Playlist

Preface

"Whereas in everyday speech we tend to use words and syntax more than we savor them, passing through language in order to communicate or glean a message, when we listen to music we tend to attend differently: individual moments, and successions and interactions among these moments, are what music is, they are why we listen."
- Dora A. Hanninen "Words, Musical Organization, and Boretz's 'Thesis'" Open Space Magazine issue 19/20 fall 2015/spring 2016

Texts

Recorded

April 23, 2019
Sonata in G Major, K.2 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

short term
balance

is a
system

to game

a cloak
for the large scale tricks to play beneath

I'm Only Sleeping (take 1) - The Beatles [from Anthology Vol. 2]

jangleguitar and dead aim vocals
a bit of shaker

The Man I Love - Thelonious Monk [from The London Collection]

TM thinks like a singer
and that singer's ideal accompanist

:: to what extent
moment by moment ::

to let the chords carry the song
and exactly when and how precisely, to be sure the tune is played straight

From a Whisper to a Scream - Elvis Costello [from Trust]

watchspring
woundtight
flabs out

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 22, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 980 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Postscripts

doch klimmt sie in oben stand es binden
die drei zum felsen auch die jungfrau sprach
in dem soll herz wird munter er sterben

violets

the numbers reduced irretrievably

to little dots that flash

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

January 21, 2017
Carolina Shout- James P. Johnson [from Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]

James P. Johnson

the dancer and the bard
the arms and the legs
earth's bind and weightlessness

Sail Away Lady - "Uncle Bunt" Stephens [from Anthology of American Folk Music]

A fiddle tune doing that check in with the open string thing fiddle tunes do.

I'll Lead a Christian Life - Elder Golden P. Harris [from Goodbye Babylon]

Fiddlevoice: holding it in the mask exactly static, high in the sinuses, even when at the bottom of the tune.

Romeo and Juliet (supplement) - Prokofiev - Orchestre du Theatre Bolchoi de Moscou, Algis Juraitis

I guess these might be the parts of the project that wouldn't fit back in the box. A melody is a piece of magic. How could one not believe in magic, given melody?

Rockin' Chair - Roy Eldridge, Graham Young, Torg Halten, Norman Murphy, Babe Wagner, Jay Kelliher, John Grassi, Mascagni Ruffo, Sam Listengart, Sam Musiker, Walter Bates, Milton Raskin, Ray Biondi, Buddy Bistien, Gene Krupa [from Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]

Snare drum finds a place to sidle in.

(I Wanna Go Where You Go) - Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra

Clarinet, with a long pointy finger, picking at the spots just after the moments where the realization of a moment occurs.

Bud Powell

Dusky and Sandy - Bud Powell - [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

If one imagines a stepped dynamic universe (pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff) as an even metric, like a steady beat of increase, the dynamics in this are in a syncopated relation to those steps.

Etudes for String Orchestra - Frank Martin - L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ernest Ansermet

Lights are on all over the house. What is thought but the play of lights on all over the house? Europe's rowdiest orchestra at the top of their form.

Gypsy Woman - The Impressions [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

Rising repeatedly from narrative to rhapsody.

January 24, 2017
I Can't Turn You Loose - Otis Redding [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

A slow harmonic rhythm with intricately fiddly internal articulative rhythms. The instrumentals define a solid long sequence, ellipsing around the big motions in orbital metrical flow.

Clarinet Solo - [unknown concert waltz recorded ca. 1971] - Paul Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon

From my mom's archives, a tape of my brother playing a solo concert waltz (with cadenza!) in about 1971.

Hambone - The Phillips Wonders [from The Art of Field Recording, volume 1]

that ol' bo' diddly, all done by hand clapping, collapsing in laughter.

Lover's Walk - Elvis Costello [from Trust]

Narrow bounds. Nothing will escape.

Banned Sectional 05 KEE AK 860103 - Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, January 1986

Eschewing anything flagrant. Notes played regular, lists spoken as decided. Hanging in there, unflamboyant.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 23, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 928 170123 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer


January 26, 2017
Entracte (170126) - Keith Eisenbrey

I wrote this little (17 bars of 4/4) piano duet in about 2000. My idea was that others could write
independent but equally sized duets so that the parts could be mixed and matched. Neal bit, sort of, but playing his "Piano Fore-Heads" with anything else was perversely impossible. Gavin Borchert came through and we played the various combinations toward the latter part of Polestar's presence. The recording of our performance is, alas, not in my collection. I made this dubbed recording yesterday.

Playlist

Recorded

March 29, 2016

Colin McPhee

Tabuh-Tabuhan, Toccata for Orchestra - Colin McPhee - Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, Howard
Hanson

Importation into symphony-land, without irony. Accidentally prefiguring aspects of a later pop minimalism. For a moment, a hint of the Great Gates of Kiev, but in the end I couldn't help thinking that equal temperament has never sounded so bland.

I Found A New Baby - Benny Goodman [from Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]

The masters trade bitty licks lickety split, arranged to sound impossibly, miraculously, spontaneous.

You Won't Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart) - Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Butterfield, George Koenig, Bill Stegmeyer, Jack Greenberg, Artie Drelinger, Milton Chatz, Joe Bushkin, Danny Perri, Harman 'Trigger' Alpert, Cozy Cole [from Louis Armstrong and Guest Stars]

Sometime in my late teens I was introduced to the music of Louis Armstrong so I went to the record store to find some more. This grab-bag album of tracks (mostly from the 40's), is just full of winners, including this one of Louis and Ella at the tops of their games, hardly working (or so it seems) trading off verses.

Tease Me Baby - John Lee Hooker [from The Legendary Modern Recordings 1948 - 1954]

His strum is swift and weighty, like a cross-bow strike.

March 31, 2016
I'm In Love Again - Fats Domino [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

More trading off licks, here between vocal and sax, both of which hold more or less still in melodic space while the harmonies move under them.

Arthur Berger

3 Pieces for 2 Pianos - Arthur Berger - Paul Jacobs, Gilbert Kalish

From the catalogue of a master compilator. It is as though everything he was digging about the music he heard around him finds its way here in quirky completeness: tempo tricks, prepared piano sounds, intricate chromatic play between the vertical and the horizontal, Webernesque pitch statis - all of it laid out there with his inimitable sensibility of touches, times, and colors. Time's passing sculpted or bent.

Land of 1000 Dances - Wilson Pickett [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

A study in interjections, the song itself having fallen away.

It's Too Late - Carole King [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

I found myself really digging the tiny-echo backing vocals at left and right, barely audible at the ends of phrases.

Say Goodbye to Hollywood - Billy Joel [from The Essential Billy Joel]

The king of monochromatic vocal production. There is a way to sing and that's all there is.

Clubland - Elvis Costello [from Trust]

A latter-day land of 1000 dances presented as a present tense fiction.

Love For Sale - Talking Heads [from True Stories]

Framed by: CountOff at start and KissOff at end.

Study 50 - Conlon Nancarrow [from Conlon Nancarrow: Lost Works, Last Works]

Some stray dude holding forth at a bar, with illustrations, and a replicator. By the time one escapes there must be 20 or 30 of him in there.

Ballintubber Abbey - Amy Denio [from Tutto Bene]

Focus.

Sonic Brilliance 14 - [March 1996 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Holden K, Neal Kosály-Meyer]

Introducing children to synthesizers. I want that bubble sound.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 28, 2016
Gradus 287 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

Neal is on the verge of G natural, to imply a modulation, or that we weren't in A to begin with.