Playlist

Recorded

July 31, 2011
Rubber Soul - The Beatles

Short lines, sophisticated but unfussy arrangements. A master class in tight songwriting.

When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd - Roger Sessions - Boston SO, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Seiji Ozawa, Esther Hinds, Florence Quivar, Dominic Cossa, John Oliver

This is among the richest and most affecting oratorios I know. It is also one of the very few times in which an iconic American high-art (to the extent that Whitman is high-art exactly) text has been set successfully on such a grand scale. Here there is no cringe-worthy patriotic piety, no cloying ironic wink. Instead we have the cumulus rhythms of Whitman's images, flowers and bird calls, transfigured keens. All that and the alto solo is to die for.

August 2, 2011
Nobody's Business - George Childers [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
One: Threetext: Commentary - Benjamin Boretz [on OpenSpace]
A Cat's Life Act I - Keith Eisenbrey

Take one, recorded on 2/19/1992. These are probably more useful as examples of how I was thinking of the phrasing and tempi than as fodder for editing.

August 3, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 567 - Banned Rehearsal

There is some confusion in my records as to who was actually on this session. It was some grouping of Isaac (as a toddler), Karen, me, Aaron, Anna and Neal. It is a study in background. The sounds that step forward in the mix do so only to add a particular spice to the main show already humming in the room.

Sounds of the Underbrush 2/28/2005 Track 1 - Keith Eisenbrey, Mike Marlin

Improvising with Mike is like an encounter with a large sentient hamster. This was at Gallery 1412.

Extracts 8 - Keith Eisenbrey

Part of a midi-enabled study of Scriabin's Prelude op.74#4. See my post of 1/29/2011 for an explanation. By treating each pitch-instance as structural fact, each becomes a structural image, and more vibrantly than I would have expected.

August 4, 2011
Down and Out Blues - Louis Forbstein's Royal Syncopaters [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Part of what makes Mr. Lowe's collection so fabulous is that it strings together so many interesting ways that recorded sound has sounded. In this cut from 1925 the rhythm section can barely be heard, but it sure makes its presence known.

You're Just My Type - King Oliver [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Simple and square, not a note that couldn't be captured on the recording equipment and heard at the end of the production line. Clearly the pros had learned how to do it.

Between The Devil . . . - Teddy Wilson [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Frantic inter-manual independence.

Chloe - Horace Henderson [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Smooth sax choir with an edge of trumpet.

You May Not Love Me - Teddi King [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Archly old-fashioned.

I'm Left, Your'e Right, She's Gone - Elvis Presley [from Sunrise]

Of course, what he sings is "You're right, I'm left, she's gone . . . " but I guess the King can get away with it.

Pitch-Derived Rhythms: Five Presentations - J. K. Randall

Leave it to Jim to call into question the very notion of apt-ness. On the surface these are flat-footed midi-realized (I think) studies that sound like scraps from Arthur Berger's desk that have been thinking themselves over for awhile. But everything about them is off kilter - the dynamic range (too big), the instruments (too ordinary and too raw), the mix (too bald), etc. In short, completely fascinating.

S. S. 396 (Remix) - Paul Revere and the Raiders [from The Legend of Paul Revere]

Really puts the commercial in commercial music.

In Session

August 1, 2011
Banned Rehearsal 796 - Banned Rehearsal at the Tintinabulary

Participants: Karen, me, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, and Neal Meyer. Playing with some new noisemakers: a cast-iron skillet from Ellensburg, and a milk-can from Prosser. Aaron brought some rude-ophones.