Darcy James Argue's Secret Society

Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?

One of the first things I did when I moved to New York was to join the American Federation of Musicians Local 802. My reasons for doing so were partly self-serving -- union members get access to the Local 802 rehearsal space, which is the best deal in NYC. And as a freelance copyist by day, I pretty much had to join if I wanted to work on any Broadway shows or film scores. But I am a huge, straight-up supporter of the union movement generally. Unions are the only protection workers have against the domination of the corporate elite, who have more power today than at any time since the Gilded Age -- and the current economic crisis is likely to only increase the clout of those at the top, which makes unions more important than ever. Seriously, I'm so old-school, the lyrics to "Solidarity Forever" make me all weepy, thinking of how long and hard working people have fought just to get a fair share of the wealth they produce. This struggle is no joke -- the ruling class used to kill union organizers in this country. They are still doing it in countries like Colombia.

RE: "Solidarity Forever," I am especially partial to these verses:

It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made
But the union makes us strong.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.

So I've been proud to be a member of the AFM. Of course, like everyone else I have my misgivings about their slowness to adapt to the challenges of today, and their inability to play a relevant role in the lives of musicians of my generation. Still, the work they do is vital to maintaining the heath of NYC's music scene — to cite one direct example, many of the musicians in Secret Society would not be able to play our absurdly low-paying gigs if they did not also have a regular, unionized Broadway gig to pay the rent. And the AFM protects their right to occasionally sub out of their show to play our hits without getting fired or sanctioned.

Given all of the above, I can't help but be incredibly depressed to see this news:

But in October's International Musician, President Tom Lee says that our "International Executive Board has chosen to not make an endorsement for President this year" citing "surveys" showing that "union members do not wish to be told for whom to vote."

You have got to be shitting me.

For the record, here is a partial the list of the national unions that have endorsed Barack Obama for president:

American Federation of Government Employees
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
American Federation of Teachers
American Nurses Association
American Postal Workers Union
American Small Business League
Association of Flight Attendants
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
Change to Win Federation
International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers
International Association of Fire Fighters
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers
International Union of Painters and Allied Trades
National Air Traffic Controllers Association
National Association of Letter Carriers
National Education Association
Service Employees International Union
Transport Workers Union
UNITE HERE
United American Nurses
United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing, Pipefitting and Sprinkler Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada
United Auto Workers Union
United Food and Commercial Workers
United Healthcare Workers West
United Mine Workers
United Steelworkers
Utility Workers Union of America

But not the American Federation of Musicians. That's pathetic.

At least Local 802 is doing the right thing, but our international executive board is an embarrassment. What possible benefit do they think they will obtain by refusing to endorse Obama?

I leave the final word to Brother Ed Shamgochian of AFM Local 134:

[O]fficial silence from the AFM is a disservice to our members, and to unionism in general, which developed out of democratic principles, has been constantly threatened by Republicans for more than two decades, and which is supported by only one of the two candidates for President today: Barack Obama.

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We are fundraising! Please help Secret Society make our debut record.

... and now my life has changed in oh so many ways

Last Sunday I posted in praise of New Amsterdam Records, who will be releasing our debut recording. I also posted a link to the NewAm Artist Agreement, which details, in plain English, the financial arrangement I have with them. As you can see, it is extremely artist-positive — I retain full copyright of the recording and proceeds from album sales are split 80/20 in my favor until the recording costs are recouped.

The flip side of this, however, is that the artist does not get an advance to pay for recording costs. However, since in a traditional record contract, the "advance" is often a one-way ticket to perpetual indentured servitude, the NewAm terms are ultimately much more favorable. But it does mean that the responsibility of raising the necessary capital to make the recording in the first place is 100% on the artist. And recording a big band in the studio is a crushingly expensive proposition — which is why I have avoided it thus far.

What happened to change my mind? Well, on top of the offer to sign with New Amsterdam Records, whose generous terms make breaking even at least a theoretical possibility, I also received a commission from the Jazz Gallery’s Large Ensemble Commissioning Series, an invitation to make this recording a WBGO Studio Session, and the SOCAN/IAJE Emerging Composer Award. The combined proceeds are still several significant digits short of a MacArthur, but they are enough to get the ball rolling.

However, in order to actually complete this recording, I need your help. It’s donations from people like you that made our January 2008 tour possible. Thanks to your generous support, we were able to raise over $1000 towards our travel costs and make good on our invitation to appear at the 2008 IAJE conference. Were it not for you, we would never have played in Montreal or Toronto, and we'd never have gotten these rave reviews for those shows. We would not have had the chance to collaborate with Tim Hagans (check his unbelievable solo on “Ferromagnetic”). And in all likelihood, we would not be headed into the studio this fall, either. You came through when we needed you, for which I am abidingly grateful. But now, for this recording, we need your support more than ever.

I understand that this is the single worst time to ask for money in living memory. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of waiting out the current financial meltdown. This recording is — seriously — a make-or-break proposition for us. The choice was stark: either I thank everyone in the band for their time and call it a day, or I book us some studio time and double down on the album being a success. Secret Society has gotten as far as we possibly can without the benefit of a proper studio recording. That’s a lot farther than was once possible, but there is definitely an upper limit and we have reached it.

The reality is, we cannot make this album without your help. But the upside is that thanks to the fine people at Fractured Atlas, your contributions are all tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. It’s easy and secure to make an online donation — just click the button below:

For this project, I considered offering various levels of support, à la ArtistShare, or your favorite Large Arts Institution. You know, tiered categories like "Gold," "Silver," "Bronze," or "Friends," "Notables," Patrons," etc. But honestly, that didn't feel quite right. I mean, we are grateful beyond belief to everyone who contributes. Small internet-based donations have transformed politics, and they have the potential to transform the music scene as well. Trust me, the contributions of ordinary people kicking in a few bucks makes an enormous difference to the success of a recording like this. Small donations help us do the little-but-crucial things — like making sure the band gets fed and properly caffeinated during our marathon 12-hour recording days.

That’s why all donors at every level will be listed on our Thank-You Page (unless of course, you wish to give anonymously) -- no matter how much you give, you have our undying gratitude. But there was one thing I thought might be a nice incentive for those of you who are able to contribute a bit more — I’m offering you the opportunity to sponsor one of the musicians who appears on the album.

Here’s how this works: if you contribute $500 or more via Fractured Atlas, you'll be underwriting a musician’s appearance on the album, and you will get a credit in the liner notes for doing so — e.g.: "Erica vonKleist appears courtesy of [YOUR NAME GOES HERE]." You’ll also get a one-of-a-kind autographed glossy photo from the recording session, and a personalized handwritten thank-you letter from the sponsored musician. Plus, naturally, you'll get a listing on our Thank-You Page and our undying gratitude.

There are only 18 of these sponsorship slots available -- one per musician -- so when you make a donation of $500 or more, please also send me an email letting me know who you would like to sponsor. For an up-to-date list of which musicians are still available for sponsorship, please check here.

The other option we are offering is this: if you contribute $5000 via Fractured Atlas, in addition to personally sponsoring ten(!) musicians, you will also get the coveted Executive Producer credit for the recording. (Only one person can be Executive Producer.) Plus you will receive an invitation to Bennett Studios in Englewood, NJ to watch us record in person. And, it goes without saying, a listing on our Thank-You Page and our undying gratitude.

Just to be clear, one thing I can’t do with these online donations is to offer anything of tangible monetary value as an incentive. So much as I’d personally love to send donors who give X amount a free copy of the CD and a Secret Society T-Shirt, I can’t. If you want swag — and it is fine, fine swag — you will have to purchase it separately. Sorry.

But remember — all donations made via Fractured Atlas are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. If your employer has a matching gift program for charitable contributions, in most cases Fractured Atlas is eligible for that — just shoot them an email and they will give you further instructions.

I don’t need to tell anyone reading this how important this recording is to me and to all of the musicians in the band. I can’t wait to finally have the opportunity to document this music properly and get it out there to a wider audience. But we can’t afford to do it alone. I truly hate asking for money, especially at a time like this, but the bottom line is that we absolutely need your help. If you’ve enjoyed seeing the band live or listening to the live recordings I’ve given away over the years, please donate. If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog, please donate. If you want to encourage the survival of independent, creative, unreasonably ambitious music, please donate. Your support means the world.

Yours most sincerely,

— Darcy James Argue

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Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

The audacity of... hope?

I'm skipping the debate tonight to catch Lee Konitz at the Jazz Gallery, but I am definitely watching the replay online. If Obama really has a six-point lead in North Carolina, John McCain is in a world of trouble. But let's not pull a DeSean Jackson here — a lot can happen between now and Nov. 4.

Today I signed up with MoveOn to go to Pennsylvania to get out the vote on Election Day. I encourage everyone to get involved, esepcially if you are in or near a battleground state. After all, even if this election does turn out to be a blowout of epic proportions, don't you want to play a part in that?

Please also allow me to draw your attention to the following Obama benefit concert at LPR this Friday, featuring Brad Melhdau and Chris Thile, both of whom will be performing some classical rep alongside their own works. All proceeds will go towards ensuring that the next President and Vice President of the United States are both responsible adults. Some of you will be too young to remember the last time that happened, but trust me — it's good.

Secret Society @ All Nite Soul Festival - 12 Oct. St. Peter's Church

Darcy James Argue's

SECRET SOCIETY

at
ALL NITE SOUL

Sunday, October 12

10:00 PM (approx.)

St. Peter's Church

WHEN: Sunday, October 12 at 10:00 PM (approx.)

WHERE: St. Peter's Church, 619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street

SUBWAY: E to Lexington Ave., 6 to 51st Street

COST: $20 suggested donation

All Nite Soul at St. Peter's is New York's longest running jazz festival, now in its 38th year. It's a pretty serious marathon, kicking off at 5 PM with Jazz Vespers featuring the Tia Fuller Quartet and, as advertised, going all night. Over 100 musicians will be inovled, including yrs trly and the following eighteen co-conspirators:

WINDS
Ben Kono
Jeremy Udden
Sam Sadigursky
John Ellis
Josh Sinton

TRUMPETS
Kevin Bryan
Thomas Goehring
Amir ElSaffar
Nadje Noordhuis
Colin Brigstocke

TROMBONES
Ryan Keberle
Mike Fahie
James Hirschfeld
Jennifer Wharton

RHYTHM
Sebastian Noelle guitar
Mike Holober piano
Ike Sturm bass
Ted Poor drums

This being a marthon, we are only contributing a short set (20 minutes) -- but dude, check out the rest of the lineup:

Benny Powell and Jane Jarvis, Dr. Billy Taylor, Randy Weston, Frank Wess, Dick Katz, Carline Ray, Jared Schonig, Catherine Russell, Dave Stryker, Steve Slagle, Jimmy Owens, Reggie Workman, Billy Hart, Steve Turre, Sarah McLawler, Rolando Briceno, Harlem Blues and Jazz Band, Sam Newsome, Helen Sung, Bernice Brooks, Bertha Hope, Chip Jackson, Francina Connors, Aaron Diehl, Gene Bertoncini, Sara Caswell, Jon Cowherd, T.K. Blue, Paul Knopf, Omer Klein, Ziv Ravitz, John Ellis, Billy Harper, Andrew Cyrille, Charles Tolliver, Chandra Rule, Ted Poor, Sayuri Goto, Essiet Essiet, Rhythmic Prophecies, Melissa Stylianou, Jamie Reynolds, Francesca Tanksley, Barry Harris, Keisha St. Joan, Brian Lynch, Joe Wilder, Dotti Anita Taylor... and more besides.

What can you say? It's a fucking honor. (Oh, shit, I gotta start watching my language. It's church, fercrissakes.) Anyway, the suggested donation for the entire night is just $20 — stay a little while, or stay all night.

I've seen all good people

Sherisse Rogers, originally uploaded by Lindsay Beyerstein.

What's the opposite of schadenfreude?

Sherisse Rogers has won the 2008 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Composers Competition. She won for her piece "Transitions" for bigband and string quartet, featuring Joel Frahm. (It's on her CD.) This is awesome and well-deserved. Sherisse is a longtime friend and huge influence on my writing. She is also among the composers featured in the Jazz Gallery's Large Ensemble Commissioning Program this year. Sherisse's Project Uprising bigband is at the Jazz Gallery Feb. 27 & 28, 2009 -- save the date.

Also, Lindsay has been recognized by Project Censored in their annual list of Top 25 Censored Stories. Her investigative piece for In These Times on the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act is #6.

Maintenant le début

As you may already be aware, Secret Society have signed with New Amsterdam Records. So for those of you who have been asking me, repeatedly, for the better part of three years, "Dude -- when are you guys going to record?" here is your answer: we record in December (at Bennett Studios), and the album will be out in May 2009. You'll be able to order physical copies directly from the New Amsterdam website (they ship worldwide). We are unabashedly old-school in our preference for physical objects and hope you will opt for the CD version -- we are planning a lavish digipack designed by Travis Williams, who also created this blog's masthead, the fabulous Secret Society t-shirts, and much else besides. But there will also be the option to purchase digital tracks from New Amsterdam, iTunes, Amazon, etc.

It feels pretty sweet to join the New Amsterdam roster. I have been a huge fan of the stuff they have been putting out, ever since their first release back in early 2007. Some NewAm artists are collaborators of mine -- longtime Secret Society saxophonist Sam Sadigursky has two albums on the label, and NewAm cellist Jody Redhage is a Pulse alumnus. Others are close friends, like singer-songwriter Corey Dargel (though we are also soon-to-be collaborators: I am currently working on an arrangement of a song from his upcoming Other People's Love Songs, to be performed by Corey and NOW Ensemble at Corey's record launch, Oct. 29 @ LPR). Some I know only slightly, though I've been blown away by their music: Ted Hearne (who killed at the Stone last Sunday), itsnotyouitsme (see Caleb's sweet profile in the NYT), Build, and others. I suppose some might consider this all a wee bit incestuous, but come on, who among us has not at one time secretly identified with Shellbyville Manhattan's yearning for his attractive cousins?

Okay, cheap incest jokes aside, what I like best about New Amsterdam is that the label brings together a group of artists that feels like a community without feeling like it's bound to a specific musical ideology. Beyond a basic agreement on a set of core principles that would go without saying in most circles -- "popular music is art," "embracing diverse influences is cool," "grooves feel good," "smart music can be fun" -- there's really not a definitive sound or style that you could pin down as being "the New Amsterdam thing." And while it's not exactly a "jazz" label, I feel that the kind of music I've been pursuing with Secret Society is, in a lot of ways, closer in spirit to what many NewAm artists are doing than it is to contemporary mainstream jazz.

Now, given some of my anti-record label comments on this blog in the past, some may be surprised that I am going with a label at all for our debut recording. Labels, we are told, are over. The contracts are irredeemably exploitative -- you have to give up ownership of your creative work, and these days they don't really do all that much to help you anyway. In fact, there's every chance they will seriously fuck you without your knowledge or consent. The thing to do is to put it out youself.

Well, sure. That's one way to do it -- and more power to those who do. But there is also value in being part of a movement. There's value in being associated with like-minded artists. There's value in trying to be constructive, in trying to build a mutually supportive scene. This is what New Amsterdam has set out to accomplish. And it's not just a bunch of hand-wavy crap either. Founders William Britelle, Judd Greenstein, and Sarah Kirkland Snider are all formidable composers themselves, and they are genuinely commited to fostering a mutually beneficial relationship between artist and label. Don't believe me? New Amsterdam's Arist Agreement is a publically available Google Document. You can read it right here.

Some highlights:

• You retain full ownership of all material on your album, including the master recording itself.

• Gross proceeds from album sales are split 80/20 [in the artist's favor] until artists costs are recouped, at which point the split moves permanently to 50/50.

• Proceeds, including CD sales, from live performances that are booked/presented by New Amsterdam are split 80/20 in favor of the artist. New Amsterdam gets nothing from shows that are booked/presented by the artists.

• This agreement is valid for 4 years from the release date of each record (on a record-by-record, not artist-by-artist basis). At the end of the term, both parties may agree to extend this term. If the term is not extended, New Amsterdam will no longer collect any proceeds related to the master recording.

Compare that to a typical major label contract. No, go ahead. I'll wait.

Ultimately, though, what swayed me was their reaction to our July 9 hit at Le Poisson Rouge. Bill, Judd, and Sarah all came out for that show (along with a fair number of New Amsterdam artists). In talking to them afterwards, it was obvious that they had a genuine response to our music, and more importantly, that they were really hearing the connection between their world and ours. When someone tells you that they like your music, you can always instantly tell if they are bullshitting you. My conversations with Bill, Judd, and Sarah have, thus far, been blessedly bullshit-free. Unless you have had prior dealings with the music "industry," you have no idea how rare a thing that is.

Speaking of that July 9 LPR show, you may have noticed that three selections from that hit are now fully mixed and masterd (at YME Studio by Paul Cox) and available for download from Secret Society's New Amsterdam Artist Page. Or you can get them here (click to listen, right/ctrl-click to download):

1) MP3: Ferromagnetic
Solo: Tim Hagans, trumpet

2) MP3: Desolation Sound
Solo: Sam Sadigurksy, soprano sax

3) MP3: Transit
Solo: Nadje Noordhuis, fluegelhorn

You'll notice that these "premium" tracks sound way better than any previously available recording of the band. I'll have more to say about them later, but for now I hope they serve to whet your appetite for the upcoming studio recording. And while they are, as usual, freely offered for your downloading/sharing/burning pleasure, if you like 'em, we'd certainly appreciate your kicking in a couple of bucks to help us defray our studio costs:

As always, my co-conspirators and I thank you for supporting independent music.

UPDATE: Dammit I almost forgot to ask -- what tunes would you most like us to record in December? Seriously, let me know -- either in comments or by email. Obviously, I have my own preferences, but, you know, I'm not made of stone. Feel free to campaign for your favorites.

Late Friday news dump

If you are a regular listener to Rachel Maddow's Air America Radio show or a viewer of her freshly minted, staggeringly popular teevee-mahcine show on MSNBC, you know that all the juiciest news stories are leaked late in the day on Friday. Ordinarily this is done by those trying to bury the story -- but it actually has the opposite effect on the savvy news consumer, who learns to make a Friday evening ritual of scanning the wires for the best dirt.

Since the readers of this blog are all, naturally, savvy news consumers, I thought you'd appreciate the timing of this important announcement.

More on this soon, obviously.

Let 'em know you're there

The Self-Styled Siren on the late Paul Newman and his "effortless" charm:

But the Siren is here to talk about Newman's acting, and to remind us that charm does not follow naturally from being handsome, nor does possessing that quality in life mean you can bring it to the screen. […] Newman seems to have been a wonderful man in real life, but that's irrelevant to his talent. The things he was able to bring to the screen came from his dedication to acting, not the Good Fairy Merryweather hovering over his cradle.

For further evidence, you don't have to sit in a dark room with Newman's entire filmography on disc. All you have to do is watch The Silver Chalice, his first movie, from 1954. It is neither, as Newman variously described it, the worst movie ever made, nor the worst movie made in the 1950s. It is bad, however. And Newman, as he would tell every interviewer for the rest of his life, is terrible. […] [W]hat leaps out at you is this: Newman isn't charming. […] He is anticharm, in the sense of antimatter. When Pier Angeli looks at him, it isn't with love, but with wonderment that this gorgeous man has the personality of a just-caught red snapper, with lifeless eyes (can you believe it?) and ungraceful movements.

Well, that was his first role. He was never that bad again. Two years later he took the part intended for James Dean in Somebody Up There Likes Me. Boxer Rocky Graziano was a well-loved figure, but many's the character beloved in real life who comes across far differently in a biopic. This is, after all, the story of a guy who starts out more familiar with jails and reformatories than schools, a member of the Greatest Generation who declines to contribute to the struggle, instead repeatedly going AWOL from the Army and eventually earning a dishonorable discharge for striking an officer. That this selfish, immature delinquent becomes quite lovable is due in part to a screenplay that takes care to show the roots of Graziano's behavior, but even more credit is due to Paul Newman. Some will take this as heresy, but the Siren doubts very much that the intense, fiery Dean would have been as sweetly tentative in the love scenes (again with Pier Angeli, looking as though she can't believe her costar's improvement) or as sympathetically big-lunkish when behaving badly.

What was he doing for the two years between roles? Some television, some theater, classes at the Actor's Studio. What flicked the switch? Hard work, definitely. Accretion of experience, I suppose, and perhaps the knowledge that the movie was a do-or-die second chance. Not to mention the fact that Graziano, a street tough who was about as close to the real-life Newman as Rosalynn Carter is to Sandra Bernard, was nevertheless a part far more suited to the actor's ineffably modern sensibility than some silly Greek slave. Somebody Up There Likes Me was the first inkling of Newman's unique talent for playing antiheros, an ability to burrow down into the lives of the small-time and hard-luck cases and find what could bring the audience to the character's side.

Read the whole thing.

Keep on burnin'

The Bad Plus and David Rhyshpan say goodbye to New Orleans's own Earl Palmer. Palmer was the sound of early rock 'n roll -- maybe you don't recognize his name but you definitely recognize his beats. This video (linked to by both TBP and DR) is outstanding:

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New Orleans has such a complex and specific musical history that it can be daunting for outsiders to try to approach it, or even evoke it obliquely. Especially if you happen to be a "classical" musician by training. And most definitely if you are trying to craft a musical response to the unimaginable and ongoing tragedy in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. That's what makes Ted Hearne's Katrina Ballads so remarkable -- it's the kind of ostentatiously ambitious work that by rights, should never work... and yet it does. I have a lot more to say about this piece and no time to say it (which is basically the story of this blog), but please check out Isaac Butler's review over at Buzzine. Ted Hearne is at the Stone Sunday night, performing some new music with a group that includes many players from the Katrina Ballads band.

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Also new on New Amsterdam Records, Secret Society's own Sam Sadigurksy presents the second installment of The Words Project. Sam has crafted intricate musical settings of texts by literary heavyweights Andrew Boyd, Czeslaw Milosz, Langston Hughes, Sadi Ranson-Polizzatti, David Ignatow, Audre Lorde, and Caitlin Upton. You can stream the whole record here -- check it out.

Ingrid Jensen, Eric Vloeimans, Tim Hagans - FONT @ Jazz Standard, 25 Sept 2008

Ingrid Jensen, Eric Vloeimans, Tim Hagans

More pics below the fold...

Ceremonial

Heartfelt congratulations to saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón on having been named a 2008 MacArthur Fellow. I am a big fan of Miguel's work both as a leader -- his recent disc Awake is an excellent place to start if you don't know his stuff -- and also as a member of Guillermo Klein's badass 12-piece band Los Gauchos. (Miguel is kind of famous in NYC jazz circles for playing long, complex stretches of Guillermo's dense, rhythmically contorted compositions with his eyes closed. It's been confessed to me that his apparently effortless total recall makes the other guys in the Gauchos sax section feel a bit nervous.)

Zenón was an inspired choice for the MacArthur, and fully deserves the honor. But beyond the satisfaction of seeing such a high-profile award go to an artist I admire, the symbolism of this choice is powerful and is worth considering for a moment. Miguel is the perfect example of the kind of new mainstream, post-Jazz Wars player I was talking about in my NewMusicBox piece -- someone to whom the old ideological battles between avant-gardists and traditionalists, fusioneers and purists, etc., seem completely retarded.

Previous MacArthurs given to jazz musicians have generally gone to critically respectable members of the avant-garde elite: Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Steve Lacy, George Lewis, Ken Vandermark, John Zorn, etc.^[1] No disrespect intended to these trailblazing masters, but I am heartened that this year the MacArthur brain trust had the cojones to give the award to a musician who is still in his early thirties. (Miguel is the youngest jazz musician to ever receive a MacArthur.)

Bluntly -- I am tired of awards that seem to be all about bolstering the reputation of the award itself (and by extension, the wealthy donors who support it) by throwing impressive piles of money at long-established, world-famous artists who, frankly, are not hurting for either cash or critical recognition. (A recent case in point.)  I am even more tired of the idea that jazz musicians in their twenties and thirties are unworthy inheritors -- that only the old masters (and those who hew slavishly to long-established styles) are worthy of serious consideration. And I am sick to death of people asking "Where is the new Charlie Parker?" or "Where is the new John Coltrane?" I suspect those doing the asking are the very same people who would have plugged their ears in horror at the unfamiliar sounds coming out of Bird's horn in 1945 (when he was 25 years old) or Trane's in 1955 (when he was 29).

Peter Hum, in his post on Miguel's "genius grant," observed that two of the greatest living geniuses in jazz, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, have yet to be singled out for MacArthur honors. This is true. And, in some sense, lamentable -- perhaps especially in Shorter's case, as he is having his most creatively fertile decade since the 1960's and his current working quartet (which includes comparative youngster Brian Blade) is arguably the best band in jazz right now. But as I wrote in the comments over at Peter's place, when you are handing out a half-million dollars with no strings attached, I think you ought to take more than just merit into account. I think you ought to think about the effect that kind of money and recognition will have on someone's career and future artistic output.

Does anyone believe that an extra $100,000 per year in disposable income over the next five years would make a significant difference to the kind of music Herbie Hancock or Wayne Shorter or [insert Established Jazz Genius here] is going to produce going forward? These guys are already in a position to do whatever the hell they want, and that is exactly what they have been doing. (If Herbie decides he wants to work with Christina Aguilera, it's not because he needs the gig to keep the wolf from the door.)

But -- if you will allow me to channel Captain Obvious for a moment -- half a mil over five years makes an enormous difference to a 31-year old musician who is still largely unknown even to most Down Beat subscribers -- let alone the musical community at large. All of a sudden, Zenón has the freedom to not devote every single waking moment to figuring out how to hustle up this month's rent. All of a sudden, he has options. He can pick and choose his projects. He can afford to turn down lucrative but artistically unrewarding gigs. He can afford to take more than three days in the studio to record his next album, and he can make that record as expansive and ambitious as he chooses. He can decide how much or how little teaching he wants to do. He can go anywhere in the world to research indigenous music and play with the locals. Or he could flee the NYC perma-hustle and spend a few months in remote isolation. Whatever his choices, the important thing is that now he actually has them. The MacArthur Fellowship is going to have a profound impact on the nature of the work Zenón is able to pursue over the next five years, and probably well beyond. It seems to me that this ought to be the whole point of handing out these kinds of big-money awards -- to reshape the artistic landscape by vastly expanding the opportunities available to artists who are still struggling, every day, just to be heard.

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1. (Regina Carter is the outlier.)

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PS 1988 MacArthur Fellow and certifiable genius Ran Blake is playing a rare, free NYC show this Friday at the Third Street Music School Settlement. RSVP via email.

It's money that I love

Somehow, this recent bulk email eluded my spam filters:

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We can not directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may speedily transfer your commision for this transaction. After I receive that information I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

(Actually, this came my way courtesy of Billionaires for Bush, who also have spawned the spinoff group Lobbyists for McCain.)

EDIT: This seems to have originated here.

What we are saying is, you’d better put our country first, you merde-heads, or soon there will be so much lipstick on your pit bulls it will make your berets spin!

Long live George Saunders.

[via M. C—]

I never thought I'd make a killing on some guy's "integrity."

The peerless Self-Styled Siren has a wonderful post up about one of my favorite films, Alexander Mackendrick's Sweet Smell of Success, starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. The one bit she neglects to mention is one of the movie's hippest and most authentic details: Marty Milner's character plays a jazz guitarist in the 1957 Chico Hamilton Quintet -- who appear in the film as themselves! This was a very unusual and innovative group for the time, with the leader on drums, Paul Horn on woodwinds, Fred Katz on cello(!), Carson Smith on bass, and Marty Milner standing in for Jim Hall. Here is the fantastic jazz club scene from the film:

I am not what you see and hear

Isaac Butler on DFW in Buzzline.

Signal Ensemble @ LPR, 13 Sept 2008

Signal Ensemble^[1] is the latest and largest assemblage of youngish NYC new music all-stars, a team-up band featuring the entirety of So Percussion alongside players from Alarm Will Sound, Gutbucket, and various other  avant-classical groups -- basically a kind of Legion of Superheroes for the Bang on a Can crowd. Signal in fact made their official debut at this year's Bang On A Can Marathon, and last Saturday was their first NYC solo show, in the new home for the Wordless Music series, Le Poisson Rouge. In case you are keeping track, this is a major new American chamber orchestra whose initial New York appearances have taken place in a shopping center and a nightclub.

Signal are, so far, heavily invested in performing the music of Steve Reich -- they did his "Daniel" Variations at the Marathon, a whole mess of Reich rep out west at the Ojai Festival, and on Saturday and Sunday at LPR, they paired a recent piece, You Are (Variations), with the work pretty much everyone considers to be Reich's masterpiece, 1976's Music for 18 Musicians. Chances are that if you know only one piece of classical music written by a living American composer, this is the one you know.

I would hazard a guess that most of the musicians in Signal grew up listening to Music for 18 Musicians in pretty heavy rotation. Some of them would probably not even be classical musicians today had they not encountered that piece during their formative years. But the thing about Music for 18 is, it requires a completely different skill set than the the one music most classical musicians train so very hard to develop. There's no conductor, for starters, which is unusual for a piece with this many players involved, and especially for one that requires such intricate rhythmic coordination. There are a ton of open-ended repeats, so it's on the players to decide when it's time to cue the next section. There are phrases whose length depends on how long the musicians can sustain a single breath. But the thing that makes Music for 18 unlike the overwhelming majority of the classical music that came before it is that the overall aesthetic effect depends almost entirely on the musicians' understanding of and command over the emotional consequences of nuanced rhythmic placement in relationship to a steady pulse. Another way of saying the same thing is that the players need to know how to groove for the piece to sound good.

The parts in Music for 18 are written in such a way that everyone in the group is required to take personal responsibility for the time. Not just for their own internal time feel -- which has to be unyieldingly solid and precise, but also relaxed, unforced -- but also, their ears have to be open to the aggregate of everyone else's time feel. The players need to stay constantly focused and engaged in what is effectively an hour-long conversation amongst themselves about where the time currently is and where it ought to be.

[Think of it like this: imagine a group of 18 people standing in a circle, each holding a magnet. There's a small iron sphere in the middle of the circle, maybe a little smaller than a golf ball. If all of the magnets are positioned just right, then the combination of those 18 magnetic fields is sufficient to lift the iron ball up off the ground and keep it hovering there in midair. That is what you are trying to do. Robots could do this; they could be programmed to first move the magnets in just the right way to raise the ball, and then to keep it aloft and stable by holding each magnet perfectly steady in the perfect position relative to the ball and to the other magnets. Humans being humans, though, keeping the iron ball floating and centered requires both intricate communication and constant tiny adjustments -- you see the ball twitch in one direction, so you move your magnet ever-so-slightly to compensate... and then someone else is forced to compensate for the way you just moved your magnet by adjusting their magnet, and so on. If anyone moves too far or too fast, or too slow or not fast enough, or simply loses their concentration, then the delicate equilibrium will be broken and the iron ball will go flying off, or clattering to the floor, and it's all over.]

Anyway, sustaining an ongoing conversation about the time isn't something that most classical musicians are even aware they might need to do at some point -- especially not in the context of maintaining a collectively locked-in, stable, trancelike pulse. But it's different for the players in Signal -- for most of them, Reich's music wasn't something new and alien and suspiciously un-classical, involving a whole set of heretofore unfamiliar skills they needed to sweat and toil to acquire. Music for 18 was already an established part of the classical music landscape back when they were first getting comfortable with their instruments. These are players who must have known from the beginning that if they ever wanted to play that kind of music, well then obviously they would have to get their groove together.

Signal has their groove together, without question. The results are inspiring, often breathtaking -- the vibraphone fanfares that herald each new section were so deep in the pocket, so right, that they made me giddy. It's undeniable that this is how Steve Reich's music was always meant to be played. It's exciting be in a time and a place where so many young classical players have become fully engaged with the art of the groove.

The opening work, You Are (Varitations), was performed under the direction of Signal padrone Brad Lubman, who worked the air with big gestures and Jet Li-like precision, totally unfazed by the occasional audience member bearing drinks squeezing past right behind him. Reich has said that You Are is a bit of an intentional throwback to his earlier works, but I actually don't hear it that way. Unlike Music for 18, You Are is dense with time-signature shifts, and harmonically it really stretches the boundaries of Reich's usual pan-modalism, with lots of crunchy, tightly-packed sonorities, and even the occasional burst of implied polytonality. It doesn't have the epic sweep and hypnotic warmth of the earlier work, but Reich's interlocking rhythmic structures have recently become much more intricate and complex without sacrificing their immediacy. It's clear that despite what some of his critics have alleged, Reich hasn't been spinning his wheels. Even when he's (in his own words) "not trying to consciously do something new," the results are quite distinct from his earlier output.

Melissa Hughes is one of the singers in Signal. She has posted an inside look at this gig on her blog. You should read it.

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1. Warning: Signal's website is absurdly difficult to navigate due to some pretentious web designer's notion that scroll bars are, like, Diabolus in Folio or something.

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More pics below the fold...

Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office, Or Mobile

Max Fisher at the Plank has assembled a compendium of David Foster Wallace's reportage, essays, and fiction currently available online.

RIP David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace, originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.

Awful, awful news. My sincerest condolences to those who loved him. (God, his poor wife... )

It's hard to know how to even begin to express how important David Foster Wallace was to my artistic development, and how much joy his writing has brought me.

I came to DFW's work via Infinite Jest, right when it came out in 1996. I basically devoured the damn thing -- I've never read a book so quickly or avidly in my life. And when I was finished, I read it again immediately, all 1079 pages. Officially obsessed, I began voraciously consuming his interviews, short stories ("Lyndon" is probably my favorite short story of all time), essays, his flawed but fascinating first novel... I joined the David Foster Wallace listserv, and had a few real-life encounters with people in that virtual community, back when that sort of thing was still a novelty. I became a kind of evangelist for Infinite Jest, basically forcing the book on the people I was close to, with surprisingly decent results. (Pretty much everyone I know who started it ended up loving it.) And, of course, I eventually ended up writing a tune inspired by one of Infinite Jest's infamous endnotes -- and, more generally, by DFW's brilliantly discursive style.

I thought it was interesting that David Foster Wallace's name came up again in this summer's complexity wars. As I alluded to at the time, reading DFW caused a radical shift in my thinking about art. His writing was vivid, undeniable proof that you could be simultaneously erudite and accessible, experimental and addictively entertaining, structurally complex and heartrendingly sincere, high-minded and embracing of pop culture, and seriously fucking funny. His best work (Infinite Jest, the stories in Girl With Curious Hair, the longform essays) remains an inspiration and a constant reminder of the ways in which I need to shape up my game.

I saw David Foster Wallace read at the Strand back in January 2006. He is someone who has written about depression with acute insight, from a place of obsessive familiarity -- his story "The Depressed Person" is brutal and unflinching -- but from all surface appearances, he seemed long past that dark period. He was at ease in front of the packed house, thoroughly charming and engaging. He did not seem at all the tortured, self-destructive, inward-looking type. He was married, well-established, from all reports he loved his teaching gig, he was sought-after by magazines and publishers, worshipped by younger writers... I never would have expected this from him.

I still can't quite grasp that his voice is gone. For years, I've been hoping for a third David Foster Wallace novel. I guess I'll give Infinite Jest another go-round instead. For a book that is so wickedly funny and entertaining, it's also ultimately very sad, with an ending left deliberately, almost cruelly unresolved.

UPDATE: I remember being really knocked out by Laura Miller's interview with DFW in Salon back when it was first published. It's still my favorite interview with him. She has written a beautiful tribute:

He talked about how difficult it was to be a novelist in a world seething with advertisements and entertainment and knee-jerk knowingness and facile irony. He wrote about the maddening impossibility of scrutinizing yourself without also scrutinizing yourself scrutinizing yourself and so on, ad infinitum, a vertiginous spiral of narcissism -- because not even the most merciless self- examination can ignore the probability that you are simultaneously congratulating yourself for your soul-searching, that you are posing. He tried so hard to be sincere and to attend to the world around him because he was excruciatingly aware of how often we are merely "sincere" and "attentive" and all too willing to leave it at that. He spoke of the discipline and of the abrading, daily labor such efforts require because the one imperative that runs throughout all of his work is the intimate connection between humility and wisdom.

Read the whole thing.

Take your reactions as coming attractions

My comrades, hearken to us as we unveil Secret Society's autumnal campaign:

SUNDAY, OCT. 12 - We shall be performing a brief set as part of the long-running All Nite Soul jazz festival at St. Peter's Church (619 Lex @ 53rd). Indeed -- your eyes do not decieve you, the powers-that-be actually intend to vouchsafe our entrance into a g-dd-mn'd church. (My co-conspirators and I, inveterate sinners that we are, impeach you to pray for our immortal souls, lest divine wrath strike us down afore we cross the threshold.) This will be a rare opportunity to hear the Society with a completely new rhtyhm section: Ike Sturm (who is also organizing the festival) on bass, and Ted Poor on drums. We are scheduled to hit around 10 o'clock PM.

SUNDAY, NOV. 9 - The Society returns to one of our most-frequented haunts, the Bowery Poetry Club. We shall take the stage at 7:30 PM or thereabouts to reignite the flame of steampunk bigband on the Bowery.

FRIDAY DEC. 12 & SATURDAY DEC. 13 - It is our great honor to inaugurate the Jazz Gallery's Large Ensemble Series. This season, they have comissioned new bigband music from Gregg August, David Binney, John Ellis, Pedro Giraudo, Jason Lindner, Sherisse Rogers, Josh Roseman, Yosvany Terry, and myself. Needless to say, I am humbled to be included amongst such heady company, and I hope I will be seeing you at the Gallery for all of this exciting new music.

Additional details for all of these events will be announced soon -- watch this space.