Saturday, October 27, 2018

Playlist

Live

October 26, 2018

Cristina Valdés, piano
Meany Hall, Seattle

Klavierstück IX - Stockhausen
Pièces Froides Danses de travers - Satie
Gymnopédie No. 3 - Satie
Ein Kinderspiel - Lachenmann
Douze Notations pour piano - Boulez
Gnossienes No. 3 & No. 5 - Satie
Piano Sonata - Bartók

heaven

Cristina's performance presence ought, to my mind, to be a model for other pianists (and for more than a few violinists)
not shirking in concentration nor elegance one bit
but never bringing attention to itself, as itself, as a distraction, from the real magic that's going on
and magic it is too
say it again
heaven

Satie and Couperin, soul bros in so many ways
and both French!
imagine that

Lachenmann showed up in repertoire culture after I had pretty much given up keeping up with developments abroad
in the sense that, at least in these pieces, he is being a pianists' composer rather than a composer's composer, he reminds me of the late Greg Short

Boulez in these early pieces trying on coats, not quite the one that fits yet

Bartók this barnburner was written the year my Dad was born

Part of the reason I gave up keeping up with developments abroad was the overwhelming experience that was my discovery in 1978 or so, and exploration ever since then, though certainly less so now, of the music of Stockhausen. In a way, after that, I didn't need another or very much more music from abroad. And IX was certainly among the pieces that stuck. The overt severing of the realms, the note playing realm from the resonance billowing realm, cracked a door open in my own work, a door that was already pretty loose on its hinges, truth be told. It is fascinating, now, 40 years on, to hear that wild ass music that riveted me in my seat in the UW School of Music's lower-level listening library, trotted out into the clear air in Meany Hall, right there in public as an ever so venerable hunk of repertoire. I would be more disturbed if Cristina hadn't made it so clear that what it truly is is a poem of bone and blood, awesome magic

And now if you'll allow me an amused aside
about a week ago Cristina had, as a sort of mock-desperate joke, asked if anyone would be willing to write the program notes for her and by the way they are due tomorrow. My not entirely unserious response was to ask if she had ever considered not having program notes at all. imagine then my delight when I sit down to listen and there are no program notes! My dream came true! I must be in heaven!

Recorded


October 21, 2018
Concerto in F BWV 1046 - J. S. Bach - New London Consort, Phillip Pickett

composing to show he can
he overdid it
conception beyond any possible previous experience
see, I can write idiomatically for any and each
what you can expect should you hire me
pre-figure of Pictures at an Exhibition

Quartet in F op. 59 #1 - Beethoven - Alban Berg Quartett

the ground will begin to curve downward or drop or vanish into other grounds
the long groups that eventually seem to repeat are so repletely cross-indexed with their own internal repetitions of patterns and patterns of patterns and inner levels of levels that the grander scheme is uncanny
or, what is it that Beethoven thought a movement was? anyway?
we are being ushered somewhere into some society of some kind a refined kind
but can we trust beauty and a human face?
do we trust where we are going?
we are variously pulsed into and away in waves of envelopments
like falling into sleep

Terzetto "Ah! qual colpo inaspettato!" - Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), William Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

hint: follow the voice closely
get right up in its face

Symphony in A (#6) - Bruckner - New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

as though overturing an opera
IN YOUR SKULL!!!
even his by the book sequiturs sound like nons
naked quite starkly in his contrapuntal proclivities
a nervous keyboardist's way with figurational counterpoint
in order to proceed properly to Y one must pass through the membrane of X
it hurts but it lasts
never
lots
where you are when you are here
from within everyhuman all planes occupy every where all the time
the action is in the melodies between paired or patterned paired patterns and or patterned pairs: between
the still
within
contrary
the motion lurching through similar the stretching within obliqueness
as succinct as it gets

October 23, 2018
Sonata in F op. 99 - Brahms - Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma

the face of this collaboration is not always turned outward (usward) nor really even often
loves to linger, hold a thought in its hand, Yorick alas
tunes spill out from their vessels

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 22,2018
Banned Rehearsal 968 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt

Sunday, October 21, 2018

Playlist

Recorded


October 15, 2018
Sonata in C minor - Pietro Locatelli - Philharmonia Virtuosi [from Musical Evenings With The Captain]

ornamentation is a supplemental pointer
as is repetition
and scale degree
function

it points

but what is it that points
and ought we to
blindly
and boldly

follow?

Moving On Without Us - Wes Weddell [from My Northwest Home]

told in stanzas
featuring a monolineal refrain

Rat Hotel - Charming Snakes [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

hot wheels stunt track driver
the familiar push button thrill
the inevitable frustration of which
forces the ear into the tight packed mosh of feedback
for anything to bind it

Songbirds and Stillness - S. Eric Scribner - Ivan Arteaga, Neal Kosály-Meyer [from Stormsound Cycle, May 2011, private recording]

sound floating free of intent, barely anchored to seafloor

kelpish in swaying slumber

gravissimo

October 16 and 18, 2018
Finnegans Wake Part 2, Chapter 1 - James Joyce - Robert Amos [from Waywords and Meansigns]

advertisement
very plain
intro blurb at length

the rhythm of one strand of punnish
the wordless either

did these way wend
they and the world is made free

plain speaking reading or telling

word by word

to the left leans a guitar whose not recently tuned strings being open and exposed are variously reverberated by the word by word formants and resonunciations of the speaker's head

to make a long story badder
apocryphal of rhyme
ear relevance

tongues' promiscuities

curtains

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 15, 2018
Figure Study 181015 - Keith Eisenbrey


Neal, being deep in rehearsal for Chapters 4 and 5 of FW, couldn't make it to do the Gradus, so I kept the piano company.

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Playlist

Live
Dead Bars, not Counterpunch. 
Showbox at the Market, Seattle, 
October 11, 2018


October 11, 2018
Dead Bars
Counterpunch
The Bombpops
Strung Out

The Showbox at the Market, Seattle

Our long-time favorites Dead Bars opened at the Showbox.

Let me say that again.

Dead Bars opened at the Showbox! Woo Hoo!

We have watched and listened to this fine little band rise from their beginnings as a one-off pick-up band thrown together to play a few songs before Your Mother Should Know came on at the Comet back in 2013 - a great show that also included two of my other local favorite outfits: Rob McDonald's Canals of Venice and Emma Danner's Red Ribbon. It was our anniversary, so Karen and I were delighted to be there as they spread their wings on the ample Showbox stage. They even played Regular, which is one of Neal's songs!

Counterpunch hails from Chicago, The Bombpops, who were down one regular member to attend her sister's wedding and for whom their producer filled in, if I got the story straight, were from San Diego, and Strung Out has apparently been doing their thing since 1989. This is not the first time we have been to a show because the opener was somebody we knew, and in which I had never heard of the headliner.

Recorded

October 8, 2018
Concerto in F BWV 1047 - J. S. Bach - New London Consort, Philip Pickett

subdued trumpet touched to balance flute and strings
outsized no more
each part given its full color and articulation
not a reduced orchestra, but a chamber ensemble of only the players absolutely necessary to cover the parts

Quartet in E minor Op. 59 #2 - Beethoven - Alban Berg Quartett

do not approach directly
it will struggle to break free

a vacancy in its middle

third movement gets stuck in tuneland (which paid the bill) and has to work mightily to sneak out the back corridor

fourth movement
here be the cheerful hero youth to finally grasp the prize
if only there were any end to braggadociations

October 9, 2018
new moon
Aria "Il veccio cerca moglie" - Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), William Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

was setting it in far off Seville just enough distance to pass the censors?

Answer after some research, sort of, but not really. Beaumarchais had spent some time at the Spanish court. What a crazy life he led! What other 18th Century watchmaker's name springs so easily to mind?

Stockyard Strut - Freddie Keppard [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

theory:
before imitators imitated celebrities they clowned types and critters
anything to get a laugh
the act made more money if there was music
so the band learned to imitate the imitators imitating clown types and critters
somebody's tappin'
everything is a show

Howl (for Carl Solomon) - Allen Ginsberg [from Holy Soul Jelly Roll]

would prefer to read without hip static

post holocaustic flagellation
tunes his pitch to the room of words

Moloch
the vast stone of war

oh Victory
forget your underwear

Twenty-Four Tonal Preludes: 9 through 12 - Greg Short - Keith Eisenbrey [June 2009]

I like my playing on these, deliciously reckless
Greg's piano writing is brilliantly orchestrated
Busoni-ish in expanse

Smile - Oscar Peterson [from The Great Connection]

each impact keystroke chord struck
slips so perfectly into the granular swing

dropped from above

such clear thinking!

Intermezzo - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt

A story teller tells a tale with tune bits
edges between segments are given room to breathe
by spreading them oddly among the two pianos
(even with the shuffled order of the ultrafamiliar we give it a long line lyricality)
a play
in the form of a dialog
between two pianos

October 12, 2018
Papa Legba - Talking Head [from True Stories]

adds interest by adding sounds rather than by re-arrangement
spend-thrift
gets stuck when there are no more to add that make a difference

Banned Rehearsal 272 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [October 1991]

Aaron provides music lesson for young
and old beat drum beat drum gibberishpoems
"free space for causeless bliss"
persistent drumming drum must be tapped at all times wolves dontcha know wolves say what
do I hear slinky back there?
we howl at the leaves
missivate to the stars

pa pa hay dn's
dead and gone

but his mem ree ling ers on

in the grave his bo dee rots

these are rhymes
we teach our tots

that was a subtle use of rhyme there pal
nonsense rhymes for the outré 90s dad
absurdist radio play

best cadenza ever
you're welcome

Sunday, October 7, 2018

Playlist

Live

September 29, 2018
Free Improvisation: The Quartets Project
S. Eric Scribner presiding, September 29, 2018, Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Aaron Keyt, piano, objects, melodica
Bruce Greeley, bass clarinet
Carol J Levin, harp, electric harp
Ha-Yang Kim, ‘cello
Jim Knodle, trumpet
Karen Eisenbrey, piano, objects, drums (?)
Keith Eisenbrey, piano, objects
Neal Kosály-Meyer, piano, guitar, voice
S. Eric Scribner, piano, percussion, field recordings
Amelia Love Clearheart, bringing what she brought, doing what she does



Mr. Scribner gathered this cohort of 10 to improvise variously arranged quartets while carefully avoiding having too many Banned Rehearsal members all together until the very end when we were all there anyway. Good feelings all around.

Recorded

September 30, 2018
Twenty-Four Tonal Preludes: 5 through 8 - Greg Short - Keith Eisenbrey [March 2007 at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle]

5. lively but a bit rushed; 6. crazy man; 7. tender, lovely, childlike, lullaby waltz (delicate piano writing!); 8. tells a whole story complete with corporate lament refrain, a ballad, that is, is what it is

Where Do We Go From Here - Oscar Peterson [from The Great Connection]

a show-off but
o what glory!

a tour through his colleagues' manners
a tip 'o hat to Bill
a say hi to Sphere

Track 5 - Empire Brass Quartet [from American Brass Band Journal Revisited]

brass fandom
another enclave
with its enclave pleasures

Banned Rehearsal 82 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, and Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]


blowing pipes
rattle laugh
third body
imaging itself
as bumblebug balloon rub
elastikissing sticky kiss
rainbow plane
pass over
dog barks
twangchord talks
balloon talks
pipe blows
still guitar strums a while
and also another bell bongs
pipe blows
pluckdrone pipes blow (two of them)
we retreat back to sounds just made before that what
that will now new be made
guitar close in
each
but specific close
not equal
so drumbody
guitarbodydrum
boxword
an utterly other sense of playing well
giving it your voice
in doing so
it allows others
to give theirs their voice
the world is our axe
and laughing box
return to rattle again
sleepy as they are
focus remains

October 4, 2018
Something In The Way - Nirvana [from Nevermind]

interval: between acousticish sound and electroreverberated sound drives it
or
driven: by 2ish note tune then 3ish note tune
intriguing that it doesn't go on because it could

Sonata in G - Pietro Locatelli - Philharmonia Virtuosi [from Musical Evenings With The Captain]

never finish a thought unless thy finish be to pick up another thought
never finish a balanced thought
music before Beethoven killed it dead
two violins and cellopiano continuo
movements arranged not for drama but for social function presumed
else why?
better than whist by far

Ballad of the Whitman Greeks - Wes Weddell [from My Northwest Home]

the city they named twice made famous by a cartoon a story heard having been told to
but unverified
micro-urban myth?

"...woe my road is spoken..." draft 060604A - Keith Eisenbrey

another midi go at my variations for string quartet
playing with just so variation flowing through just so continuity
room to breathe
finding foil and echo in a pitch pattern

Bury Me Close - Rachel Harrington [Celilo Falls]

wrapping words around a place in the voice
the place that lies above and the place that lies below
waters upper and lower
should have seen her dance

Lincoln Beach Park Walking North - Keith Eisenbrey [May 2016]

I accidentally recorded this
pushed record unintentionally

so wasn't careful

saw a seal

latter day dinosaur sound (microphone bump bump) overlays sound of walk and sounds along walk

right left
left right left
he had a good job
and he left right left

rhythm between the relations among the sound from outside our mechanism of walking
the sound of our walking the sound of our talking while walking and the sound of the device hitting and rubbing

sexy flange of wave sough

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 1, 2018
Gradus 340 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

does the quantity of simultaneously played notes count beyond 1, (2) (many) (lots)? and is that importance commensurate with horizontal quantity?
possibility: composition can resolve or confuse that issue or mediate that resolution and confusion