Road Reports 1998
1998-02-20
the events took place at the Porgy & Bess in wien, feb. 15-17 - a club that, each month, invites a different artist for a three-day Portrait. the first and third nights were quite full with over 150 people, the second, over 200!
the first evening began with a solo Tectonics set using my 8string guitarbass w/ effects, electroacoustic bass clarinet, and my Powerbook running LiSa for sampling and StudioVision for sequencing. for the second set, i was joined in improvisations by electronicist Christian Fennesz, Helmut Neugebauer on reeds & electronics, Werner Dafeldecker on electric bass, and Uli Soyka on drums.
the second evening began with the trio of Fennesz, Neugebauer, E#. the second set was improvisations adding percussionist Christian Muhlbacher and pianist Wolfgang Mitterer to the large improvising group of the previous night.
the third night began with Fennesz/E# duo (i was especially excited by this one), a quartet of Muhlbacher/Soyka/Dafeldecker/E#, then an impromptu string quartet of Joe Teising-violin, James Moak-viola, Michael Moser-cello, and Dafeldecker-acoustic bass, performing my piece Shape Shifters (from 1991.)
the final set that evening consisted of the compositions Bubblewrap and Coriolis Effect (both composed 1997) using the full ensemble of 15 musicians - i functioned as conductor. Bubblewrap is a much simpler construction: core materials and algorithms of use. as a result, it is much more difficult to play well and i was not so pleased with the results - some counting is required by the individual musicians as well as great attention to timbre - these were not maintained. Coriolis Effect was much more successful - exhilarating in fact. again, simple materials form a rhythmic/harmonic interlock. when the players apply transformations of duration and register to the materials, precise hocketed counterpoint yields to huge sheets of screaming overtones and layered chords. the piece was composed for the Berlin ensemble Zeitkratzer and was recorded by them for an upcoming release on their own label.
saturday night, feb. 21, i perform two sets of solo Tectonics at Instants Chavires, just outside of Paris.
1998-03-12
TERRAPLANE just finished a five-night run at the Knitting Factory's Old Office. This latest version of the band includes Sim Cain (Rollins Band) on drums and electronic drums, Sam Furnace on bari & alto saxes (Julius Hemphill, Mongo Santamaria), and David Hofstra on bass & tuba (Contortions, Wayne Horvitz, Otis Rush.) E# is head on stratocaster, steel guitar, and tenor sax.
the new material for the band recombines blues with drum'n bass rhythms, CARBONic sonics, and post Mingus/Ayler jazz. we were filmed performing the tune Work or Leave for a new feature film by director Andrea Kirsch. next performance will be sometime in late May.
1998-05-05
april 25 - performance w/ DJ Soulslinger at St. Ingbert festival in germany : Carlos and i had a long soundcheck/rehearsal which gave us a sense of each other's approach and vocabulary. for the gig, we went all out - carlos generating drum n bass, brazilian martial grooves, and deep textures. i played my 8string guitarbass, soprano sax (which could be routed through my electronics) and the Powerbook running LiSa software for manipulating samples and Studio Vision for grooves. also on the festival were Graham Haynes w/ DJ Mutamassik & DJ Spazecraft w/ great visuals by Illuminati plus bassist Stafford James group and the group of saxophonist Thomas Borgmann w/ Reggie Nicholson and Wilber Morris. Reggie replaced the drummer of Dennis Charles who died in his sleep a few weeks ago, saddening and shocking us all. Dennis was one of the first people i met when i moved to NY and had been an inspiration to me as a child from his pioneering work in Cecil Taylor's '50's groups and his work with my teacher Roswell Rudd w/ Steve Lacy.
april 26 - solo Tectonics performance in Berlin's A-Trane.
april 27 - recording session with pianist Reinhold Friedl, director of the ensemble Zeitkratzer (who had commissioned the piece Coriolis Effect from me in 1996.) we recorded in the old East German Tonstudio fur Elektroakoustiche Musik - a place filled with a great Neumann mixing desk from the 50's as well as fantastic old Neumann mikes and a unique synthesizer/filter (unfortunately not presently working.) Friedl plays almost exclusively inside the piano using a variety of preparations and techniques to generate great sounds. the tracks will be mixed in NY at Studio zOaR.
april 29 - zurich - duo concert w/ virtuoso cellist Frances Marie Uitti at the Rotefabrik. a huge stage - too large for the type of intimate listening our duo requires. still, our duo (ongoing for 2 years now) always generates fresh permutations. this is also the debut of our new duo disk UITTI SHARP on JDK Records (jdkprod@xs4all.nl) - recorded live in Bern at the Kunsthalle and in the STEIM studio in amsterdam.
april 30 - brussels - Uitti/Sharp performs at the Cybertheatre - a fantastic facility in an old cinema with massive online capabilities, an ambitious performance program, and a great restaurant. our concert is broadcast and archived on the internet: WWW.NIRVANET.COM/LIVE
may 1 - bern - solo Tectonics at the Reitschule together w/ Olympia, Washington band UNWOUND.
may 2 - frankfurt - meeting with Ensemble Modern. Ensemble Modern have worked closely with Frank Zappa (listen to the recording The Yellow Shark), Gyorgi Ligeti, Conlon Nancarrow, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and many other contemporary composers. we discussed plans for a commissioned piece from me for performance at the Hessischer Rundfunk on April 9, 1999. also in frankfurt, discussed the November 13 performance of Racing Hearts by the Orchestra of the Hessischer Rundfunk.
may 4 - arrival in ljubljana, slovenia. there will be a solo Tectonics performance on may 8 but these next 3 days (or nights - work is from 6pm to 6am) will be taken up with shooting my parts in american director's film TRANS-NATIONAL: AN UNTITLED ROAD MOVIE. this will take place in an incredible cave near the italian border. i'll be playing solo Tectonics material as well as adding to tracks made by Baida (from Laibach) plus some collaboration with 2 slovenian musicians on bass & drums.
August
august 13 - Chicago's Empty Bottle - this evening was assembled with the help of Jim O'Rourke. first performed solo Tectonics (8-string, sop sax, powerbook) then joined by Jim - powerbook, Michael Zerang - dumbek, percussion, Ken Vandermark-tenor sax, Jim Baker - arp 2600, Steve Butters - vibes, percussion. the chicago vibe is great as are the musicians. free-range improv with a variety of combinations.
august 16 - recording session in Zurich, Switzerland with Turkish singer Saadet Turkoz for the Intakt label. this record will be under Saadet's name with duos between her and a variety of musicians, probably to be released next year sometime. Saadet is rooted in Turkish folksong but her vocal technique is expansive and virtuosic, not unlike Diamanda Galas or Sussan Deihim. she works with traditional Turkish modes and scales in the maqam yet she's not afraid of extended vocal techniques and a little noise.
august 19 - duet with Le Quan Ninh at Mulhouse Jazz Festival. Ninh is one of the great drummer/percussionists. he lives in toulouse and has worked with Butch Morris and Michel Doneda and is known as an interpreter of John Cage. his set-up comprises a large bassdrum from which he generates a wide range of sounds using a variety of techniques, sticks, mallets, and metal objects. he also uses various metals as well as a sampling setup controlled by MAX. we've played together with Zeena Parkins (at MIMI Festival) and at Nickelsdorf Festival in a group including Phil Minton, Reggie Workman, and JA Deane.
august 22 - Oblique Ah Blue at knitting factory as part of Panasonic Jazz Festival - with Oliver Lake, Santi Debriano, Ray Anderson, and another great drummer Pheeroan Aklaff. i play a relatively 'normal' guitar - a hollow-body Telecaster with 3 Gibson P90 pickups and a Stratocaster tremelo bridge. this a cooperative venture with everyone supplying tunes - the band is not afraid to stretch them out though - always bluesy and always oblique!
august 25 - Willisau Jazz Festival - the debut of the quartet with Jack DeJohnette, Bill Laswell, and Graham Haynes. Jack is one of the great drummers of all time - i've been a huge fan since i was a teenager and it's a thrill to play with him - together with Laswell, it's the rhythm section of doom, allowing Graham and i to go textural or directly for the burn.
august 26 - Saalfelden Jazz Festival - the quartet again - where the Willisau set simmered over its 2-hour course, the Saalfelden set went right for the jugular - compact and incendiary.
august 27 - Revenge of the Stuttering Child - the duo with poet Ronny Someck at Saalfelden. Ronny's deep poetry is very inspiring - our previous sets have been very formal, trying to recreate the album - for this set, we work with segues between poems to create more of a flow between pieces. we will make use of this approach in our october concerts in St. Johann, Austria and in Paris.
October oct. 9-11 - quick gigs in europa
oct. 9 - arrived in St. Johann, Austria (in the Alps) - a flight to Munich then 2.5 hours on the train & 45 minutes in a car - stunning snow-capped peaks & brilliant sunshine. performed the duo with poet Ronny Someck that evening in an inn on the top of a mountain - the other mountains visible out the windows of the club. we perform the pieces from Revenge of the Stuttering Child with Ronny reading in Hebrew to a very enthusiastic gathering of about 100 people. thanks to Hans Oberlechner for arranging the event.
oct. 10 - at 5:30 in the morning after about 3 hours of sleep in the hotel, we're brought back to Kufstein for the train to Munich and our flight to Paris. we land in a rainstorm which almost immediately clears revealing another sunny day. our concert is in the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris at 5 in the afternoon - again a warm and demonstrative audience.
oct. 11 - TGV to Milano and the new club BarCode where i perform the solo Tectonics program as well as collaborating in improvisations with bassist Steve Piccolo, drummer Nicola Monico and clarinetist Nino Locatelli. Steve Piccolo is the original bassist and a founding member of the Lounge Lizards as well as my friend and musical colleague since 1972 - he appears on ARC2:The Seventies on the track Concentric Spheres.
November
Let's consider this tour beginning with the gig at Tonic in NYC, Nov. 6 - no trains or planes, no jet lag, just taxis and traffic. The duo with cellist Frances Uitti continues to develop - a continuous surprise as we find new modes of interaction in our improvisation. We perform two sets, both quite different. Our next concert will be at the UpArt festival in Mainz, Germany in January. Fred Frith is producing a tribute CD for Tom Cora (who died of cancer last March) and Frances wants to be involved somehow. We have no time to record something new so I find a very suitable segment from our Bimhuis (Amsterdam) concert of last year and edit, EQ, and compress it into shape.
Leave NYC Nov. 9 for Frankfurt and rehearsals with the Symphony of the Hessischer Rundfunk conducted by Peter Rundel for a Nov. 13 performance of RACING HEARTS. Rundel is himself an excellent violinist and worked for years with the Ensemble Modern. We've extensively discussed many aspects of the piece so I have high confidence in his ability to wrest a good performance from the orchestra, more known for their interpretations of 19th century music than contemporary. Thanks is due to Dr. Bernd Leukert, programming director at the Hessicher Rundfunk - a tireless warrior for "new music" and a longtime supporter of my work. Typically, the classical orchestra operates in a very different manner than a smaller band or ensemble - their working day is greatly limited by contracts (certainly the musicians should be protected!) but the practical manifestation of this is that no sooner than a piece begins to make progress and it's time for a break or to move on to the next piece. This is an ambitious concert as well - material all new to this orchestra: the European premiere of RACING HEARTS and world premieres of SYMPHONY ONE by Michael Mantler and INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS by Heiner Goebbels. Mantler is known for his work with and as founder of the Jazz Composers Orchestra (JCOA) and New Music Distribution Service - organisations that inspired many of us to dig in to the DIY philosophy of the late-70's. Goebbels is based in Frankfurt and was in the group Cassiber - he also organized with Christoph Anders (also of Cassiber) my first concert in Frankfurt in 1983. The program is completed with Frank Zappa's PEDRO'S DOWRY. Progress on RACING HEARTS is definite but slow. By the morning of the concert, the dress rehearsal is sounding quite good - I can't help making some last-minute changes in the score. The actual performance is heartening - of course some mistakes are made, but the overall effect is as intended. The hocketed notes blend and lengthen to build into stacks of harmonically ambiguous shimmering chords. The excellent acoustics of the HR concerthall heighten the psychoacoustic perception and the audience responds.
To Prague by train on Nov. 14 for the New Music Marathon. In the evening shortly after arriving, I'm at the Archa Theatre for a rehearsal of Racing Hearts with Agon Orchestra, conducted by Peter Sofron. There is much work to be done but by the end of the rehearsal things are shaping up. Agon is not a large orchestra and there will be only 5 string players. This makes for a greater rhythmic precision but I miss the lushness of the HR string section, especially in the sustained passages. The brass section of Agon is a bit weak as well but made up for by the excellent tympanist and percussionist. We're back at nine the next morning for more rehearsal. The concert is at 1830. The group sounds at its best stripped down to 10 players for the performance of Coriolis Effect, generating some real heat. After my solo Tectonics set, Racing Hearts is performed, considerably better than expected (!) to an enthusiastic audience. Also on the festival is the piano duo Grau & Schumacher performing Stockhausen's Mantra and the London Piano Circus performing a liquid version of Eno's Discreet Music plus pieces by Sofron for Agon. Back to NY on the 16th - Orchestra Carbon premiere's SyndaKit on the 20th at Tonic and I must finish the score!
SyndaKit report
Friday Nov. 20 was the premiere of SyndaKit, performed by Orchestra Carbon at Tonic. The group included: Zeena Parkins-sampler, David Weinstein-sampler, Marc Sloan-bass, Joseph Trump-percussion, Rea Mochiach-percussion, Elliot Kavee-percussion, Judith Insell-viola, David Soldier-violin, Tim Smith-bass clarinet, Evan Spritzer-bass clarinet, Ted Reichman-accordion, E#-electroacoustic guitar.
SyndaKit divides 144 composed Cores among the 12 players. The Cores are rhythmic and harmonic figures, some pitched, some not, all generated using Fibonacci numbers. SyndaKit is another algorithmic composition: there are a set of simple rules that the players use in creating types of interaction using the Cores. The structure and internal detail are both determined by the players in "real-time." There is plenty of improvisational opportunity, both in terms of inventing structure and in displaying the solo voice. SyndaKit allows the ensemble to act like a syndicate, a hunting pack, a recombinant gene soup.
The players all rose above-and-beyond the occasion - a long rehearsal in the afternoon at Tonic followed by 2 intense and strenuous sets. I'm lucky to have these musicians aboard. Most are familiar with my ways of working. The new additions, Rea, Elliot, & Ted, quickly grasped the approach and contributed strongly. First set started a bit tenuous but by the end offered some real surprises. Second set burned! Great audience response. I'm still hearing other possibilities for the music and hope we have a chance to perform SyndaKit again, perhaps in March. I'd like to make a studio recording, as well. The ensemble Zeitkratzer will perform it on January 24 at the Podewil in Berlin. The players in that group offer a completely different set of talents - I'll be curious to hear how it sounds!
Italy - Dec. '98
This tour begins for Zeena Parkins and I in Padova with a Disklavier festival called Il Pianoforte Macchina, organized by Veniero Rizzardi. The concert takes place in a beautiful hall in the Music Conservatory, Auditorium Pollini. Included in the festival were "postcard" pieces by Muhal Richard Abrams, Frank Rothkamm, Annie Gosfield, Carl Stone, Fred Frith, and Lukas Ligeti, all created for The Extended Piano, the Disklavier festival in Dec. '96 that I curated at the Knitting Factory. Live performances were given by Zeena Parkins, Michele Brugnaro, Scott Gresham-Lancaster, Carlo de Pirro, and myself. I performed NOLNOC FOR CONLON using a soprano sax with an IVL4000 Pitchrider pitch->midi converter and a Powerbook 1400 running a MAX patch created to transform the soprano sax lines into four independent lines played by the Disklavier.
After Padova, Zeena and I headed to Torino for a duo performance at the Centrale Sociale Gabrio - an abandoned school taken over for use as a cultural center. Italy this December was unseasonably frozen - the Gabrio, like many Italian performance spaces, does not have heat. Fortunately, we are given incredible food cooked by a friend of the promoter. This heats us up enough to make the concert. This will be a recurring theme for the tour.
Next stop: Meldola, a small town near Forli, birthplace of Mussolini, a fact told to us with much embarrassment by the promoters. Many of the buildings date from the 11th century. This town produces most of the loungechairs in Italy. the hall is like a small theatre, excellent sound!
We head to Milano on the next day. We perform with Steve Piccolo, one of my oldest friends, a classmate at Bard College, and one of the founders of the Lounge Lizards. he has arranged for us to play as a trio on national television, the Tele+ station, on a "youth culture" show which includes videos and interviews with Italian rappers and DJ's. The studio audience is paid to be there so they muster up considerable enthusiasm for our two five-minute completely improvised numbers. That night we play at the Centrale Sociale Pergola - again we have very good sound on the compact stage.
For the final event, Zeena and I go to Firenze for a collaboration with the group Timet, presented by Musicus Concentus. They have prepared an open structure based on various texts - we must do some serious re-grooving to make it work as a piece. My function is to be conductor and Zeena and I both function as soloists and in our duo. The players (piano, trumpet, electronics, three vocalists) are all quite good, with special notice given to the Sardinian singer Monica Demuru. The concert is held in a stunning 14th century church - the sound technician and equipment are quite good and so it comes together.
best regards - E#
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