. 

But what is this piece, I wonder? It has the drive of minimalism, but at times sounds like 19th century piano composing, played over and over and over.

At times I find it beautiful. At times I find it frustrating, that somehow it was a lost opportunity. 

Philip Glass came to speak at CMU a few years ago. A student asked what he thought about being identified with a certain set of composers, all branded with the word minimalism. He said, what he finds interesting is how different the music can sound, that he, Fred Rzewski, Louis Andriessen, John Adams, how they didn't sound anything alike.

I noticed he didn't mention Steve Reich's name. THAT I found to be interesting. 

As for Mr. Ten Holt's work, it's both lovely but something is missing for me. I hate to reduce it to just background music, but it runs the risk sometimes.

VOTD 4/09/2023

 Bertoia: All and More/Passage (Sonambient)

Purchased at a record fair, possibly in Baltimore

A few days ago there was an article in the New York Times about the state of the Harry Bertoia estate. Short response: it's a mess. He didn't take care of business before he died, and his kids are somewhat at odds regarding the remaining works and barn where he worked.

I thought I'd pull out the Bertoia record I own. I'm going to unapologetically share some anecdotes in this blog post.

Bertoia's studio was in the woods in eastern Pennsylvania. The closest museum was the Allentown Art Museum. I grew up even closer to it, I knew the museum well. My parents were members (and lobbied hard to get their works shown there) and were friends with one of the directors, Mimi Miley.

There's a Bertoia gong that was installed outside the museum. They often had his works on display.

There was a big Bertoia show when I was a teenager. The center of the exhibit was a collection, something like a cage, of Bertoia's sound sculptures. I was there with one of my sisters, wandering around while my parents were probably taking care of business. Mimi saw me and said, "Oh Ben, you're musician. Why don't you play one of them?" and left the room. I nervously walked up to one of the smaller pieces, took a single finger to a single prong and plucked it. Immediately a guard came over and barked at me. "This is a museum! You can't touch the pieces!" I didn't say anything, and walked off.

Many years later, my wife and I visited a museum dedicated to design in Manhattan. There was a Bertoia exhibit. It was a good show, and included some of his jewelry, pencil sketches, furniture, and sound sculptures. Best of all, there was a group of large sound sculptures on the floor that you could play. I think they were done by his son, identical in every way except for the hand that built then. You better believe I played those! There's a video of me somewhere on social media gently manipulating them. 

Everyone knows about Fallingwater, the Frank Lloyd Wright house in southwestern PA. Not so many people know of Kentuck Knob, another Wright house not far way. Kentuck Knob has a substantial sculpture collection, including a few Bertoias, large and small. There was a larger one outside the back door, and my wife decided she wanted to hear what it sounded like. She brushed some of the tall rods with her hand just enough to make them hit each other and sound. This time nobody came to yell at us.

I bought this LP at a record show years ago. I left the price on, $8. He had a stack of them, possibly all eleven Sonambient LPs. I figured I'd just get one, though I don't remember how much money I had on me. I should have bought more! These can go for $100 apiece now. I try not to have collector envy, at least I have this one. That said, I wonder how different they all can be from one another? 

Still, they're beautiful. Droning metallic sounds, rich in harmonics, occasional outbursts but mostly crescendos and decrescendos. 

If I had any metalworking skills, and the space to work, this is something I'd be doing.

CDOTD 4/08/2023

 Henry Brant: The Henry Brant Collection, Volume 1 (Innova)

I don't recall where and how I got this, possibly Sound Cat Records.

Her I sit to write again, knowing I should be spending the time on my own music and playing. I'm staying with the commitment though.

Henry Brant. I know just a little about him. I've heard some early music of his (he was born in 1913, so it's going back some decades) that seemed to border on novelty music. It is work he wrote later that is more notable: unusual groupings of instruments, and acoustical spatialization of music, often both at the same time. "Orbits" might be the best known, a work for eighty trombones, organ, and very high soprano obbligato. "Ghosts and Gargoyles" is for flute choir and jazz drummer. 

I don't know how "Orbits" came about. Was it his choice for write for so many trombones (each with a unique part) or was it requested of him? What I know is, if you can't find something interesting to do with eighty trombones, you can't be much of a composer.

I came across this two disc set while looking over my collection. I'm pretty certain I hadn't sat down with it before, at least in its entirety. The 96 minute work, "Northern Lights Over the Twin Cities: A Spatial Assembly of Auroral Echoes" takes up most of its length. The piece dates to 1985, making it a later work in Brant's oeuvre. I don't see how anyone but an older, respected composer could have pulled off such an immense work. The notes only list the premiere performance, November 23, 1985. I assume that's when this was recorded, and I doubt it's been played a second time. But, Stockhausen's "Helicopter String Quartet" has had more than one run, so who knows?

The work took six conductors, and involves orchestras of strings, winds, and percussion, several jazz bands, choirs, vocal soloists, bagpipes, and I'm probably leaving something out. It's divided into twelve movements, and movements are marked off by changes in instrumentation and density. 

It would probably surprise nobody that it's all over the place musically. The first several movements are slow, and all have a harmonic feel that seems to center on a particular mode. Things start to vary in the fourth movement, set for two jazz ensembles (no doubt separated physically in the space). By the end you'll hear intoning voices, multiple simultaneous events, harmonized bagpipes, among other things. 

Henry seems to like writing very high voice parts, something in common between "Orbits" and this piece. 

The intonation is sketchy at times. Sometimes it's clearly out of tune, sometimes I had to wonder if it was intentionally microtonal. But, considering how challenges of staging such a work (I haven't mentioned dancers too), the spatial separation of the ensembles, it's no wonder that maybe everything isn't tight in that respect. And far, far better that an imperfect performance be made available than none at all. This sort of work could easily be lost to time entirely, an odd, tiny footnote in the larger history of music of the past century. 

A 1975 work, "A Plan of the Air", concludes the second disc. It requires two conductors, for instrumental ensemble and voices. More spatialization, and there are definitely intentionally microtonal passages in the instrumental parts. Only the premiere date is listed; only a single performance? It seems like a pity that would be the case. 

VOTD #2 4/07/2023

 Olivier Messiaen: Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine (Forlane)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

It's Good Friday, not that it means so much to me. I've already had on some Messiaen, so why not keep it going?

How Messiaenish: choir with small string orchestra, percussion, piano, Ondes Martenot, violin, and soprano soloists. The recording, from 1983, is a real family affair: the composer surpervising, wife Yvonne Loriod as piano soloist, her sister on Ondes Martenot. 

Literally from the first note, you know you're hearing Messiaen. The first ghostly chord sung in the choir couldn't be anyone else. He'd write a number of works over the years that have similarities to this piece. That said, it feels very much like a predecessor to this immensely ambitious Turangalîla-symphonie. 

I've wondered in previous posts, do people still play works by a particular composer? Do people play Frank Martin, Jo Kondo, Jonathan Harvey, Neils Viggo Bentzon? I know people still play Messiaen, not only in France but here in America and around the world. But how much does this work get performed? I guess I can't really say, I'm just not aware of any performances at the local level. It seems to me this would be a natural for a conservatory program looking for programming for choir and orchestra. I guess throwing the Ondes Martenot into the mix makes that more challenging. I know a local composer who plays the Martenot though, who'd work really hard on this. So how about it, CMU Philharmonic?

Since I noted the noisiness of the Vingt Regards pressing from earlier today, I suppose it's worth mentioning that this pressing is amazingly clean and clear. I really am not super fussy about such things, but I also appreciate that when it is true.