Playlist

Recorded

October 4, 2016

The Montreux/Berlin Concerts Track 3 "84 Deg. -Kelvin -6" - Anthony Braxton, Kenny Wheeler,

Anthony Braxton

Dave Holland, Barry Altschul

Morse code rhythms and seabirds. Trumpet provocateur, How did that chorus rhythm get signaled, and still sound like it was invented on the spot?

Chihuahua - Bow Wow Wow

Chi Wow Wow :: Bowhuahua

I Wonder As I Wander - London Symphony Orchestra, Placido Domingo [from Hallmark Listen to the Joy]

Secularization by star-power over-dramatization.

Come As You Are - Nirvana [from Nevermind]

An altar call (Just As I Am, Without One Plea)

Banned Rehearsal 417 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

roll call

pressure cooker

heap bag

agitate pulverize grind chip (at) forge anew (forge(t)) press and squeeze stipple and stroke fiddle and fuss step back cock a head prop up hoist twist whack and flatten let sit let weather look away see from distances pick up shake each which way plug in set to rolling.

October 6, 2016
Banned Rehearsal 605 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Isabel K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

gentle bell(y)

|| within this mix recognized improvisational attitudes :: recognized faces though some surprise or perplex as to whom? My own thoughts in particular are obvious to me as my own, others I guess at, as do each we all

||nursery sounds infant babble and cry primitive of improvisation :: bodily, innocent of edits, nearly innocent of language (though are we, ever?)

||transparently lives in the room resonance and baseline noise, the way print lives on the surface of paper

twisted place(s)

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 3, 2016
Gradus 299 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

As the collection increases in count its thingness, as a whole to be grasped, closes, while its thingness, as a space to explore, opens.

Playlist

Live

December 13, 2015
Finnegans Wake Part I, Chapter 2 - James Joyce

the table is set for Finnegans Wake

Neal Kosály-Meyer, with Jake Thompson

Karen and I played a small part at the end of this production, aiming spotlights at Neal as he circumnavigated the space while performing The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly, shadowed by Jake Thompson playing bodhrán. The staging was less elaborate than last year's Chapter 1, but it really doesn't need much. He performed the greater part of it off to the side, allowing his amplified voice to occupy the dark stage alone.

Recorded

December 15, 2015
Quartet for Winds - Arthur Berger - Boehm Quintet

Subject matter: How harmonies arise from melody's twinings, and how they persist within their further twinings.

Concerto for Oboe - Richard Strauss - English Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim, Neil Black

Pleasing to the very end.

Sonatine - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Saschko Gawriloff, Aloys Kontarsky

A clever, attractive little piece from early in Stockhausen's oeuvre, with hints of Monk among his own clearly emerging voice. It is a short stylistic step from here to the music box pieces.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra - Roger Sessions - Westchester Philharmonic, Paul Lustig Dunkel, Robert Taub

The murky motor rhythm strenuously fails to hold things together, threads slip out on their own cognizance - things to do, places to unravel.

December 17, 2015
Elis - Heinz Holliger - Klára Körmendi

Strong keyboard gestures predominate. In the middle, suddenly, emerges what is about the most effective use of non-standard (inside the piano) techniques I can easily bring to mind, subtly integrated with some exquisite pedal work.

Greg Short (1938-1999)

Twenty Four Tonal Preludes: 1 - 4 - Greg Short - Keith Eisenbrey

This was from my recital, Preludes in Seattle, of June 10, 2006, at University Temple United Methodist Church. I first encountered Greg Short in about 1970, when I performed two of his teaching pieces, Knuckle Rag and Little Rose, at a concert sponsored by one of the local music teachers' associations. His preludes are thorny pianistic puzzles in the Lisztian stamp. For a pianist of my modest technique the experience of performing them can be terrifying, but listening back after nearly a decade I find the pieces themselves to be quite attractive. I just wish some better pianist than I would pick these up and work on them. Though difficult, the piano writing is deeply intelligent, always effective, and well worth the trouble. Cristina? Tiffany? Julie? Adrienne? Anybody?

You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks - Funkadelic [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

The backing chorus arrangement features impressively reckless Bach-like stretto, ultra-quick, and is that ring modulation I hear on some of those bass tones? Gobs of great.

The Montreux/Berlin Concerts (cuts 1 and 2) - Anthony Braxton

A little jazz number of Brucknerian proportions.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 14, 2015
Banned Telepath 42 Seattle 151214
Banned Telepath 42 Somerville 151214
Banned Rehearsal 900 151214 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer (in Seattle); Aaron Keyt (in Somerville)

Wow. 900. Wow.
It took us 31 and 1/2 years, averaging 28 1/2 numbered sessions per year. My how the time has flown.

Playlist

Recorded

July 12, 2015

Sunday morning in Zillah, WA

String Quartet #3 - Elliott Carter - Pacific Quartet

Paralax in a hall of mirrors.

Creative Orchestra Music - Anthony Braxton

Tone-paintings brave enough to flirt with mimicry - foghorns, passing cars, bird calls - but not so much composed as pre-arranged - discussed beforehand. Another way to think of it is that they are doing what western concert music could do, but with an ensemble that has a different, more all-hands-on-deck attitude about how things fit. As an album it is arranged prosaically (fast, slow, fast . . .), a strategy that works pretty well. Anything less plain would distract unnecessarily from the individuality of each cut, would seem to suggest that each was a part of a larger composition, rather than a thing on its own.

July 14, 2015
Edge of Seventeen (Just Like a White Winged Dove) (live) - Stevie Nicks

This benefits greatly from being incomprehensible.

That Was Your Mother - Paul Simon [from The Essential Paul Simon]
Psalm 63 - Michael Leese

Harp and four (I think) voices. Tunes that slip around to find their locking place.

Banned Rehearsal 410 - January 1996 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

pushing at a heavy thing to shove it somewhere

the best of constricted space

dealing with heat

every cranny filled

circling birds

sound crammed in

introducing the sax

break apart to reconfigure

into a new crammed

recorded hot to not miss a possible subtle sound

sacrificing in glorious cassette fidelity the distortion of big sounds

careful she's gonna blow

out of the canyon into the meadow

still moving mountainous

then to the broad valley

all spent but guitar bird

[historical notes: At the time we were attempting to name our sessions. This one is All The Bells and Whistles or Aaron's Sax Solo. In 2002 I listened and wrote: "quite the full-blown racket, when the chimney gets in the act w/ all those bells & the guitar. whew! → last bit of this is FINE - big & loud."

Waltz No. 1 - Billy Joel
Freedom Rock - Girl Trouble [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]
Qixingshan (String Quartet #2) - Benjamin Boretz - Momenta Quartet

All motion is glacial. Only the weight of it forces flow. Activity brings stasis, perpetually poised to begin. and fragmented.

back to the distant past

July 15, 2015
Dolcissima mia vita - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

written with a microscope

Konzert in G BWV 1049 - J.S. Bach - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

reason answers to reason - immediately

Sonata in G minor Wq. 62 #18 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

breathes actually

Keyboard Sonata in C Major Hob. XIV:7 - Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

constraints aren't upon what but upon how

Symphony D Major K248b(250) "Haffner Serenade" - Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood, Jaap Schroder

atmosphere of intrigue and secrets now and then
but mostly back to the afternoon in progress

In Session at the Tintinabulary

July 12, 2015
Trio 150712 - Keith Eisenbrey
 

This last Sunday's dubbed trio was for plow wheel, cymbal (unmounted (bottom half of a high hat, I think)), and steel string acoustic guitar (hand made by my brother Paul).

July 13, 2015
Gradus 271 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

(047) trichord positioned as source (from which we disintegrate) (or which is clotted up only occasionally, if ever, to re-emerge).