reading of John Day The review "calls of words" reaches its 5 th meeting by hosting a reading of John Day. "Scali of words" was working archive Moroni Prime: among the thousands of volumes that make up the archive, it has come to categorize the books of poetry and from there spread the idea of \u200b\u200borganizing a poetry festival in Cox18 . The appointment This month is particularly dedicated to Primo Moroni. first call Calusca many poets, including Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Lance Henson. "Scale of words" attempt to bring poetry and his message of liberation outside the channels of commerce or institutions (galleries, museums ...) to give body to the inherent groped between form and content ...
John Day was born in New York in 1936, but it is originating in the province of Matera Tursi. lives has always been in New York. And 'one of the most important poets and performers of the second half of the twentieth century, and its history and activities continues at the dawn of this XXI. life is a killer is the title of a poem by john day of 1981, then resumed in several expression-printed poems (one of which is reproduced in the poster of the evening). Both in literature and in the visual experience and his practice is an example of pop art applied to texts. Long list of his friendships and collaborations: william s. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Glenn Branca, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Diamanda Galas, Keith Haring ... who worked with him for the tag poetry day systems founded in 1965. In 1984 he founded the AIDS'' treatment project’’ che si occupa del sostegno ai sieropositivi e ai malati di AIDS.
Mulatu Astatke @ Rome, Auditorium Parco della Musica 03/10/11
I landed in Fiumicino Airport at about 4 p.m., last tuesday ... a busy afternoon (going to the city by bus, checking my room, eating something, seeing a Nam June Paik exhibition I got to write about in the next days ... ) but after all, it was well worth. Mulatu Astatké is currently touring with a septet: multi-reed (flute, clarinet, tenor saxophone), trumpet, keyboards, cello, viola, bass, drums and percussions. Spanning through his old and new repertoire, Mulatu gives new shape to old songs like Yèkatit and Tezeta , as far as new compositions like Mulatu's Mood (from Steps Ahead , his latest record).
Born in Djimma (in the south-west of Ethiopia) in 1943, at 17 Mulatu Astatké started traveling in UK and USA to study music and create his own bands and groups, giving shape to his music and ideas. In London he became familiar with latin-american music, that was the hot spot just before Beatlesmania. In New York, finally, he founded the Ethiopian Quintet ( Afro Latin Soul , their first LP, was issued in 1966), with musicians for the most part from Puertorico. His music was something previously unheard: a mix of latin rhythms, ethiopic melodies, whereas in his native land no instrumental tradition (with the exception of military march-past, ethiopian various music styles are focused on singing, both in griots ancient tradition and in modern developments of popular music) nor caraibican music (the Imperial Body Guard Band, that backgrounded such diverse talented musicians as Getatchèw Mekurya, Thlaoun Gessesse and Mahmoud Amhed was provided with ethnic percussions, but with no latin tinges at all ... ) had their own proper place before.
This night Mulatu and his musicians gives music a stronger grooving sensation than the last time I listened to him with Either/Orchestra in Milan a couple of years ago, and his palette seems more 1970's oriented. Maybe because of his electric piano (very similar to the one Keith Jarret was using playing live with Miles Davis, but without distortions and with a thin, spacey sound) and of a viola and a cello doubling and expanding the acoustic bass range on melody and rhythm. It's the same with flute and clarinet alternating with tenor saxophone and trumpet. An orchestral sound in wich single imprivisations are well fitted into the ensemble, giving the melancholic strangeness of ethiopian melodies a wider, intoxicating brightness.
Another gorgeous Free Factory re-issue, from last years' ending. Five tracks, three from a 1963 Copenhagen concert, just few days after the quintet recorded Niel Holt's Future One soundtrack. Consequences was taken from that lp, and along with the opening Coleman's Emotion s, sounds like Archie Shepp's Fire Music : hot rhythms, breathtaking horn blows, confrontational attitude: October Revolution in music. Time's up also for a pianoless, but touching, Monk's Mood. This show was broadcasted by Danish Radiohusets, and it seems that those three tracks would be all that remains.
Last couple of titles comes before Cherry recorded his Symphony for Improvisers and after trumpeter, with saxophonist Gato Barbieri, released Togetherness . Long Suite presents material from Complete Communion (recorded five months before), as long as a nervous rendition of Afro-Blue, which is very far from Coltrane's majesty, and Golson's I remember Clifford . Five players involved in this Hilversum sessions never recorded together again: Don will meet 'Leandro' on Le Depart (soundtrack for beautiful Jerzy Skolimowski movie), Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra and Gaslini's Nuovi Sentimenti ; pianist/vibist Carl Berger and drummer Aldo Romano would be present on Togheterness sessions, but these 30 minutes of music are the only bassist Bo Stief took part in trumpeter discography. Sound quality's quite good, not excellent, but a couple of few seconds noise intrusions wouldn't spoil listener's enjoyment.
Tracklist: 01. Emotions; 02. Monk's Mood; 03. Consequences; 04. Exodus; 05. Suite (For the Children / Afro Blue / I Remember Clifford).
Personnel: Don Cherry (trumpet) with: John Tchicai (alto), Archie Shepp (tenor), Don Moore (bass), J. C. Moses (drums) - 01/03; Gato Barbieri (tenor), Karl Berger (vibes, piano), Bo Stief (bass), Aldo Romano (drums) - 05/06.
John Coltrane - At Temple University, 1966 (FreeFactory, 2010) Anthony
This is probably the best recorded late Coltrane performance ever issued. Not as subversively noisy and harshly unconventional even for Trane standards of that time, as his Olatunji Concert (officially published in 2000 by Impulse!), this 1966 live exhibition of his last quartet gifts fans all over the world with one of the most beautiful renditions of both Naima and Leo . Naima is here more organic than on Live at the Village Vanguard Again! , where piano and horns were less focused into a continuum; Leo (the studio version, a sax/drums duet, was published as a bonus on Interstellar Space cd reissue) presents Jimmy Garrison bass and Alice Coltrane piano on the very background, due to powerful argumenting of two saxophones and drums. Arcoed bass gives this rendition an ineffable sense of melancholy, but it's up to Crescent , a beautiful 1964 composition from the same titled record, to testify the state of Trane's mastery and even difficulties in developing further his style and language.
As Ravi Shankar states, in his liner notes, John Coltrane was looking (as ever) for something different. Indian sitar master points out at inner peace, at the pain of living he felt in crossing many jazz music of that time (and after all, Trane himself was looking for yoga meditation and Shri Ramakrishna teachings and relating his music to his inner struggling); but as far as this music from Temple University, what we hear it's a continuous, firm fire coming out of an injure that has already found a forged shape of expression. A record to listen to carefully, relating to the way Trane tries to cope with his musical architecture, always expanding it, whereas Pharoah Sanders gives shape to multiphonics and screaming lines that are as assertive as full of awareness. Alice Coltrane plays piano as harp, interlacing beautiful textures with Rashied Ali's wide open palette of percussions.
Personnel: John Coltrane (tenor sax), Pharoah Sanders (tenor sax), Alice Coltrane (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass), Rashied Ali (drums)
Tracks: Naima (16.47) - Crescent (26:15) - Leo (20.43)
Braxton - 3 Compositions of New Jazz (Delmark, 1968)
Stunning Braxton's debut record as a leader is one of the milestones in defining and developing avant-garde AACM language and aesthetics, like its predecessor, 'Muhal' Richard Abrams' Levels and Degrees of Light , and second Braxton double For Alto . Along with Roscoe Mitchell's Sound , these albums signed an era with their intense expanding improvisation's palette and exploring new compositional territories, related to textures of sound and individual expression.
Multi-instrumentalism, the use of symbolic notation systems so to give improvisation and composition equal stress and new shapes, the relevance given to sound itself and its modulation along with silence, little instruments (bells, whistles, bottles), these seminal performances will influence improvised music for more than 30 years, and their inputs will give shape to a wider range of electroacoustic styles that will go beyond jazz. After all, Braxton's music is wide aware of avant-garde proper language: his interest in Cage's and Stockhausen's music will be developed in his parterships with the likes of Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum and Wolf Eyes. Leroy Jenkins and Leo Smith have developed, spannig their careers, the intuitions this record witnesses, related to a new way of exploring their musical heritage (blues, r'n'b, gospel, above all). Muhal Richard Abrams is perfectly at ease with his debussian / impressionistic style, here at his rough and pointillistic, both energic and abstract peak.
Personnel: Anthony Braxton (alto & soprano saxophones, clarinet, flute, musette, accordian, bells, snare drum, mixer); Leroy Jenkins (violin, viola, harmonica, bass drum, recorder, cymbals, slide whistle); Leo Smith (trumpet mellophone, xylophone, bottles, kazoo); Muhal Richard Abrams (piano, cello, alto clarinet).
Tracks: 1. (840m) -Realize-44M-44M, 2. N-M488-44M-Z, 3. The Bell
Last year was a breakthrough in Threadgill's long career: Mosaic and Soul Note / Black Saint reissues, PI new album, a couple of complete retrospectives published on Italian magazines (Blow Up and Jazz.It), not to mention The Wire. As far as reissues of his first trio, the one with Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins, Air Raid is probably his finest. Originally recorded in 1976, following previous year's Air Song , the album presents compositions in which players are allowed to take full control over interaction dynamics without backdropping any lead musician. Air Raid opens with Threadgill on chinese musette and alto offering a perfect essay in trio's art: suspension and strain (arco's vamping and droning doubled with exotic horns) rapidly reach their peak with alto/bass/drums nervous exchanges and then unleash the tension in sound/silence articulations. Fred Hopkins' harmonizations on Midnight Sun (beautifully lyrical and melancholic) reminds of Charlie Haden work with Ornette Coleman on pieces like Broken Shadows: both were opening tones, giving them an anchorage, offering a balance and broadening space in front of horn's full blown. Release is the lenghtiest composition of the record. Threadgill plays flute and hubkaphone, a self-built instrument, gamelan-like, made by putting together cars hubcaps. In Through a Keyhole Darkly plucked and bowed arco and brashes give a quiet setting for tenor balladry, givind the record a nocturne ending.
Henry Threadgill - tenor, baritone and alto saxophones, flute, hubkaphone; Fred Hopkins - bass; Steve McCall - percussion
Tracklist: 01. Air Raid - 02. Midnight Sun - 03. Release - 04. Through a Keyhole Darkly
bar in an old actress and her band bring to life chantant maker of the world in which they alternated songs, and strip shows. The heart of the show is a musical review of "The Guild of Mac Mahon" by Giovanni Testori, a work that tells the story of a woman and her irresistible passion for men. In a whirlwind of words, choreography and music, from Charlie Parker to Etta James, the actress gives birth with look nostalgic for a world that no longer exists. Federica Bognetti
SPACE Tertullian - Tertullian via Milano 68 from 10 to 13 February 2011 Thursday / Friday / Saturday h. 21:00 >>>> to follow Thursday 10 toast with the performers Sunday h.16.00
For information and reservations or ticketing 320.6874363 02.49472369 or @ spaziotertull iano.it
Just read the first time about this record on JazzMagazine (a beautiful issue, with a long, relaxed interview with Cecil Taylor) a year and a half ago. It was a tiepid Sunday morning, Hamid Drake and his Bindu Project would have enlightened the end of the week with a gorgeous concert in Milano ... reggaeology, baby, that's the matter!
Didn't seek for that record, because of many others, but last Saturday finally I got it. I'd really put my hand on fire for those guys, since Roy Campbell played on Spiritual Unity group, with Marc Ribot, Henry Grimes and Chad Taylor, and, finally, because Joe McPhee played with Don Ayler, Albert's brother and you can really hear the Holy Ghost coming out of his mouth right into his tenor saxophone. Wiliam Parker is on bass (yet involved in Peter Broetzmann's tribute to Ayler, Die Like A Dog). Drummer is Warren Smith, member of Max Roach's M'Boom, contributor to Tony William's Lifetime, Julius Hemphill , Muhal Richard Abrams and many others.
Music is the Healing Force of the Universe, wrote Albert Ayler. The lyrics are played without sounds, since Ayler was an inspired poet and his latest records, often underrated because he was bringing his vision back to popular roots (r'n'b, funky) so that lots of people at the time wasn't acknowledging him and his pals as true innovators. But is' a matter of fact that records like New Grass, though sinked into a less improvisational environment, are as good and genuine as their inspired author.
But Ayler music is related to Truth is Marching In, so in this record there are a couple of pieces directly related to his ethics: Mantu, a tribute to Miriam Makeba (flamboiantly relaxed, groovy and positive), and Obama's Victory Shout, that fades directly into one of Ayler's anthems. Anthemic Prophet John, written by Ayler brother and dedicated to John Coltrane (the Father of free spirit) is powerful as the version I heard on Revenant's Holy Ghost box, and then back again to Universal Indians, another Albert's last period tune.
Recorded during 2008's Banlieues Bleues Festival, this CD is accompanied by a beautiful booklet with photos of the event and an interview with the musicians, conducted by Jazz Sociality class students taught by Alexandre Pierrepont at Science-Po (Paris), available in its entirety at http://www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD24/PoD24ParisianThoroughfare.html
Personnel: Joe McPhee-tenor sax, pocket trumpet, voice; Roy Campbell-trumpet, pocket trumpet, bamboo flute, recorder, voice; William Parker-bass, voice; Warren Smith-voice, percussion, drums.
Track Listing: 1. Music Is The Healing Force Fo The Universe 6:31; 2. Muntu 15:19; 3. Obama Victory Shoutout 13:50; 4. DC 16:51; 5. Prophet John 15:05; 6. Universal Indians 6:40
Lasse Marhaug is the director of All Ears Festival, devoted to both electronic and acoustic improvisation, and all their melting possibilities. A texture of coworkers, well known movers and new efforts to make the point on the state of sound: Kevin Drumm, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Peter Brotzmann, Zeena Parkins, Maja Ratkje and many others, beyond difference of ages, heritages, personalities. But the flyer has Joe McPhee on top, and his two sets are remarkables as the musician. But, a little order.
(Writing and photos: Gian Paolo Galasi)
January 13
Terje Isungset plays tenor and african horns, Karl Seglem is on drums and self built percussions. Displaying wide, blue shades of free roots carried into fire abstractions and melancholy; duo Isglem wouldn’t give the first night a better introduction.
Isglem: Terje Isungset (horns), Karl Seglem (drums, self built percussions)
Their set is followed by Mat Maneri, playing his amplified viola with Hanna Gjermundrod and Andrea Neumann. The trio is devoted to melancholic, wrapped up and introverted minimal textures of analogic sounds, female voices and real time processing.
Hanna Gjermundrod, Andrea Neumann, Matt Maneri
It’s Fred Lonberg-Holm time; his personality is very close with Zeena Parkins, following him with Maja SK Ratkje but in the afternoon playing solo harp at NiMusikk, another local avant-garde Festival that housed also Choi Yoongjong trio: both plays electrified instruments, both are well conscious of the many languages that can be trained on their musical visions, even if their attitude is different.
Fred Lonberg-Holm
Lonberg-Holm rendition as a soloist is raw, rough, raucous, nervous, the one you expect from a well accomplished partner-in-crime with the Brotzmann and Gustaffson aesthetics. Whereas Parkins afterlunch party was melancholically suspended between acoustic and electric layers, training hystorical avant-garde tricks and tips (acoustic drones, minimalistic structure, aleatoric gestures) into present. She played her second self-built harp and scratching glasses and at night, with Maja Ratkje plays urban, cathartic blues, rapid and firm; black mood, vocal rage, focused gestures.
Maja S.K. Ratkje and Zeena Parkins
January 14
Friday opens again with Man eri and drummer Randy Peterson, giving us 28 minutes made of a dynamic, stormy, impressionistic impulse to reach the peak, then downwarding from stormy grooving into a silenced openness and then back again on top of the waves, doling out instinct and structure.
Matt Maneri (viola), Randy Peterson (drums)
Christian Weber and Joke Lanz don’t spoil in comparison: acoustic bass and turntablism are equally involved in conversing, with no flattening on layering as many avant-indie coolsters; Lanz actually ferry hip hop heritage, even turned into white EU paranoia, directly into impro grammar, and successfully.
Joke Lanz's operation table
Christian Weber on bass
Ames Room are Jean Luc Guionnet (saxello), Clayton Thomas (bass), Will Guthrie (drums), playing a sort of electro-acustic-core that, even if to be more focused, it's an idea on how to take a bridge back to a basic, less abstract and more confrontational attitude.
Drummer Will Guthrie
Kevin Drumm, finally, breeds with his table top, distorted guitar a massive, immersive an dense soundscape.
January 15
Saturday night starts with digital glitches and voice. Harald Fetveit and Agnes Rvizdalek, a misty, blue mood rapidly followed by Nils Are Dronen, Kjetil Moster, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Joke Lanz. Electrified sax, furious drums, wild turntablism and bass mastery.
Harald Fetveit and Agnes Rvizdalek
Nils Are Dronen, Kjetil Moster, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Joke Lanz
In the middle of this third night of music, Ryu Ankil, Choi Joongyong and Hong Chulki give a longer, stretched rendition of what they did the previous afternoon at NyMusikk: ticketing tocketing cd players, typewriter, turntables slashed by medicine blisters and metal plates. A very personal point on analog glitch music, industrial blazors and concrete sound, but the resemblances between the two sets makes me want them see play again other ideas in order to have a broader, wider knowledge on those Koreans experimental musicians.
From top: Ryu Ankil and Hong Chulki
Lionel Marchetti and Jerome Noetinger are the finest industrial performers. They play right in the middle of Fabrikken, not on stage, as a matter of attitude. No protection, both for the musicians and the public, and so is their music. Take it or leave it, but no compromise.
Lionel Marchetti (in the foreground) and Jerome Noetinger
Their set is followed by Joe McPee’s telepathic trio, with Randy Peterson and Oyvind Storesund on bass. McPhee unique style is made of circular breathing, diplophonies, scratches of silence turning into flurrying of sound and vice versa; stretching, repeated, varied splinters of melodies turned upside down. The blues and the abstract truth.
Joe McPhee Trio
Randy Peterson
Oyvind Storesund
January 16
Joe plays also on Sunday in the afternoon, at Heine Onstad Kunstsenter, echoing also piano resonances with trumpet.
JoeMcPhee
All Ears last resort is Peter Brotzmann and Masahiko Satoh, avant garde masters in their own full rights. First part of the concert is for tarogato and bass clarinet with piano. Far from fluxus-inspired assaults and japanimpro blasts (have you ever seen Koji Wakamatsu The Extasy Of The Angels? Music on the last scenes is from Yosuke Yamashita Trio, and Satoh was part of them). In fact, this is a micro-history lesson on how to play contemporary music: cluster piano notes, atonality, but also some abstract ragtime answering to Brotzmann rage and full control of dynamics and sound. But when german impro chairman takes tenor on, what we hear is pure magic: a wild, raucous, powerful and bitter blues that let the audience moved from the very bottom of their hearts. Something that at first sight could recall regret, but that actually is more related to living being devoted to creating and sharing beauty, and the efforts concerned in it. In fact, it’s the sense of being there, as Don Cherry, who was and old Brotzmann pal, pointed out with his Complete Communion: give you way, play truly yourself, and the unheard will happen. What we all, here, were looking for.
Peter Brotzmann (tarogato, blass clarinet, tenor), Masahiko Satoh (piano)
Next year Lasse Marhaug and AllEars will be probably focused on japan contemporary improvisation, so stay tuned with them and never miss the appointment in January 2012.
Joe McPhee at HOK, Jan 16, 2011
Peter Brotzmann and Masahiko Satoh at HOK, Jan 16, 2011
