well-weathered music

I played with four of my most favorite musicians last night; Carla Kihlstedt, Marika Hughes, and Shahzad Ismaily, who make up 2 Foot Yard, plus Zeena Parkins. It was just 2 songs in a 15 minute set, but it was an absolute joy to play with these master musicians again. Oddly enough, it was the first time I’ve actually played with Zeena. Odd in that I’ve heard her play so many times, it seemed natural to play together. And of course Carla never ceases to amaze me, even though we’ve known each other and have worked together for almost 15 years. It was kind of an odd but very interesting show; the opening night of this year’s Look & Listen Festival.

I am now three weeks away from the end of the busiest three months I’ve ever had. The Ne(x)tworks gig this Saturday, the Behrman gig monday night. On Tuesday I’m off to San Francisco to finish up a score for choreographer Alonzo King. Then back to do the Merce Cunningham gig at DIA-Beacon on May 17 & 18. After that things lighten up; only three projects to work on!

2008 has started off with a bang, or a klang, or a …, well definitely not a thud or a boink. But you get the idea. Last week was my first rehearsal as a “regular” member of Gamelan Son of Lion since 1987. I did write a piece for them in 2006, but I attended only a few rehearsals. This year I have decided to join the group on a regular basis. Son of Lion is a “home-made” gamelan ensemble built by Barbara Benary back in the late ’70s. The metalophone, keyed, instruments are mostly made of iron, as opposed to the bronze instruments of Indonesia or the aluminum of most California new gamelans. When I was in the group in the ’80s (rehearsing in Phil Corner’s loft on Leonard St.) they also had a large array of car hubcaps used as gongs. But those seem to have been replaced by actual bronze gongs from Indonesia.

The 1980s was sort of my “gamelan decade.” Gamelan was the through line during my moves from Toronto to NYC to San Francisco. There was even a 5 month trip to Bali & Java in 1986 to study the different gamelans there. But over an eight year period I wrote 4 pieces for 3 different American gamelans and played in 5, coast to coast. I was a founding member Toronto’s Evergreen Club Gamelan in 1982, then worked with Son of Lion in NYC in ‘86/’87, then to California to play with Bay Area New Gamelan (BANG), The Berkeley Gamelan and one of Lou Harrison’s groups. But new gamelan in CA had sort of run it’s course by the time I got there, and I stopped playing in these ensembles by 1989. The 2 east coast groups I had been in, SoL and Evergreen, continue to this day, and I’m very glad to be back in Son of Lion.

Here is what SoL looks like these days. (Photos taken 8Jan08)

(left to right, Jody Kruskol, David Demnitz, Barbara Benary, Lisa Karrer, Laura Liben)

(left to right: David Simons, Denman Maroney, Patrick Grant, Jody Kruskol, David Demnitz. Not shown: me, John Morton and Dan Goode.)

Then a few days later, David Behrman came up to my apartment to rehearse for the gig we have this week. I’ve been a fan of his work since I was a teenager so it was wonderful to finally play his music. The sound of glass fits in beautifully with his sound world. Here is David in my apartment (10Jan08).

Then Keiko Uenishi (aka o.blaat) came by the next day to help on the mix of the upcoming release of our OBJECTS cd. Back in 2004 Keiko & I & Ricardo Arias (who plays balloons) did a trio concert at the Sculpture Center in Long Island City (across the east river from Manhattan). We managed to get a very good multi-track recording of it and a small label in the midwest want to put it out. It’s one of the favorite bands I’ve been in. Me playing my glass objects, Ricardo playing his balloon objects, and Keiko playing her virtual max-patch objects. Here is a photo of the 2004 concert.

I’ve been getting some interesting feedback from my Stockhausen/Ike Turner piece (the previous post). I sent it out in individual emails to (as Chris McIntyre would say) “my peeps.” Three of my favorite composers answered back right away. Jay Cloidt said he was going to forward it to a zillion people. John King thanked me for the “mash-up,” which got me wondering if there is a difference between “mash-up” and “plunderphonics.” David Behrman said it brought back memories of his first driving experience, in his mother’s 1952 Olds 88 with a Rocket engine.

Then there’s my brother, who asked if the title means I believe in heaven. I was actually referring to the Ives’ piece “General Booth Enters Into Heaven,” which, admittedly, is a pretty obscure reference. But, no, I don’t believe in heaven, except as a metaphor for whatever happens after we leave our corporeal existence. My initial idea was to create a piece representing the post-corporeal spirits of KS & IT as they gradually lost their individual identity and merged together to become part of what my Gurdjieff inspired bodywork teacher used to call “the field.” I don’t mean to get metaphysical on y’all, but that sort of process (body returns to the earth, spirit returns to the ether) does make the most sense to me. It does not, however, lend itself to representation in a 3 minute New Year’s greeting. So I kept the two musician’s identity intact, and found some very interesting nexuses. I made no changes to the pitch or tempo of either piece, yet there are some places where they really do compliment each other. I can only imagine that the young Karlheinz could very well have been influenced by the Ike Turner piece. “Rocket 88,” from 1951, is thought to be the “first” rock and roll song, so it might well have sparked KS’s 1952 ears as he made his first piece in the new “tape music” medium. Is that common and reoccurring Eb, and the equally common and reoccurring 160 bpm triplet really a coincidence? Hmmmm….

My Toronto friend Andrew Timar observed that my piece obviously placed “Etude” within the structure of “Rocket 88″ and wondered, referencing Jim Tenney, what it would sound like the other way; with the pop song placed within the structure of the Stockhausen. A very interesting idea. It is of course always easier to do this sort of creative editing within a clear rhythmic grid than a rhythmic splatter, but it would certainly be an interesting project. Any takers?

Oh, and if anyone might think this kind of work is new for me (there’s no glass!!), may I direct you here; some pre-digital work from 1982.