Playlist

Recorded

May 8, 2018
A Fancie - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

like Spring weather
if you don't like it
wait a few minutes
it will wander into other segments

did Byrd ever write anything that wasn't fancy?

Mama's Angel Child - Papa Stovepipe [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

acoustically inflated at the mid/low guitar range
as though the recording set up created a virtual box
with a virtual hot spot
I was rather taken by the wide ranging tune and by how it was referenced between voice and guitar

Roll Over Beethoven (live) - Chuck Berry

more advertisement for the brand
reckless guitar

Some Other Time - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

duples answer to start
then wander
but always with eyes fixed on each other

the bass player steps a great distance across the strings
one giant leap for a tune
one piece of cake for the plucker

The 59th Street Bridge Song - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

moves along pretty quick for a song about slowing down
over just like that nothing to it

Unnamed Track 13 - Tillicum Junior High School Band, Bob Runyan [concert of March 3, 1971, from my mom's tape]

somebody playing their recital piece on piano

Someday - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

a mood
you know
for the big screen

Pretty Words - Elvis Costello [from Trust]

hoisting voice up to the chorus from the verse
can't stay long
nor after

Banned Rehearsal 74 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]
But first the Overture.
(hey kids let's play this piece I just wrote in Australia [Retrato de Euchababilla] I'll play the funmaker and we can all caterwaul along)
I had completely forgotten
and yet how marvelously grotesque!
We take pains to sort of match pitch
without being overly concerned with actual success
that is
heavy on the sort of
more like a game
Bravo

Neal's song Electric Garbage pickin' it up by the bushel

song to dance

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 7, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 958 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Giddy. We were giddy. Aaron's rubber chicken only made it giddier.

May 13, 2018
Who would True valour see - Keith Eisenbrey - University Temple Chancel Choir, Chris Vincent, director

In the late oughts I wrote a number of hymn tunes to old texts. This one was written in January of

2008. The name of the tune is "Bianca Kaitlin," after a niece. The particular impetus was a conversation I had with our pastor at the time, Rev. Mary Boyd, concerning the well known setting "He who would valiant be." I don't remember anything else about the conversation other than that I decided to set John Bunyan's original words. I did make some effort to write the harmony as square and solid as I could. I was mostly successful, though the way the tune ended up going demanded some challenging internal cadences. Our little church choir sang magnificently. Thank you Chris Vincent for asking if I had anything we might perform and also for doing such a beautiful job with it.

Writing hymns is an interesting experience. As a composer you have to get yourself out of the way of so much. It really isn't about you.

Playlist

Recorded

August 5, 2017
Gambler's Dream - Hociel Thomas [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Hociel Thomas

The measured trill that opens this slows, as though feeling the resistance of muscle and tendon. A truly amazing pronunciation of "Ruin", with a complex diphthong and an extra R sound, almost like "rühren".

All The Things You Are - Hampton Hawes [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

A tip of the hat to Art "now-which-song-was-I-playing-anyway" Tatum. Probably up there on Cecil Taylor's playlist as well.

Brown Eyed Handsome Man - Chuck Berry [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Just how many complete short stories can be told in 2 minutes 30, with no hurry?

Visage - Luciano Berio

The body's struggle to speak, tell, mean, sing. After each "parole" a variety of laughter, separating lexicon from unconscious response. Classic analog synth sounds bring warm feelings to my heart.



Obviously 5 Believers - Bob Dylan [from Blonde on Blonde]

This is what I wrote in my journal though I'm not sure now what I meant: "deflection use is reflection use :: a trick, but he writes so well as a voice."

Seamus - Pink Floyd [from Meddle]

Impeccably recorded swamp blues with full on virtuoso hound solo. Riffing on The Beatles' Hey Bulldog perhaps.

Heartless - Heart [from Greatest Hits]

These folks like analog synth as much as Berio did. Ann's voice powers up in unexpected corners of her range.

Manhasset - University of Washington Contemporary Group Improvisation Ensemble

Recorded live at Brechemin Hall, University of Washington, School of Music, as part of Neal's recital on May 22, 1981. As I was listening our smoke alarm went off (something baking) as an outside surprise that worked well inside what we were doing.

August 8, 2017
Guess I'm Falling In Love - The Velvet Underground [from Another View]

Yet another stranded instrumental track.

Banned Rehearsal 250 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [March 1991]

Picks up in mid-scribble. Overdriven jingle bells. Tape, and it was tape then, is an object upon which to inscribe sounds, getting as many on there as possible, outcome as a music not so important as chucking it all in there so that any moment might flame. Waddayaknow! Bob Priest, on the radio, gets into Banned Rehearsal history. We do not hold the niceties of sound engineering in regard at all.

Sonic Brilliance 17 -Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Holden K, Neal Kosály-Meyer, Kia M [June 1996]

In which it is demonstrated once again that the ability to speak can become an attractive nuisance.

August 10, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 612 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Isabel K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 2001]

I was working on a piece that, by this time, was known as "Work Architecture Unity And The",

hoping that it would be a thing that the banned could play as an ensemble. This was a go at one version of it in which I had stipulated categories of sounds to be piled on top of the scraps I had composed for solo piano. At the time I ended up being frustrated that the sense of spacious time I had envisioned as the distinguishing feature seemed to be unreachable as a group project. Looking back on it now, I probably should have let the collaboration run its course and see what happened. Each scrap/soundglob, though misbalanced, was quite nice.

Birthday - The Shackles [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

Mildly amusing in a sophomoric way.

The Memory of All That - Benjamin Boretz - Karen Eisenbrey, voice; Keith Eisenbrey, piano

Early in 2011 Ben emailed this score to us - a memorial to Milton Babbitt based on Donne's "Death Be Not Proud" - hoping that we could quickly manage a recording for a symposium he was attending in February. I'm usually up early so I woke Karen with the news that Ben had sent us a song that would ruin our marriage. It didn't, though it was a struggle for both of us to learn it so quickly. We ended up recording it one page at a time, stitching it together later. The balance is horrible (I only had one good mic), I couldn't get the quick bits quiet enough, and the vocal part is at the absolute bottom of Karen's range, but the recording still gets much right on - notably the fraught struggle to leap half-steps in the first few pages. Never did such narrow intervals seem so impossible a venture, like passage to the moon, irreversible.

If I'd Been Born In Another Place - Denise Glover [from Pathways]

A loving toast to how it turned out, with string band balanced to perfection.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

August 7, 2017
Gradus 317 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

A path not taken: Retro-Gradus (start with all the notes.)

Playlist

Live

September 2, 2016
Seattle Composer's Salon

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Ian McNight
Airship Pirate!

Narrative, like a slide show, or like a viewmaster card with music.

Carson Farley
Contrasts

Wandering within a container. Dreamy.

Jessi Harvey
Pieces of the Puzzle

A struggling and a wrestling.

Sheila Bristow
Two Songs: Leap Into Love and The Finding

An attractive lyricality, reminiscent of late Griffes.

Recorded

August 28, 2016
Polonaise-Fantasie in A-flat Major, Op. 61 - Chopin - Artur Rubinstein

Cherkassky

Each of the opening arpeggios is like a finger brushing the reverberation of its three preceding chord-strokes - as though their reverberations were harps - as though the piece were creating within its space, from within the substance of its notes, instruments and players.

Fantasiestücke Op. 111 - Schumann - Shura Cherkassky

In which meter is re-conceptualized as entirely plastic, like heat-pliant steel, but weightless.

Petrouchka - Stravinsky - London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bernard Haitink

The circus is a metaphor of the universe, or an excuse to trot out the musical fauna for display and study - of how and of what it is made. The grim oppositions of every kind of material: Outside/Inside :: Puppet/Master :: Circus/Theater :: Audience/Dancers. The gloriously polyphonous thrum. He even gets his big tune in there as a distraction to be suddenly interrupted by the interior drums let loose. I love the desultory tambourine bang just after the fatal thrust. Et tu, Igor?

August 30, 2016
I'll Be Good But I'll Be Lonesome - Southern Negro Quartet [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

The best way to get a good recorded sound in the early days was to compose around the limitations of the tech. Still is.

Johnny Dodds

Oriental Strut - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five - Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, Lil Armstrong, Johnny St. Cyr

Each successive chorus a careful notch less restrained.

Creole Rhapsody - Duke Ellington and his Orchestra - Freddie Jenkins, Arthur Whetsol, Cootie Williams, Lawrence Brown, Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Juan Tizol, Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges, Harry Camey, Fred Guy, Wellman Braud, Sonny Greer [from Ken Burns Jazz]

That the legitimacy and prestige sought so strenuously, of which this music is so clearly deserving, was never achieved in the legitimate and prestigious world is not simply a matter of DE not being white and/or dead, though it is surely due muchly to that, but is also a clear indication that legitimacy and prestige were never real to begin with. (Which may have been his point all along).

August 31, 2016
Peter and the Wolf - Prokofiev - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, David Bowie

The quintessential free-range kid. I love how the introduction of the characters one by one (masquerading as an introduction of the orchestra) is echoed at the end by the parade of all at once, and how incrementally the story emerges in tandem with the incrementally complex orchestration. SP isn't just telling a story, and isn't just demonstrating an orchestra, he is also explaining his musical thinking. Bowie nails it.

Swingmatism - Jay McShann [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Two heads collide: a sly one and a cockeyed crazy one.

Pete's Lonesome Blues - Pete Johnson [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

I got to thinking: As we listen through the imperfections of the recording tech do we filter out the noise or do we fill in the sound's envelope with the music we invent as having been heard?

Salt Your Pillow Down - Dickie Jones and Benny Leaders [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Got your big fat tube-amp guitar sound down solid.

Curtis Lee

Roll Over Beethoven - Chuck Berry [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart Of Rock & Soul]

The lyrics are a red herring. The action is in the rhyme between voice and guitar, leaning forward off the beat.

Pretty Little Angel Eyes - Curtis Lee [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart Of Rock & Soul]

Competitive do-wop-she-bop. Beat that!

September 1, 2016
And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma - Harry Partch - Gate 5 Ensemble

Charisma trying on outfit after outfit. Constant motion without arrival. Fascination without obligation.

In Session At The Tintinabulary

Dad's 1957 Nash Ambassador - Whidbey Island 1964 (we're building a cabin)

August 27, 2016
Shucking Corn 160827 - Keith Eisenbrey  


Although it is clearly just that, shucking corn, it also sounds, at times, like muppets making out in the back seat of dad's Nash.


August 29, 2016
Banned Rehearsal 917 160829 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Playlist

Preface

"Blake proposed seeing not with the eyes but through the eyes -- not, that is, with the limits of the natural organ as habitual frame but through an open channel. Same with ears, the open channel, passing through "the doors of perception." This stance is listening through sound to the core, as if the actual sound were a leak from another dimension asking to be tracked back to an original, which, however, never shows itself." George Quasha - "Hearing Speare Hearing Through Sounds Themselves", The Open Space Magazine Issue 10 Fall 2008

Texts

Recorded

August 7, 2016

Kid Ory

You're Next - Louis Armstrong - Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, Lil Armstrong, Johnny St. Cyr [from Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens]

How it moves from its empty foreboding chunk chunk opening harmony into summer weather, as simply as remembering what's for dinner that night.

Creole Rhapsody - Duke Ellington - Duke Ellington, Cootie Williams, Freddie Jenkins, Arthur Whetzel, Joe Nanton, Juan Tizol, Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Fred Guy, Wellman Braud, Sonny Greer [from The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]

The opening musics reenter after the virtual record-flip break through a fissure made sneakily by the pattery snare drum, which leads the finish, thereby tying together an otherwise episodic amble.

Romeo and Juliette, Premiere Tableau - Prokofiev - Orchestre du Theatre Bolchoi de Moscou, Algis Juraitis

Prokofiev lives in the troubled harmonies that occupy the middles of his phrases. Squarely in the Berliozian Romantic tradition, the music both amplifies and inhabits the dramatic scene.

Jig Walk - Pee Wee Russell [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Pretty sure it is just drums, piano, and clarinet, but the clarinet uses what are nearly multiphonics, with an assist from nicely particular registrations of the piano's chords, to impersonate backing horns.

You Go To My Head - Sarah Vaughan - Sarah Vaughan, Clarence Brereton, Buster Bailey, Russell Procope, Bill Kyle, John Kirby, Bill Beason [from Interlude - Early Recordings 1944-1947]

Long vocal line with surprise rhymes sprawling over a sumptuously cushioned accompaniment.

Red Rodney

Mark - Red Rodney [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Let's move this along boys, we have a lot of notes to fit into three minutes.

August 9, 2016

Havana Moon - Chuck Berry [from The Best of Chuck Berry]

Just under the radar, CB's voice relaxes into a smoky smooth bluesy basso at the ends of phrases.

Hide Away - Freddy King [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

In a way the Beatles did this track a loving disservice by referencing it so often. It's tricky to hear for itself.

Kicks (Remix) - Paul Revere and The Raiders [from The Legend of Paul Revere]

A pretty great song weakened by the author's message lyrics.

One Of These Days - Pink Floyd [from Meddle]

A seventies dorm room Bolero.

Mi-Parti - Witold Lutosławski - Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Jacek Kasprzyk

Clouds of strings circle and envelop, or call forth and let evaporate, the unsustainable potent violence of the dead, ascending in glowing ash.

Elimination Dancing - Bow Wow Wow

Unimaginable without the virtual stage show, costume changes, the works. Power punk glitz.

The Boy In The Bubble - Paul Simon [from Graceland]

Turns around on itself so many times you would almost think it wasn't meant to be not a lullaby.

In Bloom - Nirvana [from Nevermind]

A canvas of solid colors, not primary, in dynamically proportional blocks and stripes. Strong and messy verticals.

August 10, 2016
Banned Rehearsal 416 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer, March 1996


We gather our tools, weigh them in hand, cross-calibrate, coalesce into: e-guitar, tenor sax, bass line (on the mighty W), drums, t-bone, various percussionals. Pressure is applied from angles low in the mix :: slowly squeezing violin and cornet out of guitar and sax, a residue of drone coats the wreckage. A late hurrah.

The Farthest Shore (Kalessin) - Keith Eisenbrey


This is a midi generated realization of a flute trio I wrote in 2001 for Sarah Bassingthwaighte, who took it to some little town in Russia with a bunch of flute students. It was apparently performed as a flute nonette, though the only record I have of it is the program with my name transliterated into their alphabet. I looked around for a scan of it, but was unable to find it. Alas, my sound files are quite well organized and indexed, but the image files are not. More to do.

In Session At The Tintinabulary

August 8, 2016
Gradus 295 - Neal Kosály-Meyer 

Playlist

Recorded

June 6, 2015

Preludes and Fugues (selections) - Shostakovich - Shostakovich

Rather than being at one with, and ever-creating, the tonal world in which they exist and persist, these float precariously, as on a boat perched on an obliquely gravitic tide. The sea lists around us, emptier now than in the ever-referenced past.

Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

Each part alike aware of its balance and bounce.

Come On - Chuck Berry [from The Best of Chuck Berry]

Rock solid everything but guitar, which blows like the wind all over wheresoever.

When a Man Loves a Woman - Percy Sledge [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

How he wished he never loved thee, let him count the ways.

String Quartet #3 - Elliott Carter - Julliard String Quartet

A rain forest seen in all its particulars, from all frames of reference, at all removes, in each scale of magnitude.

Night Moves - Bob Seger [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

One of those cleverly disruptive lexical shifts that is more effective than it ought to be, as moves moves from noun to verb, as night moves from adjective to noun, the syntax of each word lurching to the left, as the song's voice moves from active ("working on my night moves") to lyric imagery ("the night moves").

Go Wild In The Country - Bow Wow Wow

a calibrated whine/tantrum.

Word Up - Cameo [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

Clarity preserved by tying up all the resonances in tight little bunches, shrink-wrapped.

June 9, 2015
Syrens - St. Elmo's Choir

An album of sea-shanties (mostly I think of English origin) arranged for female voices. Reminiscent in a way of the more famous Bulgarian folk songs that made such a splash a few decades back.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

June 7, 2015
Duet 150607 - Keith Eisenbrey

I improvised on toy steel drum and then on wooden transverse flute.

June 8, 2015
Banned Rehearsal 887 - Pete Comley, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer


Our first porch session of the summer, recorded using a four-track zoom, two channels aimed at the porch, the others aimed into the neighborhood.