Playlist

Recorded

July 1, 2018

Cavatina "Ecco, ridento in ciedo" - Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Will Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

a distance traveled before we get off the ride

Rainy Night - Duke Ellington [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

say a thing (twice) (or two things) then comment or overturn
the back ends of the melodies invite consideration

The Goodnight Waltz - The Voices of Walter Schumann [Rescued Record]

The Age of Sentimentality's Last Gasp

Walk, Little Julie - Chester Hanchell [from Anthology of American Folk Music Vol. 1]

jaw harp in the raw

Requiem Canticles - Stravinsky - London Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen

pitch plates microadjust their relative altitude
planar placards plastered on the pitch plate walls
icons

Track 6 - Tillicum Junior High School Orchestra [from my mom's tape of a concert give March 3, 1971]

with vibraphone solo

Subhuman - Throbbing Gristle [from Throbbing Gristle's Greatest Hits]

inverted accentuation becomes name classification

July 4, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 77 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]

vacuum cleaner vacuuming floor clacking sticks and ocarina or flute
we have a hum on the tape from something
it wanders

Neal & Anna's Outpost on Brooklyn Ave, as they were packing it up

typing tap tap tap tap ding! szzzhook!

persistent lack of focus, phoning it in, not present
weary and wearying the hum does not help
this tape has ennui
impervious time

Don't Mix The Colors - Courtney Love [from Kill Rock Stars]

words on a good enough rhythm track
half a song or less

Gradus 99 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 2006]

single tones allowed to linger
turn their predilections for proliferation inward upon themselves
become sets of parts independently spinning
fulfilling the compositional imperatives
which notes to play
is so simple to accomplish that the notion of necessity in the short term
or of form at all as a specious trajectory
is left far below

Front Door - Shaprece [from Scatterbrain EP]

circling insistence (a worry stone)

Banned Telepath 47 Somerville - Aaron Keyt [April 2016]

the new note nears quickly
improvisation composing itself as a composition composing improvisationality

July 5, 2018
Cavatina "Largo al factotum della città" - Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Will Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

intricate prestissimo blah blah blah
tour de articulation

Irish Black Bottom - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

wide open window to another celebration
when it is over
feels empty

Tweedledy Dee - Elvis Presley [from First Live Recordings]

clearly worked over before release
with vinyl surface noise just as clearly audible
no-one was, apparently, thinking history and collecting quality data

(He's) The Great Imposter - The Fleetwoods [from The Very Best of the Fleetwoods - Come Softly To Me]

Requiem Cantlicles - Stravinsky - Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Stravinsky

categorically disparate rhythms
though coordinate
choral sound disblending as instruments perfectly
ceremony
voices instruments solos chorus - all treated emphatically impersonally
each is there to function just so
not anybody's show really
as though these were sound samples pulled from hammer space

July 10, 2018

Jascha Horenstein reminisces with Alan Blyth

". . . nineteen tzwolve . . . Webern and Berg were the ushers who controlled the membership cards . . . enowmously tense and inhibited . . . Vienna is the only place in the world . . . a closed shop . . . icy cold every inch the emperor of music . . . "

Well I Just Might Do That - University of Washington Contemporary Group Improvisation Ensemble [July 1981]

barbasol theater
it's got lemon in it
an historic moment for proto Banned Rehearsal
in that we were beginning to spill out of academic oversight
into sessions which we then inflated into legend out of all proportion to the actual results
good thing most of the sound is lost
come inside you'll catch your
keith
mind your mother
clump clump clomp clomp
done

4th of July, Asbury Park - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen Live 1975-1985]

full blown legend domain see your life as mythic grandeur
your face here

July 11, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 267 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [September 1991]

in the past I have made errors in that regard
moan tube scolding big red bag of fun
soft skinned rattle of rattles
semi independent double reeds
finger independent righty lefty
breath dependent if each speaks or in turn
jalopy rattle get it firing tambourine
this sounds like Aaron's now defunct electric organ
rather than the funmaker
30 minutes in not a dud moment really
terrainish
concerns itself with another subject than the terrain we experience
much as geology arose from metallurgy and mining
Mr. Punch you are a bad bad man
diabolic plotting encrustations of narratives' remains
realms are missing
music is an abstraction of activity
informing our future selves of the past reporting back truly what we say
common pulse theory

DX7 - Brad Anderson [from Dark Energy - Interstellar Pianos]

probes in substance with danger traps beacons left behind
creatures that feed on geyser's edge in pitch darkness

July 12, 2018

Day Signals Sonic Nebula - S. Eric Scribner [from Stormsound Cycle, live at the Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, on May 21, 2011]

slow circle
drawn
dug
stethoscope to deeper tunnel
clanging cagebars
rain drops what zooms by cares not
performance as self preservation
face of impervious
the slowly drawn circle nears, lurking, respiring
a membrane within the sound
cessation without conclusion

July 17, 2018
Finnegans Wake Chapter 4 - Rio Matchett [from Waywords and Meansigns]

immediate: as though related over morning breakfast finger thump on table
scifi traffic medievaly chanting past on the interstar
repletely misoverheard
leaning close over the cafe table
not fussy about the jointures
color not corrected as gossip passed
then report per radio tv with background
journalismus

July 18, 2018
Duetto "All'idea di quel metallo"- Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Will Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

light orchestral touch
the air they breathe

You Made Me Love You - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

not much space on these old tracks, timewise or dynamical
best to fill it completely

Tynan Tyme - Chet Baker, Art Pepper [from Playboys]

now we got us some elbow room

A Thing Of The Past - The Shirelles [from Shirelles Anthology]

such subtlety of vocal pressure
just exactly the right weight given to each part of each syllable

no slop

Secret Agent Man - Johnny Rivers [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

something in the sound is often repressed

July 19, 2018
Selections from Finian's Rainbow - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon [from my mom's tape of a concert given May 4, 1971]

extended medley or truncated show
Irish as ethnic quaint (harmless) lesser European pastoral
LA < > NY
Hollywood < > Broadway
good enough modulations (not to write home about)

Universal Corner - X [from Wild Gift]

measures measuring measuring measures

In Session at the Tintinabulary

July 2, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 962 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer


July 16, 2018
Assembly Rechoired 57 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy

Playlist

Live

September 11, 2017

Jim Hurst

Jim Hurst
Fireplace Room, University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle

I was reminded of keyboard virtuosi: Jelly Roll Morton or Liszt, in the seeming ability to be all parts of an imaginary ensemble at once, and of Arthur Rubinstein in that miraculous efficiency to do it all without moving his fingers. But it isn't just the mind-blowing technique, it's the poetry with which that imaginary ensemble is evoked - Art Tatum quicksilver magic. Thank you Dave Campbell for inviting Jim out to Seattle!

Take-away line: "Edsel still runs but my turntable quit."

Recorded

Elizabeth Farr

September 10, 2017
The March Before the Battell - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

Phrase balancing balanced with energy release in overlapping sequences, each voice taking its turn to unwind.

Die Kunst der Fuge Contrapunctus XV - J. S. Bach - Zoltan Kocsis

We do not dissipate energy, we exhaust it.

Messin' Around - Cookies' Ginger Snaps [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

More than a hint of that ol' razzle dazzle minstrel show showmanship. Theory: jazz landed in highbrow territory because it was so woke to its roots. Its aspirational trajectory had force behind it. So much of the old practice makes us uncomfortable (as it ought), but the musicianship is for real.

Echo In The Dark - Original St. Louis Crackerjacks [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Already (1936) moving toward becoming a meta-music, journeying toward the abstract. See Theory above, its roots are its subject matter.

Standing Outside - Wade Maines [from Goodbye Babylon]

The arrangement is absolutely professional showman, but here, where the verbal portion is the point (gospel before music), the music portion sticks more firmly to the demotic, doesn't push forward to become its own thing.

Crazy Arms - Ray Price [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Somewhere back there in time, a singing movie cowboy sensibility.

Tragedy - The Fleetwoods [from Come Softly To Me - The Very Best Of The Fleetwoods]

They nailed this one: overblown teen drama and their patented soft-porn harmonies. A heady mix.

Swingin' Medallions

Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love) - Swingin' Medallions [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Not a heady mix, just good drunk dumb fun.

Bargain - The Who [from Who's Next]

The parts of this song push against each other, far from working together they storm into separate rooms. But hey! they have a synth!

Rich Bitch - The Stooges [from Metallic 'KO]

Using anger words to incite an angry energy then ride the wave. Sorry Iggy, this one just comes across as bad tempered.

Track 1 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [from Neal's Recital Tape]

Bach, Sinfonia from the C-minor Partita.

Adam Raised A Cain - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band Live 1975-1985]

Bad boy booster.

September 12, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 252 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [March 1991]
On a personal note, this was the last session before our first son was born. At Toad Hall, a pitchscape of surfaces. Metal. Drum. Bells. Folded. Hinged. Can-bottom Diaphragm. What might remain in that big red bag of fun? The rim of the brim can. Toot Chorus.


In Session at the Tintinabulary

September 15, 2017
Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge 170915 A - Keith Eisenbrey
Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge 170915 B - Keith Eisenbrey

We stopped by in the afternoon to reconnoiter. Mostly it was pretty quiet except for a tiny chipmunk that barked at us for several minutes. Its little tail would jerk out with each bitty bark. Not much got on the recording but general wind noise. I did another recording while we took a short walk but had some audio problems. I'm not sure the B session is salvageable.

September 16, 2017
Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge 170916 A - Keith Eisenbrey
Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge 170916 B - Keith Eisenbrey

Back again the next morning, the birds were slightly more active, and the breeze was less. The B session was also a walk and also has some audio problems here and there, but not as bad as the day before. I think I recorded too hot. Be that as it may, it sure was chilly at that hour! The site is not entirely quiet of traffic noise, but it's pretty darn remote.

Playlist

Recorded

August 5, 2015

Webern

2 Songs op. 19 - Webern - London Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Boulez, John Alldis Choir

A crime scene as perceived by Holmes - that is, like a chessboard as perceived by a GM.

Violin Concerto in D - Stravinsky - Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul Sacher, Anne-Sophie Mutter

It gets down to the most disregardable detail of oom-pah, effecting an image of a complex contrapuntal texture by allowing just a few voices to make repeated stuttering do-overs to emerge from the still very clearly delineated actual on-going contrapuntal texture.

Symphony No. 1 - Barber - St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin

Having missed the boat for Sehnsucht we embark for fond regrets and reluctant resolve.

Georgia On My Mind - Delta Rhythm Boys [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Romans Ten and Nine - Bailey Brothers [from Goodbye Babylon]

August 6, 2015
Aviary - Charlie Mariano [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

After the head, solos descend until nothing is left but piano and rhythm.

Tutti Frutti - Little Richard - [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock and Soul]

Little Richard

Mostly just a quick tempo nonsense blues riding on a dynamite cult-of-personality delivery, until it ends with a devastating, final, lonely, solo "boom" that vanishes into the hollow room.

Confidential - The Fleetwoods [from The Very Best of the Fleetwoods, Come Softly To Me]

Mass market intimacy.

Let's Go Get Stoned - Ray Charles [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock and Soul]

If memory serves, one never sees a cigarette touch lips in the film Thank You for Smoking. Likewise, one never hears Ray himself sing or speak the line "Let's go get stoned." His way is to duck and weave.

Symphony in A (#15) - Shostakovich - Moscow Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, Maksim Shostakovich

One could read the musical quotations, from Guillaume Tell and Die Walküre, as a skeleton key to DS's arsenal of symphonic affects and their possible respective political derivations: from public and private revolt.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

August 3, 2015
Banned Rehearsal 891 - Jenny Chung, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt

On the porch again, we begin almost to approach being indistinguishable from the neighborhood of sounds. Neal decided to go home and get some sleep before we started, but Jenny joins us part way through.

Playlist

Recorded

July 6, 2014

Honegger

Symphony #2 - Honegger - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz

first: in lockdown crouching

second: stately, dense, unadorned

third: frantic, with rescue?

Improvisation for the March of Time - Wild Bill Davison [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

turn the wheel and up comes the next. trumpet piano clarinet. cookin' party

Polka Dot  - George Wallington [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

a chunky chord rhythm moving around the beat with the precision of hyper-partchian intonation

Long Tall Sally - Little Richard [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

skates along like a hockey puck

The Fleetwoods

Lavender Blues - The Fleetwoods [from The Very Best of The Fleetwoods - Come Softly To Me]

how it cycles back to the start, angelic smooth envelopment

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (live) - Bob Dylan - [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

building up a rolling to leap over the beat and land at the next measure

Slippin' Into Darkness- War - [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

discrete elements . clear demarcations

July 9, 2014

The Modern Lovers - The Modern Lovers

In the song I'm Straight Jonathan Richman manages a three level conceit:a transcription of a telephone message, a message he wished he had left if he'd had the courage, and (most interestingly) a rehearsal in thought of what to say with all the back-tracking self-conviction of a will working out a decision. Other standouts on the album are Hospital and Government Center. All in all a strong showing, but there is often a tension between a song and its arrangement, as though it was uncomfortable in its clothes.

In Session in the Tintinabulary

July 7, 2014

Gradus 246 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

A new note :: tempo slower than breathing thinner than spill of thought's words

audible resonance :: cognitive resonance

a geography of parsed layers :: trace of tectonic action.

July 13, 2014

Sad Girl - Keith Eisenbrey

track 1 - kick drum and snare

track 2 - vocal

track 3 - hollow body electric guitar

track 4 - suspended lids

Playlist

Live

January 19, 2013

La Cenerentola - Rossini
Seattle Opera - McCaw Hall, Seattle

Whatever else this might be it is certainly among the poster children for works best left to the hopelessly scholastic. In performance the incessant quick patter is numbing rather than amusing (the cloying rats don't help) and then there isn't much of a fairy tale left in the fairy tale: no crystal dancing-shoes, no pumpkin-carriage, no coachmen, no fairy godmother and no evil stepmother (good feminine vs bad feminine). What's left is another tedious story about inherited wealth. And the music is dull to boot. Why is this staged? To lure children to the opera? It seems it would come across as bait and switch. "But Mom! I thought you said this was Cinderella?"

January 26, 2013
Cage/Joyce
Neal Meyer - Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

One7 (The Ten Thunderclaps) - John Cage
Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegans Wake - John Cage

What kind of a thing is a piece of music? A score? A performance? An event? An experience? Webs of thought concerning any grouping of the above? Pools of memory about the webs of thought that concern any grouping of the above? Any, all, and each, in infinitely nuanced inflection?

Neal Meyer & Anna K, Yellowstone National Park, 1988

The overriding strength of the work of John Cage, among the webs of thought that concern each of the above, is its strenuous engagement with the issues of its own epistemological status. Neal has taken these scores as an opportunity to work out, in performance, a constellation of ideas about Cage and Joyce, both through Cage's artifacts relating to Joyce, and also through his own thinking about Joyce in general, and about Finnegans Wake in particular, as a thing to perform. Ages ago, when Neal was living in San Diego, he memorized a large chunk of the first chapter and performed it several times. I was fortunate enough to be in attendance at one such performance: in a cabin at Flag Ranch, on the Snake River just south of Yellowstone National Park. I still have the tape. This night's amazing performance has been a long time cooking.


Recorded

January 21, 2013
Come Softly To Me (a capella version) - The Fleetwoods [from The Very Best of The Fleetwoods]

Nobody does aural soft-porn with quite the dewy-eyed innocence the Fleetwoods manage. That's thin ice, kids. Take care!

Rendezvous - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

An idea for a song. It would have been pretty good for nearly anybody else, but Bruce should have tossed it or finished it. As always, the E-Street Band's performance is full on.

Banned Rehearsal 32 - (May 1985 - Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)

Assemble disparate and mutually incongruent sound activities in a small space. Apply pressure. Attend the textural fallout.

January 22, 2013
Lacrymosa - Keith Eisenbrey

I wrote this piece in 1985 for my Wurlitzer Funmaker Sprite electronic organ, and performed it several times (under a different title) as part of Banned Rehearsal's Three Compositions No Breaks. A few years ago I recorded it on my piano. It is a procession of tokens of the direst moments of mock early expressionistic angstism. It's kind of fun to play.

January 24, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 589 (my recording) - (November 2000 - Pete Comley, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Isabel Kosály-Meyer,  Neal Meyer)

flat

light

wash

beach

damp

In Session at The Tintinabulary

January 21, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 828 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer

Upcoming

Saturday May 4, 2013 at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey and Neal Meyer at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Music for solo piano:
Eisenbrey: Welcome to my planet. I come in peace.
Meyer: Cage - Solo for Piano