Jazz Composers Alliance @ Johnny D's - Dec 09

Treeee

Secondary Deviations review from Paris Transatlantic

Here is a review of digital download recording available on Ayler Records:

There's an art to selecting a lead-off cut for an album, and "Welcome Steps" probably wasn't the best choice, but once the disjointed individual tempos have melded into a dog-chasing-its-tail frenzy, it gets a lot more appealing, culminating in guttural blasts from alto saxophonist Jim Hobbs and the braying trumpet of Forbes Graham. The other pieces here are much more convincing. Jacob William plays the syncopated bass line of "Palm Dance" with such insistence throughout its 13 minutes that when he finally drops out for a drum solo by Croix Galipault (who begins the track with woodblock and light cymbal taps, working gradually up to fevered press-rolls) you feel the absence. Hobbs and Graham's exchanges over this potent rhythmic brew are consistently inventive: Graham, in particular, has a Steve Lacy-like tendency to repeatedly deconstruct his own lines, though at other times his playing has a brashness recalling Lester Bowie. "Rishi Dance" is 22 minutes long yet keeps interest from flagging by varying its motifs constantly, and is anchored by William's two beautiful bass solos at its centre. "Upload Method" features harshly percussive playing by the altoist, while the rest of the group alternately works in tandem with him or in counterpoint. On the brief, sprinting "Repetition" the horns play near-parallel lines that converge sporadically on extended unisons, with the rhythm section clearing the way; it makes for a thrilling conclusion to the record.
So who do these guys sound like? An immediate point of comparison would be a contemporary group like the Empty Cage Quartet, but (though perhaps it's excessively high praise) I'm most consistently reminded of early Art Ensemble recordings collected in the Nessa box, way before they added "of Chicago" to their name. Plus, if the liners didn't indicate otherwise, I could believe this was recorded in somebody's basement.–SG

Five animals Qi Gong video

Thoughts after attending Grizzler rehearsal

I'm a member of a large ensemble called Grizzler which is led by Dave Gross. We had a rehearsal on Sunday evening at Lou Cohen's house. There were 9 of us at the rehearsal.

One of the things we worked on was trying to (during the course of a piece) not play for an entire minute (as an ensemble). I made a couple of comments during our post-play discussion about what I observed during the improvisation.

Before the minute of silence actually occurred, there were at least a couple of "false starts" during which some members of the ensemble made a conscious effort to institute the minute of silence. These false starts imbued a certain pregnancy to the music which I actually found quite exciting.

It seemed to me that once we got to the minute of silence, everyone was really ready for it. But that could be because I was really ready for it. What do I know.

I was surprised at how well I thought that the exercise worked, because personally, I'm not that interested in the aethestics[sic?] of silence.

I have two main approaches to improvising within a group. The first is to be an active collaborator who seeks to blend sound effectively. In other words, I'm not always looking to stand out, I'm looking to add things that make the music as coherent as possible. I don't mean accesible, I mean that what I'm doing makes some sort of sense compared to what other people are doing.

Now, there are times when I will do the exact opposite, usually for the following reasons: 1) To make a point 2) To challenge the dominant paradigm 3) Because I deserve it since I've been a team player for most of the rest of the time. A further explanation:

1) To make a point - another of saying "For the heck of it", "Because I can", "I got kind of bored", "I wanted to see what would happen".

2) To challenge the dominant paradigm - To challenges the expectation of what the ensemble will sound like or what I will sound like.

3) Self explanatory

The other main way that I play is to see the improvisation as a series of events, to interpret those events, and to react to them. I often watch other players very closely and react to what they do. This happens a lot with drummers. I just wait for them to hit the hi-hat, or the ride. I literally wait for the moment when they do it and that's when I play. I keep an eye out for visual cues as well as musical cues.

Improvisation for me is a serious and solid study into the aethestics[sic?] of interaction. That's how we build collectively as a group of musicians.

So there you have it, a look into what goes in my brain when I'm playing with other people.

Terrorizer "Corporation Pull-In"

Here's a classic song from the classic album ("World Downfall") by the CLASSIC grindcore band Terrorizer:

This song never gets old. Dominated by d-beats, it's a great example of grindcore's connection to hardcore.



Update: I guess they aren't really d-beats. I wish they were though!

Apocalyptik Paranoia review from Paris Transatlantic

Dan Warburton wrote a very complementary review of a cd I played on. Appreciated.

Even if you didn't know that Weasel Walter, the mad driving force behind the wonderfully vicious and perennially exciting (but currently on sabbatical?) Flying Luttenbachers, is a musician singularly dedicated to "speed, velocity and violence", you could probably guess as much by looking at him on the cover of Apocalyptik Paranoia, all decked out in studs and bullets. But pop the disc into the machine with trembling hands and you may be surprised by the delicate spiky acoustic guitar (Henry Kaiser, one of Weasel's most frequent playing partners since his move to California a while back) and skittery toms and woodblocks on the opening "Scintillations". Think Bailey and Bennink – and that's a compliment. But by the time track two – "Raging War" indeed – kicks in, you know you're back on WW's familiar battlefield. Kaiser's on this as well, but here he's gone electric and plugged himself into something simply monstrous. Sounds like cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm has too. Not that the fourth member of the quartet, trumpeter Forbes Graham, can't handle it all. It's a trumpeter's treat, this album: as well as Graham, Peter Evans (whose lips by rights should be insured for about as much as Jennifer Lopez's ass) and Greg Kelley (no slouch when it comes to blowing himself silly either) also make appearances. Nor is it all apocalyptik: on "Still Life" and "Threnody" - a nod to Penderecki there? - Weasel and Kaiser return to the acoustic intricacy of "Scintillations", while Kelley and Evans huff and puff each other's houses down. Of course, if it's too nice for you you can always skip forward to "Mass Erection" and burn your own house down – or crank it up loud enough and wait for the neighbours to come and do it for you.–DW

In Baltimore at the Red Room

The audio and the video aren't quite synced up, but take a look.

Julie Mehretu

Secondary Deviations on Taran's Free Jazz hour

If you click here you can listen to the show!

Thanks for playing the music Taran!

Parampara Quintet - October 2008

Taoist Cosmic Healing

Just picked this book up at Seven Stars in Cambridge. Amazing.
Funny thought, a Taoist death metal band would be hilarious. Somewhat oxymoronic, but also awesome. I'm laughing imaging a band like Internal Suffering or Kataklysm but with lyrics about meridians, trigrams, and the names of different Chi Kung movements!

Boom Bap

Boom bap boom
Bap bap
Boom bap boom

Bap
Boom boom
Bap
Boom boom
Bap boom boom bap
Boom boom bap boom boom bap

Boom bap boom bap boom bap boom

Tracks on Soundcloud!

Fuckin internet there's too many websites haha
But semi-seriously, I uploaded two tracks to soundcloud.

One is a drum n' bass/IDM style track, springing off of a Jane Child sample. Remember Jane Child? The 80s.

The second is from a trio with myself, Dave Gross, and Josh Jefferson. Eventually we'll record again and release it on a cd.

Click here for the tuneage

Gunslinger Girl

Just picked this up at Animadness, a new store that just opened in Waltham.

New things

It's been awhile since I posted in here. I got laid off from Harvard Business School three weeks ago today. Since then I got a portfolio website set up, I created a webpage for my upcoming wedding, and I've been taking the occasional daytrip to help me cool out. I also just started freelancing doing web development. Hopefully it will all work out in the end. I have a lot of financial advantages so right now I'm not too worried about it.

I'm playing in Lowell at 119 Gallery this Friday with Kevin Frenette. Stop in!

Hoping to put together a benefit

Fellow trumpet players Birgit Ulher and Leonel Kaplan are going to be coming to America in February. We are currently putting together some concerts on the East Coast. We need help however. So far we haven't secured a well funded concert (i.e. besides door money) that will help pay for their plane tickets from the West Coast to East Coast. As we all know, the funding available for such concerts has dried up due to the recession. I am a person who has been fortunate to benefit from these fundings in the past. At the same time, I don't know the system, and I have found it to be a massive pain in the ass to try to write grants or whatever the hell else. I don't know that. But I know the grassroots. And so what I'm hoping to do in the very near future, is put together a benefit event or two. Possibly at the Zeitgeist Outpost in Cambridge. If you live in Boston, I'd like to hear from you as far as what you think might be fun. I am thinking of doing another performance of "Today's Media", and maybe having some DJ's afterward and/or food.

Baliset

I added some trumpet sounds to my former bandmate Greg Massi's project Baliset. Tommorrow night he's doing an album release party at Felt in Boston. I'll be there, stop through and check it out!!

You can check out a great interview with Greg here!

Timeframes

Hyde Park Avenue

119 Gallery

From the Petite Animations exhibit currently up at 119 Gallery in Lowell, MA. Had a great gig there tonight with Wild May.

I'm on Twitter now

I don't know what to think of it but follow me here:
http://twitter.com/forbesgraham
If you click on the link you'll find out that I'm playing at 119 Gallery in Lowell tonight with my quartet Wild May.

Watching the print media die

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is the latest paper to bite the dust. I have never read it and I probably never will. I won't miss it either. The fates of those who lost their jobs are more on my mind than what is happening to the fourth estate.

In a shrinking market, players are squeezed out. I did an interview recently where I remarked that in the creative realm, everyone can, so everyone does, but everyone shouldn't.

The last two paragraphs were a long winded way of saying that I'm going to keep putting out records even if nobody buys them because I want to. I'm not going to stop because of market conditions. Instead I will focus on improved quality.

Interview with me at Brilliant Corners

Chris Rich did an interview with me for his blog Brilliant Corners and you can read it here.

Raphe Malik tribute

Portal

I used to play Portal on my Commodore 64 as a child. It was a unique game. There were 12 different dataspaces that the player navigated between in order to expose the story.

You play a space traveler who has returned to an empty Earth after being away for decades. This was the perfect game for a lonely only child to play. The game was all mental, took a long time to play, and involved doing a lot of reading.

Apparently, it was set up so that eventually you would "win", no matter what, but it didn't really seem that way. You had to navigate to the right dataspaces in order to unlock new information at other dataspaces.

Anyway, I'm about to read this website for a little bit.

Vectors

I'm working on the idea of using vectors in a composition. I'll try to make another post once the ideas are a little more hashed out.

Tangents I and II

I created two graphic scores recently, entitled Tangents I and II. Each is a response to a work of visual art. The process was fairly simple. I laid a white sheet of paper over top of the artwork, and then drew tangent lines on certain curves. Only certain details made it through the white sheet of paper, and I was not able to even begin to respond to every curve, shape, and line in the artwork. But I feel I stripped these works down to a certain bare essence that was my own.

I then superimposed an X-Y coordinate system, and predictably, made X equal time and Y equal pitch. After that, I created a composition in Csound that performed the data using sine waves.

I found it a bit lacking!

After that, I thought about thickening up the synthesis aspect. I haven't tried it yet (and it doesn't help that my Csound is a bit rusty), but I am not even sure if that is the answer.

What I think could work, using the graphic score as a guideline for a composition for human musicians. Thinking about this, and music writing in general, has made me ask bigger questions that I've usually avoided.

My music compositions tend to be rigorously organized, and the results are usually fantastic. But I never take into account much beyond the actual notes. I'm so busy trying to make them fit the right way, and thinking that if they do fit, everything else will work. I still believe that. But I think that future compositions could speak even stronger to the human spirit if I was able to really think about *how* these notes are played. The how will breathe a whole new life into the music.

Confession

I've barely practiced in the last month.
In early January I did a gig with Pandelis Karayorgis, Dave Rempis, and Luther Gray. The gig was recorded, two sets.
I got my copies in the mail, listened to the first set, and was pretty disappointed in myself.
Ever since, I've been in a bit of a limbo.
Pandelis emailed me recently and asked me if I wanted to proceed on mixing with the project. I told him that I didn't like the way I sounded at all on the first disc, but that I'd listen to the 2nd disc and let him know.

I'm only four minutes in, but at least from my angle, it's a lot better. My contribution is stronger and I do feel like I can hear some sort of connection between myself and the other players.

This quartet is without bass, and Pandelis picks up the slack. But there's a sort of sparseness, a vulnerableness, that's there.

Before I put this disc in today, I did practice. And it was good practicing (I think anyway).

I've got to get back to practicing daily, because this is what I do. I should do it.

Cute and cuddly demon

One night, I was walking home and in
my mind
I saw a demon sitting on a
car.
It had black skin and eyes
like milk, wide
and quite puppy like.
I was not afraid, but still
I ran the rest.

Meditations on space - 1

From this vantage
A plane, a line, just that is my view
Reduced
due to the vantage, beyond it
I
hover in space, bereft
of any
Form, I am apart
from this vantage, I see none.

I made this lasagna awhile back

And let me tell you that it was really good.
I used a cashew cheese for one of the filling layers and there is nutritional yeast on the top. As well as fresh thyme.

Yum!

Wild May weekend

Wild May is going to be playing a couple of concerts in late March. On March 27, we'll be in Lowell at 119 Gallery. And on March 28, we will be in Pittsfield at the Zeitgeist Gallery. Hopefully we will record something before that, because Ryan is going to Europe with his death metal band Ehnahre.

Above is a graphic score that will (hopefully) end up in our repertoire.

Why I don't agree with having a Secretary of the Arts

Unfortunately, part of my position is cynicism.
Put simply, I think that this position will result in more bureaucracy, and will continue the pattern of funneling the wealth and resources in the arts to those at the very top.
I also think that in the middle of a gigantic economic crisis, any policy this person recommends (especially if it involves spending $$$) will simply be ignored. And perhaps for good reason, perhaps not. Considering that we are the throes of a gigantic economic crisis.
I'm skeptical that the federal government will execute any kind of visionary program that will enrich the lives of the nation through the arts.
I will come back to the later today, as I study the ideas being put out there more closely.

Raphe Malik Tribute concert

Photo by Lillian Schrank

Trumpet section (from L-R):
Flip Barnes, Forbes Graham, Ted Daniel, Matt Lavelle

The end of an era

Bored

I'm sitting here at work not doing much - so before I do the one little piece of work I have to do I'll say this.

I find that life presents me with many opportunities to numb my brain and that it is a struggle for me to resist the urge to continue to sedate myself. My dreams of a better life relate not to a greater material standard of living, but to the realization of a potential currently unreached. Which is why from time to time I try to read a new book, write a new piece of music, etc.

I just want to train my brain, or even my soul, to do a better job at this self improvement. I literally need to reorient who I am in order to do this.

In other news, I have been creating many graphical scores inspired by the Chautisa Yantra magic square. There are certain symmetries that are being revealed through this process that I am only getting an inkling of now. They are sometimes frustrating but I think they will result in music that works.

Musings

Lillian and went to Mass MoCA on Saturday. It was the brightest moment of my vacation (from the reality of my day job).

I am impressed at the quality of the work exhibited here. This was my second visit. When we were home in Silver Spring, we took a trip to the Hirshhorn. Nowhere near as good. Same goes for the ICA, which is average at best. I need to go to more contemporary art galleries and museums. Based on the one time that I visited, the DeCordova is close to Mass MoCA in terms of quality.

In fact this trip, particularly the Sol LeWitt exhibit, was downright inspiring.
Here's one of my favorites.

We also ended up hanging out with Norman Rockwell's eldest one Jarvis! He is exhibiting in downtown North Adams. Check this out:



I'd like to spend more time in North Adams. I still can't say that I am even close to figuring this region out at this time.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about religion. I've been a philosophical Taoist for years now, but I find myself lately in a spiritual no man's land. It's possible that the answer to this is to study Taoism closer. Atheism is out of the question because I don't believe in it at all. Another possibility is to get a religion. However, there is no one religion that appeals to me entirely. I thought about making up my own religion, just for myself to practice. Which I know is probably offensive in some way to both my atheist and religious friends.

To me, every possible response is fickle in some way. Probably the best thing to do is ask myself first, what do I really believe. Then, ask myself, what is it that I am being called to do. Finally, figure out a way to mediate all of those questions and answers with everything else that is going on in the world.

Where am I now, where do I want to be, and how do I get there. Ah.