Composer Steve Reich, age 75, knows secrets of correlating pulsating rhythms and interlocking layers of sycopated melodic patterns which he's eager to reveal in every work he writes. His musical signature is so unwavering it might veer into self-parody, but for the vigor and commitment of his performers. At Carnegie Hall last night four energized new music ensembles poured enthusiasm, precision and a sense of discovery into four recent Reich pieces, making their Master's overlays, cycles and cells variously delightful, ominous, rockin', tense, … [Read more...]
Creative Music Studio, Woodstock at Columbia U and East Village
April 21, 2011 by
My CityArts - New York column is about the Creative Music Symposium, organized by Karl Berger, pianist/vibist with his wife Ingrid Sertso, who cofounded with free-thinking Ornette Coleman of the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock NY (1972-1984). The symposium at Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies (directed by trombonist and digital music innovator George E. Lewis, once a CMS student/participant) last weekend dipped into the history and practices of the CMS, a paradise where cross-genre visionary improvisers … [Read more...]
Vionlinist Billy Bang on being a “tunnel rat” in Viet Nam
April 12, 2011 by
Violinist Billy Bang, died at age 63 on April 11 of cancer, was a composer of enduring, affecting music based on his military service in Viet Nam. Prayer for Peace, Vietnam: Reflections and Vietnam: The Aftermath deal directly, bravely and beautifully with Bang's thoughts and feelings about having been a tunnel rat -- a small soldier dropped into darkness to sniff out what, or who, was a danger underground. Go to my NPR interview with Billy and click "listen." … [Read more...]
Central Brooklyn Jazz Fest reiterates jazz/race divide
April 8, 2011 by
The Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival, during what the Smithsonian Institution promotes as Jazz Appreciation Month, is a powerful statement of hard core, grass-roots support for the music Congress has ratified as "a rare and valuable American national treasure." My City Arts column reports on how the fest and other Brooklyn jazz activities, despite best intentions, reprise the distances and suspicions people of diverse backgrounds hold about each other. … [Read more...]
Subotnick, Lillevan, Unsound make Lincoln Center an electric circus
April 7, 2011 by
Morton Subotnick re-mixes original materials of his prophetic and unprecedented late '60s electronic music classic "Silver Apples of the Moon" with kinetic imagery by video artist Lillevan tonight (April 7) at the Rubenstein atrium of Lincoln Center -- as detailed in my column in City Arts - New York. It's free as part of the 11-day Unsound Festival, an extraordinary schedule of new and unusual multi-media works presented by the Fundcja Tone of Krakow with the Polish Cultural … [Read more...]
Jazz, blues & beyond in Amman: Pops, Bird, Diz, Lady Day @ UJordan
April 3, 2011 by
I spoke on jazz and blues at the University of Jordan, a modern 45,000-student institution, in an event sponsored by the American Embassy while in Amman on family matters a couple weeks ago. About 50 avid students of music, arts and literature and their informed faculty watched videos of Louis Armstrong at age 32 doing "Dinah," Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie playing "Hot House," Billie Holiday with all-stars singing "Fine and Mellow" and Muddy Waters among other immortals from the American Folk Blues Festival, 1962-69, vol. … [Read more...]
