Writing a piece to be played only on 2/29 every four year? So someone please get ready for 2/29/12 and program this bad boy. Very reasonable rental fee! This was written especially for Anti-Social Music!
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Gold Sparkle Band Reunion Concert 2004 - Existentialist Church, Atlanta GA Andrew Barker - drums & percussion Andrew Burnes - Fender Bass Rob Mallard - tenor saxophone & flute Chris Riggenbach - Double Bass Roger Ruzow - trumpets Charles Waters - alto saxophone, clarinets, piano (Recording - Jeff Rackley) Gold Sparkle Band, in all of its incarnations, has recorded massively. We are a sonic octopus! Of the official releases, compilations, solo projects, other bands, cassettes, vinyls, the recordings number into the hundreds. And yet perhaps some of the finest work of the group has not been heard in many years. Now, as we are in the process of trying to listening to our archives, we are learning and growing and hearing exciting things all over. This recording in shows the group at the 10 year make showcasing compositions and an amalgamation of both of our early bass players. So this Sparkle Sextet group plays what we have always done best - compositions for improvisors - a c...
PORCH MUSIC [clarinet, trumpet, vibraphone, viola, cello]-as in written on the front porch. I have always loved being on the porch, I certainly grew up on my grandmother's frontporch in Chadbourn, NC - just sitting, watching the trains come and go, talking to everyone walking or driving by, drinking coffee and reading the paper. The piano was inside next to the porch, so I'd always run in and play a little and then come right back. And nights on the porch, well, thats mostly heaven! And sitting on the porch through a rain storm is a koan unto itself! This piece is a very recent instant construction type piece written on my front porch in Brooklyn on Fourth of July with words by the poetic godfather Steve Dalachinsky music by me- lets play this thing!
CIVITAS (2011) FOR ENSEMBLE For John Zorn 2 Flutes Clarinet (Bb) Bass Clarinet (Bb) Piano Vibraphone Drums+Percussion Barely Audible (clarinet, vibraphone, piano, drums) Chicago Presto (two flutes, clarinet, bass clarinet) Motor Grid (flute, bass clarinet, vibraphone) pgh (vibraphone, piano, percussion) Philly Phantasia ( two flutes, piano, drums) This small collection of works was composed while traveling through the rust belt wasteland of beautiful Old America USA. Cold and quiet takes the shape of most of these works, meant to be played with a large dose of improvisation in spirit if not indeed! And Spacious! I love taking the music on the road - everything is transformed. And Geography and Music so intertwined. I knew of a composer once who wrote a single short piece that was performed by an orchestra in all 50 states - seems amazing. But for me I'd write 50 single pieces for each orchestra - its just the way I roll! Enjoy, play from the heart, dig the transf...
This piece "WatersWorks" for chamber orchestra is scored for: Flute, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Trumpet, Tuba, Vibraphone, + Strings. The photos are of the 'core' collection of notes, all written in shorthand notation on one piece of large staff paper folded 8 times producing 16 sections. As usual I was busy working my day job but had to continue - I kept this paper in my pocket until I finished all of the sections - many of them 'waters' references. As per usual with many of my scores this work was written throughout the city in many diverse locations - from the Ava Simon Reading Room at the Guggenheim to Ave A, down to the East River and over the Bridges. I orchestrated 10 movements, recorded 8 and and now finishing the cycle. The music wrote itself, but the orchestration took over one year of tinkering, making lists of combinations, re-working, finalizing this special orchestra. This was also difficult because this work is intended as an examination...
First Heard : Matthew Shipp & William Parker " Zo" In school we never "heard " new music - only reading history of these - a truly imaginary music! But after school I really began to educate myself as a listener of music - very powerful. I was very comfortable imagining the sound without hearing it - a skill that has served me well as a composer. After school I moved to Atlanta and almost immediately formed Gold Sparkle Band an avant jazz group. Playing, composing and very deeply trying to find my way in this world. Around this time, 1994-95, was the beginning of the third- wave of free jazz. We followed the happenings-mostly pre- Internet in 'zines and especially on the radio. We all knew Vandermark in Chicago and the development of that scene. And in NYC I started to hear about a piano and bass duo featuring Matthew Shipp and William Parker that had made a recording of the Gershwin classic "Summertime", but yet to hear the recording. Of co...
My own private Ives, Charles that is!I have deep sympathy for composer Charles Ives, especially the pseudo-tragic part about keeping a day job (profoundly profitable one too!) and composing, raising a family, dealing with the stresses of the city. So holiday time can often be composing time, a faint break in an otherwise hectic routine. This work "Memorial Day" from Summer 2005. Before my son Felix was born I begin writing in a wholly new, obsessively far-reaching type of way. As composers we are creators of sound and that summer I was getting to the very root of my own creativity - pro-creation! So I wrote my own private Ives, perhaps it was 'method composing" and some if it was certainly "in order to survive" composing. And part of it was surely outsider compulsion of following the mythical path of enlightenment. So, this new recording, featuring pianist/composer Mick Rossi, who also produced these recordings, is giving your ears and eyes a sample of my ...
Feldmusic - music for out-of-doors -very different then indoor concert music. I have been listening to the birds - I awoke at 4 am Sunday to a choir of birds singing in the rain! I have mentioned before in this blog my love of NYC parks especially the small, forgotten corner parks and tribute squares. These places are an oasis of sound and I'm trying to map that tonal geography! This new work for quartet - 'GREEN DOME LIBERATION SUITE' is dedicated to my second son Avery. I intended for this music to be played in the Green Dome Park which somehow is NEVER open - we need to tear down the gates with tone - music is the power, it can liberated your mind! Scored for flute, clarinet,/bass clarinet, violin, cello - in 8 movements - this is the 'waters motion music' - someday we will play this in the garden itself and I can answer the question "Daddy, why is the park closed?"
While digging through my paper archives, preparing the "Quilt Concerto" books I found this scrap entitled "Blood Blossom" - a rare Japanese flower. It comes from a poem (lost?) by poet Steven Dalachinsky. It is also the title of a collection of piano pieces of mine - this must be the title track! I made a special arrangment for horn quartet - marked Adagio, can't wait to hear it again for the first time!
This score was published in a book of poetry I wrote in 1990-91 entitled "Paprika Poems". This is the only score in the book of poems and dream journals, but it seems quite profound personally now - twenty years later! I had no concept to ever have this piece performed - I wouldn't have known how to play it. But now I think I understand. Will perform the World Premiere of "Matrix Improvisation, Solo #1" (1991) written in nestled high along Hippie Hill near the "Old Stone House" in Boone, NC - Dedicated to the Kudzu Bohemians everywhere..
Triads of the Blue Mysteries These 16 triads were found on a bus going South. Tight, thorny little notes, hovering in the atmosphere forming the basis of salvation - the Great Mystery of transformation. What is this mystery of the blues, a form that evolves and dissolves into soil and air. It is the breath of the blues, whose blues? Perhaps the "blue" of the collective, the simmering below the surface mind. 4X4=16 chords, divided by three voices simply complex. Artifical Blues or Blues Beyond - a small crunch of laughter. The air is Blues because of the refraction of the sky's light, thus the modern blues is a distanced reflection of things past - a nostolgia train moving towards the future. Connecting three little notes, 1,2,3....blues go Boom! Tones for discover and direction- a new blue - "eat of my body that I give to you". And each instrument has it's own unique blues - blue flute & blue marimba! Metal blues, one of my original concepti...
QUILT CONCERTO - the name of this new work for four horns. Originally, I was interested in creating a quartet with mixed sounds rather than one family of sounds - i.e. string quartet or in particular saxophone quartet for this new type of comprovisational work. Also the works of Jimmy Guiffre have always been a touchstone for my work and I love the ideas of jazz from lines without the standard rhythm section. This Horn Quartet was like a section group if you pulled down the rhythm section tracks. So all of the propulsion and movement had to be generated using other devices such as post-minamalism, hocketing (pre-baroque?), and spontaneous riffage! During this period - 2008 - I received two commissions - one from DUMBO Arts festival to present two concerts under the Manhattan Bridge and second from Chris McIntyre and Tilt Brass Group. So between these two pieces I developed a third piece, Quilt Concerto, to practice my new techniques and also through sheer inspiration at these processes...