Preface
Texts
Live
September 25, 2026
Rich Pellegrin/Neil Welch + Evan Captain Trio (Evan Captain, Abbey
Blackwell, Christopher Icasiano)
Chapel Performance Space, Good
Shepherd Center, Seattle
Evan Captain Trio
a passage with landmarks
the purpose of the landmarks
is to
make the passage flow
sinews in a slow motion
fill in
and expand
the length of the
motion
all the internal sounds
partake of the slow length of it
this music is a dance of an aural nature
altogether a warm and inviting motion
comfortable in its easy
musicality
winds up
and releases
Rich Pellegrin/Neil Welch
not depictions exactly
evocations
is closer
images from inside experience
horizontal prolongation of vertical structures
clings to its
heterogenous sonorities
Recorded
 |
| Dry Falls State Park, Washington |
Oh Lawd, I'm On My Way - Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald [from Porgy & Bess]
sounds like destination Hollywood
Cry Baby Cry - The Beatles [from The Beatles (White Album)]
chanson à clef
with tag scraps
9-9 (live in Toronto) - REM [from Murmur]
a pitch is a platform
to lift ones voice to
or to have fallen into
Johnny Bye Bye - Bruce Springsteen [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Springsteen Miscellany]
unfinished thought
Oh! Sister, Ain't That Hot! - Scott Robinson [from Thinking Big]
big saxophone takes the tuba's place in the old-timey sound
Electric Chapel - Lady Gaga [from Born This Way]
overwhelming sound
filling space right up to your skin
and into
your motions
Leading to a Seizure-Sean, Kadi, Cassy - Sacajawea Elementary Students [from Digital Dreams]
lego brick construction
the bricks will always be the same shape
and will always fit
The Spinning Room - Steve Layton [from Virtual Composition]
vapors rise
the canopy is lost in its mists
we drift without
effort
among massive trunks
over obscure depths
no beast
is overtly malevolent
SoundScroll VII (part three) - S. Eric Scribner [from SoundScrolls VI-IX (Live)]
moves in lobes
expanding in likely directions
Maybe It's Because I Love You Too Much - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Iriving Berlin, All By Myself: Notable Compositions 1926-1933]
the melody traces a long line
through well defined locations
Spring, the sweet Spring (Moeran) - King's Singers [from My Spirit Sang All Day]
with bird tweets
Gap 1st Batch 15, 19, 22 - J. K. Randall - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded September 16, 2026]
that does it for these three
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| Dry Falls State Park, Washington |
A Response to the Wednesday Morning Shooting at Café Racer, Track 10 - Neil Welch
passing through membranes between tones
I Am You - Brenda Ray [from Original Songs/1950s Music]
riffing off the Close Encounters ditty
Luxury Rental - Modern Teeth [from Dirt Cult Records: You Don't Have To Be Cool]
a video walk
through wide angle lensed ad copy
for aspiration
Sweet and Lovely (Take 1) - Thelonious Monk [from The Complete Columbia Studio Solo Recordings]
a clarity of time
that gives the illusion
of unhurried flexibility
Art is Either a Complaint or Do Something Else, Mesostic 6 - John Cage
I will try to be clear
if this text is derived
from a fragmentation of statements
then
to obscure that
by performing it
as though
it were
a new statement
seems heavy-handed
and evasive
My Morning Cup of Coffee - Smokestack and the Foothill Fury [from Lone Buffalo]
it sounds like a banjo (ukulele sized)
which I presume is a thing
Caffeine Trip - Blazzed [from Blazzed]
on theme
fuzzed out guitar figures fill space
I May Not Be All You Want (But I'm All You Got) - Homer Banks [from Written in their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos]
telling it like it is
deal with it
In 'n' Out of Grace (Live in Berlin) - Mudhoney [from Superfuzz Bigmuff]
bass and drum is an engine
that runs at a certain speed
guitar and
vocals strap themselves on
and ride the thrill
this one runs out of juice
rather lengthily
lurches to a stop
eventually
Rocks and Glass - Your Mother Should Know [from Demo Album]
thinking back
I'm pretty sure we did this
by recording separate
tracks to a guide track
as a practice
for how they'd do it
when Jake recorded his version
A Question, A Rose (PRYN.renewed.5) - Benjamin Boretz
the midi version
the bowless violin
with infinite finger stretch
without effort
the doing of a music
is an added mode of empathic intercourse
does one imagine a violin sound
or a violin sounding that sound?
Stet - D. Edward Davis [from Possible Worlds 2]
automaton
atop
a series of tones
that occasionally behave
like a drone
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| Dry Falls State Park, Washington |
Album d'un voyageur, S. 156, Book I "Impressions et poésies": No. 6, Psaume - Franz Liszt - Leslie Howard
chorales are certainty
and cannot be shaken
Szene aus Goethes Faust, Part 1 - Robert Schumann - English Chamber Orchestra, Benjamin Britten, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elizabeth Harwood, John Shirley-Quirk, Peter Pears, Jennifer Vyvyan, Felicity Palmer, Meriel Dickinson, Pauline Stevens, Robert Lloyd, Alfreda Hodgson, Aldeburgh Festival Singers, Wandsworth School Choir, Russell Burgess
opening with a sweet dialog
in dancing lilt
baritone and soprano
a soprano lament follows
we seem to enter the tale
from the standpoint of the distaff
voice
oh
now we have some stormy weather
complete with dire choir
doing their dies iraes
and illas
Sea Pieces, Op. 55 #7 Nautilus - Edward MacDowell - James Barbagallo
below the waves passionate shells dance gracefully
Norwegian Peasant Dances, Op. 72: No. 15, The Skuldal Bride. Gangar - Edvard Grieg - Håkon Austbø
every knot cinched tight
Revolution 9 - The Beatles [from The Beatles (White Album)]
we'll cue up some thises and thats and call it brilliance
Just a Touch (Live in Toronto) - REM [from Murmur]
bursts of four syllables form the durations of lines
Adam Raised a Cain - Bruce Springsteen [from Tunnel of Love Express Tour, Stockholm]
lots of pounding and shouting when every statement is a shout shouts have no impact
It's Magic - Scott Robinson [from Thinking Big]
redolent of evening romance
Mooooooo!!!-Duncan - Sacajawea Elementary Students [from Digital Dreams]
some buzzy bursts
Tripped Up - Steve Layton [from The Composer Plays Revisited]
native to electric piano
it exists in no room
until it is here in
ours
shaking cage bars
 |
| Dry Falls State Park, Washington |
Track 6 - Amelia Love Clearheart, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Bruce Greeley, Ha-Yang Kim, Aaron Keyt, Jim Knodle, Carol Levin, Neal Kosály-Meyer, S. Eric Scribner [from Free Improvisation Quartets Project]
the all-quartet (omnitet)
tracing the contours of a billowing tone field
drift along its surface
hone in on its still point
rattle
its can
toss its tokens in
spin the sound within the space
simmer the caldron to a warm glow
the sun will set
the air
will cool
feet will dance
Interlude - Unattributed [from Dirt Cult Records: You Don't Have To Be Cool]
shout out
the old North Jersey crew
Romance sans parole, Op. 56 - Mel Bonis - Veerle Peeters
bass in slow tones
tune and countertune in midtime tones
harmony
in quicktone arpeggiations
Harlem On My Mind - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Irving Berlin, All By Myself: Notable Compositions 1926-1933]
drum announcement
trumpet leads
on tour through the neighborhood
To Daffodils (Moeran) - King's Singers [from My Spirit Sang All Day]
points of sentiment
repeated vertically and horizontally
Swine - Lady Gaga [from Artpop]
ad hominem
The Herdsman's Song - Brenda Ray [from Original Songs/1950s Music]
less hum on this one but still there
True Love Don't Grow On Trees - Veda Brown [from Written in their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos]
life advice
(listen to your elders)
Everything Happens To Me (Take 1) - Thelonious Monk [from The Complete Columbia Studio Solo Recordings]
opening stanza lays out the tonal structure
subsequent stanza pokes at
it
Art is Either a Complaint or Do Something Else, Mesostic 7 - John Cage
statementifying
through a word thicket
A Response to the Wednesday Morning Shooting at Café Racer, Track 11 - Neil Welch
a figure here
is a thing of fingers mouth and breath
its resulting
tones are just that:
results of actions
Jingle Jungle Morning - Blazzed [from Blazzed]
two pitch-states alternate
Mudride (Live in Berlin) - Mudhoney [from Superfuzz Bigmuff]
we love to swim in amplified guitars
Old River (banjo version) - Smokestack and The Foothill Fury [from Lone Buffalo]
addressing a spirit image
Infra Structure - Wadada Leo Smith, Benjamin Boretz [from Open Space 52]
stretching cable
planting stakes
sinking piles
clearing
space
digging trench
laying culvert
building support beds
overlaying the desired
on the given
commence
transmission
music moves as our hands move
our hands move as our tongues speak
This Boundary - Your Mother Should Know [from Demo Album]
as though in a musical
begins with an introductory stanza
followed
by the meat of the song
then reviews the introductory
as an
outroduction
Catalan Fantasy - Claudi Menaghin [from Possible Worlds 2]
baroque figurations wandering through the quarter-tone lands
supraharmonics
oh let's have a fugue shall we
of course we
shall
Album d'un voyageur, S. 156, Book II "Fleurs mélodiques des Alpes": No. 7a, Allegro - Franz Liszt - Leslie Howard
a frivolous dancer coquettes us
 |
| Dry Falls State Park, Washington |
Szene aus Goethe's Faust, Part 2 - Robert Schumann - English Chamber Orchestra, Benjamin Britten, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elizabeth Harwood, John Shirley-Quirk, Peter Pears, Jennifer Vyvyan, Felicity Palmer, Meriel Dickinson, Pauline Stevens, Robert Lloyd, Alfreda Hodgson, Aldeburgh Festival Singers, Wandsworth School Choir, Russell Burgess
multiple musics unfold in sequenced layers
Goethe's fluid motions among
verse types
find a match
in Schumann's mercurial rhythmic schemes
and twisted polyphonies
this music moves back into itself
to turn its corners
Sea Pieces, Op. 55 #8 In Mid-Ocean - Edward MacDowell - James Barbagallo
stylized tempest
Norwegian Peasant Dances, Op. 72: No. 16, The Maidens of Kivledal. Springar - Edvard Grieg - Håkon Austbø
every tune with ribbons and bows
Good Night - The Beatles [from The Beatles (White Album)]
lullaby for die Blumenkinder
West of the Fields (Live in Toronto) - REM [from Murmur]
filling out the harmonies with long held tones
Stand On It - Bruce Springsteen [collected from Neal Kosály-Meyer's Springsteen Miscellany]
good old boys in good old youth
title repeated about 30 times in two
minutes plus
Dreams Come True - Scott Robinson [from Thinking Big]
dinner and drinks in friendly vibe
New SOUND-Michael - Sacajawea Elementary Students [from Digital Dreams]
close-registered pitch figures imagine a magnetic field
Away in a Manger - Smokestack and The Foothill Fury [from Smokey's Jugband Christmas]
more or less the usual words
includes a saw
Strange Blossom - Steve Layton [from Virtual Composition]
massed sounds on a large stage
the activity of how a sound is produced
is anything but irrelevant to the music that sound makes
as is the
space within which that music is played
SoundScroll VI, Part Two - S. Eric Scribner [from SoundScrolls VI-IX (Live)]
containers of sounds in an open room
energies undulate
Not For All the Rice in China - Rusty Dedrick Orchestra [from Irving Berlin, All By Myself: Notable Compositions 1926-1933]
a love song based on national production stats from The World Almanac
Brigg Fair (Grainger) - King's Singers [from My Spirit Sang All Day]
glee club sentimental
The Queen - Lady Gaga [from Born This Way]
a pop song (such as this one)
is the answer
for the duration of
the song
to the question
of
what kind of X am I?
where
X might be
any personal epithet
such as guy or gal
or jerk
or bitch
or king or queen
or swell or slut
it is an
enclosure within which to posture
(hey it's a living)
a role or
persona model
Third Floor Blues (with auto-chord) - Brenda Ray [from Original Songs/1950s Music]
this composition positions itself
as a constant set of pitches
in
a constant figure-set
set against a cycle of tone-sets
each cyclic
item of which
changes the tonal meaning of its coincident set of pitches
The Lion's Share - C-Boy [from Dirt Cult Records: You Don't Have To Be Cool]
which also
to some extent
applies to this
stanzas
differentiate
by amending the pitch sets and figures involved
but
they all behave essentially the same way
a stanza is a stanza
Everything Happens To Me (Take 2) - Thelonious Monk [from The Complete Columbia Studio Solo Recordings]
Monk does what he can
to pry the sets apart
while keeping them in
place
A Response to the Wednesday Morning Shooting at Café Racer, Track 12 - Neil Welch
we will sit with this vibration set
adding new thoughts
only when
solid with ourselves
Badazzzzz 2 - Blazzed [from Blazzed]
a groove is an immersion tank
we have two options:
submerge along
with
or observe from outside
its activity
is to be submerged
what they are submerged in
is a substance of electronic sound
in a
mode called distorted
which is to say
that though the sound has a
clear pitch
there is much to the sound
that isn't strictly the
pitch
or its resonance
we'll leave them to it
(I Didn't Know What Losing Was) - Eddie Floyd [from Written in their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos]
when Casanova lost Henriette
the love of his life
he reports
a few days later
to have contracted syphilis
from an actress
(cold comfort!)
but first
like this fellow
he lost his appetite
 |
| Dry Falls State Park, Washington |
we're from America Howdy!
a band is a flavor of togetherness writ loud
Rebecca Marina - Your Mother Should Know [from Demo Album]
in a relaxed pre-coffee tempo
Sugar, Free - Wadada Leo Smith, Benjamin Boretz [from Inter/Play]
we jump in mid discussion
principles are elaborated
laid out for
study
we float upon the activity of this
at times easily
at
times less than so
substance at a partial boil
a change in the state of the substance has
occurred
motion has slowed
its clarity index has shifted
we
pass through it differently
are refracted into other partials
the process continues
at issue
is an interpersonal substance
a matter
between these
and us
Shadow-Yaks Truth - Michael Vick [from Possible Worlds 2]
on stage
an orchestra prior to formal tuning ritual
melts
into an orchestra in performance
and back
each on its own
schedule
congeals into guitar before vanishing
In Session at The Tintinabulary
September 19, 2026
Detritus 16 - Keith Eisenbrey
I think I would like to re-do this one
September 20, 2026
Gerar - Keith Eisenbrey
September 21, 2026
Banned Rehearsal 1159 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
back into the studio until next Spring
September 23, 2026
Gap 1st Batch 2 (fragment) - J. K. Randall
I made one last correction to a tricky bit
Postscripts
Drops
Keith Eisenbrey 35
Sabbatical Improvisations 2014-2015
Another album of solo improvisations for you.
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream.
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