Recital!

Hello Oberlin-located folks. My Junior Recital will be on Tuesday the 13th at 6:30 at the Cat in The Cream. Will feature Jules Verne and the debut of my trio with Nathan Swedlow and Ian Mccolm (also known as the rhythm section of Jules Verne) I've been hampered with very poorly timed playing injuries, however I hope it won't stand in the way of having an excellent concert. The program features music of mine from my high school days up to the present, and some other favorites of mine (Bud Powell, Arnold Schoenberg etc.) Please come out! For those of you on the east coast, there will be a show in princeton later in the month, more to come on that soon.

David S. Ware Planetary Unknown Album Review

I almost couldn’t get my head around the idea of there being a new David S. Ware Quartet. Ware has made a more than impressive return to form after having a kidney transplant a few years ago, but nevertheless, how could any group ever rival his classic quartet? This group, with Cooper-Moore on piano, Muhammad Ali on drums and holdover William Parker on bass succeeds by sounding like an entirely different band, not a replacement for the old line-up.

All the signatures of Ware’s sound are here: the rapid and blurred flurries of notes, keening altissimo cries, bleating low-notes and occasional traces of Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins hidden inside the swirling abstract lines. Cooper-Moore has a bond with Ware that goes back to their early days in Boston, and his playing avoids obvious modes of accompaniment, while still complementing the band perfectly. Parker mostly acts as the anchor of the band, something he always does wonderfully. His handful of steps into the musical foreground are highlights of the record. Ali brings echoes of the tradition into the music, with drumming that often verges towards straight swing, but also recalls the free-time of older brother Rashied and others.

The material is all freely improvised, which is expectably significant in making this different from the music Ware recorded with his previous Quartet. Whereas the other band could charge with conviction down a straight path to exalted realms of music, this band is wilier, and darts into many unexpected directions. The 20+ minute opener Passage Wudang rises and crashes like waves without ever fully settling until the somber repeated chords played by Cooper-Moore at the ending. On the saxophone-drum duet Duality is One Ware opens with soft, motivic playing before quickly moving into rushing gusts of notes against Ali’s driving swing. The balladic Divination shows the very tender side of Ware, with delicate and beautiful interplay of sopranino and piano. On Divination Unfathomable, Ware plays shrill and swirling repeated line on sopranino that blend with Parker’s aggressive and growling arco bass while Cooper-Moore and Muhammad Ali paint a splattery, pointillist accompaniment in a moment of refined group interplay.

Ware’s recovery and return to performing and recording is inspired and inspiring. Perhaps this will lead to a personal renaissance for him, bringing with it some of the recognition and respect that this master musician has earned two or three times over now. In the meantime, those in the know have a hell of an album to listen to.

Injury

Yesterday I resolved that I should actually invest sometime in practicing my extended techniques for piano. It has only been something that I do when improvising with others and I have never taken the time to work on it by myself. I reasoned that devoting a little time to that could really help develop the things I have been doing inside the piano into a more mature musical language.

The result is that I have badly hurt my hand from twisting into uncomfortable positions in order to achieve interesting combinations of piano harmonics.

There are also some recordings. Since this is still in a developmental stage, I'd appreciate feedback of any kind.

Lester Young Live and Private Recordings

ubu roi, one of my favorite music blogs has posted what is almost all of the existing live recordings of Lester Young.

http://ubu-space.blogspot.com/2011/02/lester-young-live-and-in-chronological.h

Highly Recommended. Lester Young is one of my favorite musicians of all time. Something about his sound is totally captivating to me. Even when he was playing a busy solo over a fast tempo, there was still a certain of inward-looking wistfulness to his playing. There a appearances by many other great players here, Sweets Edison, Teddy Wilson, Hank Jones, Barney Kessel and others. I do hope you get the chance to hear some of this great music.

Concert 3/19/11

On the 19th of March ( a week from today) I will be performing with a new project that began this winter, a trio with Danny Kamins on reeds and Ian Mccolm on drums. While I've played with Ian a lot before, working with Danny is new and this has been an exciting group so far. We will also be joined by Alex Cohen on guitar for part of the set, and percussionist Ryan Packard will be playing a set before ours. Show starts at 9:30 p.m. Expect awesome.

Spring Semester 2011

A new semester is underway. I am undertaking several projects this semester that I am very excited about

The first is the continuation of Jules Verne, formed this fall with Carl Mitchell on Saxophone, Ian Mccolm on Drums and Dan Pappalardo on Bass. Due to an unfortunate and ongoing injury Dan is not currently playing with us, however the equally capable Nathan Swedlow is now acting in his stead. Of particular interest to me is further exploration of American Folk Music as a source of material. Our first foray into this was a rendition of the Charley Patton song "Some of These Days I'll be Gone" which we rendered in a free expressionist fashion. If you are not familiar with Patton's music I strongly urge you to give it a listen. Fewer people are as crucial to the blues and the roots of American music, and few could put a song over with as much honest soul and down to earth grit. Anyway, that number became a mainstay of our repertoire, and we are now looking for other songs to follow it with. While I was first attracted to the blues, I've also recently grown interested in appalachian area folk music, or old time. Accordingly, I brought in the folk tune "He Rambled," recorded by Charlie Poole and Fiddlin' John Carson, to the quartet. Hopefully this interest will be developed further. We also have plans to make studio recordings in the near future.

Another semester of the Oberlin Improvisation and New Music Collective is also promising. The ensemble is much larger than it was in the fall, which will be a very good challenge. During my time in that ensemble, we have been struggling with the immense difficulties of large group free improvisation. Our last two performances in December were certainly the most cohesive and convincing that we have played so far, and I hope to continue in that direction. I also look forward to improvising in small groups with some of the individuals I have been working with for some time now, Matt Chamberlain Jessie Downs and Doug Farrand, and also with some new collaborators.

Paul Motian at the Village Vanguard 8/31/10

My return to Oberlin has found me to busy to do any writing. I am therefore currently using my recuperation time from this unpleasant cold as a chance to catch up.

Paul Motian at the Village Vanguard 8/31/10

Okay so maybe this was the best show of the summer. Tough call. I have heard Motian's trio with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano live before, and it was quite a show. This show blew that one away.

While Motian's recordings for ECM in the past decade have generally been about restraint and gentle subtlety, they were out for blood this night; it was the most aggressive I have ever heard Paul Motian play. Bill Frisell was the shy guy that night, in the shadows towards the side of the stage, hunching over his guitar. His solos were brooding and introverted but full of dark energy. He mixed jarring dissonance and rhythmic akwardness with twangy folk-like passages. Lovano was the extrovert, gushing tremendous post-Coltrane lines at high speeds, sometimes breaking into his melodic altissimo, one moment holding his saxophone off to the side like Lester Young, the next moment lifting it above his head like Albert Ayler and all of that history there in the music. Motian's playing was typically cryptic and fragmented, giving only the loosest and most round-about references to time. As always, it somehow managed to swing like mad. The trio played through three of Motian's pieces and three by Thelonious Monk. It is my belief that they are one of the very few contemporary groups who bring anything original to Monk's music. The set highlight was was Misterioso. After a very loose and collective take on the theme, Lovano took the first solo- mostly post-Coltrane knotty and sophisticated lines. Frisell followed, still introspective, but bringing in a lot of bluesy grit. Lovano then returned to take a second and longer solo. Halfway in he began referencing the blues heavily too, stomping it out like Illinois Jacquet. Motian's playing became uncharacteristically funky in response. While never playing any really obvious backbeat feel, he communicated his own unique sense of funk. This was a very rare moment for this group, I think.

The Paul Motian Trio is still one of the most innovative groups in contemporary jazz. Motian has nothing left to prove, he's just doing his thing.