Category: Music

Cool video of an orchestral performance of John Cage’s 4′ 33″.

terminaldegree

Check out this new blog from Bay Area musician Rob Ewing. It’s called Rocketship.

Developing players should from the beginning get used to the idea that all notes are available. Students should be encouraged to experiment with playing any number of notes and note sequences over various harmonic progressions, and get a feel for the way different pitches function on a continuum of relative consonance and dissonance.

You might recognize Rob as the trombonist from Married Couple, who you can hear on Scratch My Brain Podcast #3.

Giving Everything the Supercharged Treatment, Even Ballads – New York Times

Enterprise and industry aren’t qualities often attributed to jazz’s rambunctious outer fringe. In the case of Ken Vandermark, though, they dominate the discussion. Mr. Vandermark, a saxophonist and clarinetist based in Chicago, has spent his career fusing the exploratory fire of free jazz with the do-it-yourself ethos of underground rock.

There’s been lots of noise around Mozart’s 250th birthday…or maybe he died 250 years ago…I forget sometimes. Anyway, I came across this via The Bad Plus’ blog.

Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise: Celebrate Mozart by ignoring Mozart

As I once wrote, if Mozart were alive today, he’d be dead. If you really want to celebrate Mozart’s world, Mozart’s culture, Mozart’s life, you would ignore the man himself and listen to music by a living composer.

Papo Vazquez in the NYT (free registration req.)

His Carnival in San Juan CD is one of my favorites.

High Rhythmic Energy With a Puerto Rican Flair – New York Times

Everything about Mr. Vazquez’s music demands attention. Even when sitting in the middle of big-band brass sections, Mr. Vazquez, a presence in New York Latin jazz since the 1970’s, stood out: he made a quick and ready intelligence bristle in each note. … — Mr. Vazquez seems to want to give his own band the tense, ecstatic feel of a constant moña.

His septet, Pirates and Troubadours, which played at the Jazz Standard on Tuesday, doesn’t perform Cuban clave rhythms. Active off and on for about 10 years, and too seldom heard for the thrill it generates, it builds on the rhythms of bomba and plena music, African-derived just like the Cuban rumba, but with different patterns and different drums.

This article (found via Tim Niland’s blog) is a nice look at one of today’s busier and more influential musicians.

Bassist Dave Holland has found his bliss in his bands

The band exemplifies Holland’s artistic raison d’être: to play vital music with musicians with whom he feels an aesthetic and social bond.

“For me, music is a group effort, a thing you do with people,” said Holland — who in his 40-year career has played with such artists as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Stan Getz, Jack DeJohnette, Pat Metheny and Roy Haynes.

“It requires a certain cooperation, a respect for each other,” he said. “There are a lot of good things you can learn from it. It’s a lot of what life’s about, being nice to the person who’s sitting next to you, being effective in small ways. I think that’s all we can do.”

I love the concept of music as a social interaction amongst the musicians. The best music is often made by people with a social as well as musical connection.