Posted by Rafi Zabor
on March 28, 2014 @ 3:24 pm | Comments Off on Rafi Zabor’s Updoc, Fri 3/28 & 4/1
Sonny Rollins’ Roadshows Vol. 3 is coming out in the first week of May, but for some of us the anticipation is too much to bear, so this week’s Updoc—Friday at 8PM, noon next Tuesday, East Broadway Rundown time—is another Sonny Rollins love-fest. But wait: I didn’t go to the record collection but trawled through concert videos and bootlegs for terrific lesser-known material, and found it. Most of the concerts are from the ‘80s, with bands of varying quality but Sonny radiantly melodious, and there’s a 22-minute St. Thomas from the quartet with Ornettists Don Cherry and Billy Higgins, an outtake from the 1962 live date that yielded Our Man in Jazz: Sonny more staggeringly formidable, less grandly joyful than he would be twenty years on, but you’ll feel plenty of glow nonetheless. Since even Sonny Rollins needs a break from Sonny Rollins now and then, Updoc takes one with the Mt. Everest of piano sonatas, Beethoven’s Hammerklavier, the power tool he used to break through to his late-period music. It’s played for us by the phenomenal youngster Igor Levit, who has the whole gigantic thing working in all its parts. Then back to Rollins playing The Tennessee Waltz, engulfing the melody in his bear-hug, undaunted by obvious sentiment and arcane technicalities alike: he’s as broad as a mountain range, as fine as sunlight, and an apparently endless source of deep-delved joy.
Posted by Rafi Zabor
on March 27, 2014 @ 1:23 pm | Comments Off on Rafi Zabor’s Updoc, Fri 3/28 & Tuesday Fools
Sonny Rollins’ Roadshow Vol. 3 is coming out in the first week of May, but for some of us the anticipation is too much to bear, so this week’s Updoc, Friday at 8PM and noon next Tuesday, no foolin’—, 8PM Friday and noon next Tuesday, East Broadway Rundown time—
—is another Sonny Rollins love-fest. But wait: I didn’t go to the record collection but trawled through concert videos and bootlegs for terrific lesser-known material, and found it. Most of the concerts are from the ‘80s, with bands of varying quality but Sonny radiant, and there’s a 22-minute St. Thomas from the quartet with Ornettists Don Cherry and Billy Higgins, an outtake from the sessions that yielded Our Man in Jazz: Sonny more staggeringly formidable, less grandly joyful than he would be twenty years on, but you’ll feel plenty of glow nonetheless. Since even Sonny Rollins needs a break from Sonny Rollins now and then, Updoc takes one with the Mt. Everest of piano sonatas, Beethoven’s Hammerklavier, the rock drill he used to break through to his late period music, as played by the phenomenal youngster Igor Levit, who has the whole gigantic thing working in all its parts. Then back to Rollins playing The Tennessee Waltz, embracing the melody in his bear-hug, undaunted by obvious sentiment and arcane technicalities alike: he’s as broad as a mountain range, as fine as sunlight, and an apparently endless source of deep-delved joy.
Posted by Brian Cullman
on March 24, 2014 @ 2:05 pm | Comments Off on Songs on Toast – 03/21/2014
I’m Through Trying To Prove My Love To You Bobby Womack The Anthology
It Aint What’s On The Woman 5:12 jimmy lewis Still Wanna Be Black
Spit Three Times 4:20 Neneh Cherry Blank Project
Que Lio 3:12 MasA 1
Waiting For The Sun 3:59 Jolie Holland Waiting For The Sun
Conversation & Music: 51St.6Th Ave.1:44 Moondog More Moondog
Life’s Backward Glance 3:10 Steve Kuhn Trance
J’entends une rivière 5:39 Titi Robin & Michael Lonsdale L’Ombre d’une source
Gdeim Izik 6:08 Aziza Brahim Soutak
Um Amor A Mais 3:55 Da Lata w/ Luisa Maita Fabiola
Riddem 3:32 Daby Toure & Skip McDonald Call My Name
Crucial Attempt 3:08 Joe Gibbs and The Professionals African Dub All-Mighty Chapter 4
Bad Girl (Part 2) 2:21 Lee Moses Time And Place
I Don’t Know What I’d Do Without the Lord 1:10 Johnny Brown Drop on Down in Florida
Rocks And Gravel (Solid Road) 2:32 Bob Dylan The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol. 1
Come On Write Me 3:42 Melvin Van Peebles What The….You Mean I Can’t Sing?!
Message To The Ladies 3:43 jimmy lewis Still Wanna Be Black
Good Deal Lucille 2:44 Jo-El Sonnier Rockin’ Cajun
Move It On Over 2:58 Del Shannon Teenage Shutdown: Vol. 1
Lover’s Rock 2:35 Johnny Horton Rockin’ Rollin’
I Need Somebody 2:16 ? & The Mysterians 96 Tears
Holy Rock 2:04 Rev Billy H Grady Fire In My Bones
Keep a Knockin 3:02 Peter Stampfel Dook of the Beatniks
Young Men Dead 5:32 The Black Angels Passover
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright 4:23 Shelby Lynne The Village: A Celebration Of The Music Of Greenwich Village
Rapping & Rambling About ‘don’t Think Twice’ 1:06 Ramblin’ Jack Elliott Bull Durham Sacks & Railroad Tracks
I Second That Emotion 2:36 The Martinis Soul Jazz Records
Market Moment 0:21 Various Artists Gypsy Caravan
Give Give Love 2:14 The Heptones Soul Jazz
Saudades de Luanda 2:45 Os Kiezos Angola, Soundtrack 2
Backstabbing 2:17 U Roy Right Time Rockers
Amor e Paz 2:45 Luisa Maita Lero-Lero
Stardust 1:18 Bebo Valdes Chico & Rita
The Grey Funnel Line 3:04 Maddy Prior Silly Sisters
In My Room 4:53 Danny Gatton 88 Elmira St.
Tear Drop 2:09 Santo & Johnny The Golden Age
Posted by Rafi Zabor
on March 20, 2014 @ 3:25 am | Comments Off on Rafi Zabor’s Updoc, Fri 3/21 & Tues 3/25
Hector Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique is the looniest piece in the 19th century orchestral canon, but Updoc doesn’t think that most performances, like the go-to recording by Colin Davis and Concertgebouw, are loony enough, so this week’s show—Friday at 8PM and noon next Tuesday—goes with John Eliot Gardiner and his brash Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, its smaller forces, original instruments (including a serpent), bold textures and unvibrato: what a wake-up call, march to the scaffold, Dies Irae, opium hallucinations and all. What a blast. Then we cool off with Scarlatti, who sounds as brilliant as Bach but somehow without the universal-intellect-thing, and as usual Updoc clocks in late for a holiday, with the traditional ballad Finnegan’s Wake and James Joyce himself lilting on about Anna Livia. For closers, okay, there’s this kid of 27, Igor Levit, who plays the late Beethoven piano sonatas as if he’s Artur Schnabel recorded in a modern studio; which raises the question, is it an interpretation or a Xerox? Well I’ll tellya, Sonata #31 Opus 110 is one of the greatest pieces of music there is, and the kid plays like a dream and the fi is hi, and that will do for now. I know, where’s the jazz? It’s in there somewhere, I’m sure of it. Maybe it’s the cat blowing serpent.
Posted by Max Shea
on March 19, 2014 @ 6:00 pm | Comments Off on Martian Gardens – 03/19/2014
MARTIAN GARDENS #066
Wednesdays 6:00 p.m. — 9:00 p.m. EDT & Saturdays 3-6 a.m.
Archived editions of Martian Gardens Thursdays 2-5 a.m. & Sundays 3-6 a.m.
Host: Max Shea
online playlists: Martian Gardens blog
email: maxtshea@gmail.com
hour one
In fond memory of Robert Ashley (March 28, 1930 — March 3, 2014)
Martian Gardens will feature works by the late Robert Ashley on the current and next two programs.
SINGLE PLAY
Robert Ashley: Sonata
Music from the ONCE Festival 1961-1966 [various artists]
New World Records/2003
piano: Robert Ashley; recorded at the ONCE Festival, Ann Arbor, Michigan, February 25, 1961; composition years: 1959-1960; time: 7:44
SET ONE
Jacqueline Humbert: Empty Words (R. Ashley)
Chanteuse
Lovely Music, Ltd./2004
composer: Robert Ashley; voice: Jacqueline Humbert; electronics, processing, edition: David Rosenboom, Sam Ashley; recorded at the Dizzy Gillespie Recording Studio, CalArts, Los Angeles and David Rosenboom’s studio, CalArts; composition year: 1962; time: 3:08
Robert Ashley and Paul De Marinis:
In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women (excerpt)
In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women
Lovely Music, Ltd./2004 (orig. Cramps Records LP/1974)
poem: John Barton Wolgamot (1944); recitation: Robert Ashley; Moog synthesizer: Paul De Marinis; recorded at the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College, 1973; composition year: 1972; excerpt time: 5:30
Robert Ashley: Automatic Writing (excerpt)
Automatic Writing
Lovely Music, Ltd./1996
synthesizer, electronics: Robert Ashley; voices: Robert Ashley, Mimi Johnson; composition years: 1974-1979; excerpt time: 5:00
Robert Ashley: O Mesopotamia
Concrete — An Opera
Lovely Music, Ltd./2008
orchestra samples design, live mixing, processing: Robert Ashley, Tom Hamilton; voices: Sam Ashley, Thomas Buckner, Jacqueline Humbert, Joan La Barbara; composition year: 2006; time: 4:15
SET TWO
Tim Hodgkinson: Ulaaraar
Onsets
Mode Records/2014
(for bass clarinet and strings); violas: Ioan-Marius Lacraru, Cornelia Petroiu; cellos: Theodor Iancu, Andrei Klvu; basses: Ion and Ciprian Ghita; small gong: anonymous; bass clarinet, conducting: Tim Hodgkinson: recorded at the Music Nova Festival, Sinaia, Romania; October 9, 2005; composition year: 2005; time: 9:33
Ben Johnston: The Long String (from Parable)
Ruminations – Music in Just Intonation
MicroFest Records/2014
voice: Karen Clark; clarinet: Jim Sullivan; violin: Sarah Thornblade; text: Rumi; composition year: 2000; time: 11:31
hour two
SET THREE
Taylor Ho Bynum 7-Tette: Zade-Wuk
Navigation (Possibility Abstracts XII & XIII)
Firehouse 12/2013
cornet: Taylor Ho Bynum; alto saxophone: Jim Hobbs; bass trombone, tuba: Bill Lowe; electric guitar: Mary Halvorson; acoustic bass: Ken Filiano; drums, vibraphone: Thomas Fumiwara; drums, vibraphone: Chad Taylor; recorded at Firehouse 12, New Haven, Connecticut; 2013; time: 14:08
Alexander Berne & The Abandoned Orchestra: Amphibiana
Self Referentials 1 & 2
Innova Recordings/2012
all instruments: Alexander Berne; recorded at Mirabella Studios, Florida; time: 5:55
SINGLE PLAY
For St. Patrick’s Day
John Cage: Roaratorio Part Two
From Roaratorio — An Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake
Roaratorio; Laughtears
Mode Records/2002 (orig. 1992)
singer: Joe Heaney; Uillean pipes: Seamus Ennis; fiddle: Paddy Glackin;
flute: Matt Molloy; bodhran: Peadher Mercier, Mell Mercier; voice, 62-track tape: J. Cage; texts: James Joyce; premiered at West German Radio, Cologne, October 22, 1979; composition year: 1979; time: 16:14
SET FOUR
Joseph Kubera: Fences, In Three Tragedies (S.S. Smith)
I. Personal Tragedy (2:48)
II. Community Tragedy (1:53)
III. Country Tragedy (2:52)
Book of Horizons
New World Records/2014
(for piano) composer: Stuart Saunders Smith; piano: Joseph Kubera; recorded at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, June 2-3, 2013; composition year: 1998; total time: 7:30
Drew Krause: Airline
Powder
Innova Recordings/2007
(for computer and alto sax); alto saxophone: Taimur Sullivan; recorded at Abeshouse Studios, Pelham, New York, February 2005, composition year: 1995; time: 6:32
hour three
TAINT Radio and WMUA automated versions only
James Mobberley: Study for Vox Inhumana
Music from SEAMUS, Volume 11 (various artists)
SEAMUS/202
(for electroacoustic music); composition year: 2000; time: 4:16
Eric Moe: Teeth of the Sea
Strange Exclaiming Music
Naxos/2009
(for two conga drums); percussion: Michael Lipsey; recorded at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, April 22, 2007; composition year: 2003; time: 3:35
SET FIVE
Francis Dhomont: Scherzo (giocoso)
Frankenstein Symphony
Asphodel/1997
(for tape collage and electroacoustic music); premiered in Berlin, Germany, June 13, 1997; composition year: 1997; time: 14:30
Andrew Lewis: Scherzo
Au-delà
empreintes DIGITALes/2013
(for electroacoustic music); realized in 1992 and revised in 1993 at the Electroacoustic Music Studio of The University of Birmingham, UK; premiered at the Concert Room, School of Music, University of East Anglia, Norwich, June 29, 1992; time: 8:18
SET SIX
Paul Lansky: Partita
I. Preamblum (3:47)
II. Allemande (4:52)
III. Pavane (4:39)
IV. Gigue (4:55)
Notes to Self
Bridge Records/2013
guitar: David Starobin; percussion: Mari Yoshinaga; recorded at Gould Rehearsal Hall, Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, July 2012; time: 18:23
David Starobin: Sufi Dance (J. Harvey)
Newdance
Bridge Records/1998
composer: Jonathan Harvey; guitar: David Starobin; recorded at Master Sound, Astoria, New York, 1997-1998; composition year: 1997; time: 1:50
— FIN —
