Category: Music

THE SOUL AND THE SYSTEM: WHY WRITE?

A long thought provoking post from Kris Tiner on writing about art. I quoted one paragraph. Click the link and read it all.

THE SOUL AND THE SYSTEM: WHY WRITE?:

“I DON’T DOUBT THE ROLE OF THE CRITIC, I don’t challenge the importance of interpretation. Interpretation is the right of any critic or writer, any audience member to compare the experience of art against their own personal experience. This is what is granted by the artist in the sharing of art. I don’t question that. But I do question the submissiveness of an artist in this relationship when that artist doesn’t draw a line between interpretation of their work and representation of their work. An artist who does not place importance on the representation of their work becomes simply a practitioner, a tradesman. It should be the responsibility of the creative artist to use every technique, every technology, every means at their fingertips to communicate the purpose of their art, including the medium of the art itself.”

Classic and rock

Last night was one of those special nights when I get to take part in two completely inspiring and seemingly opposite musical experiences.

The first performance was Haydn’s oratorio, The Creation, with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. I must admit that I have previously dismissed much of the classical period repertoire as “good, but not all that interesting to me.” I guess it was due to combinations of being a trombone player that is into jazz and new music, and just being foolish. Anyway, the bass trombone part to The Creation is pretty involved, so I spent a good bit of time with the piece before we got into rehearsals this week. That, combined with the spirit and joy that Carlos brings to this piece have really made it come alive for me.

After the LPO concert, I headed to dba to play with one of my longest tenured musical friends, Clint Maedgen. Clint and I went to high school together, and have started playing together again recently and it has been a blast. Clint does a wide variety of things, but the show last night consisted of one set of Clint’s tunes, and a set of Beatles tunes. It was a real gas.

It’s funny how two seemingly different musical worlds can get you to the same beautiful place.

Taylor Ho Bynum on brass playing via Lester Bowie

This is a great thought on the possibilities of brass playing. I agree whole-heartedly.

SpiderMonkey Stories » Blog Archive » Lester:

“Patterns are for saxophones…brass should be about blowing down the walls of Jericho, or sounding like a hippopotamus giving birth, or the aural equivalent of a Groucho Marx joke, or in Lester’s case, all of the above. He opened up a whole new world for me as player, a world of squeezes and shapes rather than scales and structures.”

Read the whole post and dig the sounds.

Recent good music hangs – Chicago and Porter’s Birthday

I have noticed that the amount of music I am making is inversely proportional to the amount of time I spend writing here. I guess it is good that I haven’t written much lately, because that means I have been playing a lot.

On December 9th, I spent a very eventful 18 hours in Chicago. BoX3 played the Ears and Eyes Festival, and it was a blast. The festival also provided me the opportunity to hear Zing! and Matt Ulery’s Loom. I have already commented on the Zing! CD, and I picked up a copy of the Matt Ulery’s Loom disc “Music Box Ballerina”, and the James Davis Quintet’s “Angles of Refraction” at the fest. There may be more comments on these CDs later.

Later that night I heard Aram Shelton at the Hungry Brain. The first set was solo Aram with alto sax and laptop. He did a nice job of integrating the two and having it make some sense, which can be very difficult. The second set was Aram with Josh Berman on cornet, Jeff Parker on guitar, Jason Roebke on bass, and Frank Rosaly on drums. They sounded great. I had had a long day and Dan was pouring quickly, so I can’t offer too many specifics, but it was an enjoyable listen, and good to see and hear some friends that I don’t get to see or hear often enough.

Every year on December 26th, George Porter, Jr. has a birthday gig at The Howlin Wolf. This year it was quite a production in honor of George’s 60th year. A Who’s Who of New Orleans music was in attendance, and it seemed like half of them showed up on stage at some point. The Runnin’ Pardner horn section joined PBS for a few tunes from the new CD. At one point I looked over and Ivan Neville had jumped on the vacant B3 that was stage left, and Stanton Moore was on the second drumset. Johnny Vidacovich played, as did Raymond Weber. At one point later, Russell left his drums and went to the B3 and Stanton and Raymond were left at the two drumsets. It was a fun jam, and most of it was pretty musical. George is a special cat, and it was nice to be able to be part of acknowledging that on his 60th birthday.

12 days

I am sure this is making the rounds, but I just saw it this morning (thanks to jw). Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Crazy Cool Kwanzaa, I hope you had a Happy Hannukah, and please have a great anything else that I may have missed.

Zing!

This is a new disc from some Chicago area friends/colleagues. Matt just laid a copy on me this past week, and I have been enjoying it greatly. More info/samples/purchasing info can be found here.

I’ll get to hear them live (and you can too) at the Ears and Eyes Festival in Chicago on December 9, 2007. They will perform right before BoX3 (which is a trio of trombone and electronics that i do with Dan Oestricher and Justin Peake).

Ethan Iverson on Bill McHenry

One of the best music writer lines I have read…ever… contained in this post:Do The Math : Bill McHenry

It’s sort of like Lester Young playing in a bar on Mars.

Ethan’s review of McHenry’s music was so moving that I had downloaded his new album from eMusic even before I got to the Pres line. (Ok, that’s not entirely true. I was trying to download the new album, but eMusic’s poorly administered and insanely frustrating download software was not cooperating. I finally sorted it out, and am now digging the McHenry as I write this.)

Ethan did something else that I respect in a music writer (or any human for that matter), which was be totally upfront about his motives, interests, and any conflicts thereof. Right on.