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.