Playlist

Recorded

April 9, 2017
Die Kunst der Fuge Contrapunctus 7 - J. S. Bach - Zoltan Kocsis

This is a plug

All about the fugal entrances, and how each one opens a new window.

Symphony in D (93) - Haydn - Austro Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, Adam Fischer

Dramatic pauses and uneasy balances. The fart joke falls flat because it only points out what was obvious throughout anyway: dramatic pauses are the subject matter.

Grosse Fuge in B-flat - Beethoven - Amadeus Quartet

A fugue we enter through a hall of inward facing windows.

April 11, 2017
Katya Kabanova Act II - Leoš Janáček - Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Charles Mackeras, Gabriela Benacková, Dagmar Pecková, Erika Bauerová, Dana Buresová, Eva Randová, Miroslav Kopp, Jozef Kundlák, Peter Straka, Zdenek Harvánek; Czech Philharmonic; Prague National Theatre Chorus

Listening to this music is like reading the expression of an open-book face.

Chock House Blues - Blind Lemon Jefferson [from Alan Lowe's Really The Blues]

I kept wondering if, as has been suggested of the contemporaneous recordings of Robert Johnson, this was recorded at a slower rpm than we hear as playback. There is probably no way to know for sure, but the possibility of it might be determined by a comparison of other recordings. Did his voice always sound so weirdly high? If you bring it down a step or so does his voice sound more like it does in other recordings? Is it a likely guitar key? Can the probable tuning of the guitar be ascertained by figuring out which notes are on open strings? Are there other recordings of the period that we know were sped up, i.e., might it have been a common practice? Is the weirdness confined to this time period (ca 1926)?

Hard Times Stomp - Red Perkins [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Sheik of Araby - Milt Brown [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Lovely, fat, almost clarinet-like guitar sound.

Apollo Jump - Luck Millinder [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Children's Dances - Zoltán Kodály - Jenö Jandó

Classy teaching pieces. The lesson hidden under the fingerwork is about the deftly shifting attention's focus from one voice to another.

April 13, 2017
Just One Of Those Things - Charlie Parker [from The Cole Porter Songbook]

Breathless momentum, stripped down arrangement.

John Verrall

Autumn Sketches - John Verrall - Kimberly Davenport

The ground is solid rock, but neither level nor even. Up is on a different slant than Down. Any attempt at parallel is doomed from the get go.

Ain't No Use - Sarah Vaughan [from The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]

Precise placement of voice. She dances inside her instrument.

19th Nervous Breakdown - The Rolling Stones [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

An instrumental with a backing vocal for an excuse.

99 Lbs - Ann Peebles [from Original Funk Soul Sister The Best of Ann Peebles]

In the same sub-genre as 60 Minute Man. The song is so brief as to barely get started. Perfect at every moment.

Changes - David Bowie [from Changes One]

An assemblage in lieu of a song. Tactic: garble the narrative.

AKU (cassette version) - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey, Christopher Mehrens

Realized on Synclavier, courtesy of the University of Washington Department of Systematic Musicology. Chris and I spent hours and hours laying down these tracks. The reel to reel master tape deteriorated into something else entirely, so this is the "safety" copy I kept on cassette tape. There was a certain amount of institutional grief involved trying to schedule a time to play this for the composition faculty at our weekly Friday department workshop. Looking back on it now, I have to wonder what I was thinking, to play this for exactly that group of people? Over 30 minutes long, it pretty much forgoes anything like regular musicality in favor of design. The synclavier could only play 8 sounds at the same time, so in a fit of maximization I decided to base the whole thing on a sequence of 8 numbers. This sequence (I've forgotten what it was) determined the relative amount of time each patch would be present in the mix, the relative density of notes within each patch-track, various settings of complexity of wave form and envelope for each patch, and (my favorite) the relative amount of time from the end of each patch-track to the end of the piece. The notes were a hodgepodge of things, quotes of myself and others, "that'll do" doodles, and carefully stacked pitch piles. And then I had to arrange it so that there were never more than 8 sounds playing at once. I had charts all over the place.

In Session at the Tintinabulary
April 10, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 932 170410 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy

Steve brought over a little purple guitar and played it.

Playlist

Live

There is no end to the tuning of guitars

March 28, 2017
Your Mother Should Know
Victory Lounge, Seattle

Neal and Karen are back in action! The set was stripped down instrumentally (that's Karen's entire kit underneath the mic stand - a bodhrán, a tambourine, and a glow-in-the dark skull shaker) but ramped up vocally. Lots of duet singing, and a strong set list with many new songs, including '68 Chevelle and Jerseyville Illinois. The only disappointments were that we couldn't stay to hear the other bands (it was a Monday night), and my recording didn't turn out well (input too hot). I'm looking forward to their next outing at the Sunset on April 18. That's a Tuesday, but I'm on vacation so I can sleep in. They'll be sharing the bill with Mud On My Bra and Strange Like Us.

Recorded

March 26, 2017
Katya Kabanova Act I - Leoš Janáček - Czeck Philharmonic Orchestra, Charles Mackeras, Gabriela Benacková, Dagmar Pecková, Erika Bauerová, Dana Buresová, Eva Randová, Miroslav Kopp, Jozef Kundlák, Peter Straka, Zdenek Harvánek; Czech Philharmonic; Prague National Theatre Chorus

Register and voice, within the orchestration, model a consciousness from the inside, as its sensibilities and attentions shift. The structural image is like a cranky, but multiply interfolded, or perhaps like a multiply interfolded Möbius Cranky. Had I one, that would be my bardic name.

March 30, 2017
Deep Henderson - King Oliver [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

What's deep is the metric patterning at play.

Blue Rhythm - Mills Blue Rhythm Band [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Quick boom chick beat. The multiples pile up differentially on the off and on the on beats.

Hesitation Blues - Milt Brown [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Both the electric guitar and the fiddle find ways of playing each note out in the yard. The beat stays in the house.

Chu Berry

Blowin' Up A Breeze- Chu Berry [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

A terrain to slalom, skis made of clips of hockety fragments.

Junkman Rag - Luckey Roberts [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Something artesian, or nancarrowish, about the way this spews out, under pressure.

I Get A Kick Out Of You - Charlie Parker [from The Cole Porter Songbook]

CP starts out playing it straight, only falling into bebop midway through. The piano player has to dive in to pull him out and hold him up til they can get to shore.

A Choral Flourish - Vaughan-Williams - UPS Chorale, Thomas Goleeke

Somewhere in the soprano section of this is my spouse, before we were an item. It isn't really possible, given the size of the choir and the quality of the recording, but I could swear I was picking out Karen's particular ping.

A Sermon, A Narrative, and a Prayer - Stravinsky - CBC Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, Loren Driscoll, John Horton, Shirley Verrett

I was getting a peculiar notion of those disjointed tunes, as though they were really just a few notes, straightforward and stepwise, but that each note's pitch qualia was unstable, flipping between quantum states. Observing it, it moves.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 26, 2017

Maple Leaf 170326 - Keith Eisenbrey

Spring is leaking into Seattle slowly, so I set out a device in the backyard early in the morning and listened to the tall tales the tall kale told. And crows. And a jet. And other birds. And midway through, someone singing in the distance.

Playlist

Live

March 11, 2017
Katya Kabanova - Leoš Janáček - Seattle Opera
McCaw Hall, Seattle

The plot and characters are strong, but it's the pitch work commands attention. Similar in approach to Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande, but with sharper edges.

Recorded

March 12, 2017
Sweetheart O' Mine - Jelly Roll Morton [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

JRM plays a Lisztian trick with his pianism, in that it sounds like a transcription of music for a much larger ensemble.

Shout Sister Shout - Boswell Sisters [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Boswell Sisters - Hats!

They arrange their voices like a horn section.

Oh Baby Maybe Someday -  Ivy Anderson [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Arrangement, orchestration, song-writing, and composition, are all identical activities. The only difference is social attitude.

Loose Lid Special -  Tommy Dorsey [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Big massed sound choirs. The instrumental soloists imitate singers.

This Subdues My Passion - Charles Mingus [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

I kept getting the feeling that the band was manipulating (lip-ipulating?) the sound of their instruments to imitate the sound of older recordings.

I've Got You Under My Skin - Charlie Parker [from The Cole Porter Songbook]

'On the beat' in the sense of there being a sheer dance floor between his sound and the beat he's on. Crazy break-dance too, and not even a shred of effort is heard.

Symphony - Stefan Wolpe - Orchestra of the 20th Century, Arthur Wesberg

Imagine a troop of jugglers performing multiple game-based jugglings simultaneously, each juggler juggling not just what whirls in the air but their specific interior gang of characters, one for each game.

Beginnings are beginnings. Endings are where what it is happens to get lopped off.

The Mountains High - Dick and DeeDee

The development of electronic amplification allowed live sound to begin to duplicate what was only possible in the studio before - and for live sound and studio sound to imitate each other, inventing themselves along the way. Pretty fancy singing back there too.

Cinque Variationi - Luciano Berio - David Burge

Ann Peebles

The piano writing reminds me of Art Tatum, in its melodic superabundance, and of Thelonius Monk, in its unblinking clarity. Melodic variations at heart, but standing in for a single melody is a thicket of tunes, and of sets of nuanced weights and subtle angles.

I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down - Ann Peebles [from Original Funk Soul Sister The Best of Ann Peebles]

A political knife attack from the past. Damn she's good!

Concerto - Walter Piston - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Quartet, Gerard Schwarz

I believe I recorded this off the radio some many years back. Its 'concerto-ness', that is, the sense of its contrasting sounds, is not a contrast of opposition, or of vying equals. Rather, the quartet provides a new sound region within the orchestral sound, now hidden, now revealed - and further in each quartet member reveals individual smaller regions within the quartet sound region within the whole sound. It's also got some lip smacking pizzicato passages.

Revereware - Keith Johnston, J. K. Randall - [from Inter/Play]

Reed and no reed. That old familiar Crumar sound slowly molding the bend. There is a sense of proximity play. Each sound source exists in specific relation to the listening mic. Hide and go seek. Each proximal node carefully nurtured for coexistence. Didjeridu makes the Seattle Stu connection, I presume. If one had a choice in all the world's musical history for who would be the best person to be in charge of your pitch-bend wheel, it would have to be Jim. Were pitches ever bent to so vivid a drapery of sound?

March 16, 2017
Graceland - Paul Simon [from Graceland]

Attributions jumbled and uncertain. Who says what when? The instrumental rhythm, oh so impeccable, appears to be solvable, but then one wonders.

Banned Rehearsal 243 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [January 1991]

Recorded hot, small instruments scraped banged and rummaged through. Clearly not great music, but just as clearly intently engaged, and in the clear intent of being only and purely intently engaged.  || the Jaymar before it fell apart!! Ah how we miss thee!! || Getting to a place where, in music, if it were speaking it was doing, would be speaking in tongues.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 13, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 930 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Steve constructs a tiny set of drums on top of the xylophone. Karen revisits the bug guitar. Keith roams about what catches his eye. Aaron provides treble trombone talking points. Neal cuts it up in pieces.