---

Road Reports 2006
(click pics to enlarge)

For upcoming concert dates, go here

January

January 1 St. Mark's Poetry Project New Year's Day Marathon - NYC
I arrive at St. Mark's prepared to perform solo with the Godin and possibly play a duo piece with Edwin Torres that we recorded in September. Edwin's throat is sore so rather than compete with a guitar, he decides to go it alone. I run into dancer/choreographer Yoshiko Chuma, an old friend and collaborator. She's not sure what she wants to do so we end up making an impromptu 8-minute piece. Besides her unpredictable and beautiful movements on stage, she also goes out into the audience and interacts very directly and physically with me. We end up having a great and highly charged time.

January 21 John Moran and His Neighbor Soari Present at Galapagos - Brooklyn
I've been using every spare moment to work on "Proof Of Erdos" (a commissioned piece for the Hamburg-based string group Ensemble Resonanz, to be premiered at Witten Tages fur Neue Kammermusik in May) so this chance to get out and play is most welcome. John Moran creates wonderfully strange operas that continuously change the framing of the onstage reality - they're narrative and engaging but also abstract and thought-provoking. He's long worked with Galapagos, a performance-oriented club in now-upscale boho Williamsburg and for this evening, he's invited Yoshiko Chuma and I to perform a 20-minute set on a bill with excerpts from his operas, a newly-arrived theater group, and Philip Glass doing a rare piano solo. The theatrical works are very much influenced by Richard Foreman's work. Glass presents 2 of his etudes, the second of which I very much like and is based on a pungent seventh chord with ornamental arpeggiated filigree. It's only unfortunate that he's playing on the provided Kurzweil keyboard that only barely approximates the sound of a piano. The music is gorgeous but "real" timbres would add so much more harmonic richness to the sound. Yoshiko and I expand on our New Year's Day concepts and do a dynamic, sometimes violent, sometimes humorous set to great response.

February

T.E.C.K. String Quartet - Portugal Tour, Feb 4-8

February 4 Casa de Musica - Porto
Aside from the two gigs with Yoshiko, January was mostly spent in front of the computer (when not hanging with J and the twins!) working on Proof Of Erdos, a commissioned piece for Hamburg's Ensemble Resonanz which will premier this coming May at Wittener Tages fur Neue Kammermusik. I welcomed this opportunity to briefly hit the road for the premier gigs and recording of T.E.C.K. String Quartet, an improvising project conceived by Pedro Costa of the Cleanfeed label in Lisbon. The group comprises Portuguese violinist Carlos Zingaro, cellist Tomas Ulrich, bassist Ken Filiano, and myself on guitar. The idea is for the group to be completely acoustic - we compromise a bit by including pickups, essential for the larger halls. I bring the Godin and my National Tricone, its' first time out of the country! With a strong tailwind we have a quick flight to Lisbon where we're met by Carlos and Pedro with the van at the airport at 6am, still dark. We hit a nearby pasteleria for a quick breakfast of fine pastries and great coffee and we're off to Porto, about 2.5 hours on the road, and then have the day free to sleep in at the hotel and walk in Porto. We have our first rehearsal that evening at the hall, henceforth referred to as "the spaceship." Just opened in April of 2005, "the spaceship" is an ultramodern facility in a style of architecture known as "Star Trek." It's labyrinthine and a bit cold plus there's elaborate security. Still, the staff is extremely friendly and helpful and the rehearsal room is quite fine, with excellent acoustics. The post-rehearsal dinner at a nearby restaurant is more than excellent. The next day is free but for an early soundcheck on the stage. Again, great acoustics although on the large stage we feel a certain separation from each other in comparison to the intimate sound of the rehearsal for which we try to compensate with concentrated listening. Many surprises in our improvisations and we feel that the first concert is successful, both for us and for the enthusiastic audience. We're just getting started in figuring out the dynamics of this group.

February 5
We arrive in the afternoon in Lisbon and go directly to Pedro's house in nearby Cascais for a wonderful lunch and to meet his wife Manuela and his 2-month old baby Vicente. A free evening so I meet up with guitarist/composer Vitor Rua and friends including artist Joanna Vasconcelos for another incredible dinner, this time at a seafood place in Belem after which we visit Joanna's studio to see her latest projects.

February 6 Colegio Vasca da Gama - Sintra
A junior-highschool (ages 12-15) assembly i which we play some group and solo pieces and speak about our playing, instruments, and improvisation. There are a number of focussed questions by the students until one faculty member in drawing (later we find out he's known as a reactionary neo-con with a disruptive "anti-liberal" agenda - very common in schools throughout the world these days, not just in the USSA) rhetorically asks why anyone should be quiet for this since it's not really music and no one likes it anyway. some of his students cheer but most are horrified and in fact we are strongly defended by other faculty members and he storms out. After, many students come up to us to tell us about their own playing and how much they liked the presentation.

February 6 Trem Azul Jazz Store - Lisbon
This is a fantastic record store with a mostly jazz catalog but other things as well. They have regular concerts and by moving the display cases around, can hold about 100 people. The place is packed and we play one long set that ranges widely from whispers to tumultuous flailing - we can hear ourselves wonderfully well in the slightly resonant space. We're thrilled as is the audience.

February 7 Workshop - Faro
Another 2.5 hour drive, this time directly south to Faro, a port city known for it's seafood - lunch does not disappoint! Afterwards, fortified by cups of strong bean, we head to a nearby rehearsal studio/music school and present a workshop for about 25 local musicians. Again, we play, talk, and answer questions, especially about the nature and history of non-idiomatic improvisation and whether or not that's a misnomer. One thing that all of the members of T.E.C.K. are agreed upon is that we have no "rules" for our improvising contrary to the very dogmatic "free improvisation" of the English players associated with Company, LMC, etc.

February 8 Teatro Lethes
A 19th Century theatre built for opera, like a "mini" La Scala. Pedro touted the acoustics to us as the best place to record, and he has not exaggerated. We have a remote multitrack recording setup and engineer from Lisbon and we spend the afternoon setting up and recording a few pieces, reserving our main energies for the concert. Again, many unpredictable interactions and beautiful sounds, all well-heard. The audience is a bit remote but their presence is still felt and we believe that we have a fine completion to the tour and look forward to the release of the CD and the next concerts.

February - China
Last November I received an email out of the blue from guitarist John Myers who was visiting in Beijing telling me how interesting things were and to get in touch with old friend Michael Pettis if I was interested in performing there. Michael ran a short-lived but high-impact little club in the East Village in 1983 called S.I.N. Club where I performed solo and with Carbon and which also saw performances of John's band Rat At Rat R, Sonic Youth, Swans, and many others. Michael now lives and teaches in Beijing - we worked out details and it was planned that I would come in February to do a concert at the Yugong Yishan bar, two unannounced shows at smaller bars, and a talk at the Computer Music department of Peking Music Conservatory - at the last minute a show was added in Shanghai. Early flight to Chicago and from there 13 hours of smooth flying to Beijing until the final approach over the mountains with some hairy maneuvers over the craggy peaks and down to the desert plain where Beijing sits. The air gets progressively browner and thicker as we finally land in the thick pollution. I'm met at the airport by drummer/synthesist Shenjin of Hang In The Box and guitarist Jeffray of Car Sick Cars, both leading bands of the burgeoning Beijing underground scene. Their duo is called White and they will open for me and we will improvise together. I sojourn to the hotel which is in the north center near the Bell and Drum Towers, an older area still filled with hutongs, narrow alleys of tiny shops and houses. After a short rest, I join them and Michael for the first of many amazing meals. The restaurant is on one of the small lakes in the center (now frozen) and the food is bright and flavorful, far beyond most NYC Chinese food.

February 22
This morning is free for my first walk around the area. I discover that Beijing drivers give little quarter to pedestrians and a green "walk" signal just makes you an easier target. To my horror, there are even SUV's and they seem to have the same effect on their drivers that these vehicles have in the USA, reducing intelligence and judgement to a tiny smear. I walk through busy shopping streets with blasting hip-hop and sales entreaties down to the area of the lakes and wander around the hutongs and later meet Shenggy and Jeff in the afternoon to take a 30-minute taxi ride over wide highways packed with careening cars and oblivious drivers to the Chingua district for a rehearsal in a practice room in a dingy rock club, feeling very much like CBGB. The city is vast and grim and filled with huge highrise residences over its expanse. At night, there is little neon to give even a false impression of festivity except in a few places - the overall feeling is of a city desolate or at least dormant. This will all change in the coming years. Only the old center has low buildings because of the paranoia of the government which forbids construction high enough to allow anyone to peer into the centers of operation. There are only a few Internet cafes but most don't have wireless and a decent espresso is even more scarce - I've brought my Medaglia D'Oro Instant Espresso on this trip and it's proved it's worth in the hotel and for those times when the monkey screams.

February 23 ?What Bar
More walking in the central area in the daytime and a trip to Chingua to check email at Sculpting In Time (where they do know how to make a ristretto!) Tonight is the premiere unadvertised show and the venue is the ?What Bar, literally a hole-in-the-wall just north of the Forbidden City with not much of a barrier between it's inside and outside - consequently it shares the frigid temperature of Beijing in February. It's a tiny place reminiscent of some Japanese "live house" or some US punk bars and is home to the Beijing underground rock scene. The house equipment is pretty tired though a pair of Laney solidstate amps work surprisingly well. I've brought the solidbody 8string and while I prefer to have both bass and guitar amps, the 12" Laney is more than adequate in the cramped confines of the ?What. The house is smoky and totally packed with 30 or 40 people, a mix of local musicians, journalists, and foreigners. The evening begins with White and their set comprises analog synth drones, noise loops, and minimalist grooves that expand into huge crescendi. The space is not conducive to using the computer so for my solo it's the 8string with my slides, spring bows, Dynacomp,Tube Screamer, Ultra Fuzz and Boomerang. We finish with an improvised trio of jagged crashes, noisy loops, and freeform grooving to great response. This gig, like all that follow, is notable by the sea of red LED's of recording: audio, video, cameras.

February 24 Dos Kolegas
Daytime tour with Shenggy around the Forbidden City then off to the club for soundcheck around 6 for the second show aimed at the Beijing underground community of artists, musicians, and writers. This club is in a somewhat remote area with a drive-in movie theatre (!?!), a small lake, and a tiny strip of bars. Heat is also in short supply but equipment a bit better and I use a recent Fender Bassman that sounds pretty good. I also set up the computer for a Tectonics set. Soundcheck is very promising so we retire to a nearby restaurant and return to a packed house, over 100 people and play hot sets. The only problem is the difficulty in getting the sound engineer to turn down the monitor mix - it's BLASTING and gets louder as the set proceeds.

February 25 Yugong Yishan
The most well-equipped of the clubs with a capacity of a few hundred. The audience includes a large expat contingent of media-types, fashionistas, and press who mostly are there to make the scene more than to listen. Still, the house is packed with people crushed up to the front who are focussed and enthusiastic. Doro and Lu, the owners of the club, show us great hospitality and have a talented video crew shooting the show and doing a live mix - we can see it projected on a side wall. This is a late late night and I return to the hotel in time to get just 2 hours of sleep before heading to the airport for our flight to Shanghai.

February 26 Zhu Qizhan Museum - Shanghai
Weather is bad over our route and the flight is 2 solid hours of lurching, bumping, and shaking rendering sleep impossible. We make it though and we take a taxi to the hotel where our host Sun meets us and brings us to an excellent nearby restaurant for lunch after which we head to the museum for soundcheck. It's a beautiful modern facility with an active program in contemporary art. Unfortunately, we don't have the proper equipment to accomplish soundcheck so while things are rounded up, I go back to the hotel for a rest and return in time to set up. Jeff and Shenggy are just finishing their check and we break while the audience enters. Some excellent coffee is cooked up and we're soon onstage. There's a full house, more than expected given the short notice of the show - it's a young audience and the buzz is tangible and they surround and spill over onto the stage. White's set smokes and my solo set follows suit. We dig in for the trio and the audience demands more - we happily comply. Quick pack of the equipment to the hotel and we head first to the Bund to view the colorful waterfront skyline and then to a late-night restaurant for an incredible meal.

February 27 Computer Music Center of Peking Conservatory
Directed by Ken Fields, a former East Village neighbor, the CEMC has strong programs in soundart, electroacoustic music, composition, and conceptual approaches. I was invited to give a talk on various aspects of my work to a small but enthusiastic audience. After class, we headed to a Xinjiang restaurant for a final meal in Beijing before my departure the next day. Xinjiang is a western province of China and its population, the Uighur people, are Muslim. Its delicious cuisine shares many facets with that of Uzbekistan and Turkey. Post-dinner, we headed off to a gritty studio in the outskirts where I was interviewed on-camera for a documentary film being made of this trip. Late night back at the hotel and an early start to the airport for fine flights to San Francisco and then on to JFK.

March

March 2 Quarks Swim Free - Stone - NYC
Butch Morris is the curator and he invites me to utilize this evening - my choice is to perform Quarks Swim Free with a group including Rudresh Mahanthappa, Curtis Fowlkes, Rachel Golub on violin, Kevin Ray, Danny Tunick, Kinan Azmeh, Jenny Lin, Tomas Ulrich, Ron Lawrence, and Tim Sessions substituting at the last minute for trombonist Art Baron.
It was a standing joke during the early '90's that if Carbon was performing, the weather would be abominable. This seemed like a return to those days with heavy snow predicted. The actuality was snow mixed with freezing rain and sleet making for a slushy mess in the city. Heavy snow upstate prevented Ron Lawrence from making the gig so we proceeded as a tentet. I combined conducting with playing on bass clarinet and the Godin and the all-acoustic group was responsive and "electrified." The two sets proceeded with very different arcs: the first expansive and wide-ranging in approaches to the written material; the second more dense, compact, intense. Decent audience given the wretched weather.

March 8 Extreme Guitar Project - Italian Cultural Institute _ NYC
Record-release party for Marco Cappelli's Extreme Guitar Project CD on Mode. In the grand tradition of record-release parties, the CD is absent having been delayed by a mistake in printing. After performing the entire program for some months now, Marco is living in the compositions and they flow and breathe. His rendition of my Amygdala is especially strong.

March 14-15 "This Is Now" - Merkin Hall - NYC
A collaboration with writer/performer Eric Bogosian, "This Is Now" had its genesis in our work together on the track "No Crime" for the Radio Hyper-Yahoo CD. For T.I.N., we began working from Eric's first draft which we recorded at Studio zOaR and then honed in discussion and improvisation. I would record possible sound textures, grooves, and instrumental parts. We would also spontaneously try various approaches. Ultimately, we developed a timeline/structure of four sections with instrumental interludes. The music hovered between underscoring and sound-design. I created grooves and textures for the various routines using various hardware and software combinations including a Korg MS20, ReBirth, an old R8 drum machine, a Filter Factory, and a PCM42 and finally decided to use the Koll 8string, the Godin acoustic, and my Selmer Mark VI tenor sax for the "live" aspect with a Kaoss pad and Boomerang for processing of the instruments and soundfiles. The text is rant/meditation on the state of "the present": political, cultural, spiritual, social, personal, the war, self-indulgence, responsibility. Eric is a dynamic performer, angry, warm, hilarious. Merkin has a capacity of about 350 persons and is a fine balance of intimate and grand. Great crew and equipment made us feel extremely welcome. The full house loved it both nights and on the second responded with an extended ovation.
(photo by Paula Cort)

March 23 "Vortices" premiered by Kinan Azmeh - CUNY Graduate Center
Kinan is a virtuosic clarinetist whom I first met when the New Juilliard Ensemble performed "Racing Hearts" in 2001. I subsequently invited him to participate in the Anti-Occupation benefits at the Knitting Factory and as part of Orchestra Carbon in performances of "Quarks Swim Free." For this concert mixing clarinet with electronics, he asked if I would compose a piece for him and "Vortices" is the result. The score includes a series of notated modules that each may be repeated. The composed material interacts with a menu of suggested processing and a soundfile prepared from my own clarinet sounds. The performer has great latitude in how the processing and soundfile is used. I was quite happy with this initial performance though both Kinan and I agreed on elements to be tweaked for any subsequent presentations. More about Kinan's work at: http://www.kinanazmeh.com/

March 27 Talk: An Autobiographical Presentation of Composition and Performance - Venezia
Always happy to return to Italy and fly out from JFK and enjoy solid sleep until we approach Frankfurt where high winds and gusts keep us circling for 45 minutes before landing and catching my flight to Venice with breathtaking view of the snow-capped Dolomiti during our Alpine crossing. Time for my first cafe doppio and then off to the Teatro Fondamente Nuove for a concert of music by basso Nicholas Isherwood and Stefano Bassanese. Virtuosity, passion, humor, and great sounds - a wonderful evening capped off by Kagel's "Polyphonie." We all repair to a fine ristorante for post-concert dinner. The next day is my talk in Venezia. I'm a guest at the palazzo of soprano Donella DellMonaco who is also hosting this event under the auspices of the Philosophy Department of the University where I address about 20 professionals and students with an overview of my work, touching on my thoughts and definitions of composition and improvisation, digital art, the sweat factor, and installation and also bring in autobiographical elements as a way of developing the threads of my activities. The 3.5 hours goes rapidly and there is interesting response and questions from the participants. After, (of course) another wonderful dinner!

28 Solo "Velocity Of Hue" Teatro - Padova
Take the train the next morning to nearby Padova where I will perform this evening at the Teatro of the Conservatory. The hall has excellent acoustics and the stage is dominated by a modern pipe organ which I would love to experiment with (but no chance on this day.) One long set digging into the various gestures of the "Velocity" and "Quadrature" pieces - the sections with computer processing seem to work especially well this evening. Great audience and I play 2 encores with the final one an extended exploration of DADGAD tuning with some effective harmonic tapping. It's great to have old friends John Duncan and Massimo Ongaro (not to mention friend and Padova promoter Veniero Rizzardi!) at the concert and after at the restaurant where dinner (and the post-dinner grappa) extends until very late in the night. Early call to get to the airport but late taxi plus tons of traffic in Padova and an accident on the Autostrada to Venezia made the trip quite torturous - fortunately the driver was able to extricate us from the highway and take back roads to arrive just in time to check in and find that my flight was delayed. Finally off to Frankfurt and circled airport for 45 minutes because of the same weather conditions that I experienced on Sunday. Landed at last and ran through security and arrived at the gate just as it was closing - found that I'd been upgraded (fine with me: champagne and a nice seat insured a good sleep home.) When we arrived at the gate at JFK, a dozen cops entered the plane and we all sat for 30 minutes - seems that an elderly woman had expired during the flight! Finally deplaned and the last touch: my suitcase lost - it was located and delivered the next day with the zipper destroyed though the contents intact.
(photo by Veniero Rizzardi)

April

April 1 Limbic Trio at Cornelia St. Cafe - NYC
Sonny Rollins once said in an interview "Joy is playing the saxophone." While I believe this applies to any and every instrument, I can't argue with the rightness of his specific assertion. Before moving to NYC in 1979, saxophones played a larger role in my musical activities - at the urging of my teacher Roswell Rudd in 1972 I augmented my guitar playing with alto sax which soon branched up and down to the soprano and tenor horns. Living in frigid Buffalo and in western Massachusetts, practicing the tenor was both enlightening and a way to keep warm in homes where the cost of keeping it too cold was sometimes more than the rent. Many of my current projects include outlets for the horn but I was craving a classic "jazz" situation with acoustic bass and drums - no guitar and a chance to stretch on both the tenor and soprano in extended improvisations based on composed cores. Under the rubric Limbic Trio I invited drummer Don McKenzie and bassist Kevin Ray to join me. With no discussion and only a brief soundcheck, we dug in and covered a wide range of gestures and textures in the course of 2 sets, testing both endurance and invention to a receptive full house. Hot sweaty joyous work!

April 7 Either Or Ensemble at Tenri Gallery - NYC
Richard Carrick, composer and pianist, with violinist Andrea Schultz, flutist Jane Rigler, clarinetist Anthony Burr, and percussionist/cymbalom player David Shively comprise this virtuosic group performing a wide variety of composers. This evening's program includes works by Carrick himself, John Zorn, Daniel Felsenfeld, Gyorgy Kurtag, and my Oligosono for solo piano. The Kurtag miniatures are gorgeous and enigmatic. Richard's own work is filled with tantalizing sounds and is over too quickly and his performance of Oligosono is powerful and emotional with the live acoustics of the gallery emphasizing the ringing overtones on which the work is based.

April 19 Suberrebus - Loyola College - Baltimore
This is a presentation for students at the college by the Contemporary Music Forum with whom Jenny Lin is performing. Also on the program are compositions by . Suberrebus is for piano with computer processing and was commissioned by Jenny for her upcoming Koch CD "The Eleventh Finger" which will also include pieces by Ligeti, Viviers, Randy Nordschau, and Arthur Kampela. We first perform the piece in a slightly abbreviated version after which I speak about its construction and technical operations and about my work and ideas in general, take some questions, and finally, perform some sections again.

April 20 E# + Jenny Lin - An Die Musik - Baltimore
A return to this resonant room with its pink plush seats and rich resonant sound. Faced with incorrect equipment, we retire to a nearby cafe for a bite and caffeination, return to meet the proper tech, do a quick setup/soundcheck, and take the stage. Jenny begins with the Kampela piece Nosturnos and then performs a more extended version of Suberrebus. The processing sounds fine in the room and we're quite pleased with these first live performances of the piece. I switch to guitar and do a 35 minute set of Velocity of Hue/Quadrature, only bringing the computer in towards the end. Jenny then rejoins me for a duo improvisation, our first time performing in this formation.

"Bushdead" pic courtesy of http://www.natural-creations.co.uk
April 23 Contemporary Music Forum at The Corcoran Gallery - Washington, DC
A repeat of the program at Loyola with the pieces allowed to expand to their full lengths. Composers or performers are asked to say a few words before each piece and I speak about how even while thinking about the formalism of a composition and the act of performing it, being in Washington, DC can't help but remind me of the coup d'etat that brought Bush and his cabal to power and how their so-called "culture-of-life" is responsible for the deaths of between 100,000 and 300,000 Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children. Jenny and I play a BURNING version of Subberrebus. Afterwards at the reception, a number of people came up to thank me for mentioning the political realities and connecting it with art. Others were notably hostile.

April 28 Stazione Gheroarte - Milano
A return to this small train station converted into an art and performance space on the outskirts of the city. This is a record release party for guitarist Simone Massarone's CD "Breaking News" to which I contributed some guitar and lap steel parts. The band includes Steve Piccolo on bass and singing, drummer Teziano Tononi, and saxophonist Daniele Cavallanti. Nels Cline is in town to play on Daniele's next recording and he joins us for parts of the second set - it's a rare treat to hang and play with Nels, especially in Europe. The room isn't conducive to the sound density we're generating but still, we try to keep the levels down and dig right in. I play Steve's ES335 - not my usual type of guitar but it plays like butter and sounds fine. Good improvisations throughout and a noisy 3-guitar version of Creedence's "Run Through The Jungle" with Steve's angry but laconic vocals - a would-be Bush-era hit if there ever should be one. In Howlin' Wolf's biography, Fogerty is quoted as saying that he was trying to write a Wolf song with this one. The 29th is spent in a Milan recording studio with Nels working on our duo CD. We do a long set of electric improvs followed by an acoustic set. Simone brings a number of interesting guitars for us to use including a custom fretless solidbody, a 60's Eko solid, a 60's Rom semi-hollow, and a custom 12-fret acoustic with a fine big neck and gorgeous sound. Producer Fabrizio Perissinotto also brought a new PRS Hollowbody which I used on one track. We're quite pleased with all of the results and look forward to mixing and editing. Sunday is a free day and on Monday I go to Treviso to meet with Donella Dell Monaco and musicians associated with her to discuss a project for the upcoming Bienalle in Venice.

May

May 2 Stockwerk - Graz
A long day's travel by train from Treviso to Austria through mountainous Slovenia. Twenty minutes in Sevnica waiting for a change of trains, enough time to take in the air and abundant birdsongs and then enjoy espresso and apfelstrudel as we roll through the hills. The Stockwerk is a small performance space and bar upstairs from the American Embassy (i.e. MacDarnolds) and it's walls carry its illustrious history of presenting new jazz. Quick setup/soundcheck and off for a bite then two sets and an encore.
The first set is Quadrature and Velocity of Hue material - no surprises for me but I enjoy the sound of the room and audience's listening and the 45 minutes pass in a flash. After a short intermission I retune to DADGAD and try various possibilities. I've patched in the Boomerang and Ultra Fuzz which I'd brought for the Milano work and upcoming Paris recording and have some looping and layering fun. I like the hands-free aspect of the Boomerang's operation and will at some point want to set up a footswitch for controlling my MAX patch. I reference some Manhattan Delta blues at a few points and finish the set with the MAX processing though this is problematic on this evening. The Aux Send on the mixing desk onstage is intermittent - sometimes it sends a very hot level, sometimes nothing so I hardly use it at all during the set, waiting until near the end "just in case." Finally, I retune to standard tuning and perform Bemsha Swing to great response. For an encore I try a new tuning made up on the fly which gives me harmonics very reminiscent of Balinese gamelans.

May 3 Miles Smiles - Wien
A small but inviting room in the 8th District which has been presenting jazz and improvised music for 25 years in Wien. I have 2 small powered studio speakers on my table and it's great to have such control of my monitoring and the computer. Wonderful hospitality from Christoph and Harry (including the potent Turkish coffee they cook up) and a full house. I perform two sets, the first in DADFAD, the second beginning in DADGAD and switching to Spanish for Bemsha Swing, Vestapol for the first encore of a warped blues, and finally the new DBbDEbBbD for the final. I greatly enjoy the intimacy of the space and the direct feedback from the attentive audience. Many old friends in attendance, one of the pleasures of returning to Wien.

May 4 Haus Concert - Frankfurt
My dear friends Clair Ludenbach and Bernd Leukert "cooked" up the idea of having a salon for this night in their home. They've previously presented Indian classical musicians and the ultimate reward after the concert itself is Clair's genius in the kitchen. Percussionists Robyn Schulkowsky and Joey Baron had only minimal setups: some small snare drums, bamboo windchimes, and metallophones and objects but also Robyn's custom-made Paiste gong from which she elicits an orchestra's worth of sounds (in fact, Joey and Robyn wring an astounding array of sounds from their assembled kits). We at first planned to play only short pieces but the tiny fragments of our first piece stretched and morphed themselves into a 20 minute opus. The second piece lasted nearly an hour and then we finally played a short encore. Sounds ranged from delicate textures to complex polyrhythmic grooving and vibrating soundfields. Again, old friends and colleagues in attendance for a very gemütlich evening that lasted until quite late.

May 5 Westwerk - Hamburg
Early train to Hamburg so that I may attend the rehearsal of the Ensemble Resonanz for the premiere of my piece "Proof Of Erdos" the next day in Witten. The Ensemble is a great young group of string players from Hamburg - check out their recent Xenakis CD on Mode! I've planned to allow plenty of time to stow my things at the Westwerk and make my relaxed way to rehearsal nearby at the Musikhalle. Reality impinges. The train stops in Hamburg-Harburg, just about 10 minutes from the main station and there we sit with doors locked for half an hour. Finally it's announced that for unknown reasons, this train and all others on the main line will not be going to the Hauptbahnhof. The nearby S-bahn (subway/streetcar) will go there though and the train empties with its hordes descending into the station towards a waiting train. Total chaos and obviously no possibility to make this train so I decide to attempt a taxi, an idea which has also occurred to about 200 other people and there are no taxis in sight. Back down and eventually arrives another S-bahn. I just make it on and portray a steamed sardine: the weather is warm, the heat is on in the train, and it is TOTALLY packed. Twenty excruciating minutes later I reach the station and a quick taxi to Westwerk. Just enough time to run through the shower, guzzle one of Matthew's lightning espressos and head to rehearsal. I arrive just after they have begun the run-through.
Conductor Sian Edwards has done a fine job and it's a thrill to hear the real manifestation of a piece previously heard only in my head or through the notation program's sound playback. As we proceed, there is an interruption as some workmen in the hall need to remove a piano. We stop and attempt to use the time to discuss various issues in the piece but spend more of the break listening to the fantastic sounds of a grand piano being prepared for moving and then, the spectacle of the three men strapping the piano on and carrying it away. Within "Proof Of Erdos" there are some ambiguities to clarify, some dynamics and tempi to adjust, and a few other mods but the piece pretty much works as intended. In the time remaining we listen to our tweaks with the ensemble and I then head off to soundcheck at the Westwerk, a fairly simple matter. Two sets tonight which follow the structure of the Wien show with, again, good control of the electronics and some interesting resonance manipulation in the second set. Finding new realms in the tapping sections and the new piece in the encore is beginning to find its form. The night ends in a nearby plaza sitting under the stars sipping cognac with friends.

May 6 Wittener Tages Fur Neue KammerMusik - Witten
Another early start for what should be a simple journey to arrive in time for the dress rehearsal and WDR recording of "Proof Of Erdos." The closer we get to Dortmund, the slower the train goes and the longer it stops at stations. I'd left 20 minutes to change trains, normally more than enough but arrive far too late to make my connection. The reason is a football game in Dortmund: ample evidence abounds with throngs of drunken young thugs shouting and singing and accumulated puddles of beer and vomit (this is well before the game has even begun.) When the next train finally arrives, it disgorges more fans - the now-empty train reeks. Still, it's only 10 minutes to Witten and soon enough, I'm checked in at the hotel and off to the Rudolf Steiner Schule where this afternoon's event will take place. The taxi driver cannot seem to find the Schule and we drive up and down the street before locating it. Now I'm wandering the grounds with no sign of the auditorium, eventually finding it and the recording session in progress and arriving in the nick of time for my piece.
The run-through is perfect but for some coughing from one of the violinists. We re-record this section for possible insert later and also record the last few bars to achieve a more compact ending. Short break and the house opens for the concert. Also on the program are excellent pieces by Erik Oña (with Amy Williams and Helena Rugallo on piano), Maria Cecilia Villanueva, and Sebastian Stieg. "Proof Of Erdos" is brilliantly played by the ensemble with the hall's great acoustics bringing out the combination tones and audio artifacts built into the piece. I used prime numbers to construct various elements that make up the operating system of this music. It's about 20 minutes in duration, quite a feat of endurance for the players because of the sometimes-relentless bowing techniques needed to manifest the sounds in certain places. The piece is an homage to the eccentric mathematician Pal Erdös who died in 1996. His specialty was number theory and he lived a nomadic life, collaborating with thousands of mathematicians. One of his mottoes: "Another roof, another proof." Thanks to Harry Vogt for commissioning this work! This festival in Witten attracts the contemporary music community from all over Europe and is as much trade fair as it is convocation of arts with composers, performers, publishers, bookers, and critics all rubbing elbows with audience members from the environ. I was happy to hear Arditti Quartet play a new Jonathan Harvey piece but was severely disappointed in its' electronic processing by IRCAM. Sounds that might have been interesting 30 years ago just sounded banal and hackneyed and the microphones were placed too far away from the instruments to achieve a good detailed signal. The piece itself would have sounded splendid if played acoustically. Later, I saw an enjoyable music-theatre piece with audio on tape by the Berlin group Les Femmes Savants.

May 7 Flat Earth Society + E# - Fete d'Iris Feest - Brussels
Given the previous days' travel probs, I didn't trust the ability of the German rail system to deliver me to Aachen in time for my train to Belgium. The soundcheck is at 3 in the afternoon so I have very little leeway in case of anomaly and decide to take a much earlier itinerary - more connections but a larger window. Sleep is sacrificed again but at least I'm reasonably certain of arriving in time. So what can go wrong? Here 'tis: with 35 minutes left before arriving in Aachen I decide to catch a few winks and set the alarm in my phone for 15 minutes of Morpheus. Ten minutes later at Düren, I awake suddenly to see a man in railroad uniform grab my guitar from the overhead rack and run off just as the doors close and the train pulls out! I'm a little groggy and can't believe it at first. I run off to find the conductor and attempt to communicate in my severely challenged German that my guitar has been stolen. An English-speaking German nearby joins in with the account of what happened. Apparently some old busybody lady reported that there was an abandoned guitar in the rack above my head. Did the railroad man wake me and ask if the guitar over my head was mine? NO! Un-fucking-believable! Calls are made back to Düren and it's determined that the guitar will arrive in Aachen on the next train. Thirty minutes to kill so into the station for breakfast then return to meet the train and retrieve the guitar, MUCH relieved! The irony is NOT lost on me that the train bearing my axe is the same train that I would have arrived on if I had stuck to the original itinerary. But who can say what might have happened? I might have had an extra 30 minutes of sleep and a nice breakfast in the hotel, plus a relaxed ride and easy change. OR....
In any case, I'm met at Brussels Midi and we eke through the Sunday traffic to my hotel and then to soundcheck with Flat Earth Society, a 14-piece orchestra led by clarinetist Peter Vermeersch (who I've known for many years with his previous band X-Legged Sally) and whose music ranges from tightly controlled arrangements including jazz, rock, oompah, and blues to soundscapes and free improvisation, all played energetically and with a wonderful sense of absurdity. This is an afternoon city festival and we're playing in a large tent with adjoining bar. I join them on three songs and an encore of "Caravan" - in the middle of this I do a 10 minute solo in standard tuning that traverses varied sonics using the Godin plus Boomerang and fuzz. After us is the guitar duo of Philip Catherine and Sylvain Luc playing empathic and virtuosic versions of standards.. It's a pleasure to meet Philip after listening to him for many years - he's a soulful and inventive player. One benefit of an afternoon concert is an evening free for a relaxed dinner and a chance for a walk and to read W.G. Sebald's "Campo Santo."
At the station the next morning, Philip, Sylvain, and I have coffee and share tales before parting company: Sylvain to Paris, Philip to his Brussels home, I to Holland.

May 8 Cafe Wilhelmina - Eindhoven
Arrive at the station and by foot to the hotel and to the club - an old wooden bar complete with pool table in front of the stage (later covered and moved aside for the concert.) The stage is dominated by a large photo of a man playing an elaborate quasi-orchestral swing band drum kit, apparently the grandfather of the bar's owner. JazzPower has been using this venue for monthly concerts and they are my promoters and gracious hosts. Equipment is topnotch and sound on stage is bright and clear - almost too clear as I can hear every misstep and flaw in my technique! First set is a single long piece in DADGAD that I'm titling Gadadada. Second set is the VelHue and Quadrature material and encore of Bemsha Swing. The audience is concentrated but reserved in that typical Dutch way. The concert was recorded for national radio.

May 9 Jazz Diskurs Ursprung - Rostock
Another late night and too early departure back to Germany - my itinerary today involves 4 trains giving ample opportunity for error. Everything is good from Eindhoven to Venlo and Venlo to Wuppertal but there the trouble begins. My train, 928, is cancelled because of mechanical problems and in a confusing bit of labeling, 2 new trains combined, 28 and 128, appear ten minutes after the scheduled departure. All reservations have been cancelled and there is confusion both on the platform and in the train as people try to find places. As we move, the question will be whether or not the lateness will be compounded. Fortunately, we make up for the delay and arrive in Hamburg with time to spare. My train to Rostock is, in effect, a local, going excruciatingly slow or stopping out in the hinterlands for 10 minutes at a time offering tranquil vistas of cows or fields. What should be a journey of 75 minutes is expanded to two and-a-half hours. On tour, sleep is sleep whether it's in the train or in a bed and ultimately welcome (though I keep my guitar in hand's reach.)
Rostock is a port city on an inlet from the Baltic in the area of the former GDR. It's not far from both Copenhagen and Czecin in Poland and the architecture has much in common with what I've seen in many Baltic towns such as Riga, Tartu, and Gdansk. The club is a spiffy jazz club underneath a pub and restaurant. It takes some time to fix bugs in the sound system - hum requiring a ground lift and lots of noise in the sends cured by tweaking the overall gain structure. Again two sets following the structure of the Eindhoven show. Very strong response to the first set but some attrition during the second - I'm told after that it's late, it's Tuesday, and also many people not used to music so unfamiliar. I'm quite happy if everyone loves the music but I've also always believed that if no one leaves, you're not doing your job.
The concert is filmed on DV for a local station and we do an interview between the sets.

May 10 Musee de l'Art Modern et Contemporain - Strasbourg
Another late night and early start. Today only three trains but I discover at the station that my seat reservations were made incorrectly - the train in Hamburg departs before I will arrive. Bad attitude from the woman in the Reisezentrum - at first she refuses to fix the reservation, then she wants to charge me - obviously a former "east" citizen. Fortunately, another clerk is more reasonable, replaces the reservation with a corrected one and I'm on my way to Strasbourg where my mother lived for a few years before WW2.
I'd met curator Patrick Javault at a party at Phill Niblock's and we were able to work out a date for this tour. The theater in the museum holds about 100 and is nearly full - acoustics are just reflective enough though to give some "spring" to my sounds though I feel brightness is missing as the speakers are way above my head. I'm splitting a bill with Laurent Daillouet who plays theremin, computer, and various electronics and whose 50-minute set is a thick and powerful flow of sounds and ideas. I begin my set with Jenn Reeves's film "The Girl's Nervy" - as it is being shown on film, it looks absolutely incredible and is inspiring as usual! I continue with Quadrature pieces and finally with Jenn's "Configuration 20", another tour-de-force for her art and a good catalyst for my own. After the concert, some time meeting and speaking with audience members and ten off to a nearby restaurant for excellent Alsacien cuisine. The night ends late, needless to say, and at 4:30 I'm up to catch the train to Paris for an early recording session.

May 11 Radio France Recording: Duo with Franck Vigroux - Paris
I'd met Franck at the Unfretted Festival in NYC the previous September and we exchanged correspondence and music and agreed to collaborate on a project. Through producer Bruno Letort, it was arranged that we would make a record for the Signature label at Radio France. I'm met by Franck's drummer Michel Blanc and together we make our way from Gare de L'Est to the RF studios on the western side of the city. It took some time but by 11am we were getting my sounds happening, Franck having arrived earlier to set up his gear. In addition to my Godin and electronics, I was using Franck's Vigier fretless electric guitar, plus two instruments borrowed from the nearby conservatory: a Korg MS10 synth and a Selmer Mark VI tenor for which I'd brought my mouthpiece. Franck has electric guitar, effects, turntables, a sampler, and mini-discs. The RF engineers were great and the equipment was matchless. We recorded nearly two hours of improvisations that were dense, sonic, and action-packed which we'll mix and edit in December.
That night I go to see Franck's trio with Michel and a saxophonist and have the next day free to wander in Paris and play some duo improvisations with brilliant harpist Helene Breschand. Up at 6:30 the next morning for my train to Frankfurt and Offenbach leaving time in the station for a final croissant and espresso double.

May 13 Hafen 2 - Offenbach
The train is perfectly on time throughout France but after sitting overly long at the border, it remains 20 minutes late for the rest of the journey causing me to miss my connection in Frankfurt. Offenbach is quite close though and I'm there soon enough and get some chill time in the hotel before soundcheck and dinner. The Hafen 2 is an industrial space on the edge of this small polyglot industrial and university town and has an extremely well-equipped performance room so my sound is clear and detailed. Two sets following the format of my last few club shows to a great response, a good end to this extremely varied tour. Thanks to Kai Schmidt of Intuition Records for setting up this final concert. Two hours of sleep and I'm off to the Frankfurt airport for a tranquil flight home.

On Tour at Home:

May17 Screenplay - World Financial Center
Another performance of Christian Marclay's "Screenplay", this time at the World Financial Center, a bizarre mall downtown with brokerage firms aplenty and seemingly infinite food courts. There are always various performance series going and this one is curated by trumpeter Ben Neill. Okkyung Lee brings a trio with percussionist Jon Hollenbeck and Anthony Coleman. To my pre-recorded electroacoustic realization, I've add Rachel Golub on violin and tabla and wildcard Luke DuBois with computer processing. I bring the Koll 8string and a Bb clarinet . Luke writes code for Cycling 74 (Max/MSP, Jitter, Pluggo) and has worked with me on a number of projects and always adds an exciting sonic element. Likewise, Rachel (whom I met through Ensemble Sospeso) brings many wonderful sounds and techniques. Her sounds are bussed to Luke's inputs and I can send him my guitar or clarinet from my mixer. Despite a perfect soundcheck (or perhaps because of it) Luke's sounds are not present in the monitors as they should be when we do our set. Still, we play a hot and dense version of the piece to a full house.

May 25 Solo - Derek Bailey Tribute - The Stone
Derek was a friend and inspiration and I was shocked and saddened by his death last December 25. We performed together back in 1979 and again in 1991 when he sat in with Slan, the coop trio with John Zorn and Ted Epstein. We also enjoyed many cordial meals together at various festivals in North America and Europe over the years - Derek was the consummate dinner companion - always erudite, witty, and enlightening. For this concert I brought the Godin and the fretless Norma electric. Seamless acoustic Quadrature set then switched to the Norma for an elegy to Derek in D Bb D Eb Bb D tuning. Bad ground hum in the room because of the lighting circuits though this became less noticeable once I got cranked up.

May 27 "Unlikely Pairings" - Duo with Margarida Garcia - Issue Project Room - Brooklyn
Invited to take part in this series in duo with bassist Garcia, I didn't think it was such an "unlikely pairing" and was pleased at the opportunity as I had enjoyed her playing on numerous occasions. she has a spare style but it does not lack for intensity! She gets a wide range of sounds from her electric upright. I again used the Godin plus my straight soprano saxophone which I used in the first and last parts of the set. Excellent listening - open, searching improvisations always simmering at a high tension point with occasional blasts outward. Before our set, Anthony Coleman and kotoist Miya Masaoka did an exciting set - Anthony is always a pleasure and Miya has a huge range of sounds and techniques at her fingertips. J brought the twins - their first time hearing their dad perform! Kai tried a piano for the first time during soundcheck and seemed delighted to play it.

June

On Tour at Home:

June 2 Orchestra Carbon performs Quarks Swim Free - Issue Project Room - Brooklyn
Catastrophic weather - it must be an Orchestra Carbon gig! Raining for days and no break on this one - in fact, it's torrential and the yard around the Project Room silo is a lake extending down to the Gowanus canal and there's water dripping in from a skylight (remedied by one of the tech guys securing a plastic tarp around the edges.) New Yorkers love a challenge though and the house is full for this 75 minute performance of QSF with a group including Rudresh Mahanthappa, Rachel Golub, Kevin Ray, Danny Tunick, Kinan Azmeh, Jenny Lin, Tomas Ulrich, and Chris McIntyre. I've brought soprano sax and the Godin. Impassioned playing and good interaction and a very welcoming audience. I'm spending more time conducting than playing in recent performances of QSF and have to continuously wrestle with the balance between my idealized desires for the manifestation of the piece and the actual results from the input and considerable individual talents of the musicians. As always, I savor the fact that QSF is very different with each performance and yet, it's identity and defining characteristics remain constant and clear.

June 10 Limbic Trio - The Stone
Tonight's edition has Tyshawn Sorey on drums and Kevin Ray on bass. We play four pieces to a modest but very concentrated house. Expanding beyond his multi-leveled drumming, Tyshawn's soundworld includes various elements of his hardware, the floor itself, and eventually the water in the sink of the bathroom just behind the "bandstand." While theatrical, his excursions are always incredibly musical. (Besides his prodigious skills on drums, Tyshawn is also a virtuosic pianist and trombonist though he doesn't make use of these talents tonight.) The trio morphs fluidly through a wide variety of gestures, dynamics, and emotional states. The soprano sax works especially well for me tonight - I always find it easier on this instrument than on tenor to escape the weight of jazz reference.

June 16 Groundtruther + E# - Central Park Summerstage - NYC
As part of a Thirsty Ear label night, Groundtruther (the duo of Bobby Previte and Charlie Hunter) has invited me to improvise with them as a guest on a bill including Matthew Shipp, Nils Peter Molvaer, Steve Bernstein's Sex Mob and poet Carl Hancock Rux who MC's for the evening . When I arrive punctually (usually a mistake) for soundcheck, things are already way behind schedule and there is a heated argument going on between Nils' band (extremely easy-going fellows) and the stressed-out monitor engineer who is shortly told to go home. We finally get our time and the setup goes quickly and easily though there's no time to play much of anything together. All would have been fine but unfortunately my position has to be struck to make room for the grand piano for Matt's solo set and when it's time for our hit, I find that the stagecrew has completely tangled my cables essentially forcing me to hurriedly set up again from scratch. There's also a big time-pressure because of the number of groups and the 10 PM curfew. Soon we're ready and we begin not only to find that the monitors are completely screwed up (the new monitor engineer from soundcheck has his own gig so a substitute is working the concert) but that there's no microphone for my bass clarinet - an important part of the sound in addition to the pickup going into my electronics. Still, we make the best of things and are soon going full-force. After about 7 minutes, I switch to my 8-string for the duration of the set and find that the Fender Twin provided for me has very worn speakers with the cones rubbing against the frames to cause unpleasant distortion. This is my first time playing with Charlie (whose work I've admired over the years) - he has a completely unique approach combining guitar and bass on his custom 7-string. Bobby and I have our history together and he and Charlie have their duo so there are two different types of interaction. Bobby is the bridge and I would have preferred that he set up in the middle but he wanted to be stage-right. By set's end after 35 minutes we've created huge waves of sound and intense rhythmic crosstalk though how well this is transmitted to the audience is open for discussion - I receive a number of comments on the poor quality of the soundmix. We all agreed that a longer set (not to mention a better stage sound) would have allowed much deeper listening between us. I'm surprised at how poorly things worked - the stagecrew were all very professional and personable - jsut some serious competency links missing in places. We're followed by Nils' massive electroacoustic groove set and Sex Mob's own brand of eccentric funk driven by Calvin Weston's monster groove. Rux, Bobby, and I join them for the last jam.

June 17 Kidstock
My audience gets younger and younger as I get older and older! This is a benefit event to raise money for a progressive neighborhood daycare center operating out of PS122, a school transformed into a performing arts center back in the 80's. There's a wide variety of performances for an audience ranging in age from 2 weeks to 80 years. I go on after the rockabilly band The Hound Dogs and play a 30-minute DADGAD set. I'm pleased that the younger listeners respond quite strongly (especially including our babies, Kai and Lila, now 9 months old).

June 18 Limbic Trio - Zebulon - Brooklyn
Over the river to W'burg. Don McKenzie returns on drums for a different flavor set than the Stone. Don can hit with a deep-pocket hip-hop groove, do the polyrhythmic Elvin thing, or get very abstract. We play a one hour set of 2 multifaceted pieces then a final 30 minute piece after a brief intermission.

June 21 PS1 Contemporary Art Center 30th Anniversary - Long Island City
A small party for 400 people or so to observe the 30th anniversary of PS1's first exhibition in 1976 (as well as the Summer Solstice.) Many of the artists from that original show are in attendance including Dennis Oppenheim, Judith Shea, Lawrence Weiner. The musical part of the evening begins with WPS1 managing director David Weinstein (a founder of Roulette and member of varous versions of Carbon) performing solo on electronics followed by Bubbly Fish, also an electronicist, whose setup includes circuit-bent and hacked Gameboys plus computers. I perform sections from Quadrature on the Godin after which O/O, a driving and noisy rock band finishes it all off.

E#Tour reports have not been updated since June as I've been insanely busy with commissioned compositions, preparations for concerts, recording projects with both Charlotte Hug and Frances-Marie-Uitti, beginning work on a feature sci-fi filmscore ("Spectropia" by director Toni Dove), and, of course, the twins and J. It's Sept. 30 and here I am with a day off in Venezia and finally, a chance to breathe and write.

July

July 2 Art Depot 2006 - Gdansk, Poland
A small festival dedicated to the memory of Derek Bailey in this shipbuilding town in the north of Poland organized by saxophonist Jerzy Mazzoll and his partner Marge. I don't have the available time to attend the entire festival so fly out of JFK on July 1 under the impression that I'm to perform a duo on the 2nd with English guitarist Jon Dobie (an old friend on whose record "B-Shops For The Poor" I guested some years ago) and take part in a "Company"-style improv session on the 3rd. When I check in, I'm told that I must hurry as the plane will board in 10 minutes, quite a surprise to me as I was booked on a later flight. Unbeknownst to me, my reservation has been changed to an earlier flight to Frankfurt! It's amazing that I make the plane at all as traffic was quite bad (fortunately my driver knew the shortcuts.) Rush to security, gate and plane - we soon board and the plane pushes off but then sits on the taxiway for nearly 90 minutes. I have a long enough layover in Frankfurt that the lateness will not prevent me from catching the jet to Gdansk. Smooth flights good for sleeping then a micronap and double-espresso in the hotel and off to soundcheck.
The concert is in a sumptuous room in the Old Town Hall mostly used for chamber music concerts (with a wonderful restaurant in the basement.) I find that the concerts are to be quite different than I had expected with the 3rd not even happening at all. This final night is three solos. Fred Frith is just finishing his soundcheck when I arrive and I follow soon thereafter. None of the backline has arrived so I opt to go direct into the PA with my 8-string and electronics - the sound is quite good both onstage and in the house. I have my straight soprano sax as well for which I have a dedicated mic feeding into my own processing system as well as a condensor mic to amplify the horn's acoustic sound in the room.
Anthony Coleman begins the evening with a beautiful solo piano improvisation, simultaneously massive and delicate - in addition to his prodigious conventional technique, he uses many preparations and objects to coax normally unheard sounds from the instrument. I'm next and alternate sax, sometimes acoustic, sometimes processed and looped, and the guitar. I finish with a resonator in my Max patch pulling out partials from an E-bowed bass drone which is then morphed to a sax drone. An encore relying on tapped polyrhtythms and harmonics completes my set to wonderful response. Fred follows with a typically whimsical and sonically enticing solo set after which he's joined by Ukrainian saxophonist Yurij Yaremczuk and a bassist for an improvisation. Over the course of the evening, Jerzy descends deeply into drunkenness and incoherence. Apparently, Anthony and Fred had to restrain him from staggering out with his horn during my set. He's mostly catatonic during Fred's.
One of the reasons that I postponed writing this entry was in the hopes that a positive resolution would appear to the cautionary tale that follows. It's customary for "the business" to be enacted just after the performance unless other arrangements have been made. When the concert ends, Marge informs me that the funding didn't arrive but it will be at the bank tomorrow and "don't worry" so we all repair to an outdoor cafe in the old city for refreshments. In the morning, Marge tells me that the money will come in the afternoon so "don't worry." This is a free day and is dedicated to an expedition to the beach at Sopot on the Baltic Sea. When we return, I'm told that the money will come before I leave back to NYC early the next morning and there will be a party and dinner at the home of Marge and Jerzy, a dinner which extends nearly to the time of my departure for the airport at 6 in the morning. I decide to restrain my growing anger, as it certainly will not have any effect. In the past, I've certainly been stiffed by record distributors and independent record labels as it's part of the normal price paid for work in the underground music industry. But in 25 years of touring in Europe I've NEVER been cheated by a promoter (okay, Carbon had a gig at a Communist squat in Munich in 1983 at which we received only half of what was contracted - they tried to give us nothing because the band Beograd with whom we split the bill demanded the entire till. I can be as stubborn as anybody if I want to and stood my ground until 4am in a stand-off that could have turned very ugly but resulted in us evenly splitting the take.) At the airport, Marge says (no surprise) that the $ did not arrive but they will send it in the next days. After returning to NYC I hear nothing from them until 3 weeks later and again, I'm told not to worry, the $ will come. As of October 1, nothing has arrived and I urge all musicians, promoters, and journalists reading this to do NO business at all with Jerzy, Marge, or the Art Deport festival in Gdansk or any other project that they organize.

July 19 Suberrebus at Arium - NYC
To celebrate the release of her new CD "The Eleventh Finger" on Koch, Jenny performs a short program at this new gallery cafe in the Meat Packing district of the far West Village which includes one of Ligeti's Etudes, Randy Nordschow's Detail of Beethoven's Hair, and Suberrebus. Randy and I both do a short talk on our works and Jenny does a typically marvelous set to an enthusiastic audience on the old Steinway that absolutely exudes aura. A small PA has been brought in but the desk does not have standard input and send jacks. Randy saves the day with a trip to Radio Shack for adaptors.

August

August 6 "Eye In The Sky" - MOMA Summergarden - NYC
In early June, Joel Sachs at Juilliard asked if I had something new and energetic for string quartet that he could premiere in his series at the Summergarden of the Museum of Modern Art. I had wanted to apply some of the strategies of Proof Of Erdos to a quartet setting and jumped in, finishing the 9-minute composition in little more than a week (despite my Pavoni espresso machine being down for servicing!) The title came from the eponymous Philip K. Dick novel, a meditation on paranoia that applies perfectly to the current situation in the US. Is it worse to be spied on continuously and know it or to believe that you are being continuously spied upon? The quartet, all young virtuosi, did an outstanding job with the rhythmically thorny parts and demanding bowing - all necessary to create the sounds of the piece. I very much liked Lera auerbach's composition "Epilogue", which preceded "Eye In The Sky" on the program.

August 13 Limbic Trio - Jimmy's - NYC
As part of Dee Pop's "Freestyle Improvisation" series at this East Village restaurant, Limbic Trio hits on a bill with Dee's Radio I-Ching and Matana Roberts Quartet. Dee also drums in the Bush Tetras and I've known him since our Buffalo days and his proto-punk band Secrets. The music room is in the rear of the basement - a tiny space that harkens back to the typical setting for free jazz in the '60's in NYC. Packing the place is easy and we do a long hot sweaty set.

August 22 E# solo - McCarren Pool - Brooklyn
The site is a huge public swimming pool on the border between Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn. Unused for years, the pool had fallen into disrepair. Last year, choreographer Noemie LaFrance was able to use McCarren for her spectacle "Agora" and this year the space became the site of various concerts and art events. Sound designer Bora Yoon curated this series presenting composer/performers and sound artists in concert before screenings of classic and adventurous films. I bring the Godin and Powerbook to present Quadrature and VelHue pieces. As the dusk looms, legions of mosquitoes gather on my laptop screen (and head and neck) - nearing the end of my set, the screen is almost covered with the little monsters and I'm quite bitten up. Still, the gig was extremely enjoyable!

September

September 13 "Graffiti Composition" at MOMA - NYC
Christian Marclay's "Graffiti Composition" began in 1992 with the posting of 500 sheets of blank music manuscript paper around the city of Berlin which were variously scribbed upon, some with actual musical notation, some with drawings or text. Over the next 6 months, the sheets were harvested or photographed and 150 eventually collected and published in a spiff y slipcase edition. Christian has asked various musicians in recent years to create orchestrations from the work including Butch Morris and Anthony Coleman. The Museum is now displaying the Graffiti Composition and planned to present a performance which Christian asked me to direct. We decided to do it with five guitars and originally it was to take place in the Sculpture Garden (where the Summergarden Series takes place) but the neighborhood association refused permission, fearing a din. It's my belief that even if the 5 guitars were amplified UNDER the permissible 80db sound level, people would complain but if a string quartet in tuxedos performed at 100db, it would be allowed. The concert was thus changed to the Titus Theater, usually used for film and with a narrow stage, but with a capacity of 500. During August, I perused the sheets and chose ones that had immediate resonance for me and arranged them into a series over a 45 minute timeline. Images were assigned to the group or to indivuals to interpret as soloists. Some sections for the group involved each player having a different sheet to work from simultaneously. Stop-watches were to be used for timing. The group included Vernon Reid, Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Melvin Gibbs, Mary Halvorson, and myself. I brought the Koll and a new MOTU Ultralite audio interface and ran my plug-ins inside of Ableton Live for the first time. Traffic delayed some of the musicians' arrival for setup and soundcheck took longer than expected - we finally got everything up and had time to run through a few ideas and transitions, take a break, and then do the performance. Listening was acute and we found many surprising sounds and intense textures together. The overall arc of the piece had a powerful shape and we were greeted by fantastic response. It was necessary to hurry with breakdown after as a film screening was scheduled in the Titus and a cocktail party for Chrisitian and us up in the lobby.

September 18 Wordless Music: Nels Cline, Glenn Kotche, Jenny Lin, E# - St. Bartholomew's Church - NYC
A series organized by Ronen Givorny with the idea of bringing together pop and classical musicians for spontaneous collaboration (I guess I'm now "classical!") with the opener featuring Nels Cline and percussionist Glenn Kotche of Wilco, Jenny Lin, and myself. The first set began with Nels solo then our duo then my Quadrature solo on the Godin; next Jenny performing Shostakovich, Ligeti, and Suberrebus with my live processing then intermission. Second set included Glenn's solo on drums and electronics, his duo with Nels, and for the finale, Jenny and I joining them for what turned out to be a fairly sensitive but perhaps too-careful improvisation (we had all agreed beforehand that the live sound in the church and lack of monitors called for subtlety and restraint.) Still, it was thoroughly enjoyable for us as performers and for the sold-out house.

September 22 Quarks Swim Free - Issue Project Room - Brooklyn
A return performance, this time filmed by noted documentarian Bert Shapiro. Bert began working on a film about my music during the summer and he wanted to capture this gig. The ensemble with some newcomers gave one of its best performances ever of QSF and included Kinan Azmeh, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Rachel Golub, Liuh-Wen Ting (viola), Alex Waterman (cello), Brad Jones (bass), Kevin Ray, Curtis Fowlkes, Chris McIntire, Jenny Lin, and Danny Tunick. I only brought soprano sax and bass clarinet and mostly conducted. Thanks to Jody McAllister for sound recording.

September 28 EmPyre - premiere at Teatro Fondamenta Nuove - Venice Bienalle
This composition originated as a commission from soprano Donella Dell Monaco with the idea of presenting a workshop for the opening of the Bienalle. We met the previous March when I did a lecture on my work at her palazzo and again when I was on tour in May. The piece began to take shape in my mind as a chamber opera about the contrasts and parallels between the city-state of Venice as it balanced its life and fortunes between the Crusades and the Islamic world and the current Crusade of the imperial US government with New York City and its denizens as unhappy bystanders and enablers. Donella's voice is an amazing instrument and I wanted to counter-balance it with the streetwise baritone of Steve Piccolo who I also engaged to create texts to be sung in Italian, ancient Venetian dialect, and English. Spam and gibberish also became an important element enhanced by computer processing from Joachim Thomas. Donella had an ensemble of musicians surrounding her of various levels of musical skill so during July I created a construction set of composed cores and processes that would be put together into seven acts when I arrived in Venice. The group included Luca Bonvini-trombone, Gabriele Bruzzolo-percussion, Daniele Goldoni-trumpet, Giovanni Mancuso-keyboard, Gabriele Mancuso-viola, Mauro Martello-flute, Andrea Martin-tenor & soprano sax, Alvise Seggi-contrabass, Joachim Thomas-laptop, and Laura Balbinot-cello. I flew out of JFK on the 25th and after a brief rest on arrival began the first rehearsal, mainly the introduction of strategic tools and some work on the core phrases that would make up the content. We worked late that night and began early the next day taking only a few breaks with another late finish. I began to clarify the elements and how they would be used and then filtered the score into a narrative but abstract arc. Too much time spent ironing out sound problems but we made steady progress. On the 28th, our rehearsal took the form of recording with 2 or 3 takes of each section. At 6 in the afternoon, we ran the entire piece down to get a complete take and also for the purpose of filming for Bert's documentary by local cameraman Michelangelo. (Can we get Caravaggio to do the lights?) A short break for cichetti and caffe and then the performance to a full and vibrant house. In discussion after, many were surprised that the piece was so clearly theatrical and classical in form (and also that it was assembled so quickly.) Too early the next morning there was a symposium sponsored by the Philosophy Department of the university where trumpeter Daniele Goldoni is a professor with some musicologists, an Italian composer who played the role of hostile critic, and myself, with an audience mostly of students but some musicians, journalists, and musicologists. I explained my intentions and approaches to sound; compositional strategies; the nature of digital sound and its relationship (or lack thereof) to human interaction as defined by pheromonic handshaking; mathematical, scientific, and natural models of form and process; and the politics of music presentation and composition/improvisation/conduction. The Italian composer challenged me about EmPyre saying that it didn't present musical freedom. My answer was that my intention was to present a coherent musical statement and that the use of varying levels of musician input and improvisation all must occur within the framework of the compositional intent, windows opening into small reflections, representations, metaphors. I didn't want it to "be" free - I wanted to tell a story, however nonlinear. I spoke about my love of contradictions and how they figure into my creative process. The concert was also recorded to digital multitrack and over the next months the piece will be edited and prepared for release by Donella's label. My final night in Venice was spent attending the hypnotic and moving performance of Robert Ashley's "Celestial Illusions" and enjoying the late night air, wine and food. At 4am I took a wild ride in the foggy night on a water-taxi which brought me to the airport for the return to NYC.

October

October 22 - PS1 30th Anniversary Homecoming
A huge dinner party to celebrate the 30th year of PS1 Contemporary Art Center's operations. The entertainment is a 90-minute cabaret hosted by actress/singer Ann Magnuson and including such luminaries as Kembra Pfahler of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black; Rufus Wainwright; various dancers, strippers, singers, and performance artists - many associated with the late lamented Club 57; and a house-band including keyboardists Joe McGinty and Kristian Hoffman (known for his band The Mumps and work with James Chance and Lydia Lunch). Kristian and Bradley Field ran an appropriately named rehearsal studio in 1981 deep in the Bowery called Nightmare where I/S/M and The High Sheriffs of Blue would rehearse. We would be lowered in an ancient freight elevator to the reeking throbbing depths of the third sub-basement with a bucket of water for refreshment - the elevator would return precisely 60 minutes later. For Homecoming, I had been invited to perform 5 minutes of noise somewhere in the middle - perhaps to provide a sonic indigestif. I invited Christian Marclay who brought one relic turntable and some guitar pedals and drummer Anton Fier of The Feelies, Lounge Lizards, and Golden Palominos. We slammed out 2 minutes of jagged noise after which Kristian and Joe joined in along with Dave Rick on bass for 3 minutes of a Miles Davis/Theme From Shaft funk-noise jam.

October 27 Sirius String Quartet - Issue Project Room - Brooklyn
Curator Suzanne Fiol wanted to present a series of "Second Hearings" based on the well-founded notion that it's often easier to premiere a new piece than to get it performed again. Sirius Quartet (Jennifer Choi, Gregor Hüebner-violins; Ron Lawrence-viola; Alex Waterman-cello) performed "Eye In The Sky" and "Dispersion Of Seeds" as second hearings and also premiered "Light In Fog", a piece composed in 2002 and dedicated to the painting of Gerhard Richter. For an encore, "Hammer Anvil Stirrup" from 1988 was played for which I joined them on electric guitar, my Hohner G3T modified with Duncan Lil 59 pickups. The concert opened with "Eye In The Sky" (completely acoustic) and while I was very pleased by the Juilliard musicians rendering of it during the summer at MOMA, I was blown away this evening by Sirius' intensity This was followed by "Light In Fog" - a 9-minute piece that is spare and quiet yet very dramatic with subtle acoustic effects (and also played without amplification.) At soundcheck I discovered that the ASIO Driver in my laptop had become corrupted and I was unable to fix it which rendered my Max patch unusable. For the performance I turned to Ableton Live and my setup for processing guitar in Graffiti Composition and used it for "Dispersion". The quartet played again with incredible power and focus and having a new set of processors made the piece quite different from its premiere and recorded versions. "Hammer Anvil Stirrup" uses a graphic score and some composed melodic elements and we all dug in with ferocity.

October 28 E# Solo - Black Rock Art Center - Bridgeport, Connecticut
A small festival at this cultural center in a former bank (excellent usage!) There had been a major controversy about Black Rock with the mayor and his minions trying to sell the property even though the Center had an extremely strong community following and the new buyer was just planning to demolish it. In this case, the community won and the center was allowed to remain functioning. The case also revealed "interesting" corruptions in the crony network of the city government with repercussions still happening. The trip to Bridgeport took 75 minutes by train from NYC and as I drifted from my book, I almost thought that I was on tour in Europe. I've performed very little since my trip to Gdansk in July thanks to composing and studio work and everything else and the strenuous solo set had me wishing that I had devoted more time to practicing! Still, things worked and I found new terrain to explore on the Godin.

November

November 1 Satoko Inoue performs Oligosono - The Stone NYC - 8pm
This month is curated by Miya Masaoka and opens with the incredible pianist Inoue playing a powerful program of Japanese and American composers including the crystalline "Grisaille" by her husband Satoshi Tanaka and the jagged "Two Days" by Nils Vigeland (who was also a student in the Composition Department at SUNY Buffalo at the same time that I was.) She's chosen works that share certain elements or approaches. Her version of "Oligosono" is quite different from Jenny Lin's or Richard Carrick's in her concepts of rhythmic flow but with no shortage of intensity. It's a spellbinding performance.

November 1 Duo E#/Mari Kimura - The Stone NYC - 10pm
Coincidentally, Mari Kimura had been given the late set and she invited me to join her. Mari is a virtuoso violinist and expert improvisor who also has an original approach to her Max/MSP programming and uses a laptop and audio interface along with her traditional instrument. We first improvised together in 1991 and, while our concerts together are infrequent, they are always wild! I've brought the Godin & soprano sax. We play a number of pieces of varied length and sonic terrain - sometimes we're playing almost in unison with complicated gestures - at other times, we juxtapose opposing textures and dynamics.

November 29 "In The Sky" - Location One Gallery - NYC
Leesa and Nicole Abahuni are twin sisters who make incredibly original and powerful artworks that may make use of any of a huge range of elements: purely visual and sculptural through sonic and interactive; robotics; materials such as copper wire; their Armenian heritage. For "In The Sky," which opened on November 29 at Location One Gallery in NYC's Soho, they hung a network of metal ballchain of various thicknesses to create a labyrinthine environment that evoked rainfall, pixillated video screens, architectural simulations, and permeable barriers. For the opening night performance, they asked me to compose a piece of music to complement the installation and that could be recorded so that the sound could become part of the sculpture itself. As we discussed the project, I had a very immediate sense of how the music should be and for which instruments: two horizontally-mounted concert bass drums with handfuls of ballchain to be used as brushes and a graphic score made with a photo of a mass of ballchain placed into a timeline curve defining dynamics and density over the 30 minute course of the piece. In addition, they gave me a very lo-fi recording of their grandfather speaking in Armenian which I processed using GRM Tools and added to the mix. The drums were close-miked and processed live with my laptop. The audio system in the gallery was set-up to have four channels and I could route the outputs of various processors (using a variety of plug-ins inside of the Ableton Live platform) into either stereo pair. A hidden sub-woofer completed the hardware. A second laptop recorded the proceedings. Christine Bard and Danny Tunick were tapped to be the players and they did a fantastic job of interpreting the score to create waves of sound evoking rainfall, thunder, and surf. I've written and spoken about wanting to make music that "sounds like weather" and this is the closest I've come. We also had the talents of dancer Glen Rumsey (who has worked with Merce Cunningham and Sarah Michelson) who at one point used the proverbial ten-foot pole to drastically alter the soundfield by displacing hundreds of strands of ballchain simultaneously as he moved across the space. We recorded a soundcheck in the afternoon and the performance itself (This was later mixed and edited to create two CD's used asynchronously to provide sound for the installation.) The house was absolutely packed and the air was charged. "In The Sky" will remain up at Location One until January 27. There will be a closing performance on January 20 in which I'll use a ballchain acoustic guitar, some baby monitors, and other things.
More info at http://abahuni.org/ and http://www.location1.org/artists/inthesky.html

December

December 3 E# Plays Monk - Tonic - NYC
To celebrate the release of "Sharp? Monk? Sharp! Monk!" on CleanFeed, with Dell Arte in hand, I return to this Lower East Side club for my first gig there in quite a long time. I only recently had a chance to listen to my Monk CD and discovered that the label had mistakenly reversed the titles for Epistrophy and Well You Needn't on the CD artwork - this is the correction!
First up on the bill is Dutch Baroque lutenist Jozef van Wissem who plays a stark and moving set of original pieces on this wonderfully-voiced instrument, sometimes layering his compositions with field recordings made in airports, subways, train stations. I ran the Monk pieces (in order: Bemsha Swing, Epistrophy, Misterioso, Round Midnight, and Well You Needn't) as an improvised suite - sometimes delving deeply into the harmonic structures of the songs, sometimes treating them as passing themes and jumping off points to rather oblique soundfields using my vocabulary of extended techniques on the guitar. There were moments when I felt completely unanchored - flailing in the void - not necessarily a bad thing! The sound on stage seems to "push back" at me - a little unsettling. There's always a huge gap between the sound at soundcheck and the performance - a complex feedback loop between ears, hands, room (with and without audience), and sound equipment. At the end of the evening, Jozef and I do a short but very engaging improvisation together. This is our first meeting but it bodes well for the future.

Duo Tour w/ Franck Vigroux

December 7 Damberd - Ghent, Belgium
After the English "liquid bomb" hoax of last summer (more fearmongering about a bunch of guys who didn't even have passports but were somehow going to launch massive series of attacks on air transport with announcement conveniently timed to the US election primaries) my flight was shifted from an itinerary taking me through London and now taking me through Washington DC (terror central!) Smooth flights to Paris and then a series of buses and trains in the pouring rain, all bad connections with either too much time or not enough, taking me to the medieval town of Ghent and a welcome afternoon of sleep in the hotel before our first gig at the Damberd, a music bar that is truly cozy in the best sense of the word. For this tour I've brought the laptop running Live, the solidbody 8string, and the curved soprano which I process with my pedal effects. Franck has his guitar, turntables, a synth keyboard, and some pedals. Good backline equipment and great hospitality from our hosts. Ann takes us out for an outstanding Thai meal, one of the best I've ever had and after we play a continuous 70-minute set to a very mixed audience - some riveted and deeply listening, others only there for the hang. Still, the overall feeling is quite lively and we're pleased, especially for our first concert together outside of our Radio France recording last May.

December 8 Le Petit Faucheux - Tours, France
The night at Damberd ends quite late and the 6am wake-up call is brutal - it's still dark and still raining when we head to the station for trains to Brussels and then Paris. The wait for a taxi at Gare du Nord is almost as long as the train trip from Brussels but eventually we get to Gare Montparnasse with enough time for a coffee before our ride to Tours and a concert at this very well-appointed small theater run by our gracious host Bernard Aimé. Soundcheck is fraught with problems: the supplied mixer is awash in internal noise and finally eliminated altogether and the guitar amp has to be retubed. When this is accomplished, I'm still left with a nasty hum induced by the lighting system which is finally minimized. Our set is preceded by a French jazz group - all very accomplished players but as so often happens with opening jazz acts, they play far too long. What was supposed to be a 45-minute set lasts closer to 90 minutes. There's a famous story of John Coltrane being asked by Miles Davis to make his solos shorter. Coltrane replied that he had so many ideas that he didn't know how to stop. Miles' reply: "Try takin' the horn outta your mouth!" Good advice for any instrumentalist - I do believe the cliche that brevity is the soul of wit. We play a 70-minute set with many dynamic shifts and fresh textures.

December 9-12 Radio France - Paris
A return to the studios at Radio France for another day of recording then days of overdubs, mixing, and ediing. Our first day is witness to a very fruitful session recording my processed soprano sax with Franck's turntables. There is a beautiful Steinway D piano that we set up with Schoepps microphones - I like them placed quite close to the soundboard to pick up more transients and detail. We each take at the turn at the instrument in duo with the other on guitar. I use my slides as moveable preparations and also make use of some of the techniques that I wrote into Oligosono and Suberrebus. Mixing is long and slow but the results are quite good. We're able to sort through and eliminate a lot of material leaving us with a very pithy 60 minutes that may be subject to further winnowing. The new recording with sax most definitely benefited from our having played two duo gigs.

December 13 Rennes
A concert in Bretagne sponsored by the local improvised music society. Very nice people but a bit inexperienced as to the needs of musicians and seemingly ignorant of the necessity of reading the artists' rider. The promoters would like us to go directly to the club and stay there until showtime but at my insistence we're brought first to the hotel - besides wanting to change and do a little work (plus I hate wasting time sitting around in a club for hours), my radar tells me that it might be wise to check on our accomodations before anything else is dealt with. We're brought to the Hotel Venezia - no one at the desk and unpleasant cooking smells wafting in the corridor. It looks extremely unpromising but I've sometimes been surprised by first appearances. The promoters have the keys and beckon us upward on a narrow staircase - another bad sign. As we reach the 4th floor I see a tiny shower stall and a tiny toilet situated in the hallway and the doors to two seemingly and equally tiny rooms. I pronounce the situation unacceptable and we're back downstairs and in the van. It takes another 45 minutes for the promoter to find us a very nice hotel and only 30 meters walk from the station. This all could have been avoided! The club, Mondo Bizarro, looks like it took its lessons from CBGB's and is presented to me as the last punk club in Bretagne. The staff is very accomodating but the equipment is shoddy, the stage is creaky, and the electricity shaky. Still, setup and soundcheck are smooth and soon we're upstairs eating a dinner of specialties from Rennes - not bad but not great and a bit heavy. Our set is first by choice and it's very punk rock - the monitors have somehow all mysteriously changed settings since soundcheck and nothing is audible. As a result we get louder and louder and we barrel through. I can tell there are some good moments but my ears are ringing and I'm physically sickened by the enormous quantites of cigarette smoke in the room. It seems that public smoking will finally be banned in France in February and this crew here is determined to cram in as much as possible before then. After us is the fantastic local duo Ehinem - using guitars and electronics they create dense shifting walls and clouds of sound, tightly structured and well proportioned.

December 14 Nantes
To Nantes, on a bay off the Atlantic ocean and a gig at the Pannonica, a cabaret-like space with excellent crew, equipment, and all necessary extramusical elements to make our concert and stay enjoyable. In addition, the stage has a fine Yamaha grand piano whcih we utilize. We play two sets to great response. The excellent sound and ambience promote a feeling that is both relaxed and intense. Decent hotel and a relaxed start-time the next morning.

December 15 Poitiers
Carre Bleu, the local presenters, have booked our concert in the town planetarium - their first usage of the space. It's a comfortable and beautiful theater and the equipment and help are all topnotch. One 60-minute set of great power. After, a visit to a local brasserie where I try the excellent huitres from the nearby Atlantic along with other great seafood and the local wine Poitou.

December 16 Marseilles
A small festival with a focus on New York running over the course of 2 weeks at the GRIM, a bar and artspace run by guitarist John-Marc Montera and others. Anumber of old friends in attendance around their performances: White Out, Ned Rothenberg, DJ Olive, Pauline Oliveros, Aki Onda, Alan Licht. Focussed set to a packed house - good finish to the tour. Stayed up post-gig and arrived at Marseille airport for check-in at 4:45am after a wild taxi ride past the port and through the foggy mountains - boarded the plane to Paris and about to take off when pilot announced mechanical probs - back to gate where we sat for 2 hours while they fixed the plane. Fly to Paris CDG which is a total zoo - buses between terminals not too frequent and all packed but get to United to check in for my flight to Washington Dulles, have an hour to chill then board the plane. We push off & go to runway, about to take off when pilot announced mechanical problems so back to gate where we sat for 2 hours while they fixed the plane. Now I'm certain that I'll miss my connection to NYC. Land in DC, clear customs and go to transfer desk, (also a zoo) and find out that my flight to NYC is delayed for 3 hours because of mechanical probs so I make it after all! The catch: all of my checked bags are lost and take until the following Thursday to be returned to me.

 

December 29 Reuben Radding 40th Birthday Improv Party - Barbes
I first met bassist Radding some fifteen years ago when he worked as a clerk in a bookstore that I frequented near my studio. Our conversations about music and culture were always interesting and led eventually to some improv trio gigs at the old Knitting Factory with drummer David Gould under the name Cryptids. Besides leading many of his own projects, Reuben has recently played in a number of versions of Orchestra Carbon. He has acute ears, fleet fingers, and a big sound on the upright. To celebrate his 40th, Reuben invited a number of musician friends to join him at the very comfortable Barbes in Brooklyn. Included were Ned Rothenberg, Mary Halvorson, Jessica Pavone, Ursel Schlicht, Andrew Drury, Daniel Carter, Matt Bauder, Nate Wooley, Federico Uggi and more. I brought the Nightingale and plugged into the house amp, a tiny valve Epiphone amp with a sweetly distorted tone for two wide-ranging pieces in a free-jazz zone. Great fun and an appreciative full audience (though after, I received the inevitable comment from someone: "I didn't know you actually knew how to play guitar...")

 

Road Reports 2005WritingsRoad Reports 2007

[ Datacide ]