Playlist

Recorded

December 22, 2018
King Arthur Act 5 - Henry Purcell - Le Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet

The birth of the distinction between high art and low art can be blamed on the concept of Royalty and Nobility. The idea of Learned Court or Church Music, as an economy, allowed only the Learned to be written out, writing being the only means of preservation outside of oral tradition. The demotic appears in written form only through imitation by the learned and otherwise is left to its own devices, its praxis handed down personally - a process that did not stop at the courthouse or churchhouse doors. It remained there also, as always.

Nänie Op. 82 - Johannes Brahms - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Robert Shaw

consistently engaging as a play of sound colors
nice orchestration!!
a symphonic movement with one of Brahms' few harp parts
about as fine a piece as any other of his

December 26, 2018
Grandpa's Spells - Jelly Roll Morton - George Mitchell, Edward 'Kid' Ory, Omer Simeon, Johnny St. Cyr, John Lindsay, Andrew Hilaire [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Arrangement is,
as composition is,
a tool for timbral amplification

Adagio for Strings - Samuel Barber - Berliner Philharmoniker, Semyon Bychkov

poignant incomplete, enclosed

All The Things You Are - Art Pepper [from The Way It Was]

never losing cool in the spotlight
easy to hear
how the pairs
join

Let The Good Times Roll - The Sonics [from Boom]

a winning combo of messy reverb and narrow bandwidth

Crepuscle With Nellie (take 3) - Thelonius Monk - Thelonius Monk, Al McKibbon, Art Blakey [recorded in London on November 15, 1971]

cyclily it goes
slow and heavy round
and round and round

Eliza (Interlude) - Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [December 1981]

three short movements for spinet and (trombone or tenor tuba?)
clever and brief
but not horrible either

Breakout - Swing Out Sister [a Rescued Record]

synthy machine backed
born to be bland

December 27, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 277 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [November 1991]

guitar, autoharp, ocarina
homespun sound with infant and fuss and very faintly if I am not mistaken a radio station brought in on the waves of electric chance

violin and hand drum shiny bright with bell duet
for violin squak and infant squall

deep dynamic focus from mezzo forte on down to where the airwaves shine dimly

öbjét d'kítsch

special brand young parent sleepiness yawn

lesson:
No session or sequence of sessions is important as to where the project might be going
they are only important in the sense that they and their kind exist within the corpus
the junkyard's accumulation is the key, not the particular trajectory of accumulating
history is not as granular nor as linear as we would care to think

this music is very close, near, to our ears, inhabiting its space precisely
its space is its and none others

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 25, 2018
Fox Spit 181225 - Keith Eisenbrey

After the guests all left
a scribbled bit on the guitar my brother Paul made.

Playlist

Live

March 11, 2017
Katya Kabanova - Leoš Janáček - Seattle Opera
McCaw Hall, Seattle

The plot and characters are strong, but it's the pitch work commands attention. Similar in approach to Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande, but with sharper edges.

Recorded

March 12, 2017
Sweetheart O' Mine - Jelly Roll Morton [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

JRM plays a Lisztian trick with his pianism, in that it sounds like a transcription of music for a much larger ensemble.

Shout Sister Shout - Boswell Sisters [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Boswell Sisters - Hats!

They arrange their voices like a horn section.

Oh Baby Maybe Someday -  Ivy Anderson [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Arrangement, orchestration, song-writing, and composition, are all identical activities. The only difference is social attitude.

Loose Lid Special -  Tommy Dorsey [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Big massed sound choirs. The instrumental soloists imitate singers.

This Subdues My Passion - Charles Mingus [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

I kept getting the feeling that the band was manipulating (lip-ipulating?) the sound of their instruments to imitate the sound of older recordings.

I've Got You Under My Skin - Charlie Parker [from The Cole Porter Songbook]

'On the beat' in the sense of there being a sheer dance floor between his sound and the beat he's on. Crazy break-dance too, and not even a shred of effort is heard.

Symphony - Stefan Wolpe - Orchestra of the 20th Century, Arthur Wesberg

Imagine a troop of jugglers performing multiple game-based jugglings simultaneously, each juggler juggling not just what whirls in the air but their specific interior gang of characters, one for each game.

Beginnings are beginnings. Endings are where what it is happens to get lopped off.

The Mountains High - Dick and DeeDee

The development of electronic amplification allowed live sound to begin to duplicate what was only possible in the studio before - and for live sound and studio sound to imitate each other, inventing themselves along the way. Pretty fancy singing back there too.

Cinque Variationi - Luciano Berio - David Burge

Ann Peebles

The piano writing reminds me of Art Tatum, in its melodic superabundance, and of Thelonius Monk, in its unblinking clarity. Melodic variations at heart, but standing in for a single melody is a thicket of tunes, and of sets of nuanced weights and subtle angles.

I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down - Ann Peebles [from Original Funk Soul Sister The Best of Ann Peebles]

A political knife attack from the past. Damn she's good!

Concerto - Walter Piston - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Quartet, Gerard Schwarz

I believe I recorded this off the radio some many years back. Its 'concerto-ness', that is, the sense of its contrasting sounds, is not a contrast of opposition, or of vying equals. Rather, the quartet provides a new sound region within the orchestral sound, now hidden, now revealed - and further in each quartet member reveals individual smaller regions within the quartet sound region within the whole sound. It's also got some lip smacking pizzicato passages.

Revereware - Keith Johnston, J. K. Randall - [from Inter/Play]

Reed and no reed. That old familiar Crumar sound slowly molding the bend. There is a sense of proximity play. Each sound source exists in specific relation to the listening mic. Hide and go seek. Each proximal node carefully nurtured for coexistence. Didjeridu makes the Seattle Stu connection, I presume. If one had a choice in all the world's musical history for who would be the best person to be in charge of your pitch-bend wheel, it would have to be Jim. Were pitches ever bent to so vivid a drapery of sound?

March 16, 2017
Graceland - Paul Simon [from Graceland]

Attributions jumbled and uncertain. Who says what when? The instrumental rhythm, oh so impeccable, appears to be solvable, but then one wonders.

Banned Rehearsal 243 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [January 1991]

Recorded hot, small instruments scraped banged and rummaged through. Clearly not great music, but just as clearly intently engaged, and in the clear intent of being only and purely intently engaged.  || the Jaymar before it fell apart!! Ah how we miss thee!! || Getting to a place where, in music, if it were speaking it was doing, would be speaking in tongues.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 13, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 930 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Steve constructs a tiny set of drums on top of the xylophone. Karen revisits the bug guitar. Keith roams about what catches his eye. Aaron provides treble trombone talking points. Neal cuts it up in pieces.

Playlist

Recorded

April 12, 2016
Symphony in D minor, Op. 120 (#4) - Schumann - Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

An exuberance spills out and over, washing the countryside. As we pick up the pieces we civilize and in civilizing are civilized. This isn't my favorite recording of this piece, but Klemperer does pick up on some of the work's strangeness, wearing its awkward moments gracelessly but exactly, like an ill-fitting suit of clothes.

Concert Fantasy - Rimsky-Korsakov - Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg, Louis de Froment, Aaron Rosand

The best part of the piece is toward the end where a clarinet finally gives the solo violin some push back. Otherwise it's vapid and dull, like sitting through somebody else's vacation slides.

Klarinettenquintet in B minor, Op. 115 - Brahms - Amadeus Quartet, Karl Leister

Lush, overgrown tendrils of counterpoint have insinuated themselves into every crevice. Each phrase is a complex of threads and asides, no single voice speaking a whole thing entirely. The variations that finish it open the door at last to some fresh air.

April 14, 2016

Mamie Smith

Destimido - Grupo Bahianainho [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

The rhythmic flexibility in play (which is prodigious) is different in flavor but not in degree to, say, a late Beethoven Sonata in Schnabel's reading, or a Chopin Nocturne in Cortot's. Robustly anti-metronomic.

Frankie Blues - Mamie Smith [from Alan Lowe's Really The Blues]

Another, brilliant, take on the great American mythopoetic saga: the romantic betrayal between Frankie and Johnnie.

Fat Meat and Greens - Jelly Roll Morton [from Alan Lowe's Really The Blues]

There is a bluesiness about the swing that is echoed in his bendy attitude toward pitch and touch, offering another way to think about the reflection of the horizontal upon the vertical: meter to (something like) intonation, rather than pitch set to pitch set.

Violin Concerto in D - Stravinsky - Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, Isaac Stern

Khachaturian

Moving, but not going. Circulating, spiraling to get back - spinning wheels within spinning wheels. Each seeming repetition transformed, each nearly familiar angle re-configured.

Concerto - Khachaturian - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, Dickran Atamian

I wasn't familiar with this piece going in, and it started by reminding me of Bartok, but without the astringency. It certainly is shamelessly Lisztian. I ended up kind of digging the keyboard writing, especially when he piled on as many moving parts at once as he could, like juggling snakes and kittens.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 11, 2016
Gradus 288 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

We now have a fourth pitch, as Neal introduces G natural (the highest one), joined by a lowish E for the 2nd rung.