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Road Reports 2011
(click pics to enlarge)

For upcoming concert dates, go here

January

January 1 St. Mark's Poetry Project Benefit
A very social day - we've been dragging the twins around to various gatherings and they're a little tired but still excited to be heading up to the Benefit with pizza and cookies serving as a bribe. As always, a bubbling backstage scene and it's great to see Edwin Torres, Penny Arcade, Emily XYZ, Lenny Kaye, Ernie Brooks, Lee Ann Brown, Marty Ehrlich and many others though many are missed. I'm up just after Patti Smith who reads a riveting poem, no music. I dedicate my piece to the passing of Don Van Vliet AKA Captain Beefheart and to Benoit Mandelbrot, rogue mathematician and discoverer of fractal geometry. I've brought the Godin tuned to Vastopol and the music jumps between slide abstractions, noise, harmonic tapping, and finally a, quote from Beefheart's "Moonlight On Vermont" from Trout Mask Replica. Tracie Morris then joins me for our duo piece "Mahalia Theremin" with Tracie channeling the great gospel singer's melismatic ululation while I take a "Blind Willie Johnson with EBow" approach to echo and accompany her.

January 18 Leni Stern/E# - solos and duos - Watty & Meg's - Brooklyn
As part of a Tuesday-night guitar series booked by Marc Ribot and Marco Cappelli, Leni and I perform solos and duos at this Cobble Hill restaurant. I've known and admired Leni's work for years and we finally met at the Angel City Jazz Festival in 2008. We got together at my studio a few days before to drink coffee and talk and play with the short session leading us to great expectations for the gig. Leni spends a lot of time in Mali and Benin and her songs and playing have strong African inflections and grooves. She also brought her n'goni to our meeting - a rich-sounding lute of limited pitch range but full of depth. Another winter storm flailed at the city during the day and we had doubts as to whether or not the gig would happen. By evening, the weather had improved and we convened at the restaurant in time to partake of their excellent fare and then moved to the back room where an area was prepared for us to perform. Leni brought a Fender tube amp, her gorgeous Strat, and the n'goni. I planned to use the house amp, a solid-state Acoustic, and brought only the Hohner headless guitar, the MXR compressor, an EBow, a slide and a spring bow. Given the unpredictability of transit in bad weather, I wanted to travel light. Our set began with my solo, an adaptation of Velocity of Hue material for the electric. I had not tried this approach before but it worked surprisingly well. The warm-toned Acoustic amp worked with the little solid-body to give me a wide harmonic spectrum and a nice chewy midrange, a little bit "vocal". I was able to get good results from harmonic tapping and snappy fingerpicking was full and present. After my set, Leni performed a number of her original songs, unpredictable structures and unusual but lyrical chord voicings often over loops generated on guitar. Her voice is smoky and sweet with more than a little touch of Marlene Dietrich. A spellbinding set after which I joined her for some modal, grooving, and sonic improvising. We never stayed too long in any one gesture - just enough to allow the implications to be fully present before we set off in another direction. We agreed that we will play again!

January 30 "L'Escalier Du Chant" - Olaf Nicolai - Pinakotheka - Munich
Olaf is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work encompasses installation, sculpture, painting, photography, and video. "L'Escalier Du Chant" (literally "The Stairway of Song") was created for the Pinakotheka in Munich. For the work, Olaf commissioned a number of composers to write songs about current events. At each performance throughout the year-long instalation, four composers would be featured. I was asked to write two songs for this premiere event and composed "Dusts And Ashes" to mark the deaths this past year of two major influences for me: Benoit Mandelbrot and Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart, an exploration of greater depth than my extemporized tribute on New Year's Day. The second song, "The Ballad of Bradley Manning" is about this American soldier's captivity in torturous conditions by the US military for allegedly emailing out the secrets that formed the basis of the WikiLeaks. Other composers represented in this first concert were MIki Vaino, Rolf Riehm, and James Saunders. I was unable to attend the premiere but was kept apprised of the workings of the event by Olaf. More info may be found here: http://www.pinakothek.de/en/node/13719?curImg=2

February

January was an intense month of studio work including composing the commissioned double string-quartet "Occam's Razor" for the March 4 premiere at Issue Project Room, three songs for "L'Escalier du Chant", starting work on guitar instrumentals for a CD to be entitled "Umami", and most labor-intensive of all, re-writing my 2001 orchestra piece "Calling" using the Sibelius software for the Sarasota Symphony's US premiere of the piece in March. "Calling" was originally composed in 2001 using Overture, a useful but very compromised application that produces much-less-than-professional scores. I was able to export the original score as a MIDI file but most formatting data is lost in the translation. Essentially, I had to go over the piece note-by-note and re-introduce dynamics and any additional text as well as deal with engraving issues: spacing, justification, pagination. It's an amazingly tedious process that provides all of the muscular discomfort of composing without any of the creative spark. It was tempting at times to re-compose certain elements but I strongly feel that when a piece is finished, it's finished. That said, I did tweak dynamics a little bit - this would have been done anyway in working with the conductor for the performance. Work continues through the morning of my departure and in the late afternoon I head to Newark for my flight to London. There are still lasting after-effects from the massive winter storm that hit the Midwest and Northeast on Feb. 1 and there is strong turbulence across New England and Eastern Canada and because of a supercharged jetstream, even worse across the Atlantic - two hours of roiling and shaking that makes sleep impossible. This monstrous tailwind brought us to London over one hour early - just about five hours for the flight! BTW anyone interested in getting a sense of how rough a flight will be can check out: http://www.turbulenceforecast.com/ . Lots of useful information and good predictive maps.

February 04 John Edwards/Tony Marsh/John Butcher/Kay Grant/E# - Cafe Oto - London
Quick exit from Heathrow and good Tube connections and I'm soon at the hotel enjoying breakfast followed by a day of slumber. Hamish from Oto picks me up for soundcheck and some of that excellent Oto espresso. Quick setup and we're joined for dinner by Christian Marclay and Ed McKeon of Third Ear Music. My rig for the tour is simple: the Koll 8-string, MXR Compressor, Rat Distortion, Timefactor Delay. Oto has a good-sounding Twin Reverb amp but I also send the stereo output of my delay direct to the PA. First set begins with a 15-minute mash-up of Octal pieces but with the added twist of electronic processing. This, of course, leads me down new sonic avenues. Kay Grant (aka KJ) next joins me for a 5-minute improvised blast. KJ sang with Carbon for the CD "Truthtable" as well as on "Beneath The Valley Of The Ultra-Yahoos." Her voice has a remarkable range, from clear mezzo-soprano richness to guttural scratches and unearthly wailing. Our improv covers much territory in its time-compressed intensity. The first set is completed with John, Tony, and John - three incredible musicians who are always a treat to play wtih. We hit "go" with full force for twenty minutes then break so that we and the crowd can seek refreshment. Recharged, we dig infor a one hour set that has almost a punkrock mania to it. We touch upon various stylistic references for just enough time to say hello and then go off. The full audience demands an encore and we oblige with another ten-minute piece. It's quite late when I return to the hotel and just a few hours later rise to get to Heathrow for my morning flight to Geneva.

February 05 "Ear We Are" Festival - Biel, Switzerland
Fine flight to Geneva with the weather clearing as we approach Switzerland to provide breathtaking views of Mont Blanc and the Alps. I have just enough time to make my train from Geneva airport to Biel. Organizer (and cellist/composer) Martin Schuetz meets me at the station and brings me to the hotel where there's time for only a quick change and then off to the venue, a 1930's Bauhaus building normally used for metal-working and design. Bienally, a stage is built and the building is taken over by this festival. Part of the festival is an interactive disk-cutting lathe installation by artist Flo Kaufmann that allows guests to make their own vinyl record. Shelley Hirsch is in the middle of her solo set when I arrive: stream-of-consciousness rich with puns and colloquial sounds, always astounding. I have time only for setup and a linecheck in front of the packed house. No amps for this set - just direct into the PA. The sound on stage is almost clinically clean - like being in a recording studio. The audience is warm and concentrated in their listening so it feels right. Fifty minute set to great response and the festival breaks for dinner - I go with organizer (& reed player) Hans Koch to the restaurant. After this break, James Blood Ulmer's Odyssey trio opens the evening. This is a wonderful band playing it droning, hypnotic, and bluesy. It's great to re-connect with Blood and violinist Charles Burnham backstage as well as meet Blood's drummer Warren Benbo, provider of the deep groove. Phil Minton is up next leading a 35-voice choir of local amateur singers. It's engaging but exhaustion hits and I return to the hotel.

February 06 Schlosserei Nenninger - Zurich
Very civilized starttime for my short train to Zurich. Patrik Landolt of Intakt meets me at the station and we head back to his house for green tea and to discuss his upcoming 3-CD reissue of out-of-print Carbon material to be titled "The Age Of Carbon". We then head over to the industrial district on the outskirts of town where the venue is located. Walter Nenninger has a large metal-working shop where he puts on occasional concerts (he had a previous place that I performed at some 15 years before). The room is large and airy and all of the equipment has been moved over to accomodate the 80 or so chairs for the audience. Walter has an incredible 1930's chrome espresso machine made in Chiasso - an homage to the caffeine gods - and he has a fine hand with it, turning out a rich black doppio ristretto with beautiful crema. I plug into a Gallien-Kruger keyboard amp - the full frequency response is very hi-fi and there is plenty of headroom. I'm enthralled with the room: my father worked as an industrial designer and often developed his ideas in his basement workshop filled with tools and materials. One of my favorite activities as a child was to find a corner and work alongside him on my own projects, building spaceships, model planes, and simple electronic circuits. Nenninger's space brought me some of those memories and smells and inspired sounds that echoed some imaginary functioning of the place. Certain frequencies from my rig set various metal cases and racks of materials vibrating at different rates and I could use these as a spatial counterpoint or some sort of industrial version of a mirliton, the membranes used on bailophones (African marimbas) to generate buzzes and rattles in sympathy with the intended tones. The set lasted well over an hour and the full house gave a long ovation. Lots of good conversations after with various audience members who were also artists and writers. Soon after, we headed for a nearby restaurant in the shadow of the autobahn where fresh local and organic foods were served with a modern creative twist.

February 07 Gareth Davis records "All The Klangs You Are" - WDR / Scott Fields/Gareth Davis/E# - Loft - Köln - Germany
Much too early start for my five-hour train trip to Köln via Mannheim and an afternoon recording session at the WDR produced by Harry Vogt. The WDR and bass clarinetist Gareth Davis had commisisoned a piece from me for Gareth's project re-casting jazz standards. My title is "All The Klangs You Are" and I used the classic 32-bar form (soon completely mangled) as the basis of the composed material. Gareth will play on top of a stereo audio file composed from fragments of his playing recorded at Studio zOaR last summer. The fragments were processed and recombined to create a setting for the more melodic material performed live. The score is completely synchronized with the soundfile. Arrive in Köln with enough time for a quick change at the hotel and then off to the nearby Funkhaus of the WDR. Gareth had begun in the morning with pieces for the project by Peter Alblinger and Bernhard Lang and was fired up to go. We transferred the soundfile first and after some discussion with the Tonmeister decided to record in sections with those parts that needed to be exactly synchronized to metronome and soundfile coming first. The sections filled with fast virtuosic passages were over more floating sounds and didn't require hard synchronization. These passages are extremely difficult, even for a masterful player such as Gareth and we recorded them in brief sections, with some inserts being as small as half a bar. Gareth displayed incredible stamina and concentration. The alternative would have been to record multiple live takes. This would sound more like the piece in concert and would sacrifice accuracy for a certain spontaneity. It was mutually decided that we would go for the benchmark performance in this recording and hence, microscopic perfectionism. It's a tribute to Gareth's musicianship that the for all of this focus on detail, the overall playing was rich with nuance and fire. The monumental task of editing and mixing would fall to the Tonmeister at a later date. Soon after finishing the session, we had to get to the Loft for soundcheck but this was trumped by hunger and Gareth guided us to a wonderful Lebanese restaurant nearby. Arriving at the Loft, we found Scott relaxing, having already set up his classical and steel-string acoustics and working with the house engineer, set up mics for Gareth and himself, and a Fender Blues deVille for me. We played two concentrated but quiet sets to the attentive house, going through every possible instrumental permutation between the three of us.

February 08 ALL EARS! - Rotterdam, Netherlands
Relaxed train with Gareth to Utrecht where we parted company with he heading home to Amsterdam and I, on to Rotterdam for an event organized by old friend Daniela Swarowski in her gallery Wolfart. I plug in direct to the small PA so soundcheck is quick and it's back upstairs for an amazing Japanese meal made by Daniela's friend Yu. At dinner there's a nice surprise: the arrival of filmmaker Anaïs Prosaïc, a good friend of Daniela's - our paths have crossed a few times in the past. The evening opens with Lukas Simonis, another old friend, who helped organize concerts for Semantics and Carbon in 1987 and 1989. Lukas plays a custom-made bright green Landman multi-string guitar with built-in electric mbira, zither, and octave guitar all plugged in to a long chain of pedals. This array allows him to create an orchestral wall of sound. Up next is Bruno Ferro Xavier da Silva, a young electric bassist who performs whimsical pieces with creative looping and layering combined with a great ear for unusual sounds and techniques. I perform my Octal re-mix next. One of the speakers is a little tired and does not quite handle some of the frequencies and there is some strange and not overly pleasant distortion at times. Still, I feel that the set works well and the full house agrees. We finish up the music with a 20-minute improvisation together which works much better than most multi-guitar jams do: good listening, unexpected transformations, even some interlocking grooves. Lots of interesting conversations after on string theory and use of math in music, Egypt, composer Eliane Radigue, and my Happy Chappie Polka. Quite late when I get to sleep and too early when I rise. I've always loved the sky just before dawn (whether seeing it after a long night or up early) and riding in the taxi to Centraal this morning, I find it especially poignant.

February 09 Scott Fields/E# Duo - Jazzwerkstatt Cafe - Berlin, Germany
Marie from Jazzwerkstatt meets me at the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof and escorts me to my hotel where I have some chill time before walking over to the venue in Walter-Benjamin-Platz with Scott. The organization uses different venues for events and tonight's is in an ornate and compact cafe here in the center - lots of dark old wood furniture and glittering chandeliers. The proprietress makes a killer espresso - greatly appreciated! Soundcheck is quick as is dinner and the house is full and expectant. We play mostly compositions during the first set, alternating Scott's and mine. Not as tight as they might have been with some rehearsal but taking on extra dimensions from the use of electric guitars instead of the acoustic instruments we intended the pieces for. We're pretty well warmed up by the end of the set and are back again after a short break. We play two compositions to start the second set then after my short solo, improvisations to finish. We're called back for an encore to complete the evening. After, there's time to greet friends Reinhold Friedl, Olaf Nicolai, and Clea Waite, and sign autographs and CD's before heading with Reinhold over to a nearby trattoria for dessert.

February 10 Thomas Maos/E# - Solos and Duos - Franz K - Reutlingen
Easy trains to Stuttgart then Reutlingen where I'm picked up at the station by guitarist Thomas Maos for the first of two concerts that he's arranged. I've know Thomas for years since first meeting him at the Sudhaus in Tübingen, the next town over. Terraplane played previously at the Franz K and it's a fine venue with good sound and sightlines and most importantly, a great vibe. We quickly soundcheck and then I head to the hotel to prepare for the evening then return for dinner. Thomas begins the festivities with his solo set played on an acoustic guitar modified by a local luthier with an added resonator pan and P90 pickup through a bevy of pedals. Thomas treads a balance between noise, slide blues, and modal melodies with a Middle Eastern inflection.

February 11 Merlin - Stuttgart
Relaxed drive to Stuttgart, about an hour but Thomas noticing some funny stuff with his car's transmission. We descend the last hill into town and the clutch stops working. Fortunatley, we're right in front of the Hauptbahnhof. Thomas calls his auto club and I taxi to the Theaterhaus for a meeting with Christine Fischer, director of the Neue Soloisten, about a possible commission. Thomas soon arrives at the theater: the problem was just the carpet which had shifted and was preventing the full play of the clutch. A relief. Leaving the office, a maasive surprise: Massimo Ongaro from Venice, also there for a meeting. Thomas and I head over to the Merlin for lunch and soundcheck. It's a small and extremely friendly culture center, bar, and restaurant. Good equipment and we're quickly up and running. The house if full for our show which again begins with Thomas solo, then my Octal set, then a duo set. Very enjoyable playing and a great audience. Massimo shows up towards the end and we have a drink before I pack up. A short sleep and an early call to the train station for my ride to Frankfurt airport and my flight back to NYC.

February 28 Tracie Morris/E# Duo - PS110 - Manhattan
Thanks to a small grant from the Tarandi Foundation, I was able to set up a concert for the Kindergarten through 2nd Grade classes at PS110 on the Lower East Side where Kai and Lila are both K students. Tracie and I plan a program called Music In Movement and talk about transportation and how it may inspire songs and how people use song to process the events and processes in their lives. We choose walking, mules, trains, cars, trucks, and outer space as our modes to explore. The school's equipment is a challenge. There's an "electric lectern" that provides decent amplification for Tracie's voice but the amp that I'm to use is just barely adequate. It looks good but puts out a very feeble sound. My trusty old MXR "red box" compressor fortunately brings it just to the edge of useable. The 200 kids are quite orderly as they file in to a country blues shuffle that I play on my Luna and when they're all seated we introduce ourselves and begin to talk about the songs. We start with Robert Johnson's "Walking Blues" and continue with "Mule Blues" - an instrumental with Tracie providing narration. Her engaging manner keeps the kids interested. We continue with "Smokestack Lightning" by Howlin' Wolf and Junior Parker's "Mystery Train" to cover the railroad portion. For automobiles, Chuck Berry's "Route 66" for which we try to get the kids to clap hands. The backbeat quickly decays into mass granulation so we lose that idea (especially given the extreme reverberance of the auditorium.) Still, the kids are bouncing and bopping in place, feeding on the music's energy and displaying a very clear progression and expansion toward untrestrained exuberance. We speak a little about how trucks carry many things over long distances and deliver them to the stores before playing Dave Dudley's classic "Six Days On the Road". Seeing that time is short, we finish up with Sun Ra's "Rocket Number 9" after a short spiel about traveling in outer space. Some of the kids chant along and others clap and stomp to his last number - ultimately they're a fantastic audience and certainly no more unruly than ones I've found in various clubs around the world.

March

Benefit for Issue Project Room & Marathon Concert - "E# @ 60" - Brooklyn
I like to observe milestones and had the idea to do a small concert for my 60th birthday and present a couple of current projects. I asked Zach Layton at Issue about this and he replied that he and Luke Dubois already had such a plan in the works but on a much grander scale than I imagined! Business & Development Director Michelle Amador came up with the idea to combine my birthday concert with a benefit for Issue at the new space (where construction has only barely begun) at 110 Livingston Street in Brooklyn and continue the next day at the current space with a marathon concert. My old friends Steve Buscemi, a well-known actor, and his wife Jo Andres, a visionary filmmaker and choreographer, would host the benefit event. Zach asked me what I would most like to present and I mentioned a double string-quartet that I had been thinking of composing, "Occam's Razor" along with "The Boreal", premiered by JACK in 2009 at Witten Festival in Germany. The double-quartet would be a commission from Issue and JACK and Sirius String Quartets together would premiere the work. Steve, Jo and I also cooked up a multimedia work titled "Trinity" with Steve's narration of an excerpt from "The Thunder, Perfect Mind" from Gnostic texts. In addition, I would perform a mash-up of elements from the Velocity of Hue solo guitar pieces as well as collaborations with Tracie Morris and Jack Womack. New Issue director Ed Patuto generated an incredible amount of enthusiasm for the event and the entire staff and board dug in to shape and sell the event (which would include a silent auction of such items as art works by Issue board members Cindy Sherman and Robert Longo.)

March 4 The Benefit at 110 Livingston St
Arrived at 3 on that Friday afternoon for dress rehearsals with JACK and Sirius quartets. As I was entering the hall, the neck of my Godin guitar in its gig-bag got caught for a second in the revolving door - I thought nothing of it as there was no discernible impact. We ran through "The Boreal" with JACK and then "Occam's Razor" with both quartets. Finally, the screen and projector were set up and aligned and Steve and Jo ready to run the dress rehearsal for "Trinity". Imagine my shock when I opened the guitar case for soundcheck and found the neck broken in the back around the 3rd fret - not completely sheared off but most definitely BROKEN. i could see the truss-rod - it was like staring into the open wound of a compound fracture and gazing at your own radius and ulna. Panic! It was already 5:30pm - rushhour on Friday and I was in downtown Brooklyn so no time to run to my studio in Manhattan to get a spare neck or another instrument as I had to be ready to play at 7:30 (not to even mention the vagaries of replacing the neck!) l pushed the break in the neck back together and poured in a tube of superglue that Philip White, the sound engineer and Issue technical director had fetched from a nearby hardware store, securing it with a C-clamp until the glue set. Amazingly, the guitar was in tune when the neck was broken and stayed in tune for the rest of the evening. The action was decent and I was able to play the entire concert with nobody in the large audience noticing anything out of the ordinary. I did have to avoid the first three frets as the notes buzzed terribly but the rest was fine. It's a real testament to Godin construction or just my dumb luck that the damage wasn't greater! I was half-expecting someone to come up to me after and say "Is that the way you really play or is your guitar broken?" In any case, the initial "VIP" part of the evening began with "Trinity", a meditation on the symbols of goddesses and motherhood, fecundity, life cycles, death and Kali the Destroyer - light stuff. I mostly used EBow on the Godin with a patch that I programmed on the Pitchfactor to give a vocal-like upper harmony to my sustained melodies. The majestic space at 110 Livingston is an old marble hall, former home of the Brooklyn Board of Education, and both visually and sonically grand. Eventually, the room will have top sound and light equipment and acoustic treatments to tame its inherent reverberation. For now, I had to work with the sound rather than fight it. For that reason, I chose mostly legato gestures in the score to "Trinity" and focussed on overtone sounds during my solo "Velocity of Hue" which I dedicated to the late Suzanne Fiol, founder of Issue. "Velocity of Hue" was a particular favorite of hers and I premiered it at the first Issue space in the East Village. Steve, Jo, and Ed Patuto, as well as representatives of Brooklyn City Councilman Marty Markowitz all spoke about Issue after which this portion of the evening concluded and the party was opened to the general concert audience. This set opened with my duet with Jack Womack who read a plangent description of NYC in the plausible near-future, an excerpt from his book "Elvissey", to my sonic accompaniment. Tracie Morris then joined me for our piece "Mahalia Theremin". We worked it for over 10 minutes, Tracie's voice rising in waves of ululating power and cross-modulating with my slide-and-EBow guitar wails in the room's acoustics to create acoustically-generated ring-modulated sheets of sound - wild! Next JACK performed "The Boreal", even its whisper-soft sections meeting with quiet attention and deep listening. In addition to a menu of extended techniques, this completely through-composed work uses bows made from steel ball-chain and from metal springs to generate many of its sounds. Finally, with JACK and Sirius set up across the room from each other, "Occam's Razor" was premiered. The piece uses a simple gesture and process on which to build its sonically complex and vaulted arches. The various climactic sections yield audio hallucinations as a result of difference tones and cross-modulation: choral voices, alien muttering, whispers, wails - but superimposed on a rhythmic lattice that was always shifting assymetrically but flowingly. I was thrilled at the performance (though the piece really sounded best when the room was empty at our rehearsal one week before!) Brought the Godin back to the studio the next morning to replace the neck with a spare that I had. This task had to be postponed until two days later as it was quite complicated - new holes had to be carefully drilled in the heel to align the neck properly to the body, the tuners replaced, and the truss rod and action adjusted. It would not at all have been possible to accomplish this for the show.

March 5 The Marathon at 232 3rd St.
Arrived at Issue at 3 for soundcheck/rehearsal with the 12 other guitarists who were to play "SyndaKit". The last time we performed this at Issue, each musician played into a direct box and stood under one of the 16 speakers suspended from the ceiling - each musician was bussed to one speaker as a monitor and then also grouped for random spatialization controlled by a Max/MSP patch. Because of the expected high attendance for this event, the audience will be seated in a tradiitonal arrangement and we set up only in the stage area with a stereo mix for us for monitoring. Each individual guitarists' sound is also bussed to the 16 speakers with the spatialization patch in effect. Rehearsal finished, next Orchestra Carbon set up for the premiere of "Flexagons", not a fixed composition but a set of melodic modules that may be looped, chained, superimposed, or used as source material for Butch Morris' conduction - more info on Butch's work here: http://conduction.us/ Thanks to a small grant from Meet The Composer, the rehearsal was open for free to the public and included a post-rehearsal discussion moderated by Luke DuBois with Q & A. I first outlined the usa of the composed modules after which Butch explained the basics of a few of the operations from his conduction language - we then played a number of variations to an audience of about 30. The post-discussion was lively thanks to Luke's astute moderation. A break for dinner while Bert Shapiro's documentary on my work, "Doing the Don't", was screened. [ http://www.pheasantseye.com/films/elliott-sharp-doing-the-dont.html ] I then took the stage for 30 minutes of Octal variations, plugging the outputs of the Koll 8-string into 2 DI's splitting the piezo and magnetic pickups for a stereo spread rom the PA. After the solo, Orchestra Carbon returned to the stage for "Flexagons", running down an intense 45 version, Butch bringing out many subtleties and catalyzing huge sonic eruptions. The ensemble included Rachel Golub-violin, Judith Insell-viola, Ha-Yang Kim-cello, Reuben Radding-doublebass, Oscar Noriega-bass clarinet, Briggan Krauss-alto sax, Chris McIntire-trombone, Curtis Fowlkes-trombone, Jenny Lin-piano, Danny Tunick-vibraphone & percussion. I played my Koll with MXR compressor, Rat distortion, and Timefactor delay into a Fender Twin. Next up was Jenny Lin performing "Oligosono", a 20-minute through-composed solo that takes a few simple gestures (oligo - "a few" sono "sounds") through radical variations in dynamics and timbre to produce many sounds not often heard from a piano. In some ways it's an etude though I hope it does not come off as didactic in any way. This piece really needs a full grand piano to allow the resonances to fully work but the Issue piano did acquit itself well with a bright hard sound. Quick changeover for Bootstrappers, my frame-name for an improvising ensemble. This version included some of my favorite players: computer-music pioneer Carl Stone, pianist Anthony Coleman, laptop artist J.G. Thirwell (AKA Fetus and many other identities), Melvin Gibbs on electric bass, and Don McKenzie on drums. I retained my setup around the Koll/Twin. No instructions, just a suggestion that crosstalk rather than solos ruled our improvising and the groove above (and below) all! Forty minutes of ever-shifting dynamic sonics and furious rhythmic tension followed - I think we were all stunned with what we had just put down. Another changeover: now for Marco Cappelli to perform "Amygdala", my 2003 composition for his "extreme guitar." Finally, lots of guitars: Ben Tyree, Marco Cappelli, Angela Babin, Marc Sloan, Ron Anderson, Zach Layton, Dave Scanlon, Debra Devi, James Ilgenfritz, Anders Nilsson, Christian Amigo, Zach Pruitt, E# performing what could very well be the best all-guitar version of SyndaKit yet: a bristling pulsing mass, sometimes tranquil and lyrical, sometimes seething with electricity. It was after 1am when we finished. Everyone, from the large audience to the many musicians, expressed joy and exhaustion - a good combination. I was overwhelmed with gratitude at the fantastic musicianship and generous spirits.

March 12 "Naked Musicians" Meets Elliott Sharp - "Flexagons" - Brecht Forum - Manhattan
Improvvisatore Involuntario is an important collective of Italian musicians involved in improvisation and new music who have come to New York for a one-week residency and performing in a number of venues and with various guests curated by member and guitarist Marco Cappelli. Brief afternoon sound check and rehearsal which affords us a chance to go over Flexagons. The technical skills of the musicians varies greatly and some are able to easily play the written modules, some not. The evening begins with improvised duos between Enrico Cassia (guitar) and Antonio Quinci (drums) after which Marco (sporting a shiny orange Gretsch guitar) performs his Italian Surf Academy set. After a short break, violinist Mauro Pagani of the legendary Italian bands Area and P.F.M. and I join the group for a conduction by Francesco Cusa. The performance of Flexagons finishes the evening. Some of my desired operations were impossible to realize with the group but I focussed on what worked best in rehearsal. Many of the players in the ensemble have wonderful musicianship and great technical skills and when focussed on the piece, excellent things resulted. I often featured Mauro's violin and the vocals of Gaia Mattiuzzi together with shifting manifestations of the composed elements. We set up quite a roar by the end and the response was incredibly enthusiastic. We were all happy to convene after the show in Chinatown at NY Noodletown, still reliably fine (and open until 5am!)

March 15 Duo Alvin Curran/E# - Stone - Manhattan
Alvin and I had long discussed the idea of a putting a band together but the closest we've come so far is this night where Alvin invited me to perform the 10pm set at Stone in duo with him after his 8pm solo TransaDada Express. Alvin is a pioneer of modern electro-acoustic music and his group Musica Eletronnica Viva formed in 1966 in Rome (and including at various times such musicians as Frederic Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum, Steve Lacy) was hugely influential to many circles of artists. For this concert, Alvin has rented a Ymaha keyboard controller to trigger samples from his laptop. He also plays piano and various toys and sound-producing objects. I've running straight into the PA as is Alvin and I've brought the Koll, Timefactor, MXR compressor, and Rat distortion as well as my bass clarinet outfitted with a crystal-element pickup in the neck which can also be routed through the effects. We hit hard, a raging blast of timbral counterpoint. There are some quiet points, bit it's mostly raw and fierce. After a 50 minute set we play a short encore with bass clarinet and toy horns, both plaintive and humorous. Traditional post-concert hang at Takahachi.

March 23 Sharp Plays Monk - Stone - Manhattan
Heading over to the Stone from my studio got caught in an incredible blast of winter storm: nearly a solid wall of ice pellets pouring down with an accompaniment of thunder and lightning - beautiful! Brought the Dell Arte acoustic and plugged the internal pickup into the house PA for a decent if not stellar sound. Solid 50-minute set included Bemsha Swing, Rhythm-a-ning, Raise Four, Misterioso, Round Midnight, and finished with Epistrophy to great response fromt he surprisingly full house,

March 24 Jo Andres + E#: Screening + music - Pratt Institute - Brooklyn
Tracie Morris is a professor at Pratt and asked Jo and I to present this collaboration to her students in a lounge rather than in a traditional lecture situation. Some mundane troubles getting everything set up (extension cords? why doesn't the computer detect the projector? Does anyone have any adaptors?) give us a late start but as desired, this was not a very formal presentation. Jo screened her as-yet-untitled work that we presented at the Issue Benefit with images of female divinities from Tibetan, Egyptian, and Coptic Christian cultures. I had been scoring the film in my studio for a single-channel version and this focussed my live playing. The students (of a wide range of age and backgrounds) responded enthusiastically to the work and the Q&A was quite lively with comments and questions ranging from the thoughtful to the absurd.

April

April 1 The Extended Piano Disklavier Festival II - White Box - Manhattan
This weekend-long event grew from Steve Horowitz' desire to put on a NYC concert celebrating the release of his Disklavier CD "Stations of the Breath". Having created and curated the first Extended Piano Festival in 1996, the Electronic Music Foundation asked if I would revisit the event. I would curate performances for the first night with the assistance of Veniero Rizzardi of Venice, another Disklavier aficionado and curator, and Steve would take on the second. In addition to live performances, there would be "installation" pieces operating during the gallery hours on the Saturday and Sunday afternoons, some of which had been presented during the 1996 festival, some by Veniero in Padua, and some completely new. Yamaha generously provided rehearsal time at their well-appointed Midtown studio/showroom as well as a Disklavier for the festival (and transportation for it) plus a technician and tuner. The instrument arrived around noon but it took awhile to tune and things felt slightly tense as everyone needed to get their setups in order. All was fine by 7:30pm when the doors opened and people began filtering in. We had a full house by the time of Lukas Ligeti's opening set pitting his improvised drums, hot and liquid, against pre-recorded midi files triggering the piano in waves of dense counterpoint and texture. This was followed by Pamela Z's pf, a structured improvisational work for voice, electronics, disklavier, and ultrasound controller that maintained an air of calmness and directness. I was up next with Nolnoc for bass clarinet, Disklavier, and electronics. Originally performed at the first Extended Piano Festival in 1996, the piece is a tribute to Conlon Nancarrow, whose pioneering work with piano rolls paved the conceptual way for such instruments as the Disklavier. I routed the output of a microphone built-in to the clarinet neck into a pitch shifter then a looper and from there into a monophonic IVL Pitchrider pitch-to-midi converter from 1986 and finally into the piano. The processed and looped clarinet signal drove the piano but the electronics remained sonically invisible - only the piano and acoustic bass clarinet were audible. The monophonic midi conversion provided interesting glitches. The Pitchrider's sustain pedal allowed me to layer notes. Nic Collins' The Talking Cure followed with the piano triggered by his texts processed in software. Stefano Bassanese's Arbelos, a complex but transparently-structured canon made its U.S. premiere next, performed by Jenny Lin on piano and assisted by Veniero Rizzardi. Miya Masaoka followed with Balls, an arrangement for koto, laser koto, Disklavier and extra-large Ping Pong balls. The work is based on the bouncing, rolling, and ricocheting of balls, both on a surface and inside the piano on the strings. The Disklavier was triggered from the laser koto and from the computer while Miya added textural counterpoint on koto. The final performance of the evening was Luke DuBois with Equilibrium in which visual manifestations were generated and projected using the same algorithms that transformed Luke's simple keyboard work into intense piano rhapsodies.

April 2 The Extended Piano Disklavier Festival - White Box - Manhattan
This second night was given over to Steve Horowitz' new CD "Stations of the Breath". Some of the pieces were for Disklavier alone but three featured guest musicians: cellist Dave Eggar, percussionist Michael Evans, and myself. Eggar is a phenomenal cellist whose fiery playing and precise musicianship added dimensions to the composed music. Evans is also a flamboyant performer whose comic theatricality enlivened his feature. I played bass clarinet in the composition titled "Connecticut Nocturne, Moon Over Mudge Pond", a somewhat programmatic piece with a ghostly narrative. The music was spacious and quiet, rising up towards the end for a jazzier and more active sequence.

April 8 Benefit for Japan Earthquake Relief - Abrons Art Center - Manhattan
This event was part of a series of concerts around Manhattan that raised over $120000 for relief for the earthquake victims Organized by John Zorn, this night featured a number of solos and some trios. I only was able to hear the last half as I wanted to attend a small portion of the premiere screening of Bert Shapiro's new documentary "Speaking for Myself" at the Strasberg Theater off of Union Square. The film focuses on 8 NYC artists, myself included. More info here: http://www.pheasantseye.com/films/speaking-for-myself.html . Rapid hike home to grab my Godin acoustic and head to the nearby Abrons Arts Center. William Parker took the stage soon after I arrived followed by a moving alto sax solo by Ned Rothenberg. Everyone is playing shorter-than-expected sets and as a result, I'm up earlier than scheduled and requested to play longer. No time for soundcheck and the onstage monitoring is weird: very bright and flat. I can't worry about it and try to play as if it sounds as it is supposed to. Matt Shipp follows with a dark, roiling, and chromatic piece after which Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth play a wide-ranging duo with Kim using a microphone and a delay and Thurston on prepared guitar in the Keith Rowe-style. Milford Graves completes the set with a rousing solo using voice, percussion, and various drums - shamanic and healing. The audience greets each set with great enthusiasm. The house is cleared at 9pm for another set featuring different performers including Jim Thirwell and Norah Jones (but not together!)

April 9 Wedding of Yuka Honda and Nels Cline - Le Poisson Rouge - Manhattan
In addition to their wedding in Japan, Nels and Yuka also decided to invite their NYC friends to join them in celebration. The event was held at this West Village club and the wedding was presided over by the "reverend" Jeff Tweedy of Wilco who gave a benediction and sang a song for the couple. Sean Lennon also spoke some moving words and sang after which his mother, Yoko Ono gave her blessings in song. This was followed by a wild blues by Yoko accompanied by Sean on bass, a drummer and pianist whose names flashed by too quickly to catch, and myself on a borrowed Strat. I'd always loved the Plastic Ono Band records and it was a thrill to play with Yoko and Sean. Many other musicians performed but one of the real highlights was the Bahia band Forro In The Dark - incredible groove! They were joined onstage by Yoko and Cibo Matto vocalist Miho Hatori as well as our daughter Lila, dancing with joy and abandon.

April 13 Enda Bates - Issue Project Room - Brooklyn
A guitarist/composer from Dublin, Enda was one of Issue's artists-in-residence this season and presented a solo concert of his spatialized works. I was asked to conduct a Q & A after the concert. Enda's music is mostly consonant and driving with dark edges. He uses a guitar with a hex pickup that allows him to process and place in the room the signal of each string individually. One of his pieces uses flocking algorithms to send clouds of notes drifting between speakers. In the talk, we spoke of his compositonal strategies and the hardware and software used. The audience supplied a few questions as well. More about his work here: http://www.endabates.net/

April 15 "Ostrava-New York" - Czech Center - Manhattan
A return to this spectacular hall on the Upper East Side for an event organized by flutist/composer/conductor Petr Kotik and his SEM Ensemble. (The photo is from a rehearsal a few days before.) The concert focussed on this biennial festival in Ostrava in the Czech Republic featuring composers and performers who have taken part. The roster included the incredible virtuoso violinist Hana Kotkova and members of the Ostravska Banda which includes Czech and various NY musicians. The concert opened with Frederic Rzewski's Les Moutons de Panurge, one of his Minimalist works. The added percussion gave the music an Afro-Cuban lilt and drive. Next, a short documentary on the Ostrava Music Days was shown followed by my solo Aperturae performed on the Godin electro-acoustic. This was the premiere of this 15-minute piece. The title describes the openings through which the different layers of simultaneous development in the structure may be heard. Each opening reveals different techniques and sounds, all linked to one underlying pulse. The next few pieces all sounded typically academic to my ears, even though Hana Kotkova's riveting performance elevated Pablo Chin's composition. The final piece of the evening was Martin Smolensk's Autumn Thoughts for a large ensemble. The work revealed a very-Czech humor, dark and a bit absurd, as well as a conceptual approach that was bracing and thought-provoking.

April 25 Carbon - Zebulon - Brooklyn
Before performing at a European festival, I like to warm up the band with a New York show, especially if there are any new members. In this case, harpist Shelley Burgon is joining Joseph Trump, Marc Sloan, and myself for hits in Brooklyn and upcoming in Porto. Joe has arrived from Portland, Oregon the night before and drops his equipment at Studio zOaR and we all convene at 11 the next morning to knock down some ristretti and rehearse for a few hours. The music comes together quickly so at 1545 we head over to Brooklyn for a relaxed setup and soundcheck. I haven't been to Zebulon in a few years and it's great to be back in it's welcoming atmosphere, like being in an international zone but just across the Williamsburg Bridge. In fact, the enthusiastic audience seems to be mostly European (though some friends including Luke Dubois and Ha-yang Kim have also made it out on this Monday night). Our two sets include the VOID COORDINATES CD plus various nuggets from Carbon albums past as well as two versions of Flexagons. Shelley has brought a Celtic harp with a pickup that runs through her various processors. I have the solidbody 8-string, curved soprano sax and sundry electronics.

April 28 Carbon - Casa Di Musica - Porto, Portugal
A return to this modern venue (the spaceship!) where T.E.C.K. Quartet performed in 2006 not long after the space opened. Because of the vagaries of airline ticket prices and the impenetrability of the reasoning behind them, we're all booked on different flights to maximize our budget. Shelley, Marc, and I meet in Frankfurt and fly together to Porto with Joe coming via Madrid. A good chunk of rest at the hotel and a few hours later we're setting up in the second room, a beautiful space for a seated audience of about 300 with better acoustics for amplified music than the larger symphony hall. The crew and equipment are all wonderful and soundcheck proceeds quickly and efficiently. We're taken to the Casa's restaurant for a dinner of fairly traditional Portuguese cuisine with modern touches. The concert is sold-out and the audience greets every tune with sustained response. We play one long set saving Flexagons for an encore after which we meet fans and sign autographs then relax at the bar before heading back to the hotel.

April 29 E# Solo - Mosteira de Santa Clara-a-Velha - Coimbra
Say my good-byes to the Carbonites then take a shorter-than-expected train ride late the next morning from Porto - a little over one hour. I was just about to doze off when I barely heard a muffled announcement of "Coimbra B." Snapped to, grabbed my things, and out to the platform where I'm soon picked up by organizer and musician José Miguel Pereira. Some free time at the hotel and then head out to the venue. This 7pm concert is at a ruined 13th-century abbey that is now a cultural site and archaeological museum. Fantastic acoustics and dramatic views. The only drawback is that the weather has turned cold and rainy and being inside the ruin is essentially being outdoors. It was necessary to improvise a small platform from cardboard and a dropcloth to set over the rough stone floor so that my pedals would be somewhat level. The PA was small but with excellent stereo sound and I plugged in direct to play one long set alternating between my soprano sax and the 8-string through distortion and TimeFactor pedals. After about 50 minutes the cold was penetrating and it felt like time to complete the concert. I was using two metal slides near the bridge of the guitar through a modulated delay - it sounded like birds at first and then more and more. As I faded out my signal, the birds persisted - real ones, in the rafters. I thanked them for their participation. After a bow and some greetings with audience members, I turned to pack up. Wearing my guitar and intermittently holding my soprano, I had been stooped over my electronics for the entire set. As I bent over to unplug, I felt my lower back spasm out. Blinding pain! I sat down and waited for it to subside after which we headed into town to the Salão Brazil.

April 29 Open Field Trio + E# - Salão Brazil - Coimbra
Getting in and out of the car is excruciating as is climbing the stairs to this spacious and funky club where I had previously performed in 2007. José Miguel Pereira had invited me to perform with his cooperative group Open Field Trio consisting of h on double bass, Marcelo dos Reis - nylon-string guitar, and João Camões - viola. We did a quick set-up and then sat down to a meal cooked by the club. I allowed myself to be talked into having a shot of viejo aguardiente (the local aged brandy) to relieve my back-pain. It certainly helped (in combination with ibuprofen and espresso!) I performed this set seated and we had an excellent session filled with global listening and clear development. In a compact soprano sax/viola duo with João, I was blown away by his virtuosic but subtle improvising. More about them here: http://www.myspace.com/openfieldtrio

April 30 Solos: Filipe Felizardo/E# - Tremazul Store - Lisbon
Pedro and Ricardo have driven up from Lisbon for the Coimbra show and I ride with them back down. A bit of rest at the hotel then I'm picked up to go over to the shop for soundcheck. It's a fine place to perform, down near the old port and with good acoustics and equipment and an audience that really wants to be there for listening. Before the show, Pedro brings Filipe and I to a wonderful and funky place for grilled fish. Filipe begins the concert with ravishing dark soundscapes filled with twang and drama thanks to an unusual Fender guitar and a floor full of pedals. In my set, I find myself channeling many strange and tragic scenes, very different from the previous day's solo in Coimbra. After the concert, a DJ sets up and the store becomes a party. It's late when I return to my hotel and early when I head to the airport for my flight back to NYC.

May

May 03 NYFOS Next - Baryshnikov Center - Manhattan
Composer Phill Kline curated this evening of the New York Festival of Song focussing on "Downtown" and requested a composition of mine to be performed together with pieces by Meredith Monk, David Lang, Corey Dargel, and Phill himself. I revisited a composition from 2003, "No Time Like The Stranger" written for the New Juilliard Ensemble. Composed in reaction to the opening months of Gulf War II, NTLTS featured a cryptic and unsettled text with jagged and shifting ensemble accompaniment. This new version pared the original from 15 minutes down to 6 1/2 and was orchestrated for violin, cello, and piano plus the soprano vocalist with the text remaining as before. Phill graciously organized rehearsals at his Chinatown loft and I was able to attend one the day after returning from Portugal. The players were all killer: Michael Barrett on piano (one of the founders of NYFOS), Todd Reynolds-violin, Ashley Bathgate-cello, and Lauren Worsham-soprano. We were able to make great progress at the rehearsal and then again at the run-through in the afternoon before the concert at the Center, a well-appointed loft on the far west side of midtown. Phill served as MC and was entertaining and erudite. His pieces are sardonic and filled with subtly twisted musical gestures within a fairly smooth surface. Texts included the opening page of Hunter Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", Thompson's suicide note, and Emily Dickinson's "To Make A Prairie". Corey Dargel's work was also from the dark side and sang his songs of voluntary amputation accompanied by Kathy Supove on piano. Both David Lang's and Meredith Monk's works were warm and hypnotic with David's especially packed with interlocked layers. NTLTS was performed with great intensity by the group. The vocal line is quite difficult and Lauren's power and clarity without amplification was impressive. These concerts are sponsored by Movado and are free to the public. Tickets are snatched up as soon as they are made available and the packed house is extremely receptive.

May 8 New Ideas Music Series - Pianos - Manhattan
Guitarist Michael Waller has been curating this series at Pianos, a Ludlow St. club. This nights' edition featured Loren Connors (whose set I missed), Michael's guitar quartet, John King on viola with computer processing, and my solo set on the Godin performing Velocity of Hue. Michael and his guitarists have all performed with LaMonte Young in his DreamHouse and their set made use of EBows and a sine-wave drone generated from a laptop for difference-tone ecstasy. I've known John King for many years but only as a guitarist and his processed viola set was a beautiful surprise with his Max/Live patch generating distortions and panned delays. The onstage monitors had the EQ bypassed but the sound was a little strange: different frequencies had very different reponses which affected even the feeling of the string tension - very much a feedback network! Some of the modules in Velocity worked better than others but overall the set felt good as did the response. Walking home, I found the Williamsburg Bridge to be dramatically illuminated, probably a film shoot.

May 16 E# Lecture/Demonstration - Biological Models in Contemporary Composition - White Box - Manhattan
The NY Foundation for the Arts awarded a fellowship to me in Music Composition for 2010-11. One of the few requirements was to perform a community service event that one could design oneself with the nature of the event quite open as long as it was free to the public. I chose to do a lecture-demonstration focussing on the inspiration for much of my formal composition work: biological forms and processes. Thanks to Juan Puntes for making White Box available to me for this presentation. White Box itself, a small gallery in Chinatown, is a fantastic place in terms of the breadth and depth of its activities. One only wishes that it had the infrastructure of more well-endowed (and less open) venues. The sound system is severely challenged and a benefit event is in order to get a decent mixer. I had to make do with the gallery's ancient unit of questionable pedigree. Whether due to its deterioration or some strange design quirk, signals below a certain level would not pass through to the speakers. This "gating" eliminated the quieter passages from the musical examples that I was playing from my computer to illustrate certain points and was later to effect the live performance with which I finished the evening. To further complicate matters, we could not get the WB projector to see my computer. A smaller projector was eventually substituted after exhausting all diagnostic possibilities - reduced size and clarity of image but an image, at least! Tech problems out of the way, I jumped right in with the talk to a diverse audience of about 20 people comprising various artist friends but also young student composers, senior painters, and a few curious members of the WB mailing list. I began with describing some of my initial uses of non-musical materials. These "Hudson River Compositions" were all made in July and August of 1974 when I was sharing a house on the river upstate in Germantown, NY with Steve Piccolo, filmmaker Wendy Cogan, and John and Evan Lurie. Our back porch faced a small field that would be filled at night with millions of fireflies whose lights provided an incredible visual display. I always expected the fireflies to begin spelling out words or forming pictures. This gave rise to the idea of simulating a firefly display on music manuscript and having musicians perform it. My first attempt used a photocopy of fireflies pasted onto manuscript. The result is below: "Hudson River Nr. 1" is a modern re-creation. Other Hudson River compositions were based on bird flocking, river flow and branching, geometric growth, hocketing, densities, and the harmonic series. I next spoke of my work with Fibonacci numbers including early uses and obsessions as well as the detailed work in 1984 that led to the Carbon compositions as well as the first string quartet Tessalation Row and associated orchestra piece Re/Iterations. The algorithmic piece SyndaKit followed for discussion and finally the recent Occam's Razor. I finished the presentation with a 10-minute improvisation on the Godin acoustic plugged into the PA. For this, the guitar was tuned to a Fibonacci based system of (low-to-high): C Ab C G A C. Finally, the floor was opened to questios and discussion and I was surprised at the level of interest - the talk went on for quite longer than I expected with topics ranging from use of dreams in composing, issues of copyright with graphic and open scores, my own work methods, the nature of "pop" vs "art", and the battle between "composition vs. "improvisation".

May 21 - Solo + Trio with Anthony Coleman/Peter Negroponte - Freedom Garden - Brooklyn
A return to this basement rumpus room. Inclement weather again prevents us using the actual garden. Anthony has brought his vintage Korg simulation of a Hammond drawbar organ which he patches through a number of guitar pedals. His duo with drummer Negroponte opens the evening and it's clattery, rude, funny, and wonderful. Their set lasts about 20 minutes after which I join them for a compact improv: noisy, rapid-fire and action-packed. Next I play solo for about 20 minutes and it's quite different from any of my recent sets. I'm excited to be entering some new territory. I've brought the Luna semi-hollow guitar and I'm loving it on this night - it feels great and the sound is juicy and articulate. It runs through the MXR compressor, the Rat, Time Factor, and Boomerang - the new one which MIke Nelson has sent me. Sound quality is vastly improved over the original and it has much added versatility though the price paid is the loss of certain functions that the older unit featured. The evening concludes with an engaging conduction by cellist/bassist Nick Jazniak for a nine-piece ensemble.

June

June 05 Musicircus - Roulette - Brooklyn
A 2-day performance of this 1967 John Cage piece to celebrate Roulette's move to Brooklyn. Definitely cause to celebrate the grand new space, an old vaudeville theater, but also we must mourn the departure from Manhattan of NYC's most-committed space for new music. The principle of Musicircus is freedom: no score, no tickets, no money for performers. At its premiere--and today---artists were instructed to ³resist the temptation to react to what is going on around them but remain centered in their own artistic creation. The audience is invited to wander freely and choose their own sonic and visual relationships². For this event, in order to prevent total chaos, a timeline was created that functions as a score for the players but only indicating when to start and stop. Artists are free to find a spot of their choice in the spacious theater with balcony or if PA is needed, to set up in one of the sound stations. I don't have time to attend on Saturday but head out by subway with Kai in tow (with promises to him of pizza and ice cream.) We catch a 6 train downtown immediately and then the 4 express to Brooklyn - we should make the 4 stops in plenty of time. Of course, reality intervenes. A man boards the sparsely-populated train just after we sit, about 40 and seemingly "normal-looking" (whatever that may be). He proceeds to loudly "karate-chop" the seats across from us and then to perform chin-ups from the bars on the ceiling. When he begins his bad chop-socky moves again accompanied by loud grunts and "hai!" I drag Kai over to the opposite end of the car. I have to explain to him that some people just don't know how to control themselves in public and leave it at that. The martial arts display continued for far longer than it should have as the train crawled between stations, delayed before entering each station "because of traffic" said the automated robot announcement. This was especially ironic in light of the fact that the weekend train service is cut WAY back - the trains run at intervals of 20 minutes on the average. The trip took nearly one hour - what should have been about 15 minutes at most. Arriving at Roulette we found a vibraphone set up on the sidewalk in front on which passersby would bang, some quite skillfully. The sound engineer assigned me a spot and I set up my Eb soprano clarinet and Bb curved soprano sax. The overall sound in the space was rich and chaotic - most players had some awareness of adjacent dynamics though some were quite loud. Janene arrived with Lila and took Kai up to the balcony while I played. I started with a repeated fast-tongued air sound on the clarinet without mouthpiece. This became a recurring motif in my 35-minute set. It would re-appear and then be transformed, sometimes quite radically, othertimes subtly. Despite the instructions, I would occasionally "mix" in my distant reactions to other sounds in the space: a singer, metal percussion, Bradford Reed and his pencilina, electronics... more. Kai and Lila were both quite transfixed by the proceedings and later, Kai closely watched a duo dance performance and helped them by keeping a clip-lamp placed on the floor focussed on their actions.

June 07 Solo - Bonnie Wright House Concert - San Diego
Up at 4 and head to LGA after a quick home espresso. The guy behind me in the security line is hanging a little too close which I don't like but don't think much of it - little sleep and the bean has yet to kick in so I'm not up to speed. As I leave the security area I take inventory and find that my phone is not with me. Go back and the agents check through the bins and in the machine - nada. They call the phone 3 times but no answer. I tell them that I think the person behind me must have taken it. A security agent accompanies me as we wander through the terminal. When I find the guy, I politely ask "Did you perhaps take a phone by accident?" He immediately pulls my phone out of his pocket, smiles, and said with neither apology nor embarrassment that "it looked like his". I take it and go - the security agent laughs - we agree that he was planning to keep it. Amazing..Needless to say, I'm extremely glad to have gotten it back. After my Geneva airport incident I try to be ultra-careful in security but sometimes I slip. Nice flights to IAD and San Diego where Bonnie picks me up at the airport, takes me on a short scenic tour, and then to lunch. Bonnie is an amazingly energetic and erudite woman who runs Henceforth Records. She recently released my opera BINIBON. It can be found here: http://www.henceforthrecords.com/catalog/binibon/ The loft where she normally books events is finished for the season so she prepares a concert at her gorgeous house perched over canyons and arroyos. There's a small stereo PA with excellent sound, and the room has very sympathetic acoustics - there's a full house for my two sets. I've brought the Koll 8-string and soprano sax and some pedals and perform an Octal/Tectonics mash-up (minus drum grooves) to great response. I'm very happy that percussionist Jan Williams and his wife Diana are there. I've not seen these old friends from Buffalo since the Tanglewood Festival of 2004 where they joined their daughter Amy Williams, a wonderful composer and pianist. The next morning, Bonnie drives me to my hotel in LA on her way north.

June 08 Solo - Royal T - Culver City
My old buddy Paul Diamond picks me up at the hotel and we go for lunch and to visit various guitar stores to gawk at beautiful but overpriced vintage instruments before he drops me off at the T for soundcheck. Quick setup and an intense single set after which I greet various old friends.

June 09 Solo & Duo with Motoko Honda - Blue Whale - Los Angeles
The next morning, promoter Rocco Somozzi picks me up at the hotel and we head to Little Tokyo on the east side where this night's hotel and the venue may be found. A chance to have lunch and rest and then wander over for the soundcheck - I can look down on the Blue Whale from my hotel room. Motoko plays amplified piano with sound processing. She's a virtuoso player with a wide range in her touch and approach. Her sounds are always captivating and it's a great pleasure to play with her. We ahve a continuous dialog of textural counterpoint with neither one "soloing". One of the features of her sound is a wooden bar with hooks that she clamps to the piano top which allows her to attach nylon strings to the piano strings. She can pluck these like a harp, bow them, or pull them to change the sound and resonance of the piano strings. Very exciting! Late hang after the concert before I return to the hotel.

June 10 Solo - Meridian Gallery
Morning and Rocco drives me to the airport for my flight to San Francisco where I'm met by another old buddy, artist and musician David Fulton. We stop for great pho at a Vietnamese place in Daly City after which I rest at the hotel for a minute then walk over to the nearby venue to set up for the solo hit. The wonderful p'ansori singer and dancer Dohee Lee hooked me up with Adria Otte, music curator of the Meridian when I mentioned that I would be coming out to California. Dohee sang in my piece Then Go composed in 2009 for the re-built Intonarumori instruments. The Meridian is downtown near Union Square and is packed with unusual and politically-charged art on its three floors. The upstairs gallery is long and narrow but not overly reverberant. I find that every sound system presents its own set of joys or problems and tonight I'm having trouble getting the gain structure consistent. Nothing to do but play on through - the issues are not major for the audience though I notice them (as do a few of my more sonically astute friends). One long set then meet with friends old and new - some only known through correspondence before Fulton and I head out for sushi. It's chilly out and back at the hotel, my radiator sounds like a gamelan, knocking out a very consistent metallic groove.

June 11 Trio: William Winant/Mark E. Miller/E# - Meridian Gallery
A chill day to work and walk around a bit. I meet Guitar Player editor Barry Cleveland in the late afternoon for coffee after which we head over to the gallery to shoot a video segment on extended techniques for the magazine's website. Some camera problems to be resolved but we get some footage just as percussionists William Winant and Mark Miller arrive with their gear. I've known Willie for many years but this is our first chance to play together. MIller and I go back even further, to my first weeks in NYC in 1979. We played many gigs together in NYC, whether fully improvised, in my band Carbon, in Miller & CK Noyes' Toy Killers, and one that is a story in itself: The Must, Michael Musto's Motown tribute band in which I played bass and brought Miller in as drummer. Mark has brought a pretty conventional drum kit and Willie has one tympani, a large tam-tam, and assorted metal objects and other small percussion items. Between them they cover a huge range of sound. The first half of our single set is REALLY loud with the second having a greater dynamic range. Excellent interactions and transitions and a concentrated high level of energy. We're very pleased as is the audience. My brother is a computer scientist in Palo Alto and joins me for a post-concert bite. I head out at the crack of dawn for the airport and my flight back to NYC. The pilot weaves around dramatic thunderstorm cells over Pennsylvania as we begin our descent to EWR.

June 17 Lucid Possession - Republique - Copenhagen
First 80 minutes of the flight out from EWR is pretty turbulent but it gets even worse over Labrador - white-knuckle thrashing lasting almost to Iceland. It finally quiets down and I drop off for a bit of sleep before landing. Johanna from SNYK meets me at the airport ad brings me to my hotel where I enjoy some breakfast then fall into a deep coma in my room. Head over to the Republique around 1500 to catch a run-through of Lucid Possession. This work-in-progress is partially sponsored by Republique, a theater and organization built in an old factory, and is part of a festival with workshops, performances and seminars. We're in the smaller theater - a "black box" that can hold over 200 people and equipped with excellent sound and light equipment. We have a surround-sound system and Toni has brought Stephan Moore to run it as well as Luke Dubois as chief programmer and operator, Mari Kimura on violin, and soprano Hai-Ting Chinn as well as lighting designer Josh. We tweak aspects of the sound and arrangements of the music I've composed and the performance at 8pm goes quite well. After, Toni explains how the software and hardware work and each member demos their particular aspect of the piece. It's visually stunning, the sound is dense, and the story is tangled. There's still a lot to be worked out and it will continue to be tweaked before the next performance in NYC next January. Late-night dining in Copenhagen is difficult but we're able to find a funky shwarma place in walking distance from the hotel.

June 18 Solo/Seminar - Republique
Toni and I are presenting a seminar at 1615 but are expected to attend the preceeding ones beginning at 1100. There is a panel of three engaging artists and directors who focus questioning and commentary to the other artists presenting their work. Some of the work is smart and subtle, some falls into what I call the "neo-hippie wing", as if 1972 never ended. Our own seminar is quite lively with great questions by the panel after Toni and I each talk about how we approach this particular work and the process of collaboration. There's a break for a bite and espresso and then I perform a set of two longer pieces on the Aluminator guitar with Pitchfactor, Boomerang, old red compressor & Rat distortion. The first is a mash-up of themes from the music I've composed for Lucid Possession. I treat the songs as raw material for an almost jazzy interpretation over the sonic beds I've created for the production with lots of textural improvisation between. The second half is the premiere of Ganging The Wave, composed for this festival at their request as radio is one of its themes. I've taken a number of audio recordings of short-wave radio sounds and both process and edit them to create a 22-minute sound collage in four channels. I'm using various convolvers as in 2009's Ganging The Hook to process the radio tracks and using the spectral and transient info taken from my guitar output to shape the sounds. The four channels go to the four corners of the room with the two sub-woofers receiving signal from all. Very little of the actual guitar is heard, only a ghost of its sound embedded in the mix. The overall sonic environment is full and deep, harsh but not brittle. Lots of spatial activity moving between the speakers. Post-concert hang allows some more discussion of Lucid and the direction it will take. I get three hours of sleep then head to the airport for my fairly smooth flight back to New York, only a couple of shocking drops as we cross a powerful jetstream over Canada.

June 23 "Survivor's Lament" - Sound No Walls - Berlin, Germany
Too short time in NYC with a lot of errands to do. A Euro-sojourn between hits would have been relaxing but besides necessary tasks at home, I needed to bring a completely different instrument for the Berlin concert, dropping off the Aluminator and picking up the Godin Multiac electro-acoustic. Great to run into accordionist Guy Klucevsek at EWR who will be performing at the festival in Dave Douglas' group. Our flight over to TXL is mostly calm though we must traverse that still-active jetstream over Canada providing about 15 minutes of lurching and shaking. This performance is part of a festival of so-called "Radical Jewish Culture" curated by my old friend Bert Noglik at the Jewish Museum. Bert knows my views on these issues which is why he has invited me. As I've written before, I feel that this movement is not particularly radical and, in fact, when it comes to Palestine, it's mostly pretty reactionary with a lot of knee-jerk Zionist responses to the situation. Theodor Herzl, one of the founding architects of Zionism, had quite a progressive vision of a "Jewish state" inclusive of the the Arab, Christian, atheist, socialist, anarchist (and so on) populations of Palestine and it's unfortunate that his dream has been so completely corrupted. Bert has invited actor/speaker Christian Brückner to read two poems from the 1970's by Erich Fried, a Jewish Austrian writer, one about history and one about the present, to frame the monumental Paul Celan work Todesfugue. The wiki bio of Celan may be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Celan After my post-flight sleep and liberal doses of coffee, I meet Christian at the Hansa studio where we have a brief time to put together our program. For this setup, the Godin's signal is always present but I can also use a volume pedal to send the guitar through distortion, Pitchfactor and Boomerang. The guitar is tuned to a D minor chord with the lowest and highest strings tuned to C# giving an ambiguity to the basic tonality and adding complexity to the overtones of the open strings. It's a dark tuning that works well with the texts. With little discussion, we get right into running the piece and find immediate agreement in our strategy: shifting foreground and background with occasional dialog and my solos as interstitials. Christian has a deep resonant voice, free of unnecessary melodrama, and allowing the weight of the texts to come through. He is well-known in Germany as "the Voice", used by Robert deNiro and many other international actors as their dubbed-in German voice in film. After rehearsal, I do an interview for a Jewish newspaper. The writer asks intelligent questions about my work, "Jewish culture", and my views on Palestine and his own views are quite sympathetic. I hope I'm not misquoted (which sometimes happens.) Even when presented correctly, my unpopular views have led to my receiving death-threats from militant Zionists and, of course, accused of being a "self-hating Jew" - what rot! Interview completed, I head over to Reinhold Friedl's house for dinner with his family - always a treat. I was hoping to walk there but a major thunderstorm forces me to take a taxi. Return to the hotel to work on some music and get some sleep. A relaxed morning then another interview followed by soundcheck. The Daniel Liebeskind-designed Jewish Museum is a dramatic building - solemn and jarring - but extremely beautiful. The concert takes place in the Glasshof - a courtyard enclosed with glass walls and roof with a framework that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional. The sound is not easy but we do what we can. Another interview after soundcheck then caffeination. When we take the stage its substantially changed for the worse (probably due to the presence of 400 people!) My guitar feels flat - all of the spring in the room sound has been absorbed. Oh well - dig in....The 40-minute set seems to go by in a flash and the response from the house is thunderous. Quick breakdown to allow Douglas' setup (he and Guy are joined by bassist Greg Cohen and violinist Mark Feldman). Many friends in the house to greet: Marie Goyette, Heiner Goebels, Shelley Hirsch, David Moss, Manuel Göttsching, Ilona Ziok, Christina Wheeler, Wolf Kampmann and Danielle, Reinhold and Julia...late hang and a call at 0430 to head to the airport for fine flights to London and from there on home. The connection in LHR reminds me of why that airport should be avoided with its endless labyrinthine foot corridors, bus transfers and other needless complications, slow lines, and redundant security.

June 24 Round Robin Improvisations - Bell House - Undead Jazz Festival - Brooklyn, NY
Arrive in time from the airport to pick the twins up from school giving Janene a break to do errands. I feel pangs of guilt about it but give the kids a DVD to watch so I can catch a short snooze before beaning up to face the long evening ahead. After dinner I head over by subway to Gowanus in Brooklyn to the Bell, a decrepit banquet hall reeking of beer but still quite appealing and the home of this event. Festival organizer Adam Schatz has put together a sonic tag team of artists each playing two five-minute segments with different overlapping collaborators. It runs quite smoothly and I'm amazed at the range and magnitude of the approaches. I've brought just the curved soprano and join cellist Erik Friedlander for a mercurial and exciting duet after which Erik departs and bassist Chris Lightcap joins me for our miniature odyssey, packing many destinations into 5 minutes. The entire lineup includes Dean Bowman, Charlie Burnham, Brian Chase, Darius Jones, Jamie Saft, Kirk Knuffke, Chris Speed, Jim Black, Dave King, Marco Cappelli, Chris Dingman, and Eivind Opsvik.

June 25 Sharp Play Monk - Cross Fit Gym - Undead Jazz Festival - Brooklyn, NY
Pull up to the curb on Degraw (a fairly desolate block) and see Anthony Coleman. We listen to the last moments of Min Xiao Feng's fantastic set from the sidewalk then stroll down to Cross Fit. When I arrive at the venue a little ways down the street, I find that it IS actually a gym: bright fluorescent lighting, lots of strange (to me) equipment, cavernous acoustics, and yes, that smell. I'm not convinced that this will be overly conducive to music-making but leave my mind open. The trio of Briggan Krauss, Ikue Mori, and Jim Black is playing when I enter and I greet Zeena Parkins (whose set was earlier). When my time comes, set-up is quick: the Godin right into the PA but it's hard to get it sounding exactly right in the monitors and even more difficult to find a seat of the right height (though sound-engineer Makoto rigs up something that works). Because of the overlapping nature of the festival schedule, the audience wanders in and out between the various halls on this street - if one is conscious of it, it can be unnerving. Once I got started, I remained completely unaware of the audience and concentrated on the sound (which seemed a bit brittle.) Still, no choice but to go and over the course of the set played the usual tunes adding Raise Four, Rhythm-A-Ning, and hints of Everything Happens To Me and Crepuscule For Nellie. Good response, some old friends, and a few strange conversations (no, I'm not in King Crimson) then run over to catch some of Anthony Coleman's trio with Brad Jones and SatoshiTakeishi. I have to hand it to Search and Restore and Boom for finding creative solutions to the ever-present problem of NY venues.

July

July 07 Mary Halvorson/E# Duo - Stone - Manhattan
First two weeks of July at Stone are curated by Pedro Costa of Cleanfeed Records in Lisbon - he suggests a duo with Mary Halvorson and we're both happy to oblige. We opt to go electric instead of reprising our completely acoustic set from last year. I walk over from the studio just after a dramatic cloudburst. Deep puddles on the sidewalk and the air is steaming. It's even steamier inside the Stone despite the vague attempts of the air conditioner to condition the air. Mary has her majestic Guild Artist Award and has added a ring modulator to her FX - she plugs it all into the house Fender Deluxe. I've brought the Luna 6-string, Celmo compressor, Rat, Boomerang, and TimeFactor and plug into a compact ZT amp that Nels Cline has graciously donated to the venue. On a whim I'd also grabbed my curved soprano sax on the way out the studio door. The house is packed when we get right to it on the dot of 10 and we launch into an aggressive discourse with Mary slinging out hyper-articulate waves of notes which I answer with oblique twisted sounds and distorted lines. After just a few minutes, the heat and humidity causes sweat to well out from every pore, blinding me, and filling my sinuses to overflowing (why can't Stone get a decent air conditioner?) It's hard to see & hard to play but impossible to stop because the music is also hot - I grab a cloth bag that I carry pedals in and use it to towel down in one quick movement and then jump back into the fray for our first twenty minute segment. While Mary works some pedal magic, I switch to soprano with a bell mute and rejoin the flux. We mostly play sounds but sometimes reference jazzy motifs - I pull the mute and we both wail for awhile. Back to guitar for another chunk and we're finished.

July 08 Deoro Electric - Bargemusic - Brooklyn
Cellist Dave Eggar had the idea to broadly frame a "remix" of his group Deoro's Kingston Morning CD for a run at Bargemusic on the East River in Brooklyn with a wide variety of guests including Mari Kimura - violin, John Patitucci - composer/bassist, Chuck Palmer - percussion, the charismatic cerebral-folkie group Medicine Woman, singer Dina Fanai, and singer/multi/instrumentalist Alex Wong plus four additional cellists. Big day of thunderstorms but luckily I was able to get a car service to take me to this anchored barge at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side - the deluge began just as we pulled up but I managed to get inside without getting too soaked. I'd brought my bass clarinet as well as the Godin Duet Multiac plus Pitchfactor and Boomerang pedals. The time before the concert was packed with rehearsals and the crowd began to drift in well before the scheduled start. During rehearsals, we all had some serious hints of seasickness as the barge pitched out both from the stormy weather and the traffic at the ferry dock next door. One might be trying to step on a pedal and find oneself tottering instead (though things calmed down greatly by the show.) There were many highlights in the concert including Dave's singing. John Patitucci is a fantastic bassist - my favorite recent work of his is in the quartet with Wayne Shorter, Brian Blade, and Danilo Perez - but he's also an extremely original composer. His Apogee was composed for the latest Deoro CD and I was knocked out by its beauty - both sonic and structural. We performed a hypnotic and dynamic version of Seize Seas Seeth Seen with Dave, John, Chuck on cajon, and Alex on marimba and on which I played bass clarinet. I later joined in an improvisation on one of the Kingston Morning songs with both Mari and Dave using Mari's IRCAM glove-controllers to trigger and process samples from the song while I wove filligree around it on the processed Godin. More about Dave's music here: http://www.daveeggarmusic.com/

July 15 Spontaneous Construction: Barry Altcshul, Kris Davis, E# - Blue Note - Manhattan
A surprising invitation came from Adam Schatz to take part in their Friday-midnight series at the Blue Note in the W. Village in an improvised trio with pianist Kris Davis and drummer Barry Altschul. I'd been a huge fan of Barry's since first hearing him in 1968 playing with Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland, Sam Rivers, and Chick Corea (!! - back when Chick was pushing some sonic boundaries) and was very impressed by the little I'd heard of Kris. We all arrived at midnight as per our instructions but Airto Moreira was just in the middle of his very entertaining and energetic set. We finally took the stage at 0100am so technically, this was Saturday July 16 when we performed. I brought my soprano sax and the Luna guitar, Celmo, Rat, and Timefactor which I plugged into the house bass-amp, an excellent Aguilar. Very friendly staff and Patrick, the sound engineer, was quite helpful. Great sound on stage and we jumped right in to a concentrated 55-minute set to an appreciative audience. We broke down into various pairings and solos but mostly maintained a steady-state crosstalk - no cosmic wailing but always simmering with intensity. Many friends in the audience including my old buddy Joel Eckhaus, a musician and luthier: http://www.earnestinstruments.com/

August

August 04 Sharp Plays Monk & Sharp - Tompkins Park - Manhattan
Part of a free-to-the-public series of film + music curated by Phil Hartman on Thursday nights in this iconic East Village park just a stone's throw from my studio (as measured during the August 1989 police riot). I've performed in this park quite a few times over the years and also witnessed a number of memorable concerts there going back to my highschool days including Sun Ra, Grateful Dead, Youngbloods, and Elephant's Memory. This night's film is "The Pope of Greenwich Village" and I open it with a 35-minute set on the Godin electro-acoustic mixing up interpretations of Thelonious Monk and excerpts of my "Velocity of Hue" project. Poet Bob Holman joins me at the end for three short pieces together in which I provide improvised coutnterpoint to his performed texts. His Poem-mobile is parked nearby and attracts significant attention. Most of the audience is there for the film and this is made quite obvious when I finish playing. Still, some respond very enthusiastically and I have a few good post-gig conversations about the set and my current activities. The sound-system is quite clear and powerful and this is backed up by a few people telling me that they heard my guitar loud and clear a few blocks away on 10th street and so wandered over to see what was happening.

August 19 Johnny Kafta Summer Extravaganza - Silk Factory of Freikeh - Beirut, Lebanon
A commission from Performa to take part in Tarek Atoui's project "Visiting Tarab" has brought me to Beirut to do research at a private archive of Arabic classical music run by Kamal Kassar. This opportunity came right in the middle of the overdubbing sessions for the new Terraplane CD for Enja, Sky Road Songs, but I could not turn down this incredible opportunity. Flew out of JFK to Frankfurt with my first flight on the super-jumbo Airbus A380 - extremely quiet but more like the Staten Island-ferry in its vibe than the streamlined elan of a Boeing 747. Three hours of layover in Frankfurt and then another three-and-a-half hour segment to Beirut, the plane passing near the city on its approach. I was surprised to see rustic makeshift housing built right along the runway - apparently a national scandal. Guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui picked me up at the airport and after I checked in to the hotel, he and Tarek and I had a fine lunch before heading up to the archive for the first session. These initial conversations on the drive from the airport and at lunch set my head spinning: Lebanon's currency is linked to the $US and dollars are used as general currency there! The politics of the region also are quite different from the way they are presented in the western media. The assasination of Hariri was spun as "an invasion by the Syrians" whereas within Lebanon it was more seen as a divestment of Saudi interests (prior to their partial divestment from the US government with the departure of Bush). We taxied up the mountain out of town to Kamal's archive (in a building on the grounds of his house), passing barely-hidden military tanks and groups of armed soldiers at various intersections. Lukas Ligeti was also there and our long sessions with Kamal gave us a a concise overview of the evolution of Arabic classical music starting with it's "Golden Age" in the 1920's. Besides discussion, we heard lots of incredible music encompassing singers, small heterophonic ensembles, larger orchestras, as well as numerous examples of solo taqsim played on violin, oud, and q'anun. At the end of the first evening, there was a dinner at Kamal's: more incredible food and delicious wine from the Bekaa valley and a virtuoso demonstration of the oud as well as songs that most of the guests knew and joined in on. At the end of three days of sessions, we each took back huge files of music to be used as source material for "remixing" for the "Visiting Tarab" concerts.

August 19 Johnny Kafta Summer Extravaganza - Silk Factory of Freikeh - Beirut, Lebanon
Sharif also arranged a concert at an old Silk Factory. Soundcheck was complicated by power outages but things stabilized by the time of the concert. First up was the trio of Lukas on drums, Tarek using many homebuilt controllers as well as Lemur to manipulate samples on a laptop, and myself with the solidbody 8-string processed through my laptop in Ableton. We played an intense 20-minute improvised set with kaleidoscopically shifting textures and densities and layered rhythms and noise. After the break, I joined The Johnny Kafta¹s Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra which included Mazen Kerbaj- trumpet & objects, Charbel Haber-electric guitar, Sharif Sehnaoui-electric guitar Raed Yassin-keyboard and electronics, Tony Elieh-electric bass, and Malek Rizkallah-drums. The music was improvised and drone-oriented with lots of noise interruptions and microtonal Arabic-scale synthesizer filigree from Raed and with a very heavy groove that positively glowed with a sense of location, of being Beirut. It was exciting and hypnotic. For an encore, we played a two-chord punk song about a giant robot from manga cartoons. This song had a special significance for those whose childhood coincided with the Lebanese civil war: this character was one of the only cartoons that was on during the limited time of electricity and even-more limited time of broadcasts. The audience was all invited guests and friends and extremely enthusiastic. After, Kamal hosted a gathering where the fun continued until late. On Saturday, my final day in Beirut, Tarek, radio DJ Ziad Nawfal, and I all went to see an extensive retrospective exhibition by Fouad Khoury, a photographer and filmmaker who is making a documentary about the "Visiting Tarab" project. His work is brilliant and moving - some autobiographical, some journalistic, but all poetic, capturing the weltschmerz of modern life in Lebanon. The images from the civil war and from the Palestinian refugee camps are devastating. A final fantastic dinner at an Armenian/Aleppian restaurant and then off to the airport at midnight for my flights back to Frankfurt and then on to NYC.

August 28 Electric Willie - Saalfelden Jazz Festival
My short time back in NYC was split between family, rehearsing for Saalfelden, and working on the Terraplane CD at producer Joe Mardin's studio. Sporadic heavy thunderstorms the day of our flight out plus increasing angst about the possibility of Hurricane Irene hitting the Northeast. We had a fine flight to Munich and then a two-hour drive to Saalfelden. Afternoon free to rest and then a long grueling rehearsal in the music room of a local school playing with tiny amps and toyish drums. We had a lot of work to do as this was the only time when the entire band could be in one place. Henry Kaiser flew in from San Francisco to make this hit. Along with Eric Mingus and Melvin Gibbs, Tracie Morris is on vocals and Don McKenzie is drumming. Our arrangements for this festival tighten up the songs and with one less guitarist than the record, the sound is both more compact and open. More info on the recording here: http://www.jazzrecords.de/enja/yeb-7715.htm. Return to the hotel late and find that our flights back on Sunday are cancelled because of the impending storm. I start trying to make arrangements for re-booking our return. The next morning we arrive at the Congresshalle at 1030 for a soundcheck that goes fairly smoothly and gives us a chance for additional rehearsal on some of the more unusual songs such as Egg or Hen? and Insane Asylum (which we had not performed before). Excellent hang at the festival, both onsite and at the hotel: Nels Cline, Yuka Honda, Scott Amendola, Joshua Redman, Steve Bernstein, Jessica Pavone, Harris Eisenstaedt, Oscar Noriega, Chris Speed, Wiliam Parker, and more. Electric Willie has the windup slot on Saturday night - the audience has had many hours of jazz and they're primed for our visceral and psychedelic set. Sunday is the final day of the festival and instead of flying home, I get to sleep in and then go hear sets from Nels and the Bad Plus with Joshua Redman. The festival travel agent was able to get Tracie on a flight to Washington DC on Sunday which she takes. Also on Sunday, Henry returns to SFO and Melvin is off to Sardinia to perform with Arto Lindsay. Mingus, McKenzie, and I are not able to get a flight back until Tuesday so nothing to do but chill. I take it as a spontaneous "artist residency" in the Austrian Alps - a chance to begin composing a commissioned piece for November for the Viennese group Studio Dan. Monday is a late night and then a 5am call for our drive to Munich airport and a tranquil flight back to JFK only to be met with massive crowds and long delays at immigration. I found an elevator off the main corridor that took me downstairs ahead of the masses for a relatively quick exit.

September

September 04 Duo with Lukas Ligeti - University of the Streets
While we were in Beirut, Lukas invited me to perform duo with him on this night curated by poet Steve Dalachinsky. 'Why not?', I said, not remembering that it was Labor Day weekend, the traditional graveyard of gigs - everyone seems to be away or engaging in recreational activities not including new music. With very low expectations I arrived at this East Village venue a few minutes before the 8pm start time with a couple of pedals and the green Strat and found only two audience members. I'd forgotten about the amp situation there which looked grim on first glance. I ran the two outputs of my Timefactor delay into a small Peavey "Minx" bass amp (as I said, initial appearances not promising) and a beat-looking Roland keyboard amp. To my surprise, this combination sounded quite fine: full and chewy albeit a touch bright. The Celmo compressor helped soften up the solid-state klang and I was good to go. Lukas had arrived earlier to tweak the house drum kit. We started a few minutes later with little ceremony and, wonder of wonders, to quite a decent audience (who seemed all to have materialized in the blink of an eye.) No discussion - just improvised gesture and structure, noise and groove. The 50-minute set was sometimes very jazz-like, sometimes rock-y and sonic, sometimes explicitly African sometimes funky in an On The Corner kind-of-not-so-silent-way. We covered a wide range in a relaxed manner but with a brooding cumulative intensity. After, we greeted various friends and colleagues including Bonnie Wright from Henceforth Records, drummer Weasel Walter, as well as bassist Lisle Ellis and bassoonist Karen Borca (there to perform the 10pm set.) Two days later I'd heard of a major scuffle between the owner of the venue's son and drummer Kevin Shea with Shea seeming to end up worse for it. There is call for a boycott: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-University-of-the-Streets/174142999327433 Since time immemorial, clubowners have brutalized musicians psychologically and we put up with it because of economic need and the desire to perform in public - but physical assault goes beyond the pale.

September 11 JACK Quartet performs The Boreal - Music After - Joyce Soho - Manhattan
Many public events were planned around the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York City. Some were redolent of kneejerk reactionary 'patriotism' and xenophobia, some seemed designed only to make a quick buck or to boost some hack politician's esteem. I was pleased that Mayor Bloomberg (whose approach I often disagree with) decided to not have any religious content in the official commemoration for which he came under vicious attack and enormous pressure. Composers Daniel Felsenfeld and Eleonor Sandresky organized a marathon event of a different type at the Soho Joyce beginning at 8:46am (the time of the first plane hitting the WTC) and lasting until whenever featuring composers and performers who live and work downtown and were directly effected by the attack. I appreciated that they did not request compositions 'about' 9/11 or the aftermath. I arrived around 7:30pm (with daughter Lila accompanying me) in time to see Margaret Lancaster perform and the vocal ensemble of Eve Beglarian. The JACK Quartet performed The Boreal (which I wrote for them in 2009) with wrenching intensity. They had been performing the piece extensively on tour, a fact made quite obvious by their effortless precision and blistering attack. Lila walked onstage with me for a shared bow with the quartet after which we found donuts to bring home for her and Kai.

September 15 E# Trio/ SharpMorris - Benefit for Dizzy Gillespie Hospital Fund - Le Poisson Rouge - Manhattan
A worthy cause for this event which was originally planned as a benefit for a Cecil Taylor museum. It went down pretty typically for benefits: started late and as per usual, a number of musicians and poets were hard pressed to edit themselves enough to keep their playing within the alloted time slots. The event was hosted by Bill Cosby, a briliant wit and actor whose work I've truly enjoyed since I was a teen. He seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself and to really like musicians but still, he went on and on in his intros to the sets, sometimes looking for laughs where none were necessary. Those of us who were scheduled to go on later on got pushed way back (and then again) and there was talk of the evening being cut short before all performed. We did get to play but had to cut our sets shorter than planned, rewarding those who were stage-hogs. We were happy to finally hit with the trio on first playing my Sonny Rollins-tribute Nukular. Dave Hofstra started with a vamp fragmented into cubist shards with Don McKenzie splattering molten tendrils of percussion over which I added my tenor, first floating over the maelstrom with the simple melody and then joining the fray. It was exhilarating and even surprising. Next Tracie came up while I plugged my Hohner GT3 guitar into a stage amp and readied the EBow for our piece Mahalia Theremin - a sound poem obviously referencing Mahalia Jackson and the eponymous instrument but expanding outward unpredictably. This piece continues to grow. While aggravating, the evening did raise some money and the backstage was fine giving a chance to hang with Marty Ehrlich, Bryan Carrott, DK Dyson, Pheearon Aklaff, Don Byron, and more.

September 25 L'Escalier du Chant - Concert and Discussion - Pinakothek - Munich
For this edition of the monthly performance by the Neue Vocalsolisten at the Pinakothek of Olaf Nicolai's L'Escalier du Chant, I was invited to take part in a discussion about the nature of political songs with Olaf and composer Georg Katzer with moderation by Bernd Kuenzig, music editor of SWR 2 radio. Terrible weather in NYC on my departure with torrential rain but the ascent and flight to Munich were surprisingly calm. A feature of this period in Munich is the famed Oktoberfest, a longstanding tradition that has become kitschified and touristicized in the last 30 years. The 0800 train from the airport was already filled with Brits and Aussies in dirndls and lederhosen on their way to the Theresienwiese where they would spend the day indulging in alcohol poisoning. The two-week event has become an excuse for tourists to get wasted, not my idea of fun. Welcome sleep in the hotel and then meetings with Werner from Enja and my friend Harry and then off to a restaurant to meet Olaf and his project manager Nan for a wide-ranging and good-humored set of discussions and excellent food and wine. We all meet at noon the next morning at the Pinakothek with the first set of performances at 12:20 with pieces by Katzer, Liza Lim, James Saunders, and my new piece Retribution, which was composed for this day. This piece makes much more use of irony than I normally like but the subject matter warranted it: the song (for soprano, mezzo-soprano, and bass) is based on the ludicrous speeches that Christian right-wing fundamentalist politicians make about natural disasters such as Hurricane Irene and the recent East Coast earthquake, claiming that it is God giving a warning and punishment to politicians for their sinful (and secular) actions. When they are ridiculed in the press for these statements, they claim that it's just "humor." The composition casts the vocalists as the accusatory hypocrites. The performances by the Solisten were, as always, musically sublime and dramatically potent. All of the pieces were performed on the staircase three times in the afternoon, the third taking place just after our discussion. The acoustics of the staircase vary greatly with location and the singers tried variations in each set. Their voices fill the museum atrium with sound. Our discussion took place later in the afternoon on large flat area in the staircase. Evryone had a chance to make some points and answer questions from Bernd but I felt that overall, the discussion was a little stiff and formal and too short at 45 minutes, leaving no time for Q&A with the audience.

October

October 06 E# Aggregat Trio/Orchestra Carbon - Stone - Manhattan
Thirsty Ear's Peter Gordon was the curator and offered me this evening to present current work. The 8pm set was the trio with bassist Brad Jones and drummer Ches Smith. We recorded a CD in July, Aggregat, for Cleanfeed, which should come out next spring. For the project, I composed various cores that we treated like jazz 'heads': melodies, harmonic progressions, rhythmic cells, textures. I chose a set's worth of them to perform and brought my tenor sax and the Luna guitar with Rat, Celmo, and Pitchfactor. The set flowed seamlessly with great intensity and to strong response. The 10pm set was Orchestra Carbon performing Quarks Swim Free with the ensemble including violinist Rachel Golub, clarinetist Oscar Noriega, alto saxist Briggan Krauss, pianist Jenny Lin, percussionist Danny Tunick, and bassists Kevin Ray and Brad Jones (subbing for an ailing Reuben Radding - flu also prevented cellist Ha-Yang Kim from making the hit.) We played only 4 of the modules which allowed greater exploration and deeper ramifications. I played tenor a bit but mostly conducted and initiated lots of 're-triggering' to split, layer, and phase the ensemble sound plus made good use of Butch Morris' "expansion" command to stretch things. We hadn't performed QSF in some time and the players were all excited and concentrated yielding one of the best sets yet of this piece. My buddy Marc Ribot and his friend Ana as well as vocalist/writer Tamo Tuma attended the show and joined with a number of us in finishing the night at Takahachi, just like the old days.

October 11 "Genre Non" - SyndaKit - William Patterson University - Wayne, New Jersey
I hate to sound like a snobby jetsetter but I do find it generally easier on my body and soul to fly to Germany for a gig than trek to New Jersey. Still, I was quite pleased when virtuoso polymath percussionist Payton MacDonald invited me to perform SyndaKit with his students as part of their "Genre-Non" concert series. During that day, I was working on the Terraplane record with Joe Mardin at his studio, a short walk with my guitar and electronics to Penn Station where I could catch the train to Newark and from there to Wayne. Chaos at Penn but no signs or announcements but did finally find out that an electrical outage was keeping all Newark-bound trains from departing with no projected time for resumption of service. The only alternative was a hike to the dreaded Port Authority Terminal to find a bus, 7 more blocks of back-strain thanks to the lack of available taxis. My memories of NYC's bus terminal date back to the 1970's when I would enter this reeking hellhole filled with dangerous characters and miserable souls to catch a filthy and uncomfortable Greyhound to Ithaca or Buffalo when hitchhiking wouldn't work. Now the terminal is more like a giant modern shopping mall and the most-damaged are kept hidden away. Still, it's terribly laid out and not so easy to find the proper ticket counter or gates. Once I figured out where to go, there was the usual long queue and surly clerks to contend with. Bought my tickets and with just a minute to spare, made it to a packed bus which brought me to my destination quite efficiently and where I was met by Payton. After caffeination, we headed over to the school to rehearse. Even though Payton had worked on SyndaKit with his students, it was important that I explain some subtleties of the piece and also give direct feedback to the everyone on how they were approaching it. The room had long been reserved by Payton for this event but when we arrived, another professor was using it for a class. A compromise was reached between them and we were able to get in and set up an hour before the event was to begin. Soundcheck was quick and easy, accomplished by only letting the vocalist use the built-in PA. I instructed the rest (2 electric guitars, synth, trumpet, tenor sax, marimba, vibraphone, and Payton on piano) to listen for the quietest instrument - if they couldn't hear it then they were too loud. I brought the white Stratocaster that I usually use with Terraplane (because it was at Joe's studio), Celmo compressor, and Rat. Provided for my use was a solid-state Crate amp - clear and pretty loud, but not the best in terms of response or spectrum. We ran a few iterations of SyndaKit then took a break as the audience began filtering in. The concert opened with 10 minutes of SyndaKit - somewhat tentative, good textures, very few sustained grooves or unisons - but really, not too bad. I explained how it worked to the audience after the performance, as we would finish the evening with another version. There were small group improvisations and a solo percussion piece by various students after which Payton and I joined in on an improvisation. We finished the concert with another version of SyndaKit, much more rocking and with better attention paid to unisons and grooves. Payton brought me to an excellent sushi bar and then to the terminal where I would take the express bus back to Manhattan. Climbing aboard, the aisle a few rows down was blocked by a rather large leg belonging to someone I might characterize by his mode of dress and attitude as gang-member, ex-convict, or hired thug. I said "excuse me" hoping to pass through to an empty seat to which he glared at me as if I was a fly or some other minor irritation of life. The leg stayed in place. I asked again for clearance and was ignored so I tried climbing over, hoping that my guitar or foot would not disturb the 'obstruction'. The guitar did hit and I imagined him taking his revenge when we reached Port Authority. Fortunately he and a cohort exited at a remote parking lot still in Jersey, flashing a hairy eyeball at me before leaving.

October 13 Andrew Cyrille/Richard Teitelbaum/E# Trio - Roulette - Brooklyn
This concert was part of Tom Buckner's Interpretations series hosted by Roulette. It was Andrew's gig and he invited Richard and I to try a trio with him. I've had the great pleasure of playing with Andrew a number of times over the years but this was my first time improvising with Richard though we've known each other for quite some time. In fact, Richard was very surprised when I reminded him of our first meeting back in 1975. While a long-haired and bearded graduate student in compostion at SUNY Buffalo, I worked as the electronicist for the Center For Creative and Performing Arts, a hotbed of new music activity and where I first met Frances Marie Uitti, Yvar Mikhashoff, Tom Constanten, Joelle Leandre, Jan Williams, Peter Kotik, Aloys Kontarsky, Robert Dick, and many others. Besides maintaining the Music Department studio (which was filled with early Moog and Bode equipment and old Ampex 2- and 4-track decks), my duties included setting up and operating the live electronics for Center shows at the school and at the Albright-Knox Gallery. Under fire, I learned a lot about dealing with the unexpected and the impossible. This included putting up a quad system in a small atrium for Richard's sound installation. Soundcheck at Roulette took way too long (over two hours) considering the simplicity of our setup: Andrew's drums mic'd with a pair of overheads and one mic on the bass drum; Richard's laptop and sampler all down to stereo outputs through a small mixing desk plus the piano with a stereo mic pair feeding into his laptop as well as the house; and my Koll 8-string and amplified bass clarinet feeding into stereo electronics and a Twin amp. Roulette's acoustics need to be tamed for louder music - lots of low midrange and reflections. We weren't that loud but it still was a little murky. A few minutes for a coffee run and then we hit to a full and rapt house. Our improvisation included brief solos and duos but was mainly unpredictably shifting masses of sounds: sometimes jazzy, sometimes dense and noisy, sometimes completely 'other'. The piano mics picked up a lot of the stage sound allowing Richard to process both Andrew and myself. The space is gorgeous and inspiring despite some sonic deficiencies. The second set of the evening was Joe McPhee's rousing tribute to Cecil Taylor with the fantastic Roy Campbell on trumpet, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, and even flute as well as Dominic Duvall and Hill Greene on basses, Jay Rosen on drums, and poetry by Steve Dalachinsky.

October 23 Electric Willie - Alte Feuerwache - Mannheim
Cranking every day to complete as much as possible on the Terraplane CD as well as work on various other projects before heading out: music for Vienna's Studio Dan for a November tour, a piece for Visiting Tarab for Performa in NYC on Nov. 5, miscellaneous small composition and recording gigs. Actually a relief to settle down in my seat on the 777 for a smooth flight to Frankfurt and the short drive to Mannheim. The rest of our Saturday after arrival is free and we have a late afternoon soundcheck for our show on Sunday as part of the Enjoy Jazz festival - thanks to Rainer Kern for having us. Excellent hospitality, good equipment and an efficient soundcheck put us in a good mood and the single set, over 90 minutes long, builds up steadily to a burning intensity. Tracie Morris will not be joining us until Novi Sad so I sing her parts. I've been preparing for this by practicing alone and at our two band rehearsals (and singing lullabies to the twins) but still approach the first gig with some apprehension as I haven't sung 'live' since Carbon in 1996. I'd forgttten how enjoyable it can be to sing with a tight hot band. I can't claim to be much of a singer as I have hardly any melodic range at all but I can at least get some Howlin' Wolf/Beefheart growls going and use some kargyraa throat-singing techniques in "Gravedigger Blues". A few small trainwrecks but the band proves supple and reactive even in this first gig of the tour. Don McKenzie on drums and Russ Flynn on bass are a formidable rhythm section and Ladell McLin, a talented young singer/guitarist in the Buddy Guy/Jimi Hendrix mode, is a compelling presence. Happy to see my friends Bernd Leukert and Clair Lüdenbach after the show for a too-brief hang then it's back to the hotel and the next day a noon flight to Ljubljana.

October 25 Electric Willie - Cankarjev Dom - Ljubljana, Slovenia
Easy flight on a small Canadair jet brings us to Ljubljana and we have the rest of the day free. Bogdan and Ico take us on a walk that chilly evening to a fantastic pizzeria, Trta, and then to the great little Sax Bar for espresso and a local grappa made from the fruit, not the skins of the grape. Afternoon soundcheck on the 25th at the club in the Cankarjev Dom and then it's off to another great meal, this time at a Dalmatian restaurant. Well-fueled, we play two burning sets to the full audience and rip through Little Red Rooster as an encore, morphing it at the end into a pulsing "On The Corner meets jungle" jam. Early call the next morning for the train station and our ten-hour trip to Belgrade. Crossing the borders from Slovenia to Croatia and then to Serbia, we're subjected to countless passport checks and questioning - I overheard a Serbian policemen making note to a colleague of the Lebanese stamp in my passport. Neither coffee nor food are available on the train, enhancing that special kind of headache. We're happy to finally reach our rooms in the funky Union Hotel and then head for the restaurant.

October 27 Electric Willie - Foxtrot Cafe - Novi Sad - Serbia
The plan is that someone from Belgrade Jazz Festival (our hosts here) will pick up Tracie Morris at the airport at noon and bring her to the hotel for a rest before our 4pm departure by van for Novi Sad, a two-hour drive. Just before heading downstairs to leave, I receive an email from Tracie - she's still at the airport! For some reason she couldn't find the hotel or contact info and was just now able to get online and send me a message. I reply that we'll be there soon. We find her at the airport and she's none too happy. If it was me, I would have been furious but as she put it so beautifully, she decided to "zen out" rather than "go there". Okay, now we're all assembled and make our slow way via a combination of clear highway and two-lane roads populated with trucks, farm vehicles, ancient Zastavas putt-putting along. We reach Novi Sad and pile into the Foxtrot Cafe, a very wooden and smoke-filled place that I visited to see a gypsy-jazz band during my last tour in Serbia (not-smoking seems to be against the law here - even the non-smoking hotel rooms have ashtrays). Everybody makes us welcome and we set up. Amps are a bit of a problem - the Twin brought for me doesn't work so a very-bright Marshall combo is substituted. Russ has found an old Jolana bass (Czech-made from the Communist era) hanging on the wall which he decides to use - it sounds killer. The stage is quite tight but it all works and we run through a couple of numbers before heading out to a fantastic dinner party for us at a restaurant right on the Donau River. At the dinner, we hear that our taciturn driver does not speak to black people because "he does not like them". We're all incredulous. What can we do but stay 'amused'. Well-fed (and amused), we drive back to the Foxtrot for our first set, opening with Mellow Down Easy. The band is sounding great and Tracie seems very happy to be up there singing. I start a solo and my amp goes - kaput. The sound engineer brings the Twin back which he says is now working, and indeed, it sounds okay and gets me through both sets though seems pretty ragged by the end of the second set. The band is quite tight from our previous shows and we're very happy to have Tracie with us. Her voice soars and jabs and the packed club gives back to us. Post-gig hang is abbreviated as we have to drive back to Belgrade - the trip is a little faster at 1am.

October 28 Electric Willie - Kulturni Centar Indjija - Indjija, Serbia
Afternoon pickup for the one-hour drive to Indjija. We're performing in a 300-seat theater in this cultural hall. Sound check is pretty quick and the room is not too resonant or reverberant. Short walk to our dinner at a nearby restaurant. Another fantastic meal - the Serbian food is always well-prepared and fresh-tasting. We're told that they don't use chemicals in the agridculture. Back for our gig - one long set lasting nearly two hours then a relaxed hang in the adjoining bar. We must drive to Sabac on this night and we arrive at our hotel around 2am. The rooms are nice but heat is erratic at best - I end up sleeping in all of my clothes plus sweater under all of the blankets.

October 29 Electric Willie - Sabac Jazz Festival - Sabac, Serbia
We're splitting this evening in a beautiful small theater with the Harry Sokal Trio from Austria: Harry on saxophones, Raphael Wressnig-Hammond B3 organ, and Lukas Knöfler-drums. Lukas looked familiar and he reminded me that he played in my Portrait concert at Wien's Porgy And Bess during the late 20th century. Their trio is powerful and grooving and revisits classic soul-jazz of the 60's and 70's. After their opening set, we take the stage and I discover that someone has plugged in an AC power supply cable into the DC input jack of my Celmo compressor, frying the entire unit. Fortunately a Boss compressor is found for me and we hit. We're a little too loud for the stage - the theater is built for acoustic projection of unamplified voices and we're blasting like barbarians. But it sounds pretty good on stage and the crowd seems to like it though we're told after that the audience was being vaporized by the volume.

October 30 Workshop - Stankovic School - Belgrade, Serbia
Early call for the drive back to Belgrade with just enough time for me to check in at the hotel and drop my stuff, knock back a quick espresso and then head to this nearby music school - a Gymnasium (in the European sense of the word) where the students all seem to be in their late teens and early 20's. The class is one for jazz but i'm told I can take the workshop focus anywhere. I speak on historical aspects of my musical development and describe various compositions and ensemble works. After discussing instruments, extended techniques, and improvisation, I perform a 10-minute solo with the Strat plugged into a small amp. There are a few questions but the students seem shy even though they all speak English quite well. I ask them to play for me and two of them do. Both are technically adept but completely bland and playing generic-sounding modern 'jazz' guitar. I try with no success to ignite a discussion on personal identity in sound and how the greatest players may be known from just a few notes. After, time for a break at the hotel then meet the others to head over to the hall for soundcheck for this night's concert.

October 30 Electric Willie - Belgrade Jazz Festival - Dom Omladine Cultural Center- Belgrade, Serbia
The hall in this historically important youth center is large but sounds decent even empty - not too reverberant though the hollow stage is a bit boomy. Soundcheck is quick as the equipment is all good and the crew efficient and on the beam. Marc Ribot arrives as we're finishing and he and I plan an impromptu duo as his set is the last part of the first half and ours is the first part of the second. We play about 10 minutes of punky noisy (and sometimes even jazzy) textural counterpoint before Marc splits and Electric Willie takes off for our final and tightest show of the tour. The 75 minutes passes in a flash to great response from the standing-room crowd after which Harry Sokal's trio plays.

October 31 Jam Session - Grand Casino - Belgrade, Serbia
The next day is free - a distinct pleasure - I walk around and find a jezwa (pot for making Turkish coffee - or as the Serbians call it: domestic coffee) to bring back to NYC and do some work on various scores. We meet for another great dinner and then are picked up by van to go to the Grand Casino on the other side of the Donau. This huge gambling establishment is the home of the town's spiffiest jazz club and venue for the closing party for the festival. The stage backdrop is an underside view of the Manhattan Bridge over the East River. There is a house quintet playing when we arrive - excellent musicians - and after their break, the festival takes over for some impromptu music. Tracie and I open with 10 minutes of our duo, and perhaps inspired by the event, play one of our jazzier sets, ending with Mahalia Theremin. There's no guitar amp so I plug the Strat into a DI and get a monitor. It works surprisingly well though certainly does not respond like an amp - difficult to get even a hint of grit from my sound. Harry Sokal Trio is up next and after two of their own tunes, I'm invited up to join them on a couple of funky blues, great fun and reminiscent of the type of tunes played by JImmy Smith and Kenny Burrell in the '60's. It's a late hang and an early call: at 0430 we're on our way through the fog to Belgrade airport for fine flights back to Frankfurt and then NYC.

November

November 05 Visiting Tarab - SIR Stage 37 - Manhattan
The manifestation of our research in Beirut and Tarek's vision for an interface of Arab classical music and contemporary is presented in a marathon 5-hour concert as part of the Performa Festival, a biennial of international performance art in many forms. For more info: http://tarekatoui.com/projects/visiting-tarab. Tarek has organized the event in three suites or "wasla" with short small-group improvisations acting as segues between the longer featured segments. Underlying everything is the notion of tarab, which I may describe here as a longform development with the goal of producing ecstasy through sound. The evening opens with Tarek's high-speed high-density piece using a variety of his self-constructed sensors and controllers to modulate a torrential flow of samples. Different artists form a progressional transformation of sound onstage. At one point, John Butcher, Tarek, vocalist/synthesist Robert Lowe, and I are improvising together. Before my set, Zeena Parkins leads a group with her sister Sara on violin and Ikue Mori on electronics. I join in with them before playing my solo piece "Ganging Tarab" on tenor sax using the sound of the horn in Ableton Live to convolve spatialized 4-channel soundfiles that I've prepared from samples of taqsim from the Tarab collection. In making my soundbed, I concentrate on glissandi from oud and violin, often massively time-stretched or pitch-shifted down and then filtered. The saxophone envelope in the convolvers creates a 'ghost' of its sound in the prepared soundfiles. At the same time, I'm processing the sound of the horn in realtime in my Live patch and allowing the acoustic sound of the horn in the room to remain in focus.

November 09 Tracie Morris/E# Duo - St. Mark's Poetry Project - Manhattan
With the exception of our performance at the twins' school assembly last year, this is the first chance for Tracie and I to present our duo work in a concert-length chunk. We meet at Studio zOaR in the late afternoon to try out various germinal ideas for new pieces for the evening as well as go over some of the ones that we've previously developed and then head over to St. Mark's Church for soundcheck. Our concert is in the Sanctuary, the large vaulted space in which I normally play on the New Year's Day Poetry Project Marathon, an event that packs the house and so tames the reverberant acoustics. I plug my Godin directly into the PA and we operate with no monitors, trying to balance the sound coming from the speakers with what we can hear from our proximity to each other. My clarinet hardly needs amplification but I have a mic for it (as well as for the brief appearance of my vocals). Even with the respectable audience that attends our show, the sound is difficult: diffuse and full of echo but, still, we manage. We include interpretations of Howlin' Wolf's Smokestack Lightning, Willie Dixon's Egg Or Hen? and the Coasters' On Broadway as well as our duo originals and two pieces from our Terraplane work together: Katrina Blues from the "Secret Life" CD and Common Extreme, a new piece from the upcoming Terraplane "Sky Road Songs". Tracie's voice soars against my EBow sustains in Mahalia Theremin and we get some wild difference tones. I do a kargyraa intro to one of our pieces as well. People seem very happy with our set as are we. I rush home after to pack for my departure for Europe the next afternoon.

November 11 Ultra-Modern Jazz Quartet - Orpheum - Graz, Austria
Smooth flights to Dusseldorf and then Graz and soon enough, I'm asleep in my hotel room. I arrive at the Orpheum for soundcheck at 1500 and pianist Reinhold Friedl and drummer Maurice deMartin are already set up. Bassist Peter Herbert is also ready as he only requires an XLR for the preamp for his piezo pickup. I quickly assemble my gear: I've brought the Koll 8-string, a Bb clarinet, and a few pedals including a Rat, the Pitchfactor, and a replacement Celmo thanks to my friend Jamie Lowry. I've also brought my tenor sax mouthpiece and strap as a horn is on loan for my use from Clemens Salesny of Studio Dan and has been brought over by organizer Ute Pinter. It's a silver Mark VI from the 60's and very similar to my own. Getting everything mic'd and line'd is slightly more complicated as we're making a 16-track recording of this premiere concert but soon enough we're up and running. Though they're in palce, we forego monitors as the sound on stage in this little theatre is quite good: balanced, warm, resonant, and alive but not too reflective - perfect playing conditions. We improvise from start to finish, only agreeing that over the two sets, all permutations of the assembled personnel are possible. The first set has that arc of inevitability that I love to experience in an improvisation. There are brief solos for everyone - that is, the focus is continually shifting so that all come into the foreground at some point. The music is jazz-like in its texture and gesture but decidedly unlike it in development. We're quite pleased with the first set. The second set is also enjoyable but somehow is a little more referential to jazz practices and so, in that regard, less successful. We're called back for an encore - short and pungent. It's altogether an auspicious beginning for this collaboration. As there are 3 days without gigs until the next hit in Wien, the next morning Reinhold flies back to Berlin and rest of us head to Wien by train. I'm holing up at a hotel in the 4th district where I can work on some composing as well as updating the score to Coriolis Effect for the NYC ensemble Alarm Will Sound who will perform it at Zankel Hall in March - sort of a 'residency'.

November 15 UMJQ - Porgy & Bess - Wien
The house is packed for this show and the sound on stage is good even though we need to use monitors. We all agreed that our first set went quite well but not 100% but the second set was totally hot, reaching points far beyond our Graz premiere. Late hang at a nearby Italian restaurant is the perfect cap to the evening.

November 18 Koehne String Quartet/E# - Porgy & Bess
Three days spent at work on various projects in this Wien residency as well as attending rehearsals with Koehne Quartet and Studio Dan, giving a few interviews for the Wien newspapers, and meeting with friends. Happy to be gigging again on Friday and head over to the Porgy at 1600 for soundcheck with the quartet. There is a stereo mic pair for them as well as individual condensor microphones. I'm only playing guitar on this evening and plan to plug it into direct boxes for amplification. As I was patching up my pedals, an acrid electrical smell began to fill the stage which I traced to the power supply for my Eventide. Burnt! The lighting engineer, Jakob, points out the worn insulation in the strain relief on the power cord: the location of the short circuit. I email and call Ray Maxwell, the Eventide artists' rep at the company office in New Jersey. Ray is able to locate a shop in Wien that carries the supply and Ute runs over to pick it up. Vielen danke! both to Ute and to Tom Hauser at the Klangfarbe. She returns just in time for us to run a brief soundcheck and test the pedal with new supply before the doors are opened to the full audience. Somehow the quartet reversed the order of the program in the first set and opened with Dispersion of Seeds, continued with Light In Fog, and finished with Eye In The Sky. I would have preferred to have the brashness of Eye as a starter - it's energetic and jagged and primes the musicians for the intensity to follow. Dispersion of Seeds has a slower build and while the quartet did a beautiful job on it, I feel that it could have been even more intense had they been warmed up when they played it. Light In Fog was fragile and luminous and hopefully evokes those same qualities that I found in the paintings of Gerhard Richter that inspired it. - it's delicacy in the club environment revealed the sounds of one gentleman's snoring and the quiet but insistent argument of a couple somewhere in the darkened hall. Finally, the set concluded with a fiery blast of Eye In The Sky. After a break, I took the stage to perform a 30-minute Octal mash-up on the Koll to strong response. I hadn't performed this material in some time and this always has a beneficial effect in terms of recharging as well as filtering predictable reflexes. The quartet then returned to the stage and we performed Volapuk together with my cueing the movement to each new section: not abruptly but with a 'drift'. This version of the piece was intense and focussed with wild soundfield activity from the quartet together with my textural counterpoint. Fantastic response from the full house and after greeting friends, colleagues, and listeners, we're back at the previous night's restaurant.

November 19 Studio Dan - "In The Pelagic Zone"/"L'Age De L'Eau" - Porgy & Bess
The call for soundcheck is at 1045 - it seems even earlier given the lateness of the previous night. But the check is quite efficient and the afternoon is free for work and rest. The evening's first set is the premiere of In The Pelagic Zone, a suite of pieces inspired by the ocean as well as oblique chains of reference derived from this initial impulse. Studio Dan is led by conductor and trombonist Daniel Riegler. We had written, skyped, and finally met at Saalfelden to discuss the parameters of this composition and how it was to be realized. As composed, the pieces are in no particular order. The sequence was developed after some rehearsal and the sonic identities of the sections revealed themselves. Some parts are meant to be played completely as written, others to be transformed through Daniel's conduction, others to have soloists superimposed on the written material. Daniel had given me a rundown of the strengths of the various players to consider when composing the music - in fact, they were all incredible musicians and a joy to work with. Highlights of the set are the drum duo (with live processing) in Hadal, the piano/marimba duo of Spin & Drift, the psychoacoustic spectacle of Fata Morgana and the shifting Afro-fractalisms of Abscissal. Throughout, Daniel prvided shape and drama and kept the ensemble in focus. I joined in on guitar in On The Beach with a frenzied solo on the last half. Another capacity crowd gave fantastic feedback to our efforts. I was thrilled at how well the piece was played and how it possessed none of the uncertainty that premieres often display. The second set was another premiere: L'Age De L'Eau, an open compositional structure for my collaboration with six of the musicians from Studio Dan with Daniel now playing trombone. The idea was to not focus on foreground/background solo/rhythm but to create a more free-floating counterpoint, sometimes grooving, sometimes completely free. Parts of the set worked incredibly well, other parts not (in my opinion, that is: some audience members told me that they preferred the improvisatory nature of the second set.) Again, very generous response and a satisfying evening (finished at the same nearby bistro.)
(picture by Ute Pinter)

November 20 Studio Dan - Austrian Jazz Festival - Orpheum, Graz
Another interview in the morning at my hotel and then I taxi to the rendezvous point for our bus trip to Graz. It should only be a 2-hour drive but the large white vehicle (I call it Moby Dick) is not that fleet and Austria has strict regulations stipulating breaks after certain amounts of driving time. We arrive back at the Orpheum, unload, and run to the hotel to check-in while the drums, percussion, and electronics are set up. The septet soundchecks first after which the full ensemble sets up. Extensions have been added to the stage to allow for the full ensemble. There's ample backstage catering for a pre-show nosh and spirits are high when the group takes the stage. Different strengths in this rendition of Pelagic Zone but again, the overall intensity and clarity is very high. L'Age De L'Eau is very much improved by adding a cueing system that allows me to call for unisons in the change between sections. We're quite pleased by all of the playing as is the audience. The size of the audience is disappointing however - decent but not packed, a surprise considering that this is a festival. Just calling an event a festival does not make for a festive occasion and little promotion was done for the show. After quickly packing, we head to a well-known wirtschaft for food and libations including a powerful local herbal bitter schnapps.

November 21 Studio Dan - Unterfahrt - Munich, Germany
Our departure is a very civilized 10AM allowing for a relaxed fruhstück before boarding the bus. This trip takes us through spectacular mountain views but the cramped seats of the bus diminish the enjoyment and make the trip seem endless, We arrive in Munich a few minutes after 1600 and the director, Christiane, gives a warm welcome. While the group sets up, I run to my hotel to change. Studio Dan has no such luxury: they will board the bus after the concert and drive through the night back to Wien. After checking, the club serves us a fine dinner and then we hit to a full house. The Unterfahrt stage is quite cramped with the full ensemble seated but the sound is quite good - detailed and clear, loud and full but never too much. Pelagic Zone goes wonderfully well - each performance allows more subtleties to emerge. The septet set likewise is very exciting and enjoyable with powerful unisons, seamless transformations, and surprising interactions. The audience gives back in full and the septet finishes the evening with a very dramatic but quiet improvisation - tense and tranquil - a seeming contradiction but with very musical benefits. Post-gig hang with some of the audience, the musicians and with my friend Gunnar Geisse. I head to the airport the next morning for my flight back to NYC. Because of fog we sit on the tarmac for 45 minutes - this delay puts us right into a heavy front over Maine which we would probably have avoided if we had departed on time. Some lurching and heaving for awhile but the final approach to JFK is smooth despite the driving rain. It takes as much time to drive into Manhattan as it takes to fly from Newfoundland.

December

December 03 Kaiser/Weasel Walter/E# - Freedom Garden - Brooklyn
Henry was planning an East Coast sojourn so virtuoso maniac drummer Weasel Walter got busy and organized a trio set for us at the fantastic Freedom Garden. Henry told me that he would be sporting a cool white Jerry Jones 6-string bass so I had to think about which guitar would best match the sound and vibe. That evening, I tried a number of guitars at Studio zOaR looking for the one. Picking up my solidbody 8-string, I was shocked and horrified to find that the body had split quite roughly on a seam. I didn't recall every dropping the instrument and wondered if the temperature in the studio had radically changed while I was away in Austria. Time was running out so I grabbed my Rick Turner Renaissance baritone guitar, a piezo-powered electroacoustic instrument, as well as my curved soprano sax. Pedalwise, HK had a few different fuzzes and I brought Celmo, Rat, and TimeFactor . We blasted off directly into hyperdrive to the full house with lots of intricate interaction and textural counterpoint. Some hard grooving and a lot of what may best be described as "free rock". Clips may be found online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcK9pSqFvyk and at: http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?p=11970035 I returned to the studio directly after the show to drop off my equipment but also to glue and clamp the 8-string as it had to be in playable condition for the Carbon gig coming up the following Thursday. When I returned to the studio on Sunday afternoon, the repair looked to be solid if not cosmetically pleasing.

December 08 A CARBONic Evening - Roulette - Brooklyn
A rare opportunity for Carbon to perform in NYC and even better, at the wonderful new Roulette in Brooklyn. Some acoustic treatments had been applied to the ceiling since I played there last October and these have tamed some of the runaway low-frequency resonances. Loud music is still not ideal for the space but with a little reserve, moderately high volumes can work. Drummer Joe Trump flies in from Portland just for the hit and we all arrive at the venue mid-afternoon for a quick set up and rehearsal of the pieces for the quartet Carbon for the first set and an electric version of Orchestra Carbon for the second. The quartet also includes harpist Shelley Burgon and bassist Marc Sloan - added for the second set are pianist Jenny Lin, bassist Russ Flynn, and percussionist Danny Tunick who totes a beautiful set of Musser vibes as well as various drums and metallophones. With the full ensemble, we run down selected modules from Quarks Swim Free and Flexagons and then rehearse pieces from the Void Coordinates CD with the quartet before breaking for caffeine and carbs at a nearby coffee bar on Atlantic Avenue. The quartet hits first and even though we haven't performed this material since April in Porto, everything falls into place with no strain. We generate some serious heat and the sound onstage is quite clear and full and play especially good versions of Caldron and Eukaryonic. Fortunately there are no issues with my repair on the 8-string. After a short intermission, we return with the full ensemble. I conduct more than play and build jagged sonic outcroppings and violent maelstroms as well as more delicate interactions and lighter textures. Everyone plays quite beautifully. More rehearsal would have helped the presentation of the written material but still, the problems were minor and probably only noticed by me. The set was perhaps a bit brief: around 35 minutes, but quite intense. It really felt complete.

December 10 In C - Issue Project Room - Brooklyn
Another benefit for Issue Project Room and the conclusion of its "Darmstadt" series of contemporary "classics". The ensemble is smaller than last year's orchestral forces at Le Poisson Rouge but no less intense and in some ways this version could be heard as a concerto for Jonathan Kane's drums accompanied by the material and process of Terry Riley's masterpiece. Many players that I had not met before but some old friends as well including David Grubbs, Todd Reynolds, Zach Layton, Emily Manzo, Matt Mottel, and Nick Hallett. Tempo starts at 109 but we're well up over 130 by the end. The pulse part has been programmed by violinist Todd Reynolds and plays from his laptop - he's able to tap in the new tempos as the piece develops. Some of the accuracy is sacrificed in favor of sheer punkrock intensity but both musicians and full audience seemed very pleased with the set.

December 12 Hubert Sumlin Funeral
On Dec. 4, we learned that Hubert had passed away at 80 as a result of his recent chronic heart disease. He died quietly and peacefully and lived a long good life, especially for a bluesman! The funeral was on Dec. 12 and Curtis Fowlkes and I rode with Dave Hofstra out to Totowa, NJ where Hubert had lived with his manager and friend Toni Ann Mamary. There were a number of other friends and colleagues of Hubert's in attendance and drummer Steve Jordan gave a beautiful speech about Hubert's life and legacy. Hubert was well-loved and always tried to spread a feeling of love to his audiences and his bandmates. His influence was profound and his riffs in Howlin' Wolf's' classic songs defined a truly electric approach to blues guitar. There were great strands of Hubert's DNA in the guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Robbie Robertson, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and certainly in the 'avant wing' including Henry Kaiser, Marc Ribot, and yours truly. Hubert would smile that sly smile and on tour, kept us laughing when we weren't agog at some tricky and salty guitar line that he so casually snapped off. Visiting Studio zOaR to track solos, he loved drinking cup after cup of my thick black ristretto coffee and trying out various guitars. I first met Hubert in Chicago in 1983 but we didn't hook up again until Terraplane backed him up at the Knitting Factory in 1994. After that, we performed and recorded together fairly often. I last saw Hubert on September 15 when he came over to producer Joe Mardin's NuNoise Studio to perform an overdub on a track on our new Terraplane recording Sky Road Songs. He was carrying a portable oxygen generator and looked frail but he was in excellent spirits and pretty soon after walking in, he had us cracking up over some tales of his early days with James Cotton. He played beautifully, as always, using my white Strat and goldtop Goya Les Paul Deluxe. He gave me a strong hug when he left and I wondered if he was saying farewell. When I listened to him on those Wolf records, I never dreamed that someday we might become friends and even play together. I'll miss him a lot.

 

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