Recorded
July 9, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 565 - Banned Rehearsal
A rope of guitar sound accumulates barnacles and algae. We pull to drag from the depths a great dripping roar of sound murky with life forms || then build centering on the elephant guiro (a corrugated plastic drain pipe) || the clinks clacks and clangs a rolling steel minimarble.
Downtime - Benjamin Boretz
Moments last until they become their own moment. A moment of such moments.
July 10, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 773 - Banned Rehearsal
Neal riffs on Blake, arousing variants of affective disjuncture.
Frank Du Pree - Jenkins - Blind Andy
An abstract setting in that it does not paint the words, only allows them.
Thou Carest Lord, For Me - Holy Ghost Sanctified Singers
Not about the music - about the joy of it. Jug band.
Frisky Honey - J. H. Bragg and His Rhythm Five
I'd Be Lost Without You - Helen Forrest
A come-on, but not precisely sultry, something else more complete.
Good For Nothin' Joe - Kay Starr
A complaint that ain't.
Short Wave - Maynard Ferguson
crazy slippery trumpet.
July 12, 2011
Ulysses at the Edge - Harry Partch
Partch works even when it shouldn't. No matter how prosaic the compositional accumulation of rhythm, nor how flat the affect, the visceral theater blasts through.
Ubi caritas - Durufle - Tirnavia/Anrej Rapant
July 13, 2011
Play Guitar & Play Guitar 2 - The Ventures
July 14, 2011
Wach - Stockhausen
This plays out as an essay on distance and presence, unashamedly bleepblooping.
Sonata 1980 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey
My live recording from May of 1981, at the Meany Studio Theater. The tape deteriorated some before I could rip it, but you can still hear the door opening for the guy who walked out on me.
12-inch Single (1985) - The Ramones
Ripped from a tape dubbed from vinyl, so the sound isn't great. Bonzo Goes to Bitburg is available on-line, but I couldn't find the other two songs - Go Home Ann, or Daytime Dilemma (Dangers of Love).
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Playlist
Recorded
July 4, 2011
Gradus 75 - Neal Meyer
Keyboard Shortcuts - Richard Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey, piano
This was the first home recording of these pieces that I made, in March of 2010. I hadn't had much of a chance to go over them with Richard yet, and there were some pretty significant compositional changes made before I performed them in June. The intelligence of the writing is obvious, and though they are occasionally modestly awkward from a pianistic standpoint, this doesn't come out on the far end. Richard tells me he is moving to Buffalo soon. His presence and conversation will be sorely missed.
Those Panama Mamas - Cotton Pickers
Blue, Turning Grey Over You - Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra
I Ain't Got Nobody - Oliver Brown
Cherry - D. Redman - Louis Armstrong/The Mills Brothers/Norman Brown
We'll Be Together Again - Doris Day/L. Brown
Lover Come Back to Me (excerpt) - Tony Scott
Tweedle Dee - Elvis Presley
To Prove My Love - Godfrey Winham - Bethany Beardsley/Robert Helps
July 5, 2011
the memory of all that - Benjamin Boretz - Eastman Musicians
Ben was in town and stopped by, sharing this draft edit of his new piece for voice and piano, composed in response to the passing of Milton Babbitt. Last February, when the song was hot off the press and there was a need for a quick recording, Karen and I struggled heroically and cobbled together a rough approximation. The tessitura is really too low for Karen, spending much of the time below the treble staff and dropping down to a G at one point, which is about as far down as she can make a pitched sound. So it was with great pleasure that we listened to this fine performance by two musicians at Eastman, and we look forward to the final edit and release.
Tenuous and broken strands of long tones and longer tones, slowly rung words, emptiness, tautening between them a poem and the parts of a poem, long chords and longer chords, words slowly rung, intoning in and into taut suspension. The closer the further.
July 6, 2011
Piano Concerto - Elliott Carter - Cincinnati S.O./Micheal Gielen/Ursula Oppens
The Ventures Underground Fire Radio Spot - The Ventures
7 Harmonies from 'Apartment House 1776' - John Cage - Stefan Hussong
The subject matter of these lovely pieces, in a seeming contradiction to what John Cage is popularly about, is coherence and musical continuity.
Four - J.K. Randall/Marjorie Tichenor
Flute and Krumar share peace spacefully.
July 7, 2011
One:Four:Text - Benjamin Boretz
A Cat's Life - Keith Eisenbrey - Ellen Dessler/Keith Eisenbrey
My live performance from 1993, Ellen Dessler, a drama student at the UW, providing the narration. I'm thinking I may want to rethink my tempi - the quick stuff needs more time in which to register as quick, else it just sounds rushed and offhand.
Live
July 2, 2011
Pouch at EMP Sky Church, Seattle
Sean Delaney, Jake Thompson
This two-piece band (drums & guitar) comes across like fabulous blues-anthem B-sides to High Class Wreckage. On stage the drummer looks like a long-faced hippie tree-hugger right up until he starts to play, at which point a look of existential terror takes over and he's all arms and sticks desperate to outrun a herd of stampeding dragons. Loads of energy and fun. I look forward to hearing them again in a couple of weeks. They have some tracks to download at the link above.
July 4, 2011
Gradus 75 - Neal Meyer
Keyboard Shortcuts - Richard Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey, piano
This was the first home recording of these pieces that I made, in March of 2010. I hadn't had much of a chance to go over them with Richard yet, and there were some pretty significant compositional changes made before I performed them in June. The intelligence of the writing is obvious, and though they are occasionally modestly awkward from a pianistic standpoint, this doesn't come out on the far end. Richard tells me he is moving to Buffalo soon. His presence and conversation will be sorely missed.
Those Panama Mamas - Cotton Pickers
Blue, Turning Grey Over You - Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra
I Ain't Got Nobody - Oliver Brown
Cherry - D. Redman - Louis Armstrong/The Mills Brothers/Norman Brown
We'll Be Together Again - Doris Day/L. Brown
Lover Come Back to Me (excerpt) - Tony Scott
Tweedle Dee - Elvis Presley
To Prove My Love - Godfrey Winham - Bethany Beardsley/Robert Helps
July 5, 2011
the memory of all that - Benjamin Boretz - Eastman Musicians
Ben was in town and stopped by, sharing this draft edit of his new piece for voice and piano, composed in response to the passing of Milton Babbitt. Last February, when the song was hot off the press and there was a need for a quick recording, Karen and I struggled heroically and cobbled together a rough approximation. The tessitura is really too low for Karen, spending much of the time below the treble staff and dropping down to a G at one point, which is about as far down as she can make a pitched sound. So it was with great pleasure that we listened to this fine performance by two musicians at Eastman, and we look forward to the final edit and release.
Tenuous and broken strands of long tones and longer tones, slowly rung words, emptiness, tautening between them a poem and the parts of a poem, long chords and longer chords, words slowly rung, intoning in and into taut suspension. The closer the further.
July 6, 2011
Piano Concerto - Elliott Carter - Cincinnati S.O./Micheal Gielen/Ursula Oppens
The Ventures Underground Fire Radio Spot - The Ventures
7 Harmonies from 'Apartment House 1776' - John Cage - Stefan Hussong
The subject matter of these lovely pieces, in a seeming contradiction to what John Cage is popularly about, is coherence and musical continuity.
Four - J.K. Randall/Marjorie Tichenor
Flute and Krumar share peace spacefully.
July 7, 2011
One:Four:Text - Benjamin Boretz
A Cat's Life - Keith Eisenbrey - Ellen Dessler/Keith Eisenbrey
My live performance from 1993, Ellen Dessler, a drama student at the UW, providing the narration. I'm thinking I may want to rethink my tempi - the quick stuff needs more time in which to register as quick, else it just sounds rushed and offhand.
Live
July 2, 2011
Pouch at EMP Sky Church, Seattle
Sean Delaney, Jake Thompson
This two-piece band (drums & guitar) comes across like fabulous blues-anthem B-sides to High Class Wreckage. On stage the drummer looks like a long-faced hippie tree-hugger right up until he starts to play, at which point a look of existential terror takes over and he's all arms and sticks desperate to outrun a herd of stampeding dragons. Loads of energy and fun. I look forward to hearing them again in a couple of weeks. They have some tracks to download at the link above.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Playlist
Recorded
June 26, 2011
Four:Text:Commentary - Benjamin Boretz
From the InterPlay tapes.
June 28, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 220 - Banned Rehearsal
Karen, Aaron, and I lay out an image of intentional unintentiality - radio roar space aliens become disalienated.
June 30, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 563 - Banned Rehearsal
Participants: Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Anna K, Neal Meyer. This session raises an interesting question for me about what counts as a music-structural node, and in what sense that which counts as such has a structural meaning for the listener, and further, what structural meaning, for the listener, is. Theorem: What is structural is only that which we perceive as being structural, and its structural meaning is not what we postulate it to be after stringing together the collected markers of structural nodes we have heard and whose relations we have analyzed repletely and globally, but rather it is exactly and only what we perceive that node-moment to be as structural as we perceive it so to be. Its structural meaning qua structural meaning is exactly how it sounds vis-a-vis those less-structurally-perceived graces that make up its local context.
Live
June 26, 2011
Triptet - at Lucid Lounge, Seattle
Tom Baker, Greg Campbell, and Michael Monhart were joined in the second set by Jesse Canterbury and Stu Dempster.
Highlights, for me, of this beautiful, rich, and completely rewarding show: Michael's long slow solo in the first set, deep as a river at night; The interplay of Greg's elaborately melodic drumming and the friendly hubbub of the lounge; The palpable human warmth between the audience and performers. A truly memorable evening of mountaintop playing by all at every moment. Thank you!
July 1, 2011
Seattle Composer's Salon
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Four Songs from Seven Songs of Death - Stuart Wheeler
Stuart Wheeler, voice; John Teske, string bass; Brianna Atwood (name?), viola; Jesse Canterbury, clarinet; Richard Johnson, trombone; Tom Baker, guitar; Dianne Ashbrook (name?), bassoon.
These songs steer an interesting course through contrasts of atomospheria and concretia, among deep pools of abstract repetitive structures and gaping maws of gooey sensuality. I'm not sure where they come out in the end - but I'm sure interested to find out.
Storm Before the Calm - Jeffrey Izzo
Dana Wen, piano
Clever title, but if you're going to put 'storm' in it then put STORM in it. I think Dana did about as well as could be done, but in the end it just didn't make it for me.
Three Movements from The Cage Elegies - Tom Baker
Tom Baker, guitar
Nowhere, Questions, Middle - Luminously coherent lyric utterances, contrasting poignantly with the well-known predilections of the elegaic subject.
June 26, 2011
Four:Text:Commentary - Benjamin Boretz
From the InterPlay tapes.
June 28, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 220 - Banned Rehearsal
Karen, Aaron, and I lay out an image of intentional unintentiality - radio roar space aliens become disalienated.
June 30, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 563 - Banned Rehearsal
Participants: Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Anna K, Neal Meyer. This session raises an interesting question for me about what counts as a music-structural node, and in what sense that which counts as such has a structural meaning for the listener, and further, what structural meaning, for the listener, is. Theorem: What is structural is only that which we perceive as being structural, and its structural meaning is not what we postulate it to be after stringing together the collected markers of structural nodes we have heard and whose relations we have analyzed repletely and globally, but rather it is exactly and only what we perceive that node-moment to be as structural as we perceive it so to be. Its structural meaning qua structural meaning is exactly how it sounds vis-a-vis those less-structurally-perceived graces that make up its local context.
Live
June 26, 2011
Triptet - at Lucid Lounge, Seattle
Tom Baker, Greg Campbell, and Michael Monhart were joined in the second set by Jesse Canterbury and Stu Dempster.
Highlights, for me, of this beautiful, rich, and completely rewarding show: Michael's long slow solo in the first set, deep as a river at night; The interplay of Greg's elaborately melodic drumming and the friendly hubbub of the lounge; The palpable human warmth between the audience and performers. A truly memorable evening of mountaintop playing by all at every moment. Thank you!
July 1, 2011
Seattle Composer's Salon
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Four Songs from Seven Songs of Death - Stuart Wheeler
Stuart Wheeler, voice; John Teske, string bass; Brianna Atwood (name?), viola; Jesse Canterbury, clarinet; Richard Johnson, trombone; Tom Baker, guitar; Dianne Ashbrook (name?), bassoon.
These songs steer an interesting course through contrasts of atomospheria and concretia, among deep pools of abstract repetitive structures and gaping maws of gooey sensuality. I'm not sure where they come out in the end - but I'm sure interested to find out.
Storm Before the Calm - Jeffrey Izzo
Dana Wen, piano
Clever title, but if you're going to put 'storm' in it then put STORM in it. I think Dana did about as well as could be done, but in the end it just didn't make it for me.
Three Movements from The Cage Elegies - Tom Baker
Tom Baker, guitar
Nowhere, Questions, Middle - Luminously coherent lyric utterances, contrasting poignantly with the well-known predilections of the elegaic subject.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Playlist
Recorded
June 19, 2011
The Ventures Twist Party Vol. 2 Radio Spot - The Ventures
Rapport 3 - Robert Morris, David Mott
Bryde one Brere (live) - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey, Aloysia Friedmann
Three: for Keith: 2 Commentary - Benjamin Boretz
Holden Greets the World - Banned Rehearsal
Banned Rehearsal 562 - Banned Rehearsal
The first 35 to 40 minutes of this is truly fine, becoming a thought of the past, the present, and of what we just have been. At our most symphonic.
June 21, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 679 - Banned Rehearsal
Figure Study 3 - Keith Eisenbrey
Slow, disjunct tempi, with occlusions.
June 22, 2011
Steel String Blues - Sylvester Weaver
Blue, Turning Grey Over You - Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra
I Belong To The Band, Hallelujah - Rev. Gary Davis
W.P.A. - Louis Armstrong, The Mills Brothers, Norman Brown
An humorous take on the New Deal, from the thick of it. "I'm so tired, don't know what to do/Can't get fired, so I'll take my rest until my work is through".
You Always Hurt The One You Love - Bunk Johnson
Ornithology - Charlie Parker, Navarro, Bud Powell
The Wayward: San Francisco - Harry Partch
A magnificent and phenomenally gorgeous memento of lost time and lost sound.
The Last One To Know - The Fleetwoods
Pedal Pusher - The Ventures
Tony Gave a Picnic - Ralph Shekel
Fox Chase - Coy Martin
June 23, 2011
Language, as a music - Benjamin Boretz
What do we mean when we say that a music moves us?
While studying at the UW in late winter or spring of 1981, soon after I first heard Ben's ("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset..."), John Rahn played a recording of Language, as a music for us in a theory seminar. If my chart was the seduction, this was the sucker punch. A year later I was on a plane to New York to spend two years with Ben in life-changing verbal and musical conversation. But now that I can't hear Ben's voice without immediately bringing forth an image of his physical and gestural presence it is difficult to recall the sense of that first hearing: just a voice on a tape, a peculiarly articulate voice, gesturing in itself, creating a series of personae to speak with, and, as it seemed, to challenge me with. After all these years I can point to many ways this piece, and the thinking about this piece, changed, moved, the path of my life. Here is the seed of my decision to abandon an attempt at an academic career and also of any real attempt at a musical career. Through this piece it became clear to me that music and the thinking of and in it was far too vital to my self to allow the vagaries and exigencies of career to get in its way or limit my doing.
In short, this piece of six invented personae, each deeply concerned with illuminating and valuing that moment in which meaning happens, inhabits me in what I have become. It has moved me, and it has moved into me. It has become personal to me, which is all that ever matters anyway.
June 19, 2011
The Ventures Twist Party Vol. 2 Radio Spot - The Ventures
Rapport 3 - Robert Morris, David Mott
Bryde one Brere (live) - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey, Aloysia Friedmann
Three: for Keith: 2 Commentary - Benjamin Boretz
Holden Greets the World - Banned Rehearsal
Banned Rehearsal 562 - Banned Rehearsal
The first 35 to 40 minutes of this is truly fine, becoming a thought of the past, the present, and of what we just have been. At our most symphonic.
June 21, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 679 - Banned Rehearsal
Figure Study 3 - Keith Eisenbrey
Slow, disjunct tempi, with occlusions.
June 22, 2011
Steel String Blues - Sylvester Weaver
Blue, Turning Grey Over You - Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra
I Belong To The Band, Hallelujah - Rev. Gary Davis
W.P.A. - Louis Armstrong, The Mills Brothers, Norman Brown
An humorous take on the New Deal, from the thick of it. "I'm so tired, don't know what to do/Can't get fired, so I'll take my rest until my work is through".
You Always Hurt The One You Love - Bunk Johnson
Ornithology - Charlie Parker, Navarro, Bud Powell
The Wayward: San Francisco - Harry Partch
A magnificent and phenomenally gorgeous memento of lost time and lost sound.
The Last One To Know - The Fleetwoods
Pedal Pusher - The Ventures
Tony Gave a Picnic - Ralph Shekel
Fox Chase - Coy Martin
June 23, 2011
Language, as a music - Benjamin Boretz
What do we mean when we say that a music moves us?
While studying at the UW in late winter or spring of 1981, soon after I first heard Ben's ("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset..."), John Rahn played a recording of Language, as a music for us in a theory seminar. If my chart was the seduction, this was the sucker punch. A year later I was on a plane to New York to spend two years with Ben in life-changing verbal and musical conversation. But now that I can't hear Ben's voice without immediately bringing forth an image of his physical and gestural presence it is difficult to recall the sense of that first hearing: just a voice on a tape, a peculiarly articulate voice, gesturing in itself, creating a series of personae to speak with, and, as it seemed, to challenge me with. After all these years I can point to many ways this piece, and the thinking about this piece, changed, moved, the path of my life. Here is the seed of my decision to abandon an attempt at an academic career and also of any real attempt at a musical career. Through this piece it became clear to me that music and the thinking of and in it was far too vital to my self to allow the vagaries and exigencies of career to get in its way or limit my doing.
In short, this piece of six invented personae, each deeply concerned with illuminating and valuing that moment in which meaning happens, inhabits me in what I have become. It has moved me, and it has moved into me. It has become personal to me, which is all that ever matters anyway.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Playlist
Recorded
June 11, 2011
One: Three: Text - Benjamin Boretz
This is the recording on the Open Space disk. Although it is in fact the same session as the recording that Ben had sent me on tape back in 1985, called there Three: for Keith 1: text, they are given different dates. The instant recording is dated 1/31, the other is labeled 1/30. This is the first time I listened to them more or less back to back.
June 12, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 219 - Banned Rehearsal
Chock full of wee incidental sounds - moving, setting down, picking up, sneezing, shifting. The playing proceeds best in staccato plosives. It doesn't quite manage to hold concentration the full 45 minutes.
PCKE 000227 - Pete Comley, Keith Eisenbrey
Pete and I play bells and gongs.
Banned Rehearsal 679 - Banned Rehearsal
Steven Kennedy joins Karen, Neal, and me on a session full of guitars and amplifiers accumulating noise and color within a remarkable panmetric groove.
Figure Study 2 - Keith Eisenbrey
This is part of a project to explore and build a sense of keyboard figuration improvisationally from the bottom up. Attempting singularities and finding sequence, steering between a structural sense of form-making and sheer sensuality. Considering that, perhaps, the well-shaping of a sequence does not necessarily produce a sequence of well-shaped moments, that if the well-shaping of moments is given its due the sequence shape will take care of itself.
June 13, 2011
Red Man Blues - Piron's New Orleans Orchestra
Bessie Couldn't Help It - Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra
I am curious how this recording was engineered as to the balance between sax choir and trumpet - did he muffle them? put them in a box to record?
I Am the True Vine - Rev. Gary Davis
From another great collection: Goodbye Babylon
June 14, 2011
Boog-It - Louis Armstrong, The Mills Brothers, Norman Brown
Alexander's Ragtime Band - Irving Berlin - Bunk Johnston
I Hadn't Anyone 'Til You - Earl Hines
June 16, 2011
The Wayward - U.S. Highball - Harry Partch
Snapshots of journeying with wordplay.
The End - Allen Ginsberg
Passio et mors domini nostri Jesu Chrisi secundum Lucam - Penderecki
At its best in its compositional imitation of the acoustic effects of cathedral architecture. I find the final big chord a disappointment. All that work and all we get is a triad ex machina?
Live
June 11, 2011
Festival de Musique - University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle
Organ Recital, featuring Stanislav Surin, Zuzana Zahradnikova, David di Fiore
Concerto in a BWV 593 (after Vivaldi) - J.S. Bach - Stanislav Surin
Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, BWV 771 - J.S. Bach - Stanislav Surin
Sonata No. 1 in d - Final - Alexandre Guilmant - Stanislav Surin
O Mensch, bewein dein Sunde Gross, BWV 622 - J.S. Bach - Zuzana Zahradnikova
Offertory on "o fili" - Alexandre Guilmant - Zuzana Zahradnikova
March funebre et Chant seraphique - Alexandre Guilmant - Zuzana Zahradnikova
A Suite of Dances - Anonymous 16th Century - David di Fiore
Sonata on the 94th Psalm - Julius Reubke - David di Fiore
Come Sunday - Duke Ellington - David di Fiore
Etude No. 5 in c-sharp - Jeanne Demessieux - David di Fiore
This festival, at the church of which I am a member, stretched over three days. The evening prior was a choral concert in which I participated in the choir. The next day was a 2 hour service to celebrate David's 40 years of music ministry at the temple - 2 hours o'er-brimming with music. I made a decision early on not to discuss my church-music life in this blog, mostly because, due to its different social and spiritual function, I think about it differently than when I consider the aesthetic aspects of my musical life. Organ recitals, though clearly intended as an aesthetic event, often occupy an odd sort of middle ground for me, especially when presented in a worship space, and because so much of the repertoire was originally designed for worship, or was composed in consideration of the sacred.
But the instrument, when played as beautifully as it was by all concerned, does present some unique challenges to the listener, as well as unique rewards. No solo instrument can match it in dynamic, timbral, or spatial range. And the spatial aspect isn't merely the sense of from which particular direction a sound emanates, it is also and even more strongly the sense that the sounds occupy various regions in the chamber in which we listen, i.e. "That tune didn't come from over there, it is over there". Which is to say that the parts of the music become bodies in the room with us. The musical parts become concrete, other, out there. For me, this is always fascinating, and often disconcerting, almost generating a quasi fight or flight response. When a sound 'comes from' a point in space, I can accept it safely into my ear and allow its workings. When a sound has 'come into the room' with me, I'm never quite sure of my safety.
June 11, 2011
One: Three: Text - Benjamin Boretz
This is the recording on the Open Space disk. Although it is in fact the same session as the recording that Ben had sent me on tape back in 1985, called there Three: for Keith 1: text, they are given different dates. The instant recording is dated 1/31, the other is labeled 1/30. This is the first time I listened to them more or less back to back.
June 12, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 219 - Banned Rehearsal
Chock full of wee incidental sounds - moving, setting down, picking up, sneezing, shifting. The playing proceeds best in staccato plosives. It doesn't quite manage to hold concentration the full 45 minutes.
PCKE 000227 - Pete Comley, Keith Eisenbrey
Pete and I play bells and gongs.
Banned Rehearsal 679 - Banned Rehearsal
Steven Kennedy joins Karen, Neal, and me on a session full of guitars and amplifiers accumulating noise and color within a remarkable panmetric groove.
Figure Study 2 - Keith Eisenbrey
This is part of a project to explore and build a sense of keyboard figuration improvisationally from the bottom up. Attempting singularities and finding sequence, steering between a structural sense of form-making and sheer sensuality. Considering that, perhaps, the well-shaping of a sequence does not necessarily produce a sequence of well-shaped moments, that if the well-shaping of moments is given its due the sequence shape will take care of itself.
June 13, 2011
Red Man Blues - Piron's New Orleans Orchestra
Bessie Couldn't Help It - Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra
I am curious how this recording was engineered as to the balance between sax choir and trumpet - did he muffle them? put them in a box to record?
I Am the True Vine - Rev. Gary Davis
From another great collection: Goodbye Babylon
June 14, 2011
Boog-It - Louis Armstrong, The Mills Brothers, Norman Brown
Alexander's Ragtime Band - Irving Berlin - Bunk Johnston
I Hadn't Anyone 'Til You - Earl Hines
June 16, 2011
The Wayward - U.S. Highball - Harry Partch
Snapshots of journeying with wordplay.
The End - Allen Ginsberg
Passio et mors domini nostri Jesu Chrisi secundum Lucam - Penderecki
At its best in its compositional imitation of the acoustic effects of cathedral architecture. I find the final big chord a disappointment. All that work and all we get is a triad ex machina?
Live
June 11, 2011
Festival de Musique - University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle
Organ Recital, featuring Stanislav Surin, Zuzana Zahradnikova, David di Fiore
Concerto in a BWV 593 (after Vivaldi) - J.S. Bach - Stanislav Surin
Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, BWV 771 - J.S. Bach - Stanislav Surin
Sonata No. 1 in d - Final - Alexandre Guilmant - Stanislav Surin
O Mensch, bewein dein Sunde Gross, BWV 622 - J.S. Bach - Zuzana Zahradnikova
Offertory on "o fili" - Alexandre Guilmant - Zuzana Zahradnikova
March funebre et Chant seraphique - Alexandre Guilmant - Zuzana Zahradnikova
A Suite of Dances - Anonymous 16th Century - David di Fiore
Sonata on the 94th Psalm - Julius Reubke - David di Fiore
Come Sunday - Duke Ellington - David di Fiore
Etude No. 5 in c-sharp - Jeanne Demessieux - David di Fiore
This festival, at the church of which I am a member, stretched over three days. The evening prior was a choral concert in which I participated in the choir. The next day was a 2 hour service to celebrate David's 40 years of music ministry at the temple - 2 hours o'er-brimming with music. I made a decision early on not to discuss my church-music life in this blog, mostly because, due to its different social and spiritual function, I think about it differently than when I consider the aesthetic aspects of my musical life. Organ recitals, though clearly intended as an aesthetic event, often occupy an odd sort of middle ground for me, especially when presented in a worship space, and because so much of the repertoire was originally designed for worship, or was composed in consideration of the sacred.
But the instrument, when played as beautifully as it was by all concerned, does present some unique challenges to the listener, as well as unique rewards. No solo instrument can match it in dynamic, timbral, or spatial range. And the spatial aspect isn't merely the sense of from which particular direction a sound emanates, it is also and even more strongly the sense that the sounds occupy various regions in the chamber in which we listen, i.e. "That tune didn't come from over there, it is over there". Which is to say that the parts of the music become bodies in the room with us. The musical parts become concrete, other, out there. For me, this is always fascinating, and often disconcerting, almost generating a quasi fight or flight response. When a sound 'comes from' a point in space, I can accept it safely into my ear and allow its workings. When a sound has 'come into the room' with me, I'm never quite sure of my safety.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Playlist
Recorded
June 4, 2011
Nights When I'm Lonely - Boswell Sisters
It Must Be True - Bing Crosby
June 5, 2011
Here Comes Cleo - Cleo Brown
I was so taken by Cleo's knockout recording Lookie, Lookie, Lookie (aka Here Comes Cookie) on Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune collection that I bought an album. Brown is the very model of supple articulation, both in her piano playing and in her singing. She has a lovely pianissimo, shivery-vibrato melodic tail-off to her phrases that is a world all its own. The later songs, some of them not much more than bad jokes, are a real heartbreak. I don't know the whole story, but if this is the only kind of material they would record for her, it's no wonder she quit the business.
June 7, 2011
Pickin' The Cabbage - Cab Calloway
Tall, Dark, and Handsome - Ivy Anderson
Zulu's Parade - Johnny Wiggs and his New Orleans Band
Brandeis - Elaine Barkin - Keith Eisenbrey
This is from my recital of November 5, 2005. These pieces are right at the edge of my capabilities as a pianist. Consequently I am so focused on notes while playing them that I find it difficult, at the same time, to project much of a coherent idea of what the piece is doing. Next time I perform this I need to spend more time recording myself and listening back. I think there is something there about the persistence of register within layered and tesserated fragments.
The Best of Lenny Bruce - Lenny Bruce
Even after all these years, and even remembering some of the punch lines, this made me laugh. A pretty amazing voice actor, among other talents.
My Special Lover - The Fleetwoods
The Ventures' "Rocketing Rhythms" Interview - The Ventures
Beaumont Rag - Frosty Lamb/Buzz Fountain
Bryd one Brere (studio recording) - Keith Eisenbrey - Aloysia Friedmann/Keith Eisenbrey
Aloysia was a classmate of mine at the UW back in mumbletymumble, and she graciously agreed to play this little violin & piano piece. She has since gone on to great things and a wonderful career, as we all knew she would. The title comes from a 13th century English song that had come up as an example in a music history class. At the time my compositional method was to throw as many techniques as I could think of at the page and see which ones stuck. Use of quotations was one of them. The result in this case is kind of rollicking and showy. Aloysia negotiates my occasionally violinistic writing with pizazz. I do my best to keep up.
June 4, 2011
Nights When I'm Lonely - Boswell Sisters
It Must Be True - Bing Crosby
June 5, 2011
Here Comes Cleo - Cleo Brown
I was so taken by Cleo's knockout recording Lookie, Lookie, Lookie (aka Here Comes Cookie) on Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune collection that I bought an album. Brown is the very model of supple articulation, both in her piano playing and in her singing. She has a lovely pianissimo, shivery-vibrato melodic tail-off to her phrases that is a world all its own. The later songs, some of them not much more than bad jokes, are a real heartbreak. I don't know the whole story, but if this is the only kind of material they would record for her, it's no wonder she quit the business.
June 7, 2011
Pickin' The Cabbage - Cab Calloway
Tall, Dark, and Handsome - Ivy Anderson
Zulu's Parade - Johnny Wiggs and his New Orleans Band
Brandeis - Elaine Barkin - Keith Eisenbrey
This is from my recital of November 5, 2005. These pieces are right at the edge of my capabilities as a pianist. Consequently I am so focused on notes while playing them that I find it difficult, at the same time, to project much of a coherent idea of what the piece is doing. Next time I perform this I need to spend more time recording myself and listening back. I think there is something there about the persistence of register within layered and tesserated fragments.
The Best of Lenny Bruce - Lenny Bruce
Even after all these years, and even remembering some of the punch lines, this made me laugh. A pretty amazing voice actor, among other talents.
My Special Lover - The Fleetwoods
The Ventures' "Rocketing Rhythms" Interview - The Ventures
Beaumont Rag - Frosty Lamb/Buzz Fountain
Bryd one Brere (studio recording) - Keith Eisenbrey - Aloysia Friedmann/Keith Eisenbrey
Aloysia was a classmate of mine at the UW back in mumbletymumble, and she graciously agreed to play this little violin & piano piece. She has since gone on to great things and a wonderful career, as we all knew she would. The title comes from a 13th century English song that had come up as an example in a music history class. At the time my compositional method was to throw as many techniques as I could think of at the page and see which ones stuck. Use of quotations was one of them. The result in this case is kind of rollicking and showy. Aloysia negotiates my occasionally violinistic writing with pizazz. I do my best to keep up.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Playlist
Recorded
May 29, 2001
My Special Lover - The Fleetwoods
The Stoned Guest - PDQ Bach
Fynne's Polka - Dwight "Red" Lamb
Leaving Here, Don't Know Where I'm Goin' - Joe K. Rakestray, Art Rosenbaum
The last two tracks are from Art Rosenbaum's magnificent 4 disc collection "The Art of Field Recording vol. 1".
Three: for Keith 1: text - Benjamin Boretz
May 30, 2001
Banned Rehearsal 218 - Banned Rehearsal
Banned Rehearsal 564 - Banned Rehearsal
A lesson in transparency and balance.
Hockets - Keith Eisenbrey
This is from my recital of November 5, 2005, and the only recording I have of the piano solo version. I am pleased that in spite of the mind-boggling complexity of composing the thing, the final effect is luminous and clear. The idea was to write a piece that was an essay in pitch-class-set content determinacy within a mod-12 syntax (the usual 12 notes), while at the same time was entirely composed of order-determinate row forms derived from a single index row within a synthetic mod-17 syntax (in which pitches 17 semi-tones apart are defined to be pitch-class equivalent). The challenge is that within mod-17 arithmetic, unlike within mod-12 arithmetic, all of the multiplicative transforms (except M-0) to pitch and order yield like-sized sets. In short, there are 17*17*17*17 distinct derivations that can be made of any row. Math types out there will realize that there are many duplications among them, but it still adds up to a huge matrix of possibilities. I had to write a computer program to calculate which mod-17 row forms would yield the required sequences of mod-12 pitch-classes. Otherwise I'd still be at it.
June 2, 2011
Gradus 173 - Neal Meyer
Neal says farewell to just three notes for many years. Next time, there will be an E involved.
Live
May 30, 2011
Gradus 193 - Neal Meyer
May 29, 2001
My Special Lover - The Fleetwoods
The Stoned Guest - PDQ Bach
Fynne's Polka - Dwight "Red" Lamb
Leaving Here, Don't Know Where I'm Goin' - Joe K. Rakestray, Art Rosenbaum
The last two tracks are from Art Rosenbaum's magnificent 4 disc collection "The Art of Field Recording vol. 1".
Three: for Keith 1: text - Benjamin Boretz
May 30, 2001
Banned Rehearsal 218 - Banned Rehearsal
Banned Rehearsal 564 - Banned Rehearsal
A lesson in transparency and balance.
Hockets - Keith Eisenbrey
This is from my recital of November 5, 2005, and the only recording I have of the piano solo version. I am pleased that in spite of the mind-boggling complexity of composing the thing, the final effect is luminous and clear. The idea was to write a piece that was an essay in pitch-class-set content determinacy within a mod-12 syntax (the usual 12 notes), while at the same time was entirely composed of order-determinate row forms derived from a single index row within a synthetic mod-17 syntax (in which pitches 17 semi-tones apart are defined to be pitch-class equivalent). The challenge is that within mod-17 arithmetic, unlike within mod-12 arithmetic, all of the multiplicative transforms (except M-0) to pitch and order yield like-sized sets. In short, there are 17*17*17*17 distinct derivations that can be made of any row. Math types out there will realize that there are many duplications among them, but it still adds up to a huge matrix of possibilities. I had to write a computer program to calculate which mod-17 row forms would yield the required sequences of mod-12 pitch-classes. Otherwise I'd still be at it.
June 2, 2011
Gradus 173 - Neal Meyer
Neal says farewell to just three notes for many years. Next time, there will be an E involved.
Live
May 30, 2011
Gradus 193 - Neal Meyer
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